Your Votes for The [ Original Game ] category

[ekianjo]

You can find more details about the entries in the repo and below as well. Please try all games before casting your vote. You will be able to vote until the 4th of March in this category.

Here is more details about each entry (in no particular order):

PewPewTris / Repo

Description:

Tetris inverted, shoot the blocks to bits before the AI fills the field!

Comment from the creator:

"I got this idea for 0hour compo. 1 hour wasn't enough, so it ended up being my entry for this compo. I got this idea spontainiously and got curious if it'd work at all."

GFMTSERFGJ / Repo

Description:

Giant Flying Mech That Shoots Evil Robots For Great Justice. Blow up your enemies with a giant mecha in space. Inspired by Bangai-O.

Comment from the creator:

"I started this project to see how easy it was to develop software using the pandora. I was, of course, pleasantly surprised and managed to make a whole game. I also wanted to get some practice developing for a mobile platform as I've only ever developed for desktop machines. I chose to make a Bangai-O inspired game because Bangai-O is awwwwwwwwesome. To play, fly around and shoot stuff. When you encounter a boss, shoot at it until it dies."

Pandora NanoLemmings / Repo

Description:

Did you like the classic game Lemmings? Did you enjoy saving those little guys by digging and building bridges to survive a rough terrain? Did you hate the micro-management and clicking on a lemming that is walking in the wrong direction? Would you like to play with THOUSANDS of lemmings instead of just a few dozen? Then maybe NanoLemmings is a game for you!

8Bit Merchant / Repo

Description:

A small little financial game - something like the old Hammurabi , Vermeer, except for the hardware computers + peripherials sales.
You start out with $1000, in one of 15 countries (Poland, Germany, France..) in mid-70'ties. You can buy and sell 9 different hardware computers + peripherials [than changes overtime eg. in 80's and 90's some stock will auto-change]. You're making money to pay the debt that you done in 70's.

Hardware prices fluctuate quasi-randomly when going from country to country, although large scale events [eg. apple abandons Macintosh II hardware, TI abadoning personal computers scene ] etc. can cause temporary price increases or decreases.. Ocasionally if you're in right place and time you'll get the proposition to buy or get for free an unique hardware that later in mid 90's you could sale as a collectible for very big price. 

8Bit Merchant have achievement unlocking as well as collectibles unlocking.

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You are free to leave a comment as well if you want to justify your choice or simply show your appreciation to the participants!

 

[ekianjo]

Moderators, please pin this thread.

 

[Monkfish]

Tough choice because there are some great entries in this category, but for me its got to be NanoLemmings because not only is it a very innovative puzzle game which uses Pandora interface elegantly but the Level editor is easy to use so you can expand on the game content indefinitely and be really creative with it (i'm gonna be releasing more levels very soon).

I love the concept of PewPewTris and GFMTSERFGJ is also lots of fun, so it's a shame i can only vote once.

 

[ekianjo]

I love the concept of PewPewTris and GFMTSERFGJ is also lots of fun, so it's a shame i can only vote once.

Well, at least you left a comment and i'm sure the respective authors appreciate what you wrote

 

[levi]

Tricky one. They've all got good points. Pewpewtris is a fun idea even if it doesn't seem to lead to much strategy in game.


Nanolemmings is a cute idea too and the sound samples really help with that. The controls are a bit of a puzzle and it's a bit of a shame you seem to have to waste so many nanolemmings on certain levels (I hated nuking the blockers on original Lemmings). The learning curve is not so much in evidence, but once you've learned the controls it's a decent puzzler.


GFM...FGJ is an impressive debut and very stylish in action, but it's a little derivative and I've always been rubbish at those games! And 8-bit merchant is a fun-retro tinged trading game, like Elite but without all the boring flying about bits

 

[mcobit]

There is an ingame help in Nanolemmings. It explains all the controls now.

 

[ingoreis]

Will try the Games soon for a fair Voting

 

[_wb_]

I like GFMTSERFGJ and my own game the most. In terms of coding, GFMTSERFGJ is the most impressive, and it's also probably the most complete in terms of levels. In terms of originality, NanoLemmings is better, and the artwork by mcobit and sound samples by EvilDragon are great.

The other two games are good concepts, but they need to be somehow extended or modified to get more interesting game mechanics.

