alphashove

"alphashove" by @lifning
push the blocks to form each letter of the alphabet.
for added challenge, try to get to the end with as few pushes as you can.
the character is colored yellow to allow for game immersion, in case the player wishes to pretend he or she is a pencil writing these letters.
use WASD, the arrow keys, or a gamepad to move.
use of "gamegenie" as a command line argument unlocks bonus levels.

this is my first ludum dare entry.
thank you benn for the keynote; it really struck a chord with me.
the theme of minimalism made me think of what the minimum hardware requirements are for a human to have fun.
human children often play with alphabet blocks, which isn't a game per se, and this somehow inspired me to make a game that is all but entirely dissimilar to playing with alphabet blocks.
the level design was done for me by the roman alphabet, which i also count as minimalist.
the gameplay is reminiscent of sokoban, but considerably more forgiving since it's impossible to get a block stuck in place.

the game uses python and pygame, but don't worry, the win32 exe is stand-alone.
unix (mac/linux/etc) users will have to have python 2 and pygame installed.
i've bent a couple rules, so this is a jam entry.

i have a busy weekend, so this game was written in the space of about one day by editing an old top-down movement engine of mine that was lying around unused in ~/Hack/.
i'm not sure i can release its source code at this point, though it's honestly so convoluted and overengineered that i don't think anyone will miss it.
otherwise, the game itself (including everything to do with the moving blocks) was coded today.

the assets were produced today by myself (with advice from my girlfriend amanda, who is better than me at pixel fonts) using gimp.org and audacity.sf.net.
many thanks go to my playtesters frankie, henry, and amanda as well.