Unstable

matt-rice 2021-10-07 12:20

The game progresses slowly and lacks a noticeable game loop. Music is great for the space invaders battle. Overall, the game feels very unfinished.

binarydiv 2021-10-15 16:16

The "operating system" part was very confusing to me. The text was too slowly progressing (pressing a button to continue would have been better, or reacting to the player's actions) and the applications didn't always start when I clicked the icons... I'm also confused about what UNIX has to do with "cleaning up the system" (?) or space invaders, and why there is a UNIX icon on the desktop at all. I liked the "lorem ipsum" text appearing when typing anything in the editor though.

The space invaders game was okay, considering that the OS part presumably consumed the most time of the game jam...? The second part being more of a "bullet hell" style level gave it a nice touch. Some score or progress bar would have been good though. And the "game over" screen should definitely have a restart button that just resets the space invaders game, without having to repeat the OS part... (I might have simply overlooked that button though? Didn't see another option than just restarting the whole game.)

Also the dog wallpaper is great.

petunia-games 2021-10-17 11:13

I agree, the text definitely could be reworked, I tried to make it feel like the player's thoughts, a string of consciousness type thing, but a button to progress would be a lot cleaner, and a lot easier to manage I imagine. It does sort of react to the player's actions in a way, it just spits out text depending on what the game state is, but it's a very clunky system that took far too long to complete.

I made the applications open with a small delay to simulate an old OS, I intended to have a sound play and an hourglass icon to show that; but I didn't have time. I agree though, there is no feedback so you wouldn't know anything was happening.

The initial idea was that the bullet hell sections would be in the "file system" and that you'd have to go through waves of enemies to remove instability, but I just didn't have time to do it, I threw the bullet hell section together in the last couple of hours, and it shows hahaha

The game over and win screens were literally last minute, I needed a win and fail state so I just chucked those screens in. You didn't overlook it though, it just ends.

I am working on finishing this game, and it will be in a much better state. I have learned a lot from this LD and I won't spend so much time on small details next time, I'll actually make a proper game loop.

Thanks for the feedback.