May.5 - The OSX and Linux versions are back online! Apr.23 - I fixed a bug that ocurred when people tried to resize the window.
DESCRIPTION:
This is a short metroidvania about persistence. Play as a socially withdrawn snail who never left its shell and try to find a way out of a recluse lifestyle. For an additional challenge, try to find all 3 hidden secrets!
HOW TO PLAY:
-Arrow keys to move -Alternatively, Z to jump instead of up arrow, in case you like the Z key as much as I do. -Esc to close game
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The screen sometimes flashes in some computers, but that's not intentional, it's a result of how Java deals with the game's core mechanic.
I'd like to thank everyone from my indie group, www.catavento.art.br, for the moral support, and Helo and Saint11 for helping me hosting and uploading the game.
I'm glad you enjoyed it, I'm still a little bit worried that the game might not work well in all OSs because of how Java deals with certain things of the this game's mechanics =/
So far this is my favorite LD game! It reminds me of windows 3.11 games!
P
porath23 Apr 2012, 08:12
great game, but it seems like after i got the collectible by the start, double jump stopped working and i wasn't able to get out of the pit. it's possible i just don't know what i'm doing, though.
L
lanzz23 Apr 2012, 11:40
Does not work on OS X — dies with "LSOpenURLsWithRole() failed with error -10810 for the file /Users/.../recluse.macosx/Recluse.app"
I quit the first time thinking I was stuck in a room. Thankfully I tried harder the next time! Expanding the window is super cool and satisfying, and the neckbearded snail is adorable!
What a neat concept. I've never before seen a game that makes use of the window's size as a gameplay mechanic and it worked quite effectively. Great job. :)
lanzz: I'm really sorry you couldn't play the game. Thank you for testing and posting the
error message. I'll work as hard as I can to find a solution for that, probably with the
help of friends, but I can't guarantee I will find the answer (I don't have much
experience in programming). I still have to check if it works on Linux. Meanwhile, please try playing the windows version in some other computer if you can.
porath: Wow, that never happened to anyone before. I wonder what happened? I'll look into
it, but it could be that you pressed the jump button too fast while trying to get out. Remember that the second jump is very short comparing to the first one, and it is of no use if you do it before the appex of the first jump. If that was what happened to you, I'll make the pit more shallow in the nect version.
All the others: Thanks for the compliments! I hope you guys had fun, despite how hard it was to figure out the start (It was supposed to be part of the experience). But you all managed to escape the recluse life, even when it seemed impossible. Congratulations! XD
Nice! Never seen that mechanic before - perfect for a snail game. The endings were cool/funny too. Wish there was sound and music, and wish the game played a little faster - but it's a snail I guess. Nice overall vision, short little game but sweet.
Haha really innovative game dynamics.. People who don't like native games EAT THIS!! xD Only problem for me was the movement speed, maybe It could have been a bit faster. But Other then that awesome game! congrats!
I LOVED the resizing screen mechanic. And not only the mechanic but the whole game, and incredible well done experience. Thanks! (I wish the game had music =()
Took a little while to figure out what was going on... but glad you didn't tell me, as that would have completely ruined it. I really miss the sound though.. it really would have added so much to the mechanic...
Chambers / Pedro, this is by far one of the best 48 hours compo entries I've seen! What impressed me was the design consistency - the level is spiral, the character and the core mechanic has a lot to do with the theme, and the metaphor is very cleverly embbeded into the gameplay. Graphics are charming too! A shame it doesn't have sounds, but silence definitely hurts less than poorly implemented sound, so I think you were wise in spending the extra time in polishing what is in the game. This is my first 5 stars rating for Overall. Congratulations! And thanks for all the feedback in my game too, I'll be removing the Portuguese sentence and adding the checkpoint (I swear I played it through 3 times and didn't notice the sentence there - probably it's the stress! haha) Abraço!
Thanks everyone for the comments! Back when I was developing the game, I would never guess people would like it so much. I'll work on a revamped version taking into consideration all feeback you guys gave me (and sound). Unfortunately, the snail's speed is slow because of a bug (if the max speed was one pixel faster, the snail would go through some walls), but I'll see what I can do to fix it.
Great game. Sadly nerd points don't count towards the LD score, but ++ for using processing :)
D
DDRKirby(ISQ)29 Apr 2012, 12:01
Surprisingly good level design for an LD, and of course, great mechanic. I can see how something like this wouldn't be easily portable to other OSes though. Also, could have sworn I did collect all 3 collectibles, but I had to die to backtrack and get the last one (you sneaky bastard you) so maybe that was why I didn't get your secret ending. Oh well.
