The Great Volcano Escape

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.48
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.52
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.24
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.76
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.19
Audio★★★★★★★★★★1.00
Humor★★★★★★★★★★1.58
Community★★★★★★★★★★3.60
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★1%
'The Great Volcano Escape'

by @bluescrn, Made in under 48hrs for Ludum Dare #21

Sorry, there's no sound. (I'm currently looking for a free/cheap/lightweight
sound system that's suitable for little 2D PC projects...)

Please don't rate this game if your computer is too slow to run it! It should
run at 60fps on any reasonable gaming PC, but is unlikely to be playable on
netbooks or laptops with weak GPUs. So I've included an LD48_LowSpec.exe that
just turns off the bloom and mist layers, which might help some people.

Controls:

Arrow keys - Lean forwards/back
Z - Accelerate
X - Brake (yes, you'll need this)
Space - Restart level

Goal: Get to safetly without killing yourself...

Levels

They're procedurally generated, but with fixed seeds. They get harder, and will become impossible
after a while...

The first 15 levels are definitely doable, after that... maybe not :)

Base Code Used:

The contents of code\base is my 'standard base code'. I've used it for
several Ludum Dare entries. It handles D3D/DInput setup, texture loading,
maths (vector/matrix), fonts, and drawing polygons. It also contains the
bloom effect.

Feel free to copy+paste any useful bits you might find in there...

All code in Code\LD48 and textures in \data were hacked together during the compo

Main Tools Used:

Visual Studio 2011, C++, DirectX9
Chipmunk (2D Physics engine)
Genetica (generating clouds + rock textures)
Photoshop CS5 (Drawing the bike+biker)

screenshot

Comments13

code_glitch22 Aug 2011, 18:08
Now this, I love graphic wise - plenty of polish and it runs buttery smooth on a 2 year old, just above average PC under wine. Plus, it really reminds me of those nostalgic bike games all over the internet- just a lot better.

great game. audio would have been a definite plus though.
marudziik
marudziik23 Aug 2011, 12:29
I really liked this one, especially physics-wise. Randomly generated levels are also fun, too.
Being able to set a different seed (thru some config file or so would be enough) would be a plus, as well as audio, but it's a great game anyway!
wonderwhy-er
wonderwhy-er23 Aug 2011, 15:39
Wah, nice graphics man, and smooth game play, not very innovative though.
stigrv
stigrv23 Aug 2011, 16:14
An addictive little game. Nice graphics. Missed some sound. Found a bug that made the end of level text stay on screen if you start the next level too quickly.
quickfingers
quickfingers23 Aug 2011, 23:08
i love physics based 2d racers this was a fun one :)
Deraj27 Aug 2011, 03:10
Maybe not the most original, but this was really fun to play.

Did anyone else find themselves trying to see how many flips they could do while still beating levels successfully?

One bug I hit was that after beating one level and losing quickly on the next, the "safe, for now" message never went away (and it never said I lost).

Totally fell right down a pit once. I'm going back to play more now...
Codexus
Codexus27 Aug 2011, 06:59
Nice game. It looks really nice and the physics and control of the bike feel right.
Gameplay-wise it quickly gets boring. Some handmade levels with more gameplay elements are badly needed.
DrPetter28 Aug 2011, 10:26
Pretty good dynamics. Could perhaps have been a bit more fun with some bounce in the suspension, although likely more difficult too. I'd decouple the camera some more from the bike though, to avoid having sudden impacts translate directly into screen movement and zoom.

Due to being told in the readme that I would need to brake, I tried to see how far I could get holding the accelerator down constantly and not touching the brake. So far I've beaten the first nine levels, and level 10 is definitely possible although it gets a bit tricky at this point. I made it almost to the end, with just three unlit dots left.
BlueShaman28 Aug 2011, 18:25
Good graphics. This concept is overused in my opinion, and the theme didn't really get fit into it. Oh, and my integrated GPU on this laptop handled the game fine. :D
Dark Acre Jack28 Aug 2011, 19:20
What am I escaping from, exactly? There wasn't really any motivation to vroom vroom. A timer or wave of mutilation would have helped with that.
tangentstorm
tangentstorm31 Aug 2011, 01:31
Nice job. Worked just fine on my laptop, and it hardly runs anything. I really like how the sky changes color and the way the camera zooms in and out.
matthias_zarzecki1 Sep 2011, 16:01
What this babdly needs is some rocking background music. Nice work :-)

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