Tiny World Thing by Kix 2012-04-23T05:05:00
Not really clear what was going on at first. Running into the pink square moved me to...somewhere.
Getting hit at all resulted in instant loss of all 3 lives.
Froze at random intervals.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → mattchu
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Interstellar Planet-Ship Adventures: The Search for... $@#% Aliens!!!!!! | compo | 720 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.85 | 3.17 | 2.55 | 2.64 | 2.52 | 2.57 | 78 |
Not really clear what was going on at first. Running into the pink square moved me to...somewhere.
Getting hit at all resulted in instant loss of all 3 lives.
Froze at random intervals.
Water physics were neat, however, the game felt very sluggish overall. Shots in particular could have used a speed increase. I also felt that shots maybe should have bounced off the edge of the bath tub.
The player's movement was silly in a good way. However, attacking was difficult, the AI felt a bit mindless, there seemed to be no end to the hordes, in a way that I constantly felt overwhelmed. I missed the fact that you could cast spells, though, so that may have had something to do with it.
Wasn't clear what I was doing at first, but caught on before the zombie could get me. Was way too easy to exploit the cave entrances(?) to get an advantage over the zombie. Both the zombie and what I'm assuming was the final boss had way too much health, and the final boss ended up killing me before I could kill him (already was low on health from the zombie attacking me while attempting to figure out what to do).
The "Those weird tiny planets dissed your mum!" thing gave me a good laugh. On starting up the game, though, I had no idea what I was doing. On the first round, I just went around aimlessly hoping to achieve some goal. Never did. Restarted and won pretty quickly. It was a neat idea. Not quite as clear as one might hope.
Interesting idea. It wasn't always quite clear what to do even once the objects were visible, but I managed to finish it anyways. :)
Interesting take on the classic RPG formula. A bit difficult, though.
It took until I realized that Steephen looked like the Apple symbol to really sink in, but that was clever and gave me a good laugh while still having fun, simple gameplay with graphics that do their job. :)
Felt a bit too easy, the background music was a bit grating, and on level 4, I hit the ceiling, never to come off of it.
Didn't really know what was going on. I managed to mine a few stone before giving up. Between total lack of direction, lack of crafting options, and the slow movement of the player, it was a bit frustrating.
The graphics were interesting.
Collision detection felt off at times.
Overall, it felt like your basic platformer experience. Not quite sure how it fit the theme.
Interesting idea, nice graphics, and fluid gameplay. I had fun with it. :D
Damn those pigs, though. The first one kept getting me. >.>
4/10 was my best score. >.>
It is a bit simple, and at times it felt a bit too slow paced. However, it's an interesting concept, and it felt like it provided a gradual difficulty increase.
Gave me a good laugh, and definitely did something interesting with the theme!
Interesting idea. It wasn't exactly clear -how- you save cities at first, but I figured it out before too long.
That was interesting. I kept getting close to about 2000 only to get attacked and fall back 500 or so...
Overall, a fun game.
I didn't win, but my score was 111156. Simple fun, if a bit difficult without using vaporize a lot. :)
Took a minute to catch on to the wind, but it was a lot of fun to play with someone else. :)
Nice job. Very, very smooth feeling. Very nice graphics to match. :)
Obstacles blend in a bit too well with the background, though. It took me a minute to realize that any of the spindly, needle-shaped objects would kill me.
A bit basic, but it works. However, it felt like I couldn't kill the spiked ball enemies, and it seemed almost impossible to dodge all of the bullets they were shooting.
Smooth graphics and really clever gameplay.
Interesting idea, but it was too slow-paced, and though I didn't finish it, it felt like I could continue to place the Stone rooms and finish it pretty easily with enough patience.
Interesting idea, but I didn't quite get what was going on. It seemed like any time big got hit, tiny's health went down, and any time a red block got past the red line, big's health went down?
A bit basic, and a bit difficult towards the end.