Try adding sound next time; it's super-easy nowadays with tools like sfxr/bfxr/labchirp around, and adds instant polish to a game.
Very nice and unique experience, well done! Perhaps getting your hearts back after dieing would be more fair. Movement felt a bit slow, but I guess that's a snail's life.
Cool concept! I was actually trying to get the game to play in full screen or increase the window manually somehow before I gave in and thought "Fine, I'll play the game in this rediculously small window, but I'm not going to like it."
Mind blowing concept ^^ very well executed too :) The gameplay itself was interesting, albeit a little difficult (I thought the ants were strange enemies). Very nice entry! :D
Wow, really great! I would like to comment on two things. First the windows flickered alot while resizing, this may be because i played the game on a crappy laptop, but it was still annoying. Secondly, the ants seemed to have a different pattern every time I died. That was really annyoing and it took many tries to beat the game.
Two minor problems in an otherwise great game. Good work :)
This is one of my favorites. Very creative use of the theme, cool mechanic, great job.
A little self-promotion, but I offer free Processing and Java hosting (as well as tutorials, a forum, etc) at http://StaticVoidGames.com. Might be worth checking out for the future.
Ha, that was not expected! Surprising to say the least, and very enjoyable and innovative. This is what LD game devs need to focus on - make one fun and creative gameplay element, then build a game around it. Nailed it!
Graphics were awesome and the idea was brilliant. Still a bit frustrated by the slowness of the character, and audio would have been greatly appreciated :)
This is the first game I've played that I'm going to have to recommend to friends. Like everyone else, I started out saying WTF, why didn't this guy at least scale up his screen. Great game. Polished. Fun endings.
Super great idea man! I have never thought about this concept before, its really awesome. I just hate java a bit for flashing the screen while its resizing. Oh well, great job!
Ha! Really clever. When the screen moved at first I literally said "Whoooooaaaa..." out loud. Nice work. Superb level design too, very Metroid like, how new abilities unlock new areas. My only gripe is that it's a bit slow, so when you die it's demoralizing. Nice job!
Awesome -- a few really nice surprises here that made me grin big. Obviously scoring points for innovation here, but I thought it also fit the theme especially well and loved the graphics.
Things I might have done differently would be to probably just add more checkpoints or remove the ants entirely. I understand that you'd want to add a challenge but you could have worked in challenge with platforming, alone -- the ants really just made frustrating what was otherwise delightful.
Oh -- there might be a bug in the linux version [maybe it's just me] where if the window loses focus, it never regains keyboard controls, and so I was forced to start over several times. Anyone else have this happen?
Still -- one of my favorite entries! Thanks for putting out a Linux build! (Although in hindsight, I could have built it in processing myself since I use processing, too. Derp.)
Nicely done! I couldn't seem to finish it because I ceased to be able to get anywhere despite numerous sprinting double jumps, collectibles found, and many, many deaths. However, EXCELLENT idea with the window size mechanic! I like.
Excellent! The trick was a great surprise; the first I've ever seen that and very satisfying. The flashing on my computer was a regrettable distraction. Very smart, though. I like the graphics and the double entendres (shouldn't they be brown, though?) and secrets. Controls felt a little slow. Hi-score: true bro.
Incredible! 5 for innovation! The mechanic was awesome and surprising. Beat the game with all 3 (well-hidden) collectibles. Fantastic job! :) Some sound would've been great, but the rest of the game more than makes up for the lack of it.
This is awesome. Only problem I had with it was the double jump. If you hold Up it does the second jump right after the normal jump. It's natural for me to hold the jump button, but you can't in this game because of that.
This game rocked! The only problem I had with it was the enemies, it felt like they were there just "because". I think this game would have been just as interesting if it was just exploring this world without the hassle of having to restart from the last checkpoint. Yes I died at the end. Several times :P Couldn't bring myself to give it less than a 5 for fun anyway though :)
Extremely well made with wonderful graphical polish. The level design, difficulty curve and asset revelation is highly accomplished, and of course the central mechanic is a stroke of genius. Got a Tiny World? Make it bigger! Fantastic work and well deserving of a high score
Great concept, I liked it a lot! (But please disable the window autocentering because it fails horribly on dual screen: the window is cut in half with one side on one screen and the other on the other screen...)
Bloody awesome fun, even if te flashing gave me a headache after a while :) From the 100+ games I've played so far, this is definitely top for innovation.
At first I thought: what?! a platformer got 1st place for innovation?! WHY??? But then, I pushed the frontier, I mean you pushed the frontier of innovation (see what I did there?). Great game, hands down!
