We Dreamers

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.51
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.75
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.38
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.60
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.92
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.85
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.23
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.36
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★76%
This is an abstract multiplayer art piece. The game works as intended in Chrome, Firefox, and IE 10 (maybe 9 too). It should still play acceptably in Safari (though not as prettily). I plan to do a more in-depth postmortem and visualization of the resulting content in the next couple of weeks, so send me an email ([email protected]) if you'd like me to send you a note when that happens.

Things you can do:

1. Move with the arrow keys or WASD.
2. Harvest color with space.
3. Dig out new rooms by bumping into walls. You need color to do this. The new room will be the color of your dot, which is affected by the color in your bucket.
4. Dump color with r, g, and b (or 1, 2, and 3) to change the color of your dot.
5. Leave notes on rooms (if you are level 2).
6. Put down big block letters (if you are level 3).

Watch the sidebar for how to level up.

Enjoy yourself...and be at peace.

FYI: When the world gets big, it looks pretty cool to zoom your browser out. As the world gets bigger, the game will take longer to load. I've provided a version with about 20% of the data (only the interesting stuff) in case you're having a hard time loading or running it. (There are NO code changes in that version, only less user data.)

Read my journal for technical info.

screenshot

Comments36

Rongon28 Apr 2013, 22:39
Really nice idea, and implementation is JavaScript at its finest :)
I like creating own world games (even better if colorful), but is there a victory condition, or limit to digging?
stevejohnson
stevejohnsonauthor29 Apr 2013, 02:17
The only limit to digging is...your imagination! Victory is just unnecessary clutter. Minimal is best. :-D

(Thanks for playing!)
karsyf
karsyf29 Apr 2013, 06:33
Interesting, I didn't know what I was doing but I felt chilled out =D Had to use 2 different nicks because IE9 didn't work and moving to Chrome wouldn't let me use the previous one.
Deadlyapps
Deadlyapps29 Apr 2013, 06:37
Awesome stuff. Really impressive technical aspect.
swizzcheez29 Apr 2013, 06:38
Nice bit of minimalist brain rot. Have some upstars.
wrongcoder29 Apr 2013, 06:50
Neat. Quite unique. Technologically a marvel for the available time. To be honest, though, I don't get the purpose of it.
StuStutheBloo29 Apr 2013, 06:52
WrongCoder I left you a bunch of messages in rooms but you didn't reply :(

This was fantastic. How did you even put this together in the time available?
PsenFilip29 Apr 2013, 12:30
I really enjoyed my play session. Had a good time reading all kind of different messages and just messing around.
I love the collaborative stuff and the openness. Art is cool and the sound is charming. It is also a nice piece of tech.
Legogris
Legogris29 Apr 2013, 14:14
Cool stuff with Firebase!
I have just started checking out BaaSes myself and this just reinforces my idea of just how fast you can get up and running to prototype new concepts. Haven't seen Bacon.js before, looks interesting. Would be nice to see some more in-depth post-mortem on this :)
semi
semi29 Apr 2013, 14:46
Ooh, collaborative art! I liked the idea and of course took the liberty of leaving my mark on the world. Makes me happy! Thanks!
stevejohnson
stevejohnsonauthor29 Apr 2013, 21:09
I really appreciate all your comments. Glad it makes a positive impression. I'll try to do a more in-depth postmortem and data visualization in the next couple of weeks. Send me an email (see game description) if you want to be notified when that happens.
nintendoeats30 Apr 2013, 05:30
That's a neat thing! I actually don't have anything intellectual to say about it. I'm sorry Steve, I was wrong. I shouldn't have shouted.

It might be cool to make a way for people to have a local version of this for their own social group. I don't know what that would achieve, it just seems like it would work somehow.
BlennosoftGames30 Apr 2013, 05:31
There is something very cheerful about this game. As far as I can tell you don't "win" you just smile :)
stevejohnson
stevejohnsonauthor30 Apr 2013, 06:03
Oh jeez, I meant to leave that comment on another game.
stevejohnson
stevejohnsonauthor30 Apr 2013, 06:03
Mac users may have to run with "arch -i386 python poke.py", possibly using the Python from python.org (not the system Python, which is only 64-bit). Alternatively, you could try distributing with pyglet 1.2alpha.

Anyway, I was thoroughly entertained. :-D
SuperlevelSebastian30 Apr 2013, 11:20
It seems that it's offline? Stays a white screen here.
elbowroom
elbowroom30 Apr 2013, 13:11
Currently stays a white screen for me as well.
stevejohnson
stevejohnsonauthor30 Apr 2013, 21:12
Hmm, seems to still be up for me. Browser details would be helpful.
stqn2 May 2013, 01:49
Original. The scrolling was really slow in Firefox 20 (Linux / Intel hd graphics).
cardboard2 May 2013, 02:00
I love open-ended and creative games! I had fun just wandering around reading everyone else's notes. I might have to come back later to do some more exploring ;)
CherryNukaCola
CherryNukaCola2 May 2013, 11:37
Wow, beautiful. Defies definition. Thank you!
Hegemege
Hegemege2 May 2013, 17:43
Fun! Felt a bit like geocaching :P
gerritg2 May 2013, 20:46
Now that's a fun guestbook :D
hughsk
hughsk5 May 2013, 05:21
Really interesting, great to see an entry like this :)
SnoringFrog
SnoringFrog5 May 2013, 05:26
This is beautiful. Found some really awesome messages, had fun following a huge tunnel dug by Lies, and then spent some time extending it even further myself. Tried to make sure to leave some inspiration bits around too. Amazing stuff, I love it.
TenTonToon5 May 2013, 06:08
As someone else pointed out, this is an awesomely artsy guestbook. A very neat idea, and a technical prowess for the time constraints, that shows you've got some deadly programming chops.

All in all, a nice collaborative experience, very fitting of the theme. I'm just not too much into games without any gameplay to them - yeah, the ages old debate about games as art :)

Congratulations! :)
caranha
caranha5 May 2013, 13:32
That is a very interesting entry, and I loved the technical details.

I think it would be kind of cool if there was some sort of "decay", so that after a few days, some of the painted cells would go white and then fill again - as to keep the instalation fresh.

Also, having some sort of minimap or full view mode would be really great. (The browser's native zoom doesn't go very far...)

Thanks for the game!
shiprib
shiprib6 May 2013, 08:08
Great original idea, and congrats on getting it done in the timeframe!
Chronodrax
Chronodrax8 May 2013, 01:17
I just had the most interesting conversation with a wall, containing soul fragments of past dreamers.
It's like a dream: you cannot predict what you will find, but you'll always walk on the path of an interesting weird journey.
THANK YOU stevejohnson.

Oh. And too bad that the sound reacts sometimes badly when travelling to many successive tiles of various colors. It makes it hard to create music :D
pvwradtke
pvwradtke8 May 2013, 03:32
Took me a while to find out how to fig rooms. After that, things went a bit better :). Nice experiment you got there, liked the idea of interacting with the world and seeing what others left there before.
galman
galman9 May 2013, 09:31
Great concept! I really like it, I'll be happy to see what happen with this game a month from now ;)
atraxgames14 May 2013, 21:58
So this is a unique world for all players? Like an artistic MMO? This is extra-cool, a piece of art made by people around the world
evilDan15 May 2013, 01:32
Damn dude! That is clever - took quite a while to figure out the controls though. Impressive overall!

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