Nice, simple, fun game. The menu screen was awesome.
The targets were all a bit small, though, not really varying much in size from what I saw, it was difficult to tell when you were getting close to losing (or if there was better indication, it was taking forever to get to that indication), and the turret seemed to run out of energy all too quickly.
I never finished a level (won or lost), because indications of winning/losing weren't really noticeable besides a number that didn't say what it meant and it was starting to drag.
Interesting idea, but the ant seemed almost impossible to control through all but guesswork. When I placed pheromones next to him, sometimes he'd move diagonally down past them, or some other direction that seemed to make no sense based on where I placed it. He also seemed to only be able to move diagonally, and was slow, which made progress across the screen in the first level really sluggish.
Crashed on startup. No message. :/
Neat idea. I didn't quite get it at first, and didn't see any instructions. I eventually got it, but I still lost, heh.
Really simple. The enemies don't even seem to shoot back.
Interesting take on the theme. I couldn't make it past the cars. Seemed like no matter what I did, I was always dying there.
Really neat idea. I liked the scoring was based on finding the shortest route and then following it in the most precise manner rather than getting the shortest time.
My only suggestion would be to make the first level shorter, since there are no obstacles. It kind of makes it drag a bit.
Interesting idea. I liked the graphics a lot. However, it seems like there's just not much there yet. With some expansion, it could be a really neat game.
Even after installing pygame, I'm getting an error saying "module 'pygame' does not exist."
Kept going through passageways to end up in a different room, stuck inside a wall. Happened twice before I decided to post here.
Really interesting aesthetics with the colors that were chosen.
The main mechanic was interesting, but the game didn't make a whole lot of use of it, other than covering lots of space much faster, and then blocking quick progress by placing water in the way.
Also, when you're small, the movement feels a bit slow.
The torpedoes were a bit hard to control, especially considering how the player flew around like crazy the whole time. It was also hard to tell what happened when the city got hit (did I lose a life?). However, I still enjoyed it quite a bit, and the audio did set the mood nicely.
This is definitely an interesting idea. I didn't think it was too confusing.
Here are my criticisms:
1. You upgrade way too early. Especially the final upgrade. That's a HUGE leap in tech and you only need 3 (4?) cities even though there's the potential for warfare to get there at a much higher number, making it really feel like an achievement to have it.
2. If you stand on cities the right way and both players have the soldier, you could fire back and forth endlessly and get nowhere.
3. The players seemed to be on the opposite sides that their bars at the top were.
4. I didn't understand exactly what the bar was telling me.
5. Knockbacks seemed too underwhelming to really make it dramatic. It seemed like someone could easily recover and recover and recover without any effort.
6. Because of #1, having the other stages felt a little bit useless.
Oh and I responded in length to your critique of my game, mostly agreeing. :)
I thought it was interesting. It has an interesting premise and had some interesting solutions. A bit small in scope, and it ends too quickly to really feel a sense of true exploration. Definitely would like to see the concept expanded.
Seemed a bit difficult to win, regardless of where I placed the towers. The one time I got a dead baby, it seemed to throw itself at me.
Like the others, it reminds me of And Yet It Moves. However, it's still really well done, especially for the scope of 48 hours. :) Only thing I'd add is an auto-restart for levels when you fall too far off the map.
The mood setting was great. It was an interesting mechanic, though I wish there would have been more to take over.
The only things that I noticed that bothered me were that it seemed too easy to fall over when running, and the cockroaches didn't animate when you took them over, even though they animated on their own.
Interesting idea. Definitely quite unique in terms of getting around. I also had some issues with combat being quite difficult, though.
I didn't quite get it. After trying to hold space, nothing happened. After trying to repeatedly press space, it barely moved and then exploded shortly after leaving the ground.
Simple, fun gameplay. Jumping felt really awkward, especially double-jumping, and the collisions with the fire at the boss felt really off (I was getting hit while in the middle of the platform), but otherwise, it felt really polished, and the graphics were well-done, despite being simple, I thought. :)
Simple, fun strategy game. Nice work! :)
I concur that the pickup sound was annoying.
