HOMEBREW SUBMISSION/VOTING THREAD

[bzar]

richiz: I am unable to edit the poll results, but please exclude MichaelXX2's votes when you do the final count (unless he wants to change them himself, which would be welcomed.) Putting all votes on one entry is pointless and not in the community spirit.

Agreed. I for one would rather lose than win unfairly.

 

[richiz]

No worries for anyone unclear on how the voting rules will work.


Each vote for 1st place is 3 points, each vote for 2nd place is 2 points and 3rd is 1 point.


So as of now (currently including the faulty votes. How do you see whos voted for what? I need to thank the 2 people for Robo Hells 2 points, haha although I suspect they're pity votes)


Wars Commando is on 69 points


Greyout is on 48 Points


Snowman is on 38 points

 

[Ziz]

I tried to test all games on my eeePC (I do not own a pandora), too.


It's a shame, that some of them don't seem to work at my system. :unsure:


robohell


The script starts and I get a new cursor. That's it. No window or anything else. I installed python-pygame, do I need more? It silly, that their is no Readme, it could help in such causes.


Raedr


Don't know, what I did wrong, but in my extracted archive were all files in the root folder. With the error messages of the game I put them back in the right folder. But if I get it to start the game, I just see rotating numbers with the central point on the left side of my screen and then if I press a key (forget which) The dragon in the central falls down. That's it. Nothing more. Same thing with the Readme. Could it be, that I just pressed the wrong buttons?


rescue


good messages: it starts quite well. But the game himself is to hard for me. I even don't know how to get over the second water (without the alien). I had to look in the code (what happenend to the code? Why do you give the code, if you make it so bad readable?) to see which key does what. Z and X to walk was a bad idea. On a "qwertz"-keyboard it's very hard to control the person. But I rly like the game idea, the music and the "floating camera". Do you want to give me a tip how to get over the water? ^^


unready


Not much to say. Not really a platformer, but it makes quite fun. My highscore atm is 260. Would be cool, if you could see both dimensions at the same time, e.g. if you draw the other dimension with a small dot?


wars-commando


The classic Shooter Jump and Run. Not much to say, too. Good work, the hole arrangement feels very good. It a bit silly, that you used qt for your game. I think, it wouldn't be too hard to port it for other systems, but most times this systems doesn't have the qt-libs


greyout


My favorite game. It's not because I am very good (I fail even at the second level atm, don't get it, why I burst on the exit ^^), but the idea is great. But this game needs a tutorial. I were confused, why I sometimes can walk through the wall and sometimes not.


I hope, I get help to run the other two not tested games, too, before I have to make my choice.


greetings, Ziz

 

[richiz]

Try the pnd I link to on the front page please >_< updated the link to Milkshakes site yesterday.


Oh yeah you don't have a pandora...If so use the PY file off my google code (link on front page in spoiler) What OS are you using?

 

[Esn]

@sswam, try the new "Raedr", the menus take up much less time now and you can restart on the same level you died at, rather than at the very beginning (your score goes to 0, though).


@foxblock, interesting how your review mentions many of the same things that I was talking about! For example, moving left/right in Raedr, the annoying "sliding on ice" acceleration in Robo Hell, the too many unforgiving jumps & backtracking in Wars Commando, and the difficulty of starting later levels from scratch in Snowman.


For the record, I think "Greyout" is by far the most polished game here, unfinished as it is. I don't think it needs a tutorial too much; the nice thing is that you're not punished for experimenting, since you restart almost instantly, so you just poke around the level slowly and figure out where you can go through walls and where you can't.

 

[Ziz]

Oh yeah you don't have a pandora...If so use the PY file off my google code (link on front page in spoiler) What OS are you using?

I use Debian SID and I used the python-code in a spoilertag and can't find a google code link from you. :unsure:

 

[DavidBowman]

I just wanted to say that I'm very proud of the all of the devs here and their efforts for a device that not even all of you own yet!


I see that there have been lots of reviews so far, so I'll skip that if it's all the same. It was a close call for my favorite, with Greyout taking the lead over Wars: Commando, but only barely. I think that the puzzle aspect and the cool background music did it for me on Greyout.


I hope that this is just a beginning for all of you guys. There's a lot of potential here!

