ALPHANAUTS Dominique Ferland - Game Designer & Art Pierre-Luc Poirier - Programmer & Music Ian Girard - Programmer
Controls Letter keys (press and hold) - Control 1 or more characters Arrow keys - Move selected character(s) Enter - Start game Esc - Quit to menu, Quit Game
Alphanauts are trying to survive an onslaught of strange black holes long enough to scan weird, dangerous rooms. You control all of them - up to 26 characters! Simply press and hold a letter key, then use arrow keys to move the Alphanaut marked with that letter. You can control multiple little guys at once too!
The situation can go to hell pretty quickly - dying alphanauts form black holes too, and death will affect all the other characters on screen. Calling upon a dead character by mistake will cause painful memories to his grieving friends, plus his skeleton will rise from the darkness to attack his old teammates!
Survive as long as you can, as the black holes spread faster and more and more Alphanauts join the fray!
Theme There is no enemy in the game, except the dead Alphanauts you trigger by pressing the wrong keys! You are your worst enemy!
We noted some randomness in the keyboard errors depending on the OS! Usually on PC, the B N G and H letter keys don't work too well with others, and on Mac it's L and I, I think! Weird, eh? :P
Keyboard errors are probably due to the keyboard controller hardware, though I suspect OS can contribute, too. This is why, for example, the Arcade Royale arcade machine actually uses two seperate keyboard controllers because otherwise you would get really weird results when multiple players tried to press their buttons at the same time.
I didn't even think to try to move multiple dudes at the same time! Somehow I got to Level V anyways, but had to go afk suddenly, I was so bummed. My strategy was to try to space out the dudes as much as possible so that when a black hole appeared, I would only need to move one at a time in ideal circumstances. If I thought about multiple dudes, I would probably try to group together dudes who are close together on the keyboard, but otherwise keep the same strategy. Kinda hard to move A and P at the same time.
Great game with a great mood. Not quite sure how it fits into the theme though
S
SeventySevian18 Dec 2012, 06:01
Thanks everyone for the great comments!
@amassingham To fit into the theme, when one of your characters die, he turns into a skeleton and creates a black hole that can eventually kill the others. And as a player, when you accidentally hit the key of a dead character, you bring him back to life as a skeleton chasing your other Alphanauts to death.
This game is quite fun; very well done. - I really liked the graphics - It indeed started a little slow, a tad faster progression would've been nice. - The only thing I would've done differently is to use keys which are close or next to each other, e.g. Q,W,E,R,T,Y. But then you'd need to detect which kind of keyboard the person is using..
So yeah, well done :P
T
technobeanie18 Dec 2012, 14:33
You guys are awesome! Thanks for all the good feedback on our little game! :D
I got up to room U... And that's where it all went wrong D: I guess the 'villain' part is where you accidentally create omeganauts by pressing the wrong key? The gameplay is innovative and very challenging towards the later levels. The graphics were good, and the music was fitting. Well done!
The game is lovely, great amount of polish, really slick presentation. The death animation and mechanics that arise from losing guys are really sweet, it's almost a shame you don't see them crop up till later levels.
If you were to expand on the idea a multiplayer could be cool, like half the keyboard each participant or something (player 2 on w,a,s,d I guess??). Agree with other comments that it could ramp up a bit smoother, but the curve isn't too bad, we're all just too impatient!
Didn't expect anything less from you guys, definitely one of the top games in the comp, good work!
I was super good until the two last levels (with VW/XYZ) where I had only 3-4 survivors. One of the greatest game I played. Graphics are great, Gamaplay and controls are very innovative...the only problem is the theme, Ii's VERY slight.
Great game, I was about to give you a bad mark for the theme until I saw the description (mah, good excuse). Also, i love the graphics which weren't enough used ( i wanna see moar now :( ). Really nice concept for such a short time :3
J
jerombd24 Dec 2012, 15:02
Original concept for sure with awesome graphics but ,I don't know, I didn't find it's so fun overall ... probably I failed everytime with a very low score :/
Comments35
I didn't even think to try to move multiple dudes at the same time! Somehow I got to Level V anyways, but had to go afk suddenly, I was so bummed. My strategy was to try to space out the dudes as much as possible so that when a black hole appeared, I would only need to move one at a time in ideal circumstances. If I thought about multiple dudes, I would probably try to group together dudes who are close together on the keyboard, but otherwise keep the same strategy. Kinda hard to move A and P at the same time.
@amassingham To fit into the theme, when one of your characters die, he turns into a skeleton and creates a black hole that can eventually kill the others. And as a player, when you accidentally hit the key of a dead character, you bring him back to life as a skeleton chasing your other Alphanauts to death.
- I really liked the graphics
- It indeed started a little slow, a tad faster progression would've been nice.
- The only thing I would've done differently is to use keys which are close or next to each other, e.g. Q,W,E,R,T,Y. But then you'd need to detect which kind of keyboard the person is using..
So yeah, well done :P
I guess the 'villain' part is where you accidentally create omeganauts by pressing the wrong key?
The gameplay is innovative and very challenging towards the later levels. The graphics were good, and the music was fitting. Well done!
The game is lovely, great amount of polish, really slick presentation. The death animation and mechanics that arise from losing guys are really sweet, it's almost a shame you don't see them crop up till later levels.
If you were to expand on the idea a multiplayer could be cool, like half the keyboard each participant or something (player 2 on w,a,s,d I guess??). Agree with other comments that it could ramp up a bit smoother, but the curve isn't too bad, we're all just too impatient!
Didn't expect anything less from you guys, definitely one of the top games in the comp, good work!
(this is @papercaves by the way ;) )
Too bad it doesn't have anything to do with the theme :(
Your own mistakes will haunt you!
That's a great way to use all of our keys :) Maybe the control are a bit rough (I'd like to go in diagonal).
Plus it's educational. Fantastic work.