Viza

The Dead rest Beneath Us by flrn 2014-04-28T10:34:00

Wow. The first game I rated 5 stars here...

Upstream by Viza 2014-04-28T16:15:00

Thanks for the nice comments (BTW I play and rate everyones online game who comments here!)

A couple of you asked about the level design process of the game: it is simple *and* hard at the same time :)

I just start with a basic concept - what I want the level to be about? Maybe to showcase/teach a gameplay mechanic (for example the use of bubbles) or just "let's do a wide and shallow level, because I don't have one yet" :)

Then I think about what would be the best way to show that concept. In what situation the player *have* to use bubbles? What challenges a wide and shallow level could offer?

Then I create a basic level around that idea, and tweak, tweak, tweak until it plays good...
Can I take away one more bubble? Won't be too annoying for the player to move so much around? Is it challenging enough or should I throw in a couple more obstacles?

And that's the hard part. :) It took the better part of the six hours of dev time here... like I don't know four hours to design that ten levels... :)

Upstream by Viza 2014-04-28T17:59:00

Nope, it's working for me - is anybody else having problem with the link?

Upstream by Viza 2014-05-01T19:44:00

zedutchgandalf: I never noticed... o_O And now I cannot unsee. :D
"a lot of" is a slight exaggeration though - maybe one more besides the one in the screenshot. :)

Upstream by Viza 2014-05-03T06:46:00

@Armanky: Wha...? :D
Can you elaborate on that? :)

Upstream by Viza 2014-05-05T23:41:00

I played that and liked it.
I think I played all puzzlescript games on LD29 - at least all which turns up for a search for "puzzlescript" :)

Upstream by Viza 2014-05-18T21:53:00

Yoohoo! One hundred rating! :)
(That puts "Upstream" in the top 3.5% of the most rated games in this LD according to itch.io - I never thought that it could achieve this.)
Thank you for everybody taking time to try my little game, and for the kind comments! :)

Upstream by Viza 2014-05-18T22:00:00

@Wertle
- Bubbles - Yeah, I wanted to keep the texts short (almost nobody reads them anyway :) ), but that definitely something I should make more clear - maybe even with a full level dedicated to introduce the concept.
- Bouys - I got more comments on them people find them generally confusing at first. They are actually not *that* complex things :) so the error is on my side - I should introduce them more thoroughly as you suggest.
- Level pacing: I know what level you talking about, I feel that it is somewhat out of place now, the thinking was behind the placement, that I wanted to break up the big levels with something smaller, but hopefully still advanced. But you are right again - it was not that successful :)

Upstream by Viza 2014-05-19T11:25:00

@elefantopia: Yeah, that happens. :)
I kinda hated the Sokoban-type games for a long type - since PuzzleScript that changed for the better, and I even actually enjoyed making Upstream. :)

Fleeing Penguin by jukimv1986 2014-04-30T14:23:00

I misread the title to "Felling Penguin"... Sounds better IMHO ;)
Nice music anyway!

Fleeing Penguin by jukimv1986 2014-04-30T15:22:00

Hehh.. I meant "Feeling Penguin"...

The Hoverator by Viza 2014-08-25T19:15:00

Thanks for the nice comments!

As for the connection with the theme: the platforms could be considered worlds, and you fight to restore the connections between them... I know it's a bit weak, but whatever. :)
My original gameplay idea was better from a theme-oriented viewpoint, but I had to scrap it because I wasn't sure if it would work at all, and I *was* sure that I will run out of time if I try to make it work. :)
(For the curious: in the original idea the hoverbike could shift between dimensions somewhat Ikaruga-style. But for that mechanic you need to have a clear view of *all* the battlefield, which you don't have from a third person view. I didn't wanted to change to a topdown view for the game, so the dimension switching must go. :) )

@martindilling:
I'm down to some 145 sec, but you are still better :) If I try to go faster they always kill me on the last platform. :(

@mess110:
Is it working now? It works for me, and generally the people seem to be able to play it. Maybe try an another browser?

@anssipe:
No, that's an interdimensional hacker-spacemar... Ahh, yeah, that's a biped. :) I used it as a guide for proportions when created the bike model, and meant to replace it later with a proper model, then deadline happened. :)

@Larzan:
Yeah, the last bridge is evil I know... The perspective makes it very hard to detect the gap.
Maybe it could work on a bridge with a turn, so the player could see it before drives over it. Or maybe even work at the start of a level, to teach the player the importance of paying attention. But as the last bridge in a game with no checkpoints... Pure evil. :)

@midgard:
Yeah, the dodging (at least the strafe-dodging) was deliberately missing from the game. I wanted to avoid turning it into a circle-around-the-enemies game, and keep it more like a car-combat game.

