What a wild ride it's been, that's for sure. Oh, I forgot to add any kind of tutorial feature this time, and the UI is horribugly, so here's the control and premises:
CONTROLS: Left/right keys - Move / Toggle between terminal logs and memory logs in menu Up/down keys - Scroll through terminal logs and memory logs in menu Z - Jump / Start game X - Use / Fire C - Control nearby guard M - Open/close menu (you can also close the menu with X)
PREMISE: You're a psychic alien locked up on a space station. You know there's a teleporter out, but you don't know where. However, you can use the terminals and hijack the minds of the guards to try and escape. Good luck. You'll need it.
ASIDE: I am missing nicer graphics, sounds, and music, but I got a little further in terms of complexity this time around than I did with LD20's Throwbots in a totally different environment, so, success to a degree! I already gave credit to some people in the game proper, but props to all those who supported me and made this thing possible!
I learned a great deal of lessons and I should be writing up a post-mortem by next weekend. See you then!
EDIT: Fixed a showstopper bug involving the game locking up when hit by an enemy (pretty critical) and a duplicate (and a missing) terminal.
This game is pretty amazing. The graphics are charming, the gameplay is fun, if a bit easy, and the characters are made surprisingly endearing by making them more than faceless guards, possibly by having them have relationships with each other (it's adorable how romance driven these aliens are). I played another game that tried this and failed, but this one really made them like people who I felt too guilty to kill. I really like the aliens in this, they're imaginatively designed and feel like they've been thought about much more than most people think about their game enemies (which coincidentally reflects one of the points of the game). It's definitely not without its flaws, though. I'm bugged a bit by how the guards can't jump high enough to climb around their own base, and it's kind of difficult to maneuver them. The fact that only like a third of them fire at you is also a bit confusing, and although I noticed that they're the ones with violent personalities the other ones probably wouldn't just walk up to the dangerous alien that breached containment to say hi and make friends. I also felt like the controlling guards mechanic wasn't expanded on as far as it could have been, and I can imagine it being more puzzle oriented and successful. Still, these minor detractors are more than expected with the limitations of the competition, and I must say that this is my favorite game yet. I'll be sure to look you up and watch for more of your stuff in the future.
Yes, the amount of monologue is very impressive. Made it to the teleporter room much sooner than I expected; figured I was lucky. Very nice game, overall.
I didn't really get it, perhaps I missed something important looking at all these other comments. Nice art but the design and gameplay weren't the best.
Very cool - an amazing amount of flavor content that feels like it gives real actionable information about the game world (like who will attack you, etc). Nice job.
At first I thought it's just another generic platformer, but the mind reading (although not used enough imo), background informations, monologue etc together with nice clear art made this one of the winners :) While game could of course use some more work (especially audio), it's excellent entry and one of few I really played till the end because I wanted to see what's awaiting me and enjoyed it a lot.
a lot of depth to this game, and i hope you work on it more after the compo, you could make this into an excellent game. not to say it's not good as it is!
I really liked the mind reading. Made me feel bad getting them to shoot each other. The gameplay was a bit annoying, in trying to maneuver the (non-player) aliens
Managed to get through most of it with only a few casualties among the enemies. Felt bad whenever they died, though eventually they began to shoot each other when they recognized a friend being mind controlled. Lots of moral gray area here, between an amoral protagonist and the punch clock villains. Loved it.
I really like how the idea is implemented. You don't "mindlessly" control enemies, you actually read their thoughts. Love the messages. This is definitely something that places the game above average. Controls are also well done. Art is minimalistic, but animations are nice.
Comments16
Good game
While game could of course use some more work (especially audio), it's excellent entry and one of few I really played till the end because I wanted to see what's awaiting me and enjoyed it a lot.