 

[quantenmagier]

Unready


It is barely usable however as being in one dimension one cannot see how the other one is looking and therefore has to either constantly switch back and forth, trying to remember the patters (which becomes impossible with increasing speed) or trust in blind-luck, switch in tricky situations and hope not start in front of a lava-tile in the other dimension.

Well the Wormhole which brings you in the other dimension is big (so the ground you are standing on is also shiftet), so you really shouldnt be able to die by switching on a lavatile in the fourth dimension.

Unready


Was that your intent in the comp, to make a game with this idea but having bitmap graphics? Or did you work on something fully different?

well, thought the gameplay is more important than the art, thats why i thought about implementing the pixelgrafix and sounds later on, probably.


The original intend was, that the game has THREE dimension planes with different physics, multidimensional puzzles, and multidimensional ki-enemies instead of just lavatiles, also i wanted to implement different levels instead of endless gameplay. But i had far too less time^^

unready


Not much to say. Not really a platformer, but it makes quite fun. My highscore atm is 260. Would be cool, if you could see both dimensions at the same time, e.g. if you draw the other dimension with a small dot?

i thought about drawing the other plane and make plane-switching dangerous, but i feared the screen looks to confusing then. Well I'll try it later on, should be just two additional if-clauses in the code..


greetz


QM

 

[sswam]

rescue


good messages: it starts quite well. But the game himself is to hard for me. I even don't know how to get over the second water (without the alien). I had to look in the code (what happenend to the code? Why do you give the code, if you make it so bad readable?) to see which key does what. Z and X to walk was a bad idea. On a "qwertz"-keyboard it's very hard to control the person. But I rly like the game idea, the music and the "floating camera". Do you want to give me a tip how to get over the water? ^^

Thanks for trying it, a pleasant surprise that it did work at all!


Just jump in the water then climb out: hold right and up together to climb. You can climb over the small rock if you have enough momentum, or push it a little then jump over carefully... or you can try to "walk through walls" at it!! or you can climb up the cliff outside the cave and go over the top. Climbing tres is tricky, and you need a big jump to get on to the cliff, like jump then hold up, or down then jump then hold up, in quick succession - get a sort of bounce going.


I've changed the PC controls to A and S, ideally it would be configured in a text file... but not yet. Please download the PC linux tgz again for this ~2 byte change!


The code is ugly because it's generated from a slightly different dialect of C, and has a library lumped in to it. The idea was, someone might be able to compile it if the binary didn't link for them. The real source code is neater but maybe still a bit ugly - just my in a rush style.


No need to read the code for keys, they're on the rescue webpage along with hints, etc. Please do give it another go, I believe someone can save one of those poor girls!! It's not THAT hard! I will try to complete Snowman! If anyone can come close to completing my little game (it is very small) I will give $60 as a fanfare. If you really complete it I shall award a premium Pandora upgrade @ $150. You would need to have paid the $350!


The source is about same size as robo hell, but not including media or levels: 2130 lines, 51 KB.

 

[Ziz]

Ok, it was my fault, that Raedr didn't worked.


My stupid Archive application failed. <_<


But now I was able to see the little dragon and play a bit.


The idea is pretty cool and I like the environment and the music.


First I thought, it is an endless game, because I needed some time to get the first level done.


The learning curve can be improved. Some simple levels at the begin would be nice or a leveltree with switches and crosses, like this:

         /--4.1--\ /--5.2--\

1--2--3--         X         --6

         \--4.2--/ \--5.1--/

so, if you are not able to solve level 4.1, you can try level 4.2 e.g.


But one big critic, what is also the reason I stopped playing this game, because it became frustrating: Sometimes (in the second level more often) the jump key doesn't work. It just ignores me. -_- Could it be, that your input is not good synced with your time based movement?


But improve your work and hold on in development! Your game is rly cool.


greetings, Ziz

 

[bzar]

Good news for those using Steve-products for your computing needs! A mac-using friend of mine who goes by the handle Badger ported Wars: Commando to OSX and was kind enough to share the source changes and upload a universal DMG software package. Both are readily available through the Google Code project. Huuuuuuge thanks to him!


Disclaimer RE: competition: no features were added.