I like the 8bit merchant game idea, but at the moment there is too little strategy involved (besides the obvious "buy cheap, sell expensive") and too much randomness, and also it appears to be poorly coded because it gets really laggy when holding buttons to buy/sell large quantities. The game setting is cool (history of computer hardware), but the game itself is not very original, so maybe it needs some extra stuff to make it more interesting. E.g. maybe you can spend money/time to write and release software for certain hardware, which if it becomes successful can drive up demand for that hardware, but it can also become a flop. There could maybe even be some kind of abstract mini-game inside the game to represent the software coding process, where the likelihood of the software becoming a killer app depends on how well you play the mini-game.

PewPewTris also has a nice game concept, but somehow isn't that much fun yet. There is no time to really aim (and the nub aiming is too erratic), so I end up just keeping the same angle and pressing the shoot button as often as possible. Maybe if the blocks would fall more slowly and blocks that are not in the air take more hits to destroy, it would be more interesting?

 

[levi]

You can use the d-pad for aiming also in PewPewTris. I think I agree with your idea that making blocks on the ground harder to kill, since at the moment it's just a function of how quickly you can shoot down blocks versus how fast they're falling, with aiming only slightly coming in to it. The way piled up bricks get compressed is interesting, but in practice by the time things were piling up that much for me, I wasn't clearing normal blocks as quickly as they fell, so it was heading for game over for me anyway.


@mcobit, I found the help page and it was very useful. I still find the controls a little unintuitive somehow though, I'm afraid. Perhaps it's just too original a control scheme, and it'll click sooner or later. First thing I needed to realise is that it's mostly a touchscreen game, with buttons only zooming and killing everyone, at least until you've selected some people using the touchscreen. It's also not clear what happens if you choose digger or parasol, for example, without selecting nanolemmings beforehand - a random group seems to get assigned.


It's starting to click now though. Just finished 'just dig?', though I'm not sure I did it right - my solution required a semi-glitch that needed two lemmings heading in different directions to pass as the same time so the top one would take the top path and the bottom one back down the bottom one. To be honest, I could do with another zoom level for doing such pixel-perfect work.

 

[_wb_]

It's starting to click now though. Just finished 'just dig?', though I'm not sure I did it right - my solution required a semi-glitch that needed two lemmings heading in different directions to pass as the same time so the top one would take the top path and the bottom one back down the bottom one. To be honest, I could do with another zoom level for doing such pixel-perfect work.

That's indeed how to solve that level, congratulations on solving it . I agree that it feels somewhat tricky and glitchy and an extra zoom level would be useful for this. If you think about it, it's not really a glitch though, it makes sense that you can exploit lemmings walking on top of each other in this way to achieve a kind of staircase dug out of rock.

 

[ekianjo]

I still haven't voted and I'm undecided between GFMTSERFGJ and Pandora NanoLemmings. GFMTSERFGJ is extremely well made and has lots of humor as well. I was very impressed by what undexsym did there, and it plays very well. Pandora NanoLemmings is also very well made, but kind of lacks structure and needs a better "flow" for the levels, and a progression path. Otherwise it is a very strong contender as well and it plays very well too, but definitely needs some work on the graphical side for some levels.  

I like the idea of PewPewTris very much, but in its current incarnation it's very easy and you need to wait too long until it gets challenging in the faster levels. The only difficulty is to press the trigger as fast as possible. There should be some more elements of strategy, for example a limited amount of bullets you can fire per minute, so that you would have a constraint somewhere. 

8bit Merchant is a great idea, but as _wb_ said its mechanics are a bit too simple at this stage while there's certainly great potential to make it into a larger game if Commander-beef intends to do so. 

 

[slaeshjag]

Uhm.. I just thought I'd mention something here. PewPewTris firefutton is autofire

How unfair would it be if I added the blocks-on-ground-get-harder-to-shoot now after the deadline? ;P

Also; the powerup spawning (what type, how often etc.) is controlled by your accuracy. If you got less than 70% accuracy, You Get Nothing!

 

[Ziz]

I tried every game. In the order of the first post:

PewPewTris
I really like the idea. However it is quite hard and it shame, that it is not finished. And as other people said, I miss some strategy or buttons hints! You have ~50% of the screen unused, you could give Hints here. C4A support would be awesome!

GFMTSERFGJ
Not too much to say. Button smashing + avoiding getting hit. Make pretty much fun and the graphics is cool. I like it without shadows even more, shadows of the player and the enemies on the ground may be helpful, too. If the enemies increases the high, the shadows could get bigger and more blurred.

Pandora NanoLemmings
Ah quite neat idea, but I think the nano lemmings are quite annoying. It raises my lust to kill them... However well rounded game, but the learning curve should be improved.

