To the Center of the World

bw-devel 2021-04-26 09:48

Things I liked: - I love the idea of this as a scroller and the way you've used the browser here; very nice - I guess you did proper object handling as I didn't notice any lag with the game even with the number of entities/objects being tracked

Improvements: - left and right movement if possible (but not so much that it makes the game too easy; perhaps limited number of moves) - an ambient changing sound to match the depth of the game and prove progressional tension, or a drilling sound while moving - increase enemy density as you descend (maybe it's there and just subtle) - the contrast between enemies and background is impossible to play at the crossover point; perhaps give he player a 'shock' powerup that makes enemies stand out somehow?

Bugs: - You can can face-roll the game by just holding down and the movement speed will allow you to skip through most enemies; so some basic raycasting is needed here to avoid this

impbox 2021-04-26 09:57

Cool idea using the browser scroller, first thing i did was press End which you handled and it was funny. I then tried to do it properly but got the same message, not sure if that's a bug.

dimini-inc 2021-04-27 19:54

Thanks for the playing and for the comments!

@bw-devel Almost invisible enemies in the depth were made on purpose, as it increase difficulty while descending (but they have some elements which are a bit yellow, so they can be seen even on the level where enemies bodies blend into the background). and yes, collision detection of the player and enemies is unfortunately far from perfect.

@impbox It was probably still too fast in the game's opinion, so maybe my criteria for that is too harsh :smiley:

jakobthequizguy 2021-04-28 01:50

Wow, I've never played a game with these controls before, I like your thinking! The movement itself worked well, but I found myself growing impatient at how long the level was when there was not any variety in things to dodge. I got to the bottom but I think the game thought I cheated, seeing as my whole crew died :sweat_smile:

fiakaiera 2021-04-28 12:33

When I played this I legitly thought this was only an experience and a brief scroll to the comments later I didn't even know there's actually collision involved. I legit thought my browser did a thing and sent me back up.

If what I said was a kind of experience, you could definitely dig into some horrible mind trick of it being a horror thing where you go slowly down without any music needed, but you do have music, which kinda breaks that... unless you fade out the music along the way. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the audio if you kept this very short loop for long and it does get grating if I scroll down longer than what I expect.

The immersion of the game kinda broke for me as soon as I saw there was a scroll bar on the side. Good job on breaking that expectation though, but it does make experiencing this game a lot more bland and slow... As for the full throttle condition, you could make it so that it checks instead the distance you did in like, 1 second than checking if they survived at the bottom.

I'm not sure if I have the time to slowly scroll down the game as you intended though but it was a definitely nice and interesting way of doing gameplay like this!

cogcomp 2021-04-30 14:34

Very neat idea using the scroll wheel like that. I obviously tried to cheat and that didn't work too well for me :laughing:

dwink 2021-05-01 01:15

Cool idea! Collision didn't seem to be an issue for me though. I scrolled up and down a bit, saw the little buddies floating around, saw they didn't hurt me...so I rocketed to the bottom and hung out for a while before reading the comments and getting confused.

thegreenworm 2021-05-03 16:28

This is definitely a game you should put on pointlesssites.com (not that it is pointless, but it's exactly that kind of weird web stuff that I love seeing there). Very innovative ! This could go a long way, with different ennemies/hazards.

Collisions seemed quite random, and yeah the scrollbar spoiled the ending a little, but at least i knew I wasn't that far from it.

Really unique, great job !

david-mason 2021-05-03 16:39

Very interesting and unique idea. Good job.

impiaaa 2021-05-04 04:21

Ha! Very clever use of the medium. It was pretty frustrating to get sent all the way back to the beginning when I got hit, but I figured out I could "cheat" my way back by clicking the scrollbar. I liked how I naturally became more cautious the deeper I went, due to the creatures blending in with the background. I also liked the fake-out ending. I think it would have been really cool if the music changed as you got deeper—even just a low-pass filter that increased intensity as you got deeper.

plazyqwerty 2021-05-04 14:31

A very innovative idea! But I think if there were checkpoints the game would have been better, because no matter how far you've progressed if you hit the enemies, you go back to the start which is a bit frustrating. Otherwise, I really love the game and the idea! :)

empty-set 2021-05-05 05:58

Clever idea. Took my a second to realize I was already playing the game and not just looking at a download page or something.

The enemies move so slowly and aimlessly that 90% of them are a complete non-threat and avoiding the rest is mostly a matter of patiently waiting for them to slowly drift out of your path. Probably fine early on, but it would've been cool to see more threatening enemies as you get further down the page.

The music was... "programmer music", I suppose, haha. Was nice to be able to toggle it on and off.

I thought it was funny that if you try and cheat by instantly scrolling to the bottom, you get a special message saying everyone on your ship died, lol.

justcamh 2021-05-06 14:02

Hey matey, thanks for submitting your game to stream, I really enjoyed it! I hope my feedback helps, if you'd like you can rewatch the vod here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1012941526

vixenmink 2021-05-08 03:02

I like the take on using browser elements to play a game.

Unfortunately, my browser was lagging seriously and it made dodging everything very painful

witekwitek 2021-05-08 04:50

I like that the game takes place in a browser. • The game fits well with the theme

• I like the brightness of the color decreasing as you go further downwards.

• I liked that you can turn off and turn on the music.

• I think the ending message was funny and a nice touch.

• The graphics were too blurry.

• There could have been more enemies.

• But there is nothing preventing you from using the scrolbar and skipping all the way to the bottom.

Overall, This looks good for an game jam game. -WitekWitek

mehtoh 2021-05-08 13:17

This is a cool game. :D I'm a really hyper person, so waiting for the enemies to move out of the way was frustrating at times, but at the same time I really enjoyed it. Maybe some sideways movement would improve it plus some more enemies?

If I went really fast down and didnt stop, the ship sometimes just fazed through an enemy. Idk if it's a bug or if the ship just didnt touch the collision shape of the enemy. It was hard to see at that speed.

The way you used a browser was great. I got this message when I tried to scroll down with my mouse: "You have rushed to the bottom using full throttle, but unfortunately nobody from the crew have survived this journey!" 10/10, a perfect way to use that mechanic. :D Loved it.

birdwards 2021-05-08 18:40

https://youtu.be/1uPFW7nWIIU

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on stream! I played it yesterday. You can watch me play it here (at 19:57).

Unfortunately, my mic was off at the time, and I didn't realize it until someone in chat pointed it out later. Once my mic is turned on, I give a summary of my thoughts on your game at 27:57 in the video.

tim77 2021-05-13 08:33

Did I just play a one button game???? Wow! I only pressed down, pausing for the enemies to move out of the way. Boring. But at the same time oddly satisfying! Well done! I wonder what improvements could be made while retaining the one button mechanic? Maybe pressing it in specific rhythms or tempos for different abilities? Good luck!

ryan-harriman 2021-05-14 00:51

Nice Idea to use scroll bar. Although I like the idea, the execution was a little choppy for me. It was difficult to control my speed as I went down. But very original Idea