Rocky Flight Balloon

by smaxx
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.18
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.03
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.41
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.58
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.74
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.21
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.97
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★50%
For whatever reason you feel that you should no longer live in that deep canyon.
Your means of escape: A balloon! It's strong enough to arry you, but for some weird reason the moment you start, the canyon starts collapsing.

Can you make it out alive? (This is no endless game; you'll eventually leave the canyon.)

This game can be played with the keyboard or a gamepad.

---

The initial concept had more obstacles other than rocks (like brambles, birds, etc.), but I ran out of time. I'll probably add some later on.

---

I'll only provide a Windows binary, but the game should compile and run under MacOS as well as Linux (tested on Ubuntu x64 only). You'll just have to grab the source (as well as SFML2) and compile it yourself. Feel free to provide feedback, I'm more than happy to help getting it running on as many systems as possible.

Note regarding the Ubuntu precompiled binary: Please run the game through the shell script; this will ensure the game finds the shared libraries that are included.

screenshot

Comments28

Chman
Chman29 Apr 2013, 06:40
Simple but fun. The normal difficulty was very easy (almost boring) but the impossible one was... well, impossible. You need something in between :]
metadept
metadept29 Apr 2013, 14:46
Nicely done, runs smoothly and looks good! Bonus points for including multiple difficulties. My only complaint is that it could really use music. Some kind of catchy chiptune loop would go a long way toward keeping me playing.
8BitPimp
8BitPimp29 Apr 2013, 14:47
Nice theme and style. Could use a little variation however.
Overv
Overv29 Apr 2013, 14:48
Fun little game. The one thing I missed was the little creature swinging around when moving.
egos29 Apr 2013, 14:48
nice game, thanks
well polished
Lucas Tiridath
Lucas Tiridath29 Apr 2013, 14:52
Fun little game. Good minimalist gameplay and art style.

So the fact that the canyon is collapsing has nothing to do with why the character has decided it might be a good time to get out of the canyon? ;)

Anyhow well done. Good game.
Ray_Mickelino30 Apr 2013, 01:45
Nice game. It might be good to add a Score feature. Pretty good.
ignifluous30 Apr 2013, 08:00
Very zen, somehow. Beautiful (minimalistic) use of sound.
AndyBumpkin
AndyBumpkin30 Apr 2013, 08:02
Certainly goes with the theme, very minimalistic, liked the silhouetted style. The sound was a bit disapointing, no music and only a few beeps. Also there was no indicator to how I'd done on my two failed attempts (I had no idea if I was improving at all!)
Very smooth game play though, good feel to it.
jolle30 Apr 2013, 16:33
Very stylistic, good look. Fairly easy, made it out on the second try. Some ambient music/sound would have been nice for atmosphere. Could have used anti-aliasing also, but it's a minor complaint.
KilledByAPixel
KilledByAPixel30 Apr 2013, 22:50
Runs well, good controls, good balance, good visual style. Could use more gameplay depth or a more interesting primary mechanic. I know you are going for minimal but you still need to keep a player interested. Also music and better sound effects would help.
TheMaster9930 Apr 2013, 23:42
Simply amazing game. It might not have been that innovative, but the graphics were awesome! It's the subtle things that transform something from being good to great, and I feel as if this game definitely achieved that. As others have said, maybe add some music, and maybe make the levels last longer and/or add power-ups, and I could definitely see myself buying this on a mobile platform. Definitely the best submission I've played so far. Bravo.
Tyro
Tyro1 May 2013, 08:43
Dandy game. 'Twould be nice to move your character up and down, but it's not essential. It's an easy concept to expand upon, for sure.
fullmontis
fullmontis1 May 2013, 09:24
Very simple yet very fun. I think there sould be some powerup of sorts to spice up gameplay.
Dir3kt
Dir3kt1 May 2013, 11:35
Nice simple endless balooner :) The character is really cute. Also I liked the fact that the hitbox is the baloon, not the character.
blackmagic1 May 2013, 12:01
Very simple yes fun, a little bit of scoring/storyline & Music would have made it perfect (post ludum version? )
LTyrosine
LTyrosine1 May 2013, 18:29
Nice game. Liked the smooth controls, a thing that is really on some other entries. Beautiful scenario.
acro2 May 2013, 16:28
Short and sweet! I haven't tried impossible mode It doesn't sound fun. The small offset animations on the little character add a lot of charm! It didn't run smoothly for me, it jumped and twitched vertically for some reason - maybe slow redraws: this machine doesn't have a good graphics card.
fishbrain
fishbrain2 May 2013, 17:59
Brilliant! Simple and fun, but need Score or Timer(?)
bvanschooten2 May 2013, 19:05
Looks polished, and the graphics look nice. The gameplay is a little limited though.
Pixelboy_852 May 2013, 20:07
Would be great as an endless/highscore game, or with story and levels. Liked the characters subtle animations. good job.
StMatn2 May 2013, 22:05
Pretty nice game! I really like the character-animation!
sudorossy
sudorossy4 May 2013, 00:12
Fun game, agreed about the difference between normal and impossible being too great, but the main character is so cute! <3
TheSheep
TheSheep10 May 2013, 09:25
Go Kirby! Go! Thanks for the linux build!
Smaxx
Smaxxauthor10 May 2013, 14:05
I've updated the Linux build, which should now run properly without spitting out permission errors due to me misspelling "null" and using true fullscreen.
sP0CkEr216 May 2013, 04:43
really cool and i liked the graphics -- nice job
dremelofdeath
dremelofdeath16 May 2013, 07:51
nice little simple game you got here, I really like the animation on the guy holding the balloon
AestheticGamer20 May 2013, 04:37
Simple, liked the style in the simple graphics. Felt there might be a better way to raise intrigue or make it feel like you're accomplishing something going higher, like a story or score or something.

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