Algernon's Flower

liam 2020-04-21 17:29

Really well done game. Glad to have played this one.

**My likes:** :smile: - Fun challenging gameplay - Nice sprites and animations - Background track/audio is great (I played on the web version btw) - Menu/Intro/Game Over screen are all well done - Loved the classic pacman style mushroom power up

**My dislikes** :cry: - Not killing the enemy that hurts you means a snake will often just straight up kill you. Was this a deliberate decision? - Water/compost spawning felt a bit too harsh at the start especially given the random nature of the maze gen. I was swamped by enemies and not enough to keep the flower alive some runs. However that is also the nature of the beast I guess! - Enemies movement/AI felt less polished than the rest of this but again a minor criticism!

A really quality compo entry! Kept me coming back to play!

bentglasstube 2020-04-22 18:07

Thanks for the feedback Liam!

The snakes can definitely be tricky to get away from, but that is by design. Since they only charge straight at you, you usually will need to run and take a corner to get away from them. I tried to make the invulnerability after you are hit long enough to get away, but it's difficult when you play the game a lot during the course of development to know how hard it will be for other people.

The spawning is pretty random, so it can definitely make the game difficult or impossible. The game does adjust the spawn chances based on what you need, but I probably needed to weight things more heavily in that regard. Getting swamped by enemies is just bad luck, sadly.

I had plans to do more with the enemy AI, but I ran out of time, naturally. The best laid plans of mice and men...

adonisdevs 2020-04-25 23:19

This is really cool! I do think that there was way too much to read and remember though. Certain things like "the plant needs water to live" are pretty intuitive, so you don't have to mention it in the list of directions. I did really like the idea and art :D

thebreakfast 2020-04-25 23:30

I didn't get enough cheese to keep my mouse alive :( poor fella. The sprite art is decent, especially on the death screen. The concept is simple and intuitive, it fits the theme. I think it needs some sound effects though. Impressive that you essentially built your own framework for this though, that's very ambitious!

rhiz 2020-04-25 23:32

It's alright. Mazes are typically unappealing, but it is a reliable way to make make random levels within the time limit. You level generation works well. There is a lot of waiting in this game, waiting for resources to appear and waiting for enemies to move out of the way. The run is a nice addition.

samsdevlog 2020-04-25 23:34

Quite a nice little game here. Music is great, I felt like the track fit really well. I also enjoyed the art. The death screens looked especially nice. I would definitely say the enemy AI, and movement while sprinting could use some work. The AI kind of just felt like a non factor, and it was around 2 minutes of playing before I had to worry about them. The movement felt unresponsive while sprinting. Although the way it moved could potentially be fun. I found it hard to turn, and you had to slam into a wall before you could properly turn again. I think this has the potential to be a great mechanic if the levels are designed around it.

alxander 2020-04-25 23:42

Cute little game, kept me going for thirty minutes. The snakes got me too tho :D Reminded me of when I used to play CD-MAN (by Creative Dimensions) as a kid. I also like the book you referenced. Good job!

viktya 2020-04-25 23:44

The snakes speeding on you were hilarious xD

vladadamm 2020-04-25 23:45

It was a nice idea to implement the theme through two things to both keep alive (rat & flower), especially for a 'simple' maze game as it makes it more interesting to play. Overall, graphics and audio are good for a compo game. I especially liked the title screen's animation.

There's some issues with the difficulty, the maze can be really hard depending on the random gen (items spawning in dead-ends with monsters blocking the way, or only few possible ways that can easily get blocked) and the snake is a bit too mean (it should wait more before rushing again instead of potentially hitting us 3 times in a row).

Also, discovered the How to Play screen after playing as i checked the title screen again. It's a nice thing to have (+ it's a complete and well-explained one) even if the game is pretty intuitive, though it's kind of hidden as it is (the title screen prompts us to press any key, launching the game, while the how to play screen requires you not to do that).

arcayn 2020-04-28 17:41

+1 for literary reference! I enjoyed but found water spawning fairly brutal, having my plant die simply because no water was spawning, although a little bit of the bottom on the web version seemed cut off, so there might have been some down there!

loveapplegames 2020-04-29 21:38

What a cute little maze game. The music is cute too. I managed to complete it. I like how the randomness makes every game different. I do the same in my own games. But it's more difficult to keep a consistent difficulty level. In this game, you sometimes cannot complete the game because certain items never spawn, or a snake hangs around the flower all the time. I think this can be fixed easily enough, by making items spawn based on flexible timers and by making enemies avoid the flower. I'd also say, reward the player by spawning an item every time you pick one up. That would make for a super fast maze runner game.

szieberth-adam 2020-04-29 23:30

Very nice entry, I am glad I picked this one as it is an upper house game. Congrats on making a game using your own tools. It runs nice and smoothly. The theme is a good pick, I like it. The downside is that several times I just waited for a resource over my flower as it died, despite it got all of that kind before which was given. I think that pick up triggered spawn as it was suggested by @loveapplegames is something worth to consider. o/

rubyleehs 2020-05-03 16:39

Item spawns can be pretty brutal and after a while it gets kinda repetitive.

cheesepencil 2020-05-04 04:53

Difficulty aside, it's a fun little game. The art was cute (even the devastating lose screen) and the sound is fine for compo. What algo did you use for maze generation, and how did you modify it? I just made a maze game this weekend so I still have mazes on my mind.

Good job. I liked the game.

jsec 2020-05-04 07:56

I got black screen after "instructions" needed to reload few times But game itself is cool, idea is nice gameplay is fun. Music get repetitive quickly but its not a problem fo compo entry imho.

bentglasstube 2020-05-06 15:38

@cheesepencil I used a simple depth first algorithm to create a minimal spanning tree, then the algorithm randomly removes some of the walls to add loops and make the maze a little better for the gameplay.

You can see the generation algorithm in action on the title screen, although it skips the wall removal step.

cheesepencil 2020-05-06 18:07

@bentglasstube Thanks I'll take a closer look later

falstro 2020-05-11 22:30

Love the Flowers for Algernon reference :D Game was a little bit too hard for me, but all in all a nice little game :)