Take on the role of mysterious entity which has to escape from it's evil master's facility. Fight hostile entities and spend collected points on upgrades on your way out! Not everything is as it seems (to get the story + theme connectioun, you MUST FINISH THE GAME). Each floor's is randomly generated by my super algorithm.
Although it should work in every browser (except for IE - read in FAQ), I recommend you to play it in Google Chrome.
I am working on a post-compo version. If people will like this 48 hour 'game', I'm planning to make some bigger game out of this.
FAQ:
How do I play it? The mouse isn't working!
You don't use mouse, silly :) Use WS/AD to navigate throught the menu and ENTER/SPACE to confirm.
Where is my health? I can't see my health!
Bottom left corner.
Pressing SPACE to confirm is so irritating as it moves the whole screen!
You can use ENTER instead.
So.. what should I actually do?
The goal was supposed to be obvious. ESCAPE! To do that, you need to find and use a staircase on every floor/map. You'll know when you've found one. It's flashing.
Wait a second, there is no connection to the theme!
Have you finished the game? I didn't want to use the same mechanics as everyone else, so I've used the theme in the story.
Come on dude, isn't this just a Binding of Isaac clone?
Thinking about it yes, there are some aspects in common (dungeon generation). But if this game reminds you of the Binding of Isaac, it wasn't intended. If you haven't tried the Binding of Isaac yet, I recommend you to do so. It's a very neat game.
Have you played Dwarf Fortress?
Yes, I have played Dwarf Fortress and no, this is not a DF clone.
Pff.. only two types of enemies? Don't you think your game suck?
There are more enemies in upper floors.
I'm using Internet Explorer and the sound doesn't work. What should I do?
I don't know what happened there. Latest versions of IE are pretty solid, but some nasty magic is happening here. Please try another browser.
Thanks for playing my game.
You are awesome!
Nerdy stuff:
Language: Dart Framework: VilTAGE (ViliX's Text/ASCII Game Engine - although it's a framework) Check it out at github.com/ViliX64/VilTAGE. Graphics: Well.. letters, I guess. Sound: FL Studio
If you'd like to contact me, find me on Twitter: @ViliX64
Not a fan of having to sit through an ad to play this. I like concept. Almost Thomas was alone (story) meets Binding of Isaac. Wasn't a fan of the controls. Moving felt ... odd. Can't quite put the finger on it why.
I legitimately dig this game, it came in with an idea and stuck to it. I was a little irked at first but after failing the second time, realised I was in.
Sometimes a little hard to read and upgrades do a lot of telling rather than showing, but I'm nitpicking. I bloody love the ASCII engine, it's genuinely brilliant. 10 points.
Top-tier game and a lovely in-depth game page. I really like the aesthetic you used and it stays consistent enough to prove its own artistic merit. I don't know. 'Good game sick graphics bro' there we are.
A lot of fun. The graphics a very stylish, although a bit hard to make out what's going on sometimes. Difficulty was almost perfect and there was enough variation to keep me interested.
V
ViliX648 Dec 2014, 18:09
Thanks for your tips. I am considering post-compo version and I am writing everything down to my TODO list :)
Neat little text-based game, where instead of being "you see a potion and a goblin. attack goblin." it's actually a spazzing piece of text for a monster, and you are a little snowman/spazzmonster thingymabobs.
Pretty neat, although it is a bit painful to look at sometimes.
I thought that HTML was dead somewhere in time, but I was wrong. This game is totally incredible. I can't figure out how you have done this IA. One of my favorites entries during this LD31. Bravo ++
Dude! This game is great! The music at menu was getting a bit bugging, but then in-game, *o*! The graphics are cool as well, although at times it's a bit tough to see the enemy's bullets, since he's bright red, the background is white-grey like. I really like your unique art style, and no the graphics in this strongly differ this from the binding of Isaac. I had fun in it, and there was a lot of humor. One thing that was hard was the health, I could not really tell how much health I had. I think that's since I never got hit, and then when I thought I had infinite health, I took my eyes off the screen, about 5 minutes, then I died suddenly. :3
Keep up the good work buddy! :D 5 stars for all! XD
I like this game a lot. The minimal music along with the graphics was a perfect combo. For some reason the music and sounds went away after a while though, but the fact that I managed to make it to the second floor of a game like this. I usually die instantly means that you balanced the difficulty in a very good way. And that takes a lot of skill.
