Major Magics

mavvy 2022-10-04 02:23

The moment I read you play as a cyborg corgi, I rushed for the download link. The star of the show for me is the visual style. The bold pinks and dark blues nail that old arcade vibe. If anything, I just wish there were more wall textures. The music, by the way, absolutely slaps.

core-foliant 2022-10-05 05:02

Simple idea, but it has been excellent realized) I really like this idea to use darkness to hide monster wherever on a level) Brilliant horror in three days!)

hekateras 2022-10-05 05:09

The idea of navigating a maze by periodic flashes of light is an interesting one, but it needs a bit more to it in order to be truly fun, I think. I did 3-4 levels and decided to stop when it looked like the core gameplay loop wasn't changing. The monster being stationary detracts from its threat level quite a bit, too, though of course I understand the time constraints of a jam game.

Love the music and concept though.

casualnothing 2022-10-05 05:49

@hekateras Yeah, we intended for the monster to track you throughout the maze but we couldn't get their movement to work correctly near the end of the jam, so unfortunately they ended up being stationary. Such is the case during game jams sometimes though.

peachtreeoath 2022-10-07 00:00

Is this named after the Major Magic's arcade or is this just a coincidence?

casualnothing 2022-10-07 02:34

@peachtreeoath Yes it is! One of our team members thought it would be funny to name the game after it.

peachtreeoath 2022-10-07 02:58

lol nice, I've been to the one in MI a lot and didn't realize it was even a chain.

I was pretty disoriented at the start but it didn't take me too long to realize the best strat was to head towards the bottom of the map so that you can get a full view of the arcade when the lightning hit. After that, it was kinda like "Speed Where's Waldo" where you had to quickly find the rod in those brief moments.

I honestly thought that concept was pretty neat and I haven't quite seen that before. Maybe it's a mechanic in horror games but I don't really play those. I think there could be even more design opportunities in that space.

The team size is huge! I used to do big teams too so I know how much more difficult it is to make a game with that much coordination. Kudos to you guys for sticking around, it can be hard to glue big teams for a long time.

You had some interesting ideas here and ultimate get extra points for reminding me of that arcade :P

ninjacreeper47 2022-10-07 23:32

I really enjoyed the core premise of exploring a maze in darkness with brief illumination moments. Mazes are often unfun to just stumble around through, and unfun to navigate when you can see the whole thing. This idea strikes a great balance that makes it fun!

The big thing lacking here is an interesting game essence. Right now you have no reason {other than your own patience} to not wait for lightning strikes. Also the monster being static really ruins the point of it. You'd have to be trying {or incredibly impatient} to ever run into it. There needs to be some kind of challenge that takes this great concept and gives the player a reason to engage with it.

Maybe the monster could move around. Maybe there could be many monsters. Maybe there could be a key you need to find in the level and then make it to the exit in a certain amount of time. Maybe lightning strikes could make the maze harder. There just needs to be some kind of dynamic that rewards you for understanding the maze or changes the way you interact with exploration.

There were a couple of times the maze spawned me right next to the goal. That felt pretty pointless

Shoutout to the horse character that has wheels. Also thank you for making the movement speed reasonably fast, that really helps the game

casualnothing 2022-10-08 01:02

@ninjacreeper47 Yes, we intended for the monster to chase you around, but couldn't get that working before the end time of the jam.

In terms of player, monster, and goal locations, yes that is bound to happen. Each of those three things spawn at random empty locations in the map. We had intended to make the location selection behavior for those things more advanced to avoid spawning you next to either the goal or the monster, but again, we didn't have enough time to do so and had to settle for random locations.

nobongo 2022-10-08 21:37

The level generation was very impressive! When it comes to procedural games, I usually end up getting stuck somewhere, or end up seeing the same layout a bunch of times over, neither of which happened here. I really liked the design of the monster as cyborg corgi (cyborgi?). Good work!

casualnothing 2022-10-09 00:49

@nobongo Thank you! I worked very hard on getting the wave function collapse algorithm to work properly so we could use it for level generation. If you're into procedural stuff WFC really is great at making things generate with desired characteristics. We combined that with some A* pathfinding to make holes in the generated level to make sure there was always a route to the finish from wherever the player starts.

kobylarz 2022-10-11 18:06

Fun little game! Worked well for me and it didn't take long to figure out. I've noticed that usually LD games tend to lack an initial "how to play" / onboarding screen but I actually liked how yours I was just thrown into the game and then given a bit of a "hint" during the lightning strikes. I think the way you tied it to the audio buildups was very smart too. Well done!

wetburritosupreme 2022-10-12 02:59

Super fun concept, and the audio really helped sell it!

jk5000 2022-10-20 08:25

A super simple game idea, and it is an okay little maze game. I really like the music.

mascoll 2022-10-20 12:19

Fun entry! Out team was also considering a Maze game at one point!