Egocell jam

by adbook
Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.78
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.67
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.26
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.71
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.67
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.20
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.34
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.41
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★100%
My game for this entry (my first LD) is talking about a cell (wow!).

This cell is very egocentric and narcissic. Located on the human brain, she is thinking about looking for a new body (yes, this cell can control bodies), because she finds the human body not good enough for her.

So she jumps off the human, and accidentally gets on a rat. For her, controlling a rat is horrible, so she begins running and searching a new body.

After one level, she finds a dog. She continues to search a better body, though.

I ran out of time, so the game only includes 4 (big) levels. I will provide a link to a version with more levels soon.

This is my first LD and it was a very, very great experience (very hard too, as this game is my second C++ game on PC).

You can find my post-mortem here: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/08/28/egocell-post-mortem/

I streamed on http://twitch.tv/adbook/ if you want to see the records.

Now, let me sleep for three days, please !

Note that the game is not complete.

EDIT: I noticed a huge flaw in the way the collisions were performing: if the player falls from too high or comes in a platform the wrong way, It would occasionate a buffer overflow and eventually a SEGFAULT (wich would cause a crash...). The same with the screens between each level. I fixed these two flaws, and by some board effect, the player's jump became stable (so the bug was due to some wrong collision detection), as did the mobs jumps. I uploaded the fixed version to avoid SEGFAULTS and memory leaks !

Comments31

jprogman
jprogman27 Aug 2012, 20:34
Download links are broken. :(
Adbook
Adbookauthor28 Aug 2012, 01:18
@jprogman This is fixed for the linux version. The windows build is coming tomorrow ;)
FrozenCow28 Aug 2012, 12:24
I tried the linux version on ArchLinux 64bit, but after executing ./start.sh no window is brought up, even though I see the Egocell process is running. It also doesn't work when I use allegro from the repository. I'm not sure what the problem is...
Adbook
Adbookauthor28 Aug 2012, 17:03
@FrozenCow Do you have some error messages in the console ?
What is your architecture ?
Adbook
Adbookauthor28 Aug 2012, 17:04
I'm getting some problems to build on windows :(
Ragzouken
Ragzouken29 Aug 2012, 08:08
Nice intro :) I found the jumping a little difficult to predict - not sure why. I got stuck on a particular jump that I just couldn't get past :( Think this would be more interesting if the enemies had some capacity to jump safely and chase you instead of killing themselves when you get near.
Adbook
Adbookauthor29 Aug 2012, 08:21
Ragzouken: I wanted to implement a better AI but ran out of time. In wich level is this jump ?
Accidental Rebel
Accidental Rebel29 Aug 2012, 08:46
Tried the windows build as well. I had to say Kudos for taking the time to put an intro. My only gripe with the game are the enemies, just like Ragzouken said, they have the tendency of killing themselves when they see you. Sometimes they even behave erratically and randomly that it scares me haha. Nice effort!
DaviDeMo29 Aug 2012, 08:48
It's not loading the second level sometimes :-(
but overall fun game
Adbook
Adbookauthor29 Aug 2012, 08:51
DaviDeMo: hit space when this happens :)
Thank you
infernet89
infernet8929 Aug 2012, 10:01
Windows build won't work on windows xp 32 bit. First, it crashed 3 times when i clicked "New Game", then i tryied to click "options" and nothing happened. Now when i click "New Game" nothing happen too!

(I'll reboot on linux, now)
infernet89
infernet8929 Aug 2012, 10:43
Unluckily, it crashed after the first level, three times. The long jump is maybe too difficult, it was frustrating play the same level 5 times just to make that jump.
BrothersT
BrothersT29 Aug 2012, 10:49
Sometimes jump will decide to only jump a fraction of the full height, usually when I'm trying to jump over a big gap, you spawn directly on enemies, instanstly hurting you, and the game ends after one level. (Although I've just seen in the comments that you're required to hit space, but that should be said in the game, not the comments!) anyway, nice effort, not as buggy as some anyhow, and the controls apart from the jump were nice and responsive.
Pierrec29 Aug 2012, 10:50
There is a gap I can't cross...jumping is sometimes weird but overall, the game is a fine amusement.
chumez29 Aug 2012, 11:25
It crashes on XP right after it says "PO" in the opening screen ...
Zener29 Aug 2012, 11:44
Nice jump'n'run. It's so easy to die :) Good intro too
Perry29 Aug 2012, 12:03
Nice intro. Controls were clunky and didn't work sometimes.
Adbook
Adbookauthor29 Aug 2012, 17:23
I'm aware for the jump: it's a collision problem: sometimes, when a platform is too small, the player "enters" in the platform (don't know how to say it in english), wich cause the jump to be slowed down (But I don't see what gap you are talking about).
For the error after the second level, it is weird. It might be due to a bug in the "introduction" system. I will try to fix it. For the "PO" message, it's an encoding error due to the quick windows port. Anyway, thank's for your feedback !
Adbook
Adbookauthor29 Aug 2012, 17:27
And the "press space" thing was not volontary. It's just a way to force the level's intro to skip, because it is freezing. It is also available when the intro is working ;)
90sml
90sml29 Aug 2012, 17:45
I really like the first level... because I can't go any further it's keep crashing at the end of level 1.
But I liked everything else, even if the jump sound is kind of anoying after a few jumps :p
Miltage
Miltage30 Aug 2012, 10:50
The controls feel smooth but the AI is dumb and impossible to beat. Also, the platforms don't really work well. You can walk across the first three without having to jump.

Nice graphics, I would have liked to have seen it developed further though.
Adbook
Adbookauthor30 Aug 2012, 13:49
Miltage: I will try to make a post-ld version :)
dredlockz
dredlockz31 Aug 2012, 09:08
Haha, great job of adding some story to incorporate the theme into the game. Really funny.
RARoadkill31 Aug 2012, 19:51
Cool game, Would be better if you could give us the ability to switch to new forms. like maybe have some non hostile animals that you can switch into. Also it crashed on the snake level when I fell in the water.
NiceAlexanderAS1 Sep 2012, 14:30
This is awesome i like how the hard of the game makes me want to keep playing and i also like how the graphics look.
SusanTheCat
SusanTheCat1 Sep 2012, 16:51
I couldn't make it past the second screen as the rat.
MrPhil
MrPhil1 Sep 2012, 16:56
Arggggg... I found the jumping pretty random and difficult. Wouldn't have bothered me, except I had to restart at the beginning and do the same thing over and over and over. Got too bored and didn't finish.
Kmad2 Sep 2012, 11:37
Impressive especially since this was written with C++. Good work, I like the fact that the animals try to jump over obstacles and gaps when they chase you.
kyyrma2 Sep 2012, 14:16
Currently your game is about running away from whatever animals there are on the screen, trying to make it to the end before they eat away your health. As there is no way to properly avoid the enemies or defeat them, wouldn't it be fairer to have the player just race against time to the end of the level? The enemy behaviour really makes the game too much about luck.

I played until the snake level, and couldn't make the last jump no matter how hard I tried :(

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