Otherwise, though, it was a fun platformer with some charming, simplistic graphics.
Overall very well done.
Felt like I stayed at the halfway point for the entire time, with my subjects being oddly demanding, requiring the utmost attention the whole time.
The achievements gave me a chuckle though. :)
Gave me a good laugh. :D
The decision to use Left-click to shoot without aiming with the mouse was a bit odd, but otherwise, it was quite a bit of fun.
I mage it to 80 points.
I couldn't figure out where to go, but other than the framerate being a bit low, and the oddity of the controls switching with the gravity, it felt really well-done.
The setting is hilarious, and it was pretty fun. It is a bit like Super Crate Box, except more horizontal, and the spawn moves. :) There's also a different condition for losing.
Very interesting concept. Took a moment to get used to it, but once I did, it was pretty easy. Would have loved to see more/harder levels. :)
Simple, fun game. My only complaint is that a few times I'd restart and be killed instantly.
Was hard to play with a touchpad, but it seemed simple enough. My ants were losing bigtime, mostly due to not realizing I could place grass tiles. :P
The tiles also seemed a bit small.
Hmm...
Alright, here's the deal. The website should have mentioned that there's a file that came in the archive with the game. It should be something like howto.rtf .
I honestly was not sure what to put in that file. The game is a bit obtuse in accessibility, probably largely in part due to the lack of automation despite being a strategy game.
So here's why they didn't move when buildings were placed: they aren't programmed to. You have to manually click one, click to send it to its associated building (howto.rtf should mention that), and then click it again to deselect it. In the case of militia and scientists, they'll automatically move to the enemy unit that they deal with when they appear.
And one more note: if bases aren't designed to accomodate, especially for paths between any and all buildings that require the associated unit to be AT that building and the nearest house, then there's a chance that units will permanently get stuck on buildings. It's something I tried to fix without implementing a pathfinding algorithm, and I dropped the ball on that one. I'm pretty sure howto.rtf mentions that.
spacerumpus: I wasn't aware of that error. I'll do a fix.
If there's any chance you guys could take another look at it, possibly with that knowledge in mind, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'll try and get the 7 error fixed. The reason it's occurring is that a Captain's Wheel already exists, and only one can exist at a time, but I didn't think that the method for checking would cause an error.
And lastly, thanks. Even just knowing the accessibility is low helps a ton. Had I had more testers than just myself, I might have known sooner and been able to retool some of the flawed design points before the compo ended. :)
Luke, if you could let me know about some of the errors, I'd be glad to do some fixes, polish it up a bit, and do a post-compo release. It's definitely an idea I want to explore more with more time in hand. :D
Ah sheesh. I thought I'd fixed that one. The icons above people's heads don't want to cooperate with me, heh. So yeah, certain units colliding on certain buildings are causing issues. May not even be that specific. >.>
The captain's wheel thing, it sounds like I misspelled something.
http://anotherdayanotherga.me/games/ld23/IPSA-post-compo.rar
Okay, for those interested, I fixed the Captain's Wheel bug (I had essentially misspelled something...and yes, you start with one. :) ) and the issue with the mating icon.
If anyone else reports any bugs, I'll fix them and reupload to that address. Though for voting, I'd appreciate it if you only voted based on what I created in the actual 48 hours. :)
Oh, and since it looks like I'm not going to get the awesome visual guide I had wanted to make done anytime soon, the Howto button now automatically directs you to the RTF file that's included. For most people, it should open WordPad.
VDOgamez, I tried over and over to fix that, but short of learning how to use either Game Maker's built-in pathfinding support or a pathfinding DLL, which I didn't know if I would have time to do and decided against, I was having a lot of issues fixing that.
And so, I put in the how-to to keep paths between where the citizens are put to work and the nearest house clear, so as to avoid that.