8Bit Merchant
In fact I spent the most time for this game yet. Unfortunately just because it takes DECADES to sell or buy stuff in high quantities (like 500 or higher). First I didn't get the game. The help with Space didn't work. Then I got, that the month changes only, if I travel to another country. Amusingly a fly inside my country costs the same as a fly over the ocean... Furthermore are the prices random? Sometimes I bought floppy disks for 3$ and sold them for 20$. Same for the hard disk. I bought 1000 for 20$ (or similar) and sold it for 113$. I just took random flights until I get a price increase of 5 or more times...
So: Nice idea. I like the graphics and the historic approach, but the implementation needs much improvements.

And my vote goes to...
Hufflepuff! (Nobody ever speaks about Hufflepuff...)

 

[commander-beef]

8 Bit Merchant:

... I bought 1000 for 20$ (or similar) and sold it for 113$. I just took random flights until I get a price increase of 5 or more times...


So: Nice idea. I like the graphics and the historic approach, but the implementation needs much improvements.

There's a catch, You can't fly around to get price you want , because you have a debt. You'll need to pay it in jan. 1980 [you might not know it, because i didnt added HELP screen] otherwise you're out form game. 

Yes there's a lot of random stuff, but sometimes the prices are related with events on the world market, so You cant say its completely random. And of course there's a lot of collectibled and achievements to gather. 

[30 already]. You might want to play only for pump up a cash or just to gather achievements or collectibles .. And theres second bottom inside 8bit Merchant. You'll learn a lot about computers history. If not, you'll not be able to gather more achievements + collectibles.. [so there's a replay value if you decide play it again..]

And because the release of 8Bit Merchant was done few hours before deadline, nobody sends any info about bugs. The fixes will come up after compo finish..  [like saving/loading, exporting achievement badges, online scoring system, more computers + informations, more 'disasters' while travelling by plane, and less randomization ]

 

[Ziz]

8 Bit Merchant:

... I bought 1000 for 20$ (or similar) and sold it for 113$. I just took random flights until I get a price increase of 5 or more times...

So: Nice idea. I like the graphics and the historic approach, but the implementation needs much improvements.

 There's a catch, You can't fly around to get price you want , because you have a debt. You'll need to pay it in jan. 1980 [you might not know it, because i didnt added HELP screen] otherwise you're out form game.

Then I did it right. I had enough money in 1977. ^^

Yes there's a lot of random stuff, but sometimes the prices are related with events on the world market, so You cant say its completely random. And of course there's a lot of collectibled and achievements to gather. 

[30 already]. You might want to play only for pump up a cash or just to gather achievements or collectibles .. And theres second bottom inside 8bit Merchant. You'll learn a lot about computers history. If not, you'll not be able to gather more achievements + collectibles.. [so there's a replay value if you decide play it again..]

And because the release of 8Bit Merchant was done few hours before deadline, nobody sends any info about bugs. The fixes will come up after compo finish..  [like saving/loading, exporting achievement badges, online scoring system, more computers + informations, more 'disasters' while travelling by plane, and less randomization ]

Sounds good. And please make it faster when I sell MUCH stuff.

 

[ekianjo]

I decided to vote for GFMTSERFGJ. 

I was split for a while on how to make my decision, but in the end:

- Fun: simply speaking, I had more fun with this one than with Pandora NanoLemmings. It's probably due to the fact that so far the NanoLemmings levels are not all very inventive so far - as soon as more levels are added it would probably become a more interesting game.

- Finition: NanoLemmings still feels rough over the edges, while GFM... is already very well rounded in most aspects. 

- Playability: Just like someone said, there's a kind of conflict between screen and physical controls for Pandora NanoLemmings: in some levels it feels a little bit like you need to juggle to get things done. Definitely something that needs some more work, UI wise. 

But I find both of them very strong candidates and they are both worthy of being in the top spot Very good job to both _wb_ and undersym !

 

[_wb_]

Thanks for all the votes so far! And I hope that all of the games in this category will be further improved and updated, regardless of what prize they get in this compo.

As for NanoLemmings: as it is right now it is essentially only a (polished) proof of concept, I hope to have lots of fun levels in the future and maybe an in-game level editor too at some point.

 

[Ziz]

_wb_ Maybe you can add new feature in a future competition in the "Significant improvements"-category. ^^

 

[Fzero]

These are nice games.

Voting for GFMTSERFGJ

The name alone wins it

I like this game though, reminds me a bit of another little game I had downloaded on my PS3 a while ago, can't remember what that was called though, but similar. Good fun game

 

[Gandi]

Few entries but still a surpriyinlgy hard choice (between WTFOMGLOLROFL and NanoLemings )...