Donut Panic is a single- or multi-player arcade style game, in which you try to prevent monsters from eating your donuts... which for some reason are scattered randomly around a maze. Bad Things happen if they eat the donuts.
It is much easier to stop the bad guys if you have help :)
(NOTE: you can squish the weaker monsters by running into them. Once they eat a donut, the tables are turned and they squish you! And there's no winning: just see how long you can protect your donuts.)
This is my first Ludum Dare. I'm not really a game programmer, but this was a lot of fun! I collaborated with my 6-year-old son, and we are both somewhat silly people, so...
Theme stuff: new baddies spawn every 10 seconds, getting squished lasts 10 seconds, chat bubbles hover for 10 seconds. *Shrug* :)
Tech stuff:
* python/tornado websocket server and game engine * javascript/html5 client * cooperative multiplayer or singleplayer * in-game chat * homemade music & sound effects * hand-drawn graphics * randomly generated levels
And potential caveats:
* almost exclusively tested in Chrome. Likely to be broken in other browsers, especially the bits that rely on CSS. * playing across the open internet is doable, but lack of client-side prediction makes it kind of unresponsive. You may find it more enjoyable to set up on a LAN, or just on your computer.
I tried out the multiplayer version of this with a friend. I really like the idea, but unfortunately I couldn't figure out what exactly to do to protect my donuts. With a bit of polish I think this could be a fun little web game.
Tried out a bit of single player and multiplayer, but unfortunately couldn't figure out any of the game mechanics like stopping monsters from getting donuts. I also was lagging pretty bad, like maybe 2-4 FPS - not sure what that was about. Any hints?
Otherwise, props for trying out some multiplayer development!
I've updated the description with a bit more detail about the gameplay: you can stop the monsters by stomping on them, until they eat a donut, after which they stomp you. And there's no winning condition.
@Vaughn: 2-4 FPS: ouch. I'd assume the network was to blame -- I basically didn't do any work on optimizing what goes over the wire (e.g. delta compression) or compensating for bad network latency (e.g. client-side prediction). If you want to give it another shot, installing it locally should be reasonably easy....
You probably shouldn't put "multiplayer arcade-style game" in the first line of the description when the game has a single player mode, that made me skip this game when I first looked at it cos I had no one to play with and assumed it meant ONLY multiplayer.
Comments13
Otherwise, props for trying out some multiplayer development!
I've updated the description with a bit more detail about the gameplay: you can stop the monsters by stomping on them, until they eat a donut, after which they stomp you. And there's no winning condition.
@Vaughn: 2-4 FPS: ouch. I'd assume the network was to blame -- I basically didn't do any work on optimizing what goes over the wire (e.g. delta compression) or compensating for bad network latency (e.g. client-side prediction). If you want to give it another shot, installing it locally should be reasonably easy....
Thanks again!
@archaeometrician: Thank you!