Couldn't get it done in time. Le sigh. Still, got some good progress!
Windows and OS X builds are now up! Enjoy! Also, the windows build should now actually *work*.
The idea was the to make a game in the style of Advance Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics, taking place underground, involving warring armies of mole people and, eventually, other underground nasties.
The mouse-driven menu system is pretty terrible (as some of the comments below will attest). In fact, nearly every action in the game has a keyboard equivalent for the menu items. Unfortunately, key equivalent assignment is incredibly haphazard, since I ran out of time well before I got to going back and fixing them up. For the main action menu, it's the first letter of the action (M for Move, D for Dig, A for Attack). For choosing a destination square, you must use the mouse (only action in the game that requires the mouse). OK/Cancel is always enter and escape, respectively. Choosing a dig pattern can be done with the number keys (1 for the first pattern, 2 for the second). Choosing a dig direction is the arrow keys, or NWSE for North/south/east/west. Choosing an attack target is the arrow keys.
I do intend to improve all that, when I continue to work on this in the future. But for the compo voting, unfortunately the controls are pretty terrible. Sorry for that.
Note also that the source I have posted now is slightly different from what I had posted originally. I had actually posted the wrong source at the time, missing two hours of work that were done within the time limit but accidentally left out of the submission. If you're curious to see what the originally posted version looked like, you can check out http://bitbucket.org/philomory/ld15/get/ld46.zip
running from source requires the gems 'require_all' and 'gosu'.
The game itself seems like it could be fun, but honestly the interface just killed it for me. Having to move between clicking on the playfield and clicking on the items on the sidebar every time was just too much work...
Trying to run from source on Linux .. I installed rubygems and gosu, but the game still complains that it can't find "rubygem gosu". I guess I'll have to register gosu with rubygem somehow? Eh, I'll just try the windows version later..
..
Okay, it's later and I'm running the Windows version. It runs, at least =)
The game is very slow paced. I spent a long time just trying to get up to the AI, while it seemed content to just move back and forth, waiting there for me (freezing for a few seconds every move, and requiring me to click between .. lots and lots of clicking ..). When I finally started getting close, the game crashed with a "NoMethodError", with the message "undefined method `reject!' for nil:NilClass" and this backtrace:
Well.. I did manage to slowly dig my moles halfway through the dirt in the middle. I got a application crash though just when I thought I might actually bore through and fight the other evil moles. As you noted the interface and pacing of the game is quite slow in this version so it is tough to stay engaged and get the fun elements of strategy or battle especially when it seems it will take at least 10 minutes for me to command my moles through the dirt. I did my best but the game crashed after 5 minutes and I don't think I'm gonna be going back unfortunately. Congrats though on your first LD! :)
I had basically the same experience as mjau: took long to get close, then when I attacked, it crashed. Seems you are already aware of the shortcomings. Think it could be an interesting game.
Quite promising, shame you didn't finish. At one stage half the screen went black, did not know how to get out of that. As you said, the interface was pretty terrible. :D
Hmm... The interface was not fun (having to press Continue all the time), and it crashed randomly, before I could get to the other side (always on a button click though).
Comments17
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Okay, it's later and I'm running the Windows version. It runs, at least =)
The game is very slow paced. I spent a long time just trying to get up to the AI, while it seemed content to just move back and forth, waiting there for me (freezing for a few seconds every move, and requiring me to click between .. lots and lots of clicking ..). When I finally started getting close, the game crashed with a "NoMethodError", with the message "undefined method `reject!' for nil:NilClass" and this backtrace:
Unit.rb:125:in `move_data'
State/PlayerChoosingMove.rb:11:in `initialize'
State/PlayerChoosingAction.rb:18:in `new'
State/PlayerChoosingAction.rb:18:in `initialize'
SidebarItem.rb:18:in `call'
SidebarItem.rb:18:in `clicked'
State.rb:26:in `click'
Game.rb:139:in `button_down'
MainWindow.rb:67:in `button_down'
LD15.rb:7:in `show'
LD15.rb:7
On second attempt, I managed to get attacked by the enemy but got an error when I tried to attack back:
uninitialized constant LD15::State::PlayerChoosingAction::PlayerConfirmsAttack
State/PlayerChoosingAction.rb:24:in `initialize'
...
So I couldn't really play it.
The mouse controlled menu is awful, but I read your comments and used keyboard shortcuts on my second playthrough and got going much more quickly.
[cache: storing page]
Type: ExerbRuntime::Error
Message: Couldn't call the initialize function in the extension library. --- ./gosu.for_1_8.so(Init_gosu.for_1_8)
Backtrace: gosu.rb:7:in `require'
gosu.rb:7