In other news, I really like all the reviews here! I haven't had much time to comment on them as I have been diving to the wonderful world of OpenGL. Expect a more hardware accelerated game from me next time . Anyways, many reviews have been spot on, I think foxblock's gathered the most touted praises/critiques while adding some of his own. I'd love to explain my game design reasoning behind some of the choices I've made if someone's interested. For example, both the one-axis shooting and double tap running have a rationale compared to other solutions. I tested run button, walk button and running with acceleration, and considered even smash-bros style sprinting, but this one with all its flaws fit the gameplay best . Oh, and about taping the fire button down? Don't. You can fire faster by tapping the button. Makes those tanks go down more easily too

 

[foxblock]

Okay REVIEW REVIEW TIME... or something like that...


Anyway, thanks again for all the replies, I highly appreciate that you guys like my game and I will give my best to make it better in the future, I am certainly not done with the concept yet.


Also I am glad that you like the short trailer, I am not entirely happy with it, but I had that crazy idea and so I made it some stuff might make more sense when the games get's its story though.


I am not directly replying to all reviews because there are certain things I would like to address directly, so please don't feel bad if you are left out (also I guess there is a quote limit and I don't want to spam too many posts, I feel like I already hit my quota for this week).

[...] It took me 15 minutes to figure out that L/R buttons are for switching bodies in grayout.

Actually there is a reason why I chose that keys as those keys represent the opposite sides of your Pandora similar to how black and white represent the opposite sides of the intensity of natural light.


I also felt that those buttons would come as the most natural to switch bodies, still I have not really tested that and had no real means to test that.


On that note, does anyone actually use X to jump - does anyone notice you can jump on X anyway? If not, that button would be free, but that would also not work on the Playground level (which does not make much sense anyway, but I thought I would give people the chance to play around with the engine like I did in the videos and since the functionality was already there...). I really don't want to set this on the d-pad as you might trigger it too lightly, the same reason suicide is B+Y and not just B or Y.


Also there will be more levels, I am working on that.

I liked the way he slides >_<

I, too, kinda like that, but as I said if you want to keep it, you will have to change the level design, make more levels like the second one (and less like the third) and it will be great because players will be able to build up that kind of "flow" and momentum which feels really great, though currently you are deliberately breaking it by tricky single-platforms and constant direction changes.


There is a great Flash game which I would like to post as an example, but I forgot the name, I will try to dig that up, though.

Greyout


This is my personal favorite, one of the most memorable games I've played. It's such a cool idea and well realized. I like the graphic style, so simple but it really works well. The menu effect makes this my favourite game menu of all time! I voted for Greyout because it's a great puzzler with with arcade gameplay, and a surprise twist that bends your mind. It's mostly about the puzzles, but you need your controlz skillz too. I'm hoping Foxblock will whip up some more levels. Maybe his fans can come up with some good ones too, from what he said it's easy to create new levels. I played Greyout in the dark, backseat of a car, and it did something strange to my mind and vision. It's like you have to think in a different dimension and it's very challenging for me to think that way. I imagine some truly confounding and even more mind-warping levels could be created for Greyout. How about tri-tone? play with the colors of three-stripe national flags, with the characters themed appropraitely - maybe a french-style hat or something... hehe I think that would be awesome. Foxblock, I never thought from your vids that you were making such a great game, although the elite menu should have tipped me off to it. It really looked like pong with the monochrome blocks! I'd like to see how Greyout plays with a pong ball bouncing around, either as an enemy or a object to be transported, that might be some fun too - another 'extra' for a later level, to keep the interest building.

I love how you describe your feelings when playing the game, I actually kind of hoped for that kind of reaction (also the thought process like Esn described it before). I am also glad the game can already deliver that kind of feeling even without a story.


I like the three-tone idea, I will see what could be done with that. Currently that would not be that easy though as the colour of the character sprite is loaded from the image and not set at runtime, I think I could implement that though (to get the tri-tone effect you simply would have to create three coloured spritesheets, it is not impossible to do...).


I thought about adding independently moving and thinking objects to the game, also real enemies, but I decided against it because in my eyes it would not work that well with the overall feeling. Though I guess some other moving objects, only affected by physics could be a good idea, thanks


Also I really like how you seem to consider your son with everything you are doing (your own game) and also playtesting (the other games), to me that is highly interesting, because I never looked at game design from this point of view.


