"You are the Black Box Bandit. You travel through the Interwebs and destroy the black boxes of the Utech corporation's computer systems.
You do so, because Utech's firm grip on modern society is unsettling. You do so, because of Utech's global banning of muffins, your favorite desert, which forced you to the brink of civilized society to satify your muffin cravings.
I am Jack The Muffin Man, the world-renowned human-muffin hybrid and revolutionary. And, you, my friend, are the hammer that will strike at the heart of Utech and bring forth the Muffinpocalypse."
Tips and Tricks: 1) Avoid [red] security drones. 2) Destroy [blue] security drones. 3) Acquire the [yellow] pipe protection device. 4) Reach the pipe to travel to the next Black Box. 5) Move with the Arrow keys.
Fun game. I would recommend showing the movement of the ai, even if very simple movement, so the player can better understand their movement... Otherwise it might give the impression that they are jumping around.
I quite enjoyed how a simple mechanic was able to make such a difficult game. I'm not sure yet if the red drones have AI but they seem to always jump at me if I jump close to them. The difficulty curve, despite the auto-balancing, seems a bit too steep though.
Very fun game and I liked the concept and the turn based movement. Was really nice. I liked also that the difference in types of "enemies".
Although some levels (think after 4 or 6) were really hard and I started dying a lot as the red boxes started literally to stalk me. That said, the reset to an easier level is a genius idea. I liked it.
Quite a nifty little puzzle game. I felt it was balanced enough to be challenging but not too difficult up until about level 8. Then it became really hard to progress.
great puzzle game! but I really don't understand the purpose of blue ones. we can destroy them, they can't destroy us, destroying them or not destroying them provides nothing. why these guys even exist? I feel sorry for them :P
Loved it! It really caputered the Commodor-64 vibe (or earlier?) for me. The sounds, especially with a full screen of nodes is like a retro-waterfall, I totally loved just going back and forth and listening to it.
The humour of hte backstory adds a lot. Love it! Quite difficult sometimes, old-school. I like it :).
Also, did you know that red nodes turn into blue nodes sometimes? Is that by design?
Fun to play and watch the moves. Grafix are fair enough too (although using unity for that may be a bit of an overkill =) And I guess the theme is that the rooms are connected. Congratulations on getting it done in time!
thanks for the kind words and feedback everyone! It means a lot to me.
@allenfreese: That's a great idea. I tried to accomplish this by slowing down the time between each drone's turn but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. Arrows pointing in the direction the drone moved in and located in the square the drone originated from would be 1000x better.
@mrexcessive: I play tested a very little with a bigger map and I felt like it just took longer to finish. I felt the current 7x7 map captured the essence of the game. There is surely a more fun/optimal board size, it's something to look at.
@Jod: Thanks for checking my game! The different coloring of the enemies/drones was a last minute addition, I'm still unsure whether it was a good idea or not. Drones that are red are situated at an even Manhattan distance from the player, the blue ones at a odd distance. It's more of a status cue rather than an absolute fact because under certain circumstances a drone will not move during a turn (if all its adjacent squares are blocked when its turn comes) and as such the distance between it and the player will change by one, thus changing the distance's parity, and thus changes its color.
Cute but randomness got in the way of my cleverness, and there were a number of times where the red dudes and I hit a Nash equilibrium chasing each other around a block. I need to be able to do something about that. Hmmm.
Interesting, fairly straightforward. Wasn't fully sure how the drones were moving making difficulty a bit all over the place, but like the idea of the alternating difficulty depending on how you do!
Cool little puzzle I included it in part 13 of my Ludum Dare 30 Compilation video series, if you’d like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/RYkx3DRuabw
Comments46
Love the randomized sound effects.
Although some levels (think after 4 or 6) were really hard and I started dying a lot as the red boxes started literally to stalk me. That said, the reset to an easier level is a genius idea. I liked it.
Very well done.
The humour of hte backstory adds a lot. Love it! Quite difficult sometimes, old-school. I like it :).
Also, did you know that red nodes turn into blue nodes sometimes? Is that by design?
@allenfreese: That's a great idea. I tried to accomplish this by slowing down the time between each drone's turn but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. Arrows pointing in the direction the drone moved in and located in the square the drone originated from would be 1000x better.
@mrexcessive: I play tested a very little with a bigger map and I felt like it just took longer to finish. I felt the current 7x7 map captured the essence of the game. There is surely a more fun/optimal board size, it's something to look at.
@dhargan: see Jod's answer below.
@Jod: Thanks for checking my game! The different coloring of the enemies/drones was a last minute addition, I'm still unsure whether it was a good idea or not. Drones that are red are situated at an even Manhattan distance from the player, the blue ones at a odd distance. It's more of a status cue rather than an absolute fact because under certain circumstances a drone will not move during a turn (if all its adjacent squares are blocked when its turn comes) and as such the distance between it and the player will change by one, thus changing the distance's parity, and thus changes its color.
Different level designs (beyond just changing the enemy positions) might be nice.