The Hoverator by Viza 2014-08-31T19:53:00

Wow, how many new comments!
Thank you for the kind words! :)

@DragonXVI:
I wanted to do health pickups, but then I only had time to create a small level, so to keep the challenge, I left out the health pickups.

@jas7229:
Hmm, that's must be a bug, never happened to me. Maybe the hovercraft not really fell off, just the camera gone awry...

@Gecko1337:
Yeah, there were a LOT of effects planned of course... But then, the deadline came. :)

@dickpoelen:
Yeah, exactly. ;)

@designernap:
There *is* impact damage from the spiky enemies... Just very low. In comparsion: the enemy bullets' damage is 5, the impact damage is 1 every I don't know tenth second maybe, or something like that.

@electricseagull:
Strange, did you tried to refresh the page?

@andybrown:
I checked out assault rigs on youtube... Those non-perspective corrected textures... Ouch, my eyes! ;)
But yeah, my game is somewhat similar in gameplay.

@xrm0:
Ouch! I didn't think of that! :(

@igoramendola:
Ikaruga is a legendary shotemup game, where there are black and white enemy bullets, and you can switch your ship color, and only damaged by the opposite colored bullets. Check out sometimes, it is very good!
I wanted to do something similar, saying that the hoverbike can switch between two worlds/dimensions, so it is connecting them... But now only the bridges left for the connecting part of the theme :)

@sandybaydev:
Nice ideas! The game definitely needs more weapons, and physics based are good suggestion. I originally wanted the main weapon's damage reduced with distance, so the player can choose to stay away, but deliver smaller damage, or go in, and quickly finish off the enemies.
The aim is deliberately limited, I wanted to keep the vehicle combat feel (as opposed to a FPS character on a bike). But the players could probably accept that better if I use a hovercar as a vehicle instead of a hoverbike...

@Noah Ratcliff:
It connects poorly. :) The platforms are "worlds", and by clearing enemies, you build bridges between them, thus connecting them. :)

@pansapiens:
Yeah, but that's an important sound, signaling the clearing of the platform, and the opening of the path. :)

@Will Edwards:
Uhh, I'm sorry, I don't have a mac to test on... But I will try to keep those in mind for my future games. :)

@BradSmallPlanet:
Hmm, I don't have Safari installed... Is anybody else having problem in Safari?

@Patrik:
Wow I didn't even know that you can shoot with the mouse :)
I just used Unity's "Fire1" key, which is Control and Mouse 1

@Rothens:
I hope your keyboard survived the accident! ;)

The Hoverator by Viza 2014-09-14T21:42:00

Thanks for the nice comments!

I played all games who rated here so far (except for two, which I can't get working :( ).
There is still some time left, if you rate mine here, I'll try to squeeze yours before the judging period ends!

@metalchouchen:
A Twitch game for LD is a brave move :) Unfortunately I can't play your entry :(

@longarmx:
I can't get to work your game, it wont even want to start. :(

Crossworld Club by Artamus 2014-08-25T09:18:00

Cool!

Tacit by tanjent 2014-12-10T21:35:00

This game is actually could be called a zero screen game :)

Growing Ties by drludos 2015-12-14T19:23:00

Hey, that is a pretty fun game!

Bean up by Viza 2015-12-14T19:03:00

Thank you for your comments!
I played and rated everyone's game who commented here - and I will for future commenters too!

@gxkd: Yeah there is a bit of sliding and some forced circular motion on the controlled thing to make it a tiny bit more interesting/challenging to play, but I get how it can come trough as sluggish.
And you are right on the obstacles too - I draw them in like 10 minutes, and couldn't really come up more menacing small flying things besides the bees/wasps, so thats the excuse for the leaves/undefined things. :)

The End Of Radio by Cake_Catastrophe 2015-12-14T20:57:00

Hey this is cool a cool turn-based-exploration-kind game!
I would really like to play an extended version of it with more land to explore, more enemy types, more resources, etc.

1minuteBaby by jeroenwimmers 2015-12-14T19:36:00

Nice idea!

Problems? by Viza 2017-12-05T08:59:08Z

@jake-cope Yeah, feeling overwhelming was the goal - enjoyable overwhelmed if that's a thing :)

@smogen Writing some words on the blocks makes the whole game come alive, makes it possible for the brain to think thoughts while playing like "I'm just making way for this task", "Let's deal with this inconvenience", "I just pass this burden onto somewhen else" :)

@evandowning Yes, I'ts getting harder and harder the more tasks appear... just like real life :)

Captain Alexia by ludonaut 2017-12-06T15:55:12Z

Love the style!