While I don't think every game should be playable by a 3 year old there certainly are some things you can learn from simply letting a kid play your game. So thanks for that train of thought


I also really like how you seem to have put a lot of thought into every aspect of the game (not saying other did not), from the physics engine (which might simply be regarded as "It has to work, no special meaning behind that") to the sprites and gameplay, that is really great to read and is the stuff I am interested in.

greyout


My favorite game. It's not because I am very good (I fail even at the second level atm, don't get it, why I burst on the exit ^^), but the idea is great. But this game needs a tutorial. I were confused, why I sometimes can walk through the wall and sometimes not.

Yes, I agree, that is a shortcoming also none I have a real explanation for, except for that it becomes obvious when looking at the plain level file not blended to the black background (also it was obvious to me, so I never really thought about that).


At one place however I deliberately did not tell the player that he could wrap from one end to the other, which was on the second level, you are supposed to figure that out by yourself (for example you can see the horizontally moving red block at the top giving you a slight clue). I revisited that level and thought about making it more obvious to the player, but decided against it - half the fun is what happens in your mind anyway, it is the same in Braid.


I am thinking about how to better indicate that in later levels though... (though for now I guess it is not too bad as simply trying and restarting is very quick, but that should not be an excuse for sloppy game design).


Also I hear many people complain about the difficulty level in the level "Greyout" and I agree it is hard.


First of all, I will not separate the two players so you can rescue one after the other and the game only resets the one you are controlling, that just would not work (not from a technical point of view, rather from a gameplay or story/feeling point of view).


I have not really playtested the game by any person apart from myself and I feel that is one of my personal biggest shortcomings and I will never do something like that again. Therefore I will try to get some data on the level and remove certain spikes which are too unfair or frustrating.


But finally, this level actually was intended to be the very last (or one of the last) levels, I just shifted it because of time constraints and because I did not get the number of levels done I intended and the game would not have worked that well if it still would be the last I guess (the levels are in a particular order and it is supposed to have a meaning), so... yeah... that is that.

@foxblock, interesting how your review mentions many of the same things that I was talking about! For example, moving left/right in Raedr, the annoying "sliding on ice" acceleration in Robo Hell, the too many unforgiving jumps & backtracking in Wars Commando, and the difficulty of starting later levels from scratch in Snowman.

Yes, in fact I kind of borrowed some of those ideas as I read your reviews earlier and tried to pay more intention to that when playing the games again and I noticed some stuff over and over again.


Though I did not want to copy the exact wording, I just had the general comments in mind, so thanks for that I guess (and sorry for not mentioning that earlier, I guess I kind of was in a writing frenzy and at the end just wanted to get that behemoth of a post out there).

In other news, I really like all the reviews here! I haven't had much time to comment on them as I have been diving to the wonderful world of OpenGL. Expect a more hardware accelerated game from me next time . Anyways, many reviews have been spot on, I think foxblock's gathered the most touted praises/critiques while adding some of his own. I'd love to explain my game design reasoning behind some of the choices I've made if someone's interested. For example, both the one-axis shooting and double tap running have a rationale compared to other solutions. I tested run button, walk button and running with acceleration, and considered even smash-bros style sprinting, but this one with all its flaws fit the gameplay best . Oh, and about taping the fire button down? Don't. You can fire faster by tapping the button. Makes those tanks go down more easily too

I can see the reason behind the design choice made with the one-axis shooting as I said before (though I stand by my point that it does not feel right in certain situations), but I would really like to hear about the rationale behind the double-tap or even better try a version with a dedicated run button.


In general I would love to chat with the devs a bit about this whole competition and their entries, hear about the design choices made and maybe give a bit insight into the design of Greyout if anybody is interested. I am on IRC (#openpandora on freenode) sometimes and always available via PM.