One thing what was a little odd to me was that it seemed like it was OK to collide with the plus shaped enemies. And it was really hard to read in the menu and introduction. Other than that, a really solid entry.
Very enjoyable! Though maybe a little rough. For me the difficulty lies in feedback: it's really difficult to know when I'm hit, when I hit something else, what I hit, and so on. The "plus" enemies were especially difficult in this regard and I never quite figured out if I could hit them on the side and I was simply one square too far away or if I had to hit them in the middle. So mostly it meant I flailed around a lot shooting and trying not to get hit. Ultimately pretty neat though! I do like the ASCII graphics; perhaps all it needs is a little bit of modern touch.
The Binding of ASCII perhaps, I don't know why people keep bringing it up. Plenty of games with similar (even better I should say)combat mechanics and plenty of games with procedurally generated levels. Anyways, good job
Though the gameplay is kind of traditional, but the art style is very unique and it make the game stand out from other games with similar theme. And the story also works. Nice job!
Hi there. Liked the approach, could not play it for toffee though, too many controls - not easy, better in own page probably annoying space thing - yes I know Enter from FAQ but space is what my thumb does, partly on its own... Liked the sounds.
I would have liked to have the arrow keys for shooting. Using the ASDW and IJKL made me feel like my wrists were in the wrong position. There was a little too much animation for my liking. The things on the screen ended up looking like blinking Xmas lights rather than anything specific. I wonder if white on black background would be better? I think it's a good basis of a solid roguelike engine.
Simple but effective gameplay. My attacks sometimes felt kinda weak though, didn't seem like the damage upgrades did much. Also the text is spaced far apart, making it hard to read.
Nice and simple. Really cool graphical choice, very striking. My only issue was the bits of narration were a bit hard to read. Having the large spacing between the letters kind of gave me a headache :P Otherwise, great job!
Didn't think I'd be into the ASCII but in the end it was great! Nice job with the style and feeling of the combat, it was cool. I wish there was a little more variety to the enemies that spawned though. Perhaps I was unlucky but it appears that every room in the same level has the same enemy config.
As someone who has sunk many hours NetHack (not to mention editors like vi), I found using the jkl keys for firing direction a very confusing experience. The stuff on the screen is all characters and my fingers are where I'd have them for NetHack, but the bindings are all off (except for l, which is right as expected).
I managed to make it through the whole game almost exclusively firing right :-)
Very fun text-based game reminiscent of Binding of Isaac and the like :) It crashed on me once but other than that I'd say flawless execution. Could have used maybe one more enemy type. Liked to see bosses for each level but I thought the final boss could have been a touch harder. Also I don't think powerups held from level to level? That would have been good to have that feeling of progression. I did like that there was a powerup system at all though.
Ending was a clever way to resolve the theme. Good job!
Comments68
Haha love it man!
Sometimes a little hard to read and upgrades do a lot of telling rather than showing, but I'm nitpicking. I bloody love the ASCII engine, it's genuinely brilliant. 10 points.
Pretty neat, although it is a bit painful to look at sometimes.
Good graphic, good sound, average gameplay [for 48 hour, it's amazing].
With a bit of polishing can become a very excellent game.
Well done!
The graphics are cool as well, although at times it's a bit tough to see the enemy's bullets, since he's bright red, the background is white-grey like.
I really like your unique art style, and no the graphics in this strongly differ this from the binding of Isaac.
I had fun in it, and there was a lot of humor.
One thing that was hard was the health, I could not really tell how much health I had.
I think that's since I never got hit, and then when I thought I had infinite health, I took my eyes off the screen, about 5 minutes, then I died suddenly. :3
Keep up the good work buddy! :D
5 stars for all! XD
One thing what was a little odd to me was that it seemed like it was OK to collide with the plus shaped enemies. And it was really hard to read in the menu and introduction. Other than that, a really solid entry.
Well done!
5* for theme :-)
Congrats, I like the mood and the style!
Also the text is spaced far apart, making it hard to read.
More people should do games like this.
I managed to make it through the whole game almost exclusively firing right :-)
Ending was a clever way to resolve the theme. Good job!
Nice game, I like the concept :D