T
tokanite30 Jul 2012, 04:40
Would love to play this game, but I am (unfortunatley) a huge noob with things such as the mac terminal.
When it says "from this directory", how do I specify the directory in the terminal command?
I'm sorry, I don't have a mac (those instructions are automatically generated when I create the file) but according to what I found on Google, the path to the desktop should be something like cd/users/your name/desktop ("cd" is the command that sets the directory you're at). Then you type in "chmod +x Recluse.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub".
After doing that, you can exit the Terminal and click on the file normally.
But I should tell you, I will release a new version of Recluse (with new features and corrected bugs) tomorrow night, so if you can wait, it will be a much better experience for you!
D
DrTacoPhD15 Nov 2012, 21:36
I'm having trouble getting the game... I click the mac link but I get 404 not found. Is this happening to everyone or just me?
D
daiyi12 Aug 2013, 11:50
Aw this is absolutely adorable! Played well on my linux machine.
Comments104
Great game!
Thankfully I tried harder the next time! Expanding the window is super cool and satisfying, and the neckbearded snail is adorable!
error message. I'll work as hard as I can to find a solution for that, probably with the
help of friends, but I can't guarantee I will find the answer (I don't have much
experience in programming). I still have to check if it works on Linux. Meanwhile, please try playing the windows version in some other computer if you can.
porath: Wow, that never happened to anyone before. I wonder what happened? I'll look into
it, but it could be that you pressed the jump button too fast while trying to get out. Remember that the second jump is very short comparing to the first one, and it is of no use if you do it before the appex of the first jump. If that was what happened to you, I'll make the pit more shallow in the nect version.
All the others: Thanks for the compliments! I hope you guys had fun, despite how hard it was to figure out the start (It was supposed to be part of the experience). But you all managed to escape the recluse life, even when it seemed impossible. Congratulations! XD
The game restarting was a bit harsh though, esp. since it takes some time to advance.
I really miss the sound though.. it really would have added so much to the mechanic...
This is amazing.
Abraço!
Try adding sound next time; it's super-easy nowadays with tools like sfxr/bfxr/labchirp around, and adds instant polish to a game.
Frustratingly difficult though, badly needs more checkpoints.
Well I did like it.
The gameplay itself was interesting, albeit a little difficult (I thought the ants were strange enemies).
Very nice entry! :D
I would like to comment on two things. First the windows flickered alot while resizing, this may be because i played the game on a crappy laptop, but it was still annoying. Secondly, the ants seemed to have a different pattern every time I died. That was really annyoing and it took many tries to beat the game.
Two minor problems in an otherwise great game. Good work :)
A little self-promotion, but I offer free Processing and Java hosting (as well as tutorials, a forum, etc) at http://StaticVoidGames.com. Might be worth checking out for the future.
This game's mechanic is just... so... awesome!
I wasn't expecting something like this... really!
Nailed it!
Things I might have done differently would be to probably just add more checkpoints or remove the ants entirely. I understand that you'd want to add a challenge but you could have worked in challenge with platforming, alone -- the ants really just made frustrating what was otherwise delightful.
Oh -- there might be a bug in the linux version [maybe it's just me] where if the window loses focus, it never regains keyboard controls, and so I was forced to start over several times. Anyone else have this happen?
Still -- one of my favorite entries! Thanks for putting out a Linux build! (Although in hindsight, I could have built it in processing myself since I use processing, too. Derp.)
Very polished all around. One of my favourites no doubt! Congrats =D
Couldn't bring myself to give it less than a 5 for fun anyway though :)
Really good entry! I love the core mechanic - it was a bit surprising at first :)
It lacks sound though. (Or is it because I'm running it on a Mac?)
From the 100+ games I've played so far, this is definitely top for innovation.
Also, thanks a bunch for the ratings, getting first place in innovation was a real achievement!
I've been really busy with college stuff but I will release a version with fixed bugs and better difficulty as soon as I can.
When it says "from this directory", how do I specify the directory in the terminal command?
chmod +x Recluse.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub
if I just have it on my desktop, or a folder on my desktop
I'm sorry, I don't have a mac (those instructions are automatically generated when I create the file) but according to what I found on Google, the path to the desktop should be something like cd/users/your name/desktop ("cd" is the command that sets the directory you're at). Then you type in "chmod +x Recluse.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub".
After doing that, you can exit the Terminal and click on the file normally.
But I should tell you, I will release a new version of Recluse (with new features and corrected bugs) tomorrow night, so if you can wait, it will be a much better experience for you!