And btw, here some Greyout trivia namely the games which inspired me the most (apart from the two entries mentioned in the credits) and which also are referenced in the game and/or trailer (some only barely others more clearly):


Super Mario, Portal, Braid, Nidhogg and VVVVVV


Maybe you can spot the references


foxblock out


PS: Because I just stumbled across this and am highly impressed by and interested in it (and it also started another few thoughts in my head) I would like to share it:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SqFu5O-oPmU?feature=oembed is also very interesting and if you have 3 hours to spare you should watch both.

 

[Esn]

Well, I kinda think Greyout's perfect as it is, as I've said already (just not big enough). I agree that figuring it out yourself is a lot of the fun. Also, it's easy & quick to restart a level if you screw up.


You would not BELIEVE how many times I died on that second level before I figured it out (and on many of the later ones, too), but you don't hear me complaining, because I think the game is a fair one. You never feel like you failed because of the game, rather than because of a mistake you made or something you didn't figure out.


Perhaps you could make some sort of "hint sheet" for people who really can't figure things out, but I think the game itself should remain as it is.


Also, playtesting it only on yourself is still far, far better than assuming that others are better players than you are and just making it really hard.

 

[quantenmagier]

unready


Not much to say. Not really a platformer, but it makes quite fun. My highscore atm is 260. Would be cool, if you could see both dimensions at the same time, e.g. if you draw the other dimension with a small dot?

i thought about drawing the other plane and make plane-switching dangerous, but i feared the screen looks to confusing then. Well I'll try it later on, should be just two additional if-clauses in the code..

So as said unready_v1.1 beta is out now (hope it works!? - as i was not able to test it on the Pandora):


http://homepages.uni-paderborn.de/neuron/pandora/unready_1_1.pnd'>http://homepages.uni-paderborn.de/neuron/pandora/unready_1_1.pnd (pnd)


http://homepages.uni-paderborn.de/neuron/pandora/unready_1_1 (x86-linux)


new features:


-seeing 'other' dims lava


-dangerous dim switch


-magic crystalls


hope its ok, that i announce the update here, as the game was inspired by the contest and i have no chance anyway


btw thanks for the 3rd place votum i got! :]

 

[Ziz]

I think, I should comments some comments about snowman, too.


My English is much worse then foxblock's, so my post will be not so long. ^^


First I have to thank all people voting for me. Doesn't expected, that my game could be such a success.


One thing I often heard was the missing sense of the 3D Part: I have plans, where the 3D Engine can show it's potential, but the time was to short to implement the ideas yet.


Also I want to add more levels with new ideas and the bosses will be stronger. In fact I forgot the ball attack when fighting against them. Very stupid, with this attack, it is REALLY to easy to win...


greetings, Ziz


PS: Does anybody find out, what the hole level 2-2 shows? ^^ Tip: Have a look in the levelfile (it's just a text file)

 

[sswam]

There also are gems to collect, but as the game is missing a score counter as well as a menu or highscore list there does not seem to be much point in it.


Acceleration and deceleration are way to slow for my liking, making the player slide more than walk, also making precise jumps becomes tedious. This might work in theory with the accurate nature of the rest of the physics engine, but it falls short in actual gameplay and feels like it does not fit the rest of the game anyway.


The sprites are not very well animated and still have magenta borders around them, which probably should be transparent.


The best thing about it are the particle effects - you will loose drips of blood when hitting a spike, which will then pour all over it and also drip down, creating a really nice effect.

It doesn't count the girls you rescue either but I assure you, you wouldn't lose count of them - if you'd persevered long enough to rescue any! Better get a Pandora or linux CD first... I think you'll find it was crippled under virtualbox. On native Linux, include Pandora (needs 800Mhz at the moment), it easily does 60fps, and the acceleration is very quick. I know when I ran it under virtualbox it was achieving more like 20fps. The game time is based on the frames at the moment, not on real time, so as to behave consistently.


It can have very quick and challenging action, especially with the fights and rope tricks. I don't think it's as hard as robo-hell, but it is hard. The 'AI' for the Wumpus and Grue is so simple and stupid, but they still surprise and even scare me, it's silly how easy to make a formidable opponent when you're characters is not created as some Rambo with super powers and super weapons far beyond what the enemies have.


I think the graphics should be a bit brighter, so I can see them if I play outdoors! but needs some easy brightness controller or gamma tweaker to go with it.