For those wondering, the issue is that the AI takes over when the unit needs to sleep. All it does is find the nearest house and move the unit in a straight line. Unless it -reaches- the nearest house, it'll just keep going, and you can't get control back. I -did- put in something that was supposed to help, by moving it horizontally if it collides with a house while en route, but it just didn't work.
@ericdpitts:
On the inaccessibility, I don't think I've said anything yet, so here goes.
I think that the 1-7 thing probably wasn't the worst move. I probably should have done a build menu, where it gives you a few details on the building when you hover over it, with a "shadow" building in place of where you are about to place the building. I just didn't know how much time I had when I was designing it. Several other parts had already been frustrating (namely the pathfinding, which never got fixed) and I just didn't know if I could piece it together in time. This way, I figured, there was a working build system, regardless of how basic it was.
What I should have done, however, was set up an in-game tutorial or basic tool-tips. I can't imagine either would have been insanely difficult, both just being basic scripted events. The youth, especially, with maybe a context-sensitive tooltip that would say if he's in contact with building X, "Right-click the youth to train him to be a unit Y."
However, the experience in creating systems that were not self-explanatory enough to work has been a good one, and I definitely have learned something for the future. Without playtesters, you sometimes forget that others that haven't been building the system will have a lot more trouble, even perhaps with instructions.
Now, as for the bugs:
1. I fixed that in the follow-up build I have listed in the comments system somewhere.
2. That's odd. It isn't coded to do anything if he's in contact with a brothel when being trained, which means nothing should happen. I'll have to look into that.
3. Yeah, sounds like Game Maker doesn't clean up particle systems the way it cleans everything else up. I'll have to look into that, too.
Thanks, though. Interesting is what I was going for more than anything. :)
@Harrk:
No idea how I missed that one, but I really should have put a check in to make sure they weren't colliding with anything before they were placed. >.>
Well, the "freeform building" was a side-effect of not really knowing how to do it without stressing myself out in the time period I had. I'm not the most experienced developer, so I intentionally took a few shortcuts to ensure I could do it, rather than spending too much time in one place.
The clicking, I did it that way to keep from having people clicking and accidentally selecting other units and getting frustrated, but it was a bad idea overall. Especially since if a unit is standing on another and you click either, it'll switch who's selected.
The way you died was probably that your food went negative. A side-effect I didn't foresee (I've never made even parts of my own font for Game Maker) was that you can't see when your food goes negative because I only included numbers, not including the letters or symbols (both literally being part of a PNG that makes up the HUD). You'd have to watch for an extra space that appears between the ":" and the food number, and I get that that's confusing.
Overall, I get that it doesn't give quite enough feedback, but being the person that created it, I was a bit blind to it. A side-effect of not having playtesters. :/
Oh, I forgot to mention - thanks. :) I really do appreciate the detailed analysis of what you had problems with.
Also forgot to mention, aliens do show up. So do asteroids (meteors?). And the plague. But I set the game up so that it gives you...2-3 minutes to set up before the onslaught begins, and it starts small, with only a single alien at a time, and gets gradually more difficult at each major time interval.
(Argh, I really wish there was an edit button now because I keep wanting to add to it...)
It sounds like the best thing I could have done for play-ability was remove the need to watch your food, or at the very least, make the food much, much easier to manage.
Yeah, I had thought about it, and I think it slipped my mind. I'm definitely going to take all the feedback I've gotten, retool the game, re-release it and such, and I'll be sure to make very specific win/lose screens.
Yeah, I realized that I missed in the guide the fact that if the building is usable, then you have to make sure that the associated unit is in contact with it for things to happen.
Odd that the training error happened over a brothel, considering youths can't train there. Though I think I may have fixed that one in the follow up.
Yeah, it's a bit ambitious, but overall, I like how it turned out for a 48 hour strategy game, and the fact that there is potential leaves me with a bit more motivation to touch it up later on.