In this game, you hop between alternate dimensions to kill bandits. The ghosts of the dead haunt one dimension and the dead come back to life in the other!
I built the game from scratch in Javascript. As an experiment, I wanted to organize my code without using much OOP. The state of the game (player, bandits, ghosts, etc) are simply stored in arrays of JS objects (basically JSON). Then, different functions (like thinkPlayer or renderPlayer) take those objects and manipulate them. It lead to some awkwardness-- i.e. I pass the player object to nearly every function-- but worked well enough for the jam. I don't see this method as being useful for any larger projects, but it definitely works for something this simple.
I spent a lot of time on the art. The background is procedurally drawn by randomly peppering a pixellated gradient with squares of dark and light. The lighting in the dark dimension is drawn by painting a flickering semi-transparent radial gradient on top of each light source (the player's torch and burning bodies). It's amazing how much something like adding a flicker to the lighting can improve the atmosphere.
The AI of the robbers is pretty simple. Luckily, you don't notice because you're constantly switching between dimensions :). Each robber is essentially a finite state machine: run to a random location -> aim in the direction of the player -> wait for player to enter your sights -> shoot or return to randomly running around.
The audio is done with as3sfxr (http://www.superflashbros.net/as3sfxr/) and SunVox (http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/). I'm especially happy with the fire crackling which is just a noise-generator and a distortion-filter in SunVox. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to make any music for the game (and I spent an hour in Audacity trying to get rid of the clicking in my loops :P).
The flipping dimensions mechanic gets pretty involved. Once multiple bandits start spawning at a time (and the bodies of the dead start piling up), you have to use each dimension as a way to escape the dangers of the other.
Really cool idea and execution. I would recommend doing something to keep focus on the game though. Moving around kept scrolling my browser in Chrome (MAC)
Really enjoyed playing your entry! However, whenever I press [down] or [space] the page scrolled down - had to make the div smaller to get rid of that :D
Good game. The thing I don't like about the game is the screen should be in the center of the website, otherwise change the shooting button because when I press Space the scroll bar scrolls down and I can't see.
The art is really nice, and the concept is cool. My only complaint is that when the game is playing, my arrow keys and space bar still affect my browser, so it keeps scrolling down while I play. This kinda made the game unplayable for me :/, since the game is at the top of the screen. let me know if you fix this, cause I'd love to play it more.
Neat little game. Could use a soundtrack and a little more variety gameplay-wise, but other than that it's pretty cool. And those robbers are cute. I don't really want to kill them. :>
Really enjoyed this, love the dimension switching, really nicely implemented and a satisfying mechanic. The artwork was very good, great colours and clear sprites and effects. Great game!
Comments36
Graphics are wicked
scroll bar scrolls down and I can't see.
I've some problem with scroll in Chrome. Can't play comfortly :(
Poor thieves though... having their bodies being burnt.