A global gamma set function would be great for the Pandora, so we can play any game outdoors in the light without squinting. Not sure if the video system can do it.


Those 'magenta borders' might be a virtualbox bug too, at least I didn't see it. They should have black borders. I didn't have time to do proper translucent borders unfortunately, although I know how, and it renders with translucent blending anyway. There's another simpler blend mode, simple addition, which works well, makes you go a shade of blue underwater. I should have gone with that I think.


I can't argue with you about the animation though, it's pretty crap! I practise and to learn it better, would have had to spend much more time on it! It's especially crap that there are no special animations for walking / running, he just glides along! At the moment it only allows one sprite loop per tile / object, no variation for different states (except for death). Would be easy enough to fix of course.


You sadist! you like the gore effect eh? You're supposed to take care of him not bump his head for kicks! well, I like it too. It's like a chunk of 'DOOM' that jumps out of this little 2d game to surprise you.


I drew the line at injuring the girls, they're immortal and invulnerable, although they can get stuck.


I know the game is half-baked, but for me it does have good gameplay. I've played it for hours - when I should have been hacking on it! I'll have to make a vid showing how it goes when you do it right I don't want to spoil it, but it seems like no-one's going to get anywhere or persevere with it otherwise. I can make some better levels after I spoil this one. Even with spoilers, you still probably won't be able to do it!


I got inspiration / tried to include good ideas from lots of old classic games:


Rocks & diamonds & dirt puzzles from Repton / boulderdash


Wumpus and Grue, names of classic Unix monsters - but they look like a malignant Repton and Pacman I think!


I wish the physics / simulation was as good as Exile (BBC Micro 32K FFS!).


Splashing and stuff, looks a bit like Zarch (Archimedes)


Nudity and difficult unarmed combat, I guess I got this from Penumbra (this is a superb game, I shouldn't dare mention really)


Jump on the head, it's from Mario of course!


The rope was my idea, I suppose there's other 2d games with simulated rope but I don't recall any. It breaks nicely if you over stress it. I thought I needed it, as a way for the girls to climb out of the cave! But as of yet they can't climb it anyway - ran out of time! - so I hacked in a back door for the cave in the basement.


The guy is supposed to have some slight telekinetic power which he can develop, like 'avatar / air bending etc', however I didn't finish this. I'm calling it 'urging' as in 'thaumaturge' because 'bending' might get me sued. He can do it in the PC version, but has no effect on anything. Pandora 'urge' key is mismapped at the moment. I also wanted to do some musical element like Aquaria and Ocarina of time, but didn't finish it.


I also did a 'stink simulation', invisible particles like the smoke, which come from the hero, and will get him in trouble if some monster smells them! The monsters would search in the direction a scent particle came from, or something intelligent based on that. This would have been good, and unusual, but I hit a technical problem (algorithmic complexity) which I couldn't fix in time. But the stink simulation code is there. He can wash in the water to clean himself and gets less stinky. Too much running and fighting (sustained high accel) makes him more stinky, and meeting a girl of course gets the pheromones pumping


I'm still keen to hack on this game, as you may be able to tell, so I'll take your suggestions on board and see what I can do. Any further playtesting / criticism / ideas for improvement would be greatly appreciated.


Hope no one minds me ranting on like this, I've enjoyed to read everything in this thread, and want to share my experiences and ideas.


I'm going off to play Snowman, I'm not much good at it yet! I was surprised some players have finished Snowman already, there must be some ace gamers around here.


Played 'Pandora Panic' last night for the first time, cracked me up what a funny thing it is. My son likes it too, some of the 'games' are easy enough for him. SuperTux is at his level I reckon, and it's improved a lot I think, runs very nicely on Pandora. Giana seems nicer, but it's too hard for a 3 year-old! He can do level 1 though.

 

[bzar]

^ FTR, I for one don't mind at all, I love reading gamedev monologues

 

[Esn]

I'm still really confused about how to use the rope in Rescue. To be honest, for a long time I thought it was urine (since it comes out from between his legs and is yellow)


I also agree that a sword would have made more sense, because you're punished for jumping (if you hit ceilings) and because the enemies have a spike on their heads which suggests that you can't hit them there (as foxblock said).


