squaredare

by inertia
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.07
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.32
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.00
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.14
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.59
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.50
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.06
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.45
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★54%
in this game the player controls a square and there's really no aim other than to score lots of points except you can't share or save your highscores which makes the whole thing kinda pointless really, oh well.

there is no win condition, only the warm embrace of failure.

I used:
LOVE2D (engine) (it's lovely! try it!)
Lua (programming) (also lovely!)
Paint.NET (sprites) (kinda annoying!)
sfxr (sound effects) (you should probably mute these)
GitHub (sauce control) (i thought i'd include the source in a zip because I might screw with the code on the repo later)

EDIT: Added a download link for the .love file, for those of you who have <3 installed.

EDIT 2: Hopefully fixed the windows version.

screenshot

Comments24

keyboardmonkey
keyboardmonkey25 Aug 2013, 22:35
Before the internets games rarely shared their scores, and some did not even save them either. So it is not necessarily pointless ;)

Could you include the .love file in the source please? I am not a Windows and would still love to try this!
iyzsong26 Aug 2013, 00:20
@keyboardmonkey, you can just download the source, unpack, run 'love .' in it.
Inertia
Inertiaauthor26 Aug 2013, 06:18
@keyboardmonkey: Try downloading the source and renaming the .zip it comes in to a .love file, then running it. Magic! :D
apaneske26 Aug 2013, 18:13
The game got me hooked :) Trying to get that speed demon to behave and rack up the seconds was a lot of fun. The glow of the player block was a nice touch.
rejome
rejome26 Aug 2013, 21:21
I was not able to run it (game crashes without specific message) on Win 7 64b. :'(
Thepattybeast26 Aug 2013, 21:27
wont run(Win 8(x64))
Error
Title: ld27.exe - Application Error
Message: The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b) Click OK to close the application
tony.pe
tony.pe26 Aug 2013, 21:30
Same as thepattybeast. x64 here, won't run
Latcarf26 Aug 2013, 21:38
You should definitely include the .love file in the source, I only have a Linux computer and I usually skip immediately games with only a Windows and Source link. It's good that this time I read the description before and noticed that I would be able to play it.

It goes a bit too fast but the game is really addictive.
stephan_h26 Aug 2013, 21:40
Me too. Won't run on Win8 64.
Feysoura26 Aug 2013, 22:21
Couldn't play it! Got an error!
Dark Acre Jack26 Aug 2013, 23:20
Will check back for a working version.
MarekkPie
MarekkPie26 Aug 2013, 23:22
Nice little game. The player sped along like a demon, so it was a little hard to control. Also, you can use 'require' statements in LOVE to load in other modules. It's the more idiomatic way to do "includes" in Lua.
CogentInvalid27 Aug 2013, 00:22
Simple, but really fun. The fact that the blue squares became more common <10 seconds and less common above 10 seconds created a nice element of pacing to the gameplay. Probably one of the few games that I'll hang onto after the competition ends.
Herman Groenenboom
Herman Groenenboom27 Aug 2013, 11:18
The irony of a game being pointless, when it is actually about points. :') I scored 28,500!

"Hmm, this isn't too bad, plenty of time for grabs. Hah, I could do this all day! ... OH GOD THE -8's ARE EVERYWHERE."

Loved playing this, because even if it's a small game, it's very polished! (except for spawning in a wall on my first try, hmp)
motty
motty27 Aug 2013, 11:20
Wicked fun little game.
Kragnir28 Aug 2013, 08:10
Interesting game.

Played for a few minutes without noticing any increase in difficulty. If the difficulty do increase it should probably be increased faster.

Like the moving around, didn't figure out when the character stops at pickup. Think the game would be better without stopping after pickups since it would give the opportunity to learn the level.
caranha
caranha28 Aug 2013, 14:39
Hello! Thanks for trying to play my game!

I think it is very important to have a high score table, even if you can't share it! It gives people a reason to try and play your game a second, or third time.

I think you have a nice idea here, but your game needs a lot of polish. Some very immediate examples:

- Make a menu or start screen: when I launch your game, it already starts, so the player will be confused! A launch screen is not that hard to add.
- add a border of blocks around the screen to determine play area.
- maybe make a rising difficulty level? it seems that the difficulty level is constant across the game.

I hope to see you on your next LD!
And here is a video of me playing your game, I hope you enjoy it: http://youtu.be/54qiCWVSGM4
Angrycrow
Angrycrow29 Aug 2013, 04:01
MEGA POINTS FOR USING LOVE2D!!!
alts29 Aug 2013, 06:08
This game is really engrossing. I'll be honest in that I didn't think there was much to it at first, but then I got sucked in and ended up with 159200 points. One thing that stood out was that I was never sure when my player would stop in midair, or push on through another square. A bit more predictability there, and maybe some more polished graphics and I could really see this getting an audience.
handCraftedRadio
handCraftedRadio29 Aug 2013, 15:14
Nice! This is a really good idea! I think if you expanded this idea a little and polished up the game it would be really great!
Photon29 Aug 2013, 15:23
This game surprised me! Its actually quite fun! It appears there might be a few collision issues, but otherwise its actually moderately engaging. Excellent job!
RustyC30 Aug 2013, 17:21
I liked it a lot. It seemed a bit too easy and the 10 second connection seemed a bit strained. That being said, the atmosphere was very nice and it had a really hectic feel. I think a smaller area might have made the gameplay more intense, good job.

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