P.S. The scores so far:


Wars Commando - 72


Greyout - 57


Snowman - 48


Rescue - 9


Raedr - 8


Robo Hell - 2


Unready - 2

 

[foxblock]

Perhaps you could make some sort of "hint sheet" for people who really can't figure things out, but I think the game itself should remain as it is.

Yeah, I am currently considering ways to improve the learning curve, thanks for the idea I will think about that.

It can have very quick and challenging action, especially with the fights and rope tricks. I don't think it's as hard as robo-hell, but it is hard. The 'AI' for the Wumpus and Grue is so simple and stupid, but they still surprise and even scare me, it's silly how easy to make a formidable opponent when you're characters is not created as some Rambo with super powers and super weapons far beyond what the enemies have.


[...]


A global gamma set function would be great for the Pandora, so we can play any game outdoors in the light without squinting. Not sure if the video system can do it.


[...]


You sadist! you like the gore effect eh? You're supposed to take care of him not bump his head for kicks! well, I like it too. It's like a chunk of 'DOOM' that jumps out of this little 2d game to surprise you.


I drew the line at injuring the girls, they're immortal and invulnerable, although they can get stuck.


[...]


The rope was my idea, I suppose there's other 2d games with simulated rope but I don't recall any. It breaks nicely if you over stress it. I thought I needed it, as a way for the girls to climb out of the cave! But as of yet they can't climb it anyway - ran out of time! - so I hacked in a back door for the cave in the basement.


The guy is supposed to have some slight telekinetic power which he can develop, like 'avatar / air bending etc', however I didn't finish this. I'm calling it 'urging' as in 'thaumaturge' because 'bending' might get me sued. He can do it in the PC version, but has no effect on anything. Pandora 'urge' key is mismapped at the moment. I also wanted to do some musical element like Aquaria and Ocarina of time, but didn't finish it.


I also did a 'stink simulation', invisible particles like the smoke, which come from the hero, and will get him in trouble if some monster smells them! The monsters would search in the direction a scent particle came from, or something intelligent based on that. This would have been good, and unusual, but I hit a technical problem (algorithmic complexity) which I couldn't fix in time. But the stink simulation code is there. He can wash in the water to clean himself and gets less stinky. Too much running and fighting (sustained high accel) makes him more stinky, and meeting a girl of course gets the pheromones pumping


I'm still keen to hack on this game, as you may be able to tell, so I'll take your suggestions on board and see what I can do. Any further playtesting / criticism / ideas for improvement would be greatly appreciated.


Hope no one minds me ranting on like this, I've enjoyed to read everything in this thread, and want to share my experiences and ideas.

Actually I kinda like how you have not direct means to attack, that kind of puts one under a certain kind of stress and feels right in the context of the game, having a sword would not fit in the game imho.


IIRC the Pandora already has a function to the gamma value at least I remember ED making a video about it and especially like the TV-gamma preset, maybe have a look in the preferences menu.


I don't especially like the gore effect (or gore effects in general, just in certain games like L4D it fits very well), rather the whole particle system and dripping blood effect (could be any kind of liquid actually).


It is nice to see you put effort into something so minor, not gameplay changing and made it so sophisticated (at least in my eyes) and organic, it just looks and feels great when the blood is dripping from the spikes, not many games put so much effort into the details, especially physically correct particles.


I really like the "urge" and "stink" idea, they sound very interesting, would love to see that put into reality, especially the latter sounds like a new and innovative idea I have not heard of before.


I would love to try the rope eventually, but that probably will have to wait until I get my Pandora as I am not really a Linux guy and the VBox works fine for all other stuff for me.


Also please keep posting such insight, it was very informative and no a rant by far, this is a rant


foxblock out

 

[Ziz]

Ok, I got Robo Hell to work. I'am used to start a python application with


"./Robohell.py" and it did something, so i didn't see my failure. Your game does not start with "#!/usr/bin/python". <_<


With "python Robohell.py" it works great. Or just adding the first line "#!/usr/bin/python".


So now I have tested all games. I like the graphic of Robo Hell and on my eeePC it runs quite fast. But this game is to hard to me. The inertia is infernal. I was not able just to finish the first level... :unsure:


But now I am able to give my votes.


Thx to all participants, you all did great work.