NOTE : selecting the tutorial will force you to play through about 6 "easy" levels after the tutorial before getting to "full" ones. After playing the tutorial, feel free to press ENTER multiple times to skip ahead to harder and more feature-complete levels. You can also press ENTER on the title screen to access those directly instead !
NOTE 2 : the binary has been updated to support all sorts of resolutions. Sorry that the earlier version's resolution was so high, I have a high DPI screen. Note that the aspect ratio is forced to 4/3, so if you resize weirdly you'll get bars of emptiness on the sides.
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DESCRIPTION
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qBen is an action platformer I made for the ludum dare 34 compo.
The theme I picked was "Two button controls", and so the main game is controlled using only buttons R and T.
The game's core mechanics are explained in game. At the title screen, press space to play through the tutorial levels.
If you wish to play real levels directly, please press Enter instead.
Levels are randomly generated and are all solvable. That being said, the game can be challenging !
In order to deal with this, feel free to press SPACE at any time to restart the current level, or ENTER to skip to the next level.
qBen was made without the use of any premade game engines such as Unity or Unreal; it was written from scratch using OpenGL for rendering, GLFW for windowing and FMOD for audio.
Have fun !
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SPECIAL THANKS
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I'd like to thank everyone who tuned into my 33 consecutive hours long marathon livestreamed game development session on Twitch. (plus Friday night's warmup 7 hour stream !)
Your constant encouragements and entertainment (and terrible jokes) helped me make this game happen.
Comments19
T
TeechnoTurf14 Dec 2015, 02:50
Great game! Played for Hours XD
C
Coldsteak14 Dec 2015, 03:28
Once you understand the controls and mechanics, it's very fun!
It would be nice to have some kind of explanation screen before the game begins and some kind of indication of when the cube will try to make a move. I like the idea and the graphics - colors that are not overwhelming but give it a nice accent. Good job!
I watched the stream for a while, unfortunately I can't seem to run this properly. Nothing renders in either the tutorial or the game, except for the background (I can hear the music and sound effects fine too)
Game is fun! It was great watching you develop this game and then being able to finally play it! This is definitely a game that would play quite well on a certain portable console... ;)
Very nicely implemented aesthetic, quite mesmerizing. :)
Did you base the window size on the resolution of the current monitors/display, by the way? My game window was too tall for a single monitor and I wonder if that's cause I have my two monitors aligned top to bottom? Maybe something to watch out for if so.
"Ben is a strong independent cube who don't need no player" Best quote ludum 2015
Even though I played trough the tutorial, the game wasn't really clear to me. I think some better highlighting of the selected cube(s) would help a lot.
Can hardly tell what's being highlighted which makes the game difficult to play. The tutorial helps, but I think it could use some work. Visuals are great though! When the first tutorial level played itself I was really impressed. I think a video of you playing would be very beneficial. The background sound is lovely too, wish I could enjoy the game more :S
Really cool idea! The game was fun too, but after a while I just started pressing R and T randomly until I could continue. Nice music, fun gameplay and a really neat concept! :)
i have added a tutorial video ! hopefully it will help clear up the confusion.
@paradxil : this sounds like your hardware is not supported unfortunately. i hope you won't judge the game based on that experience. can i ask what graphics card and driver version you're using ?
L
Llop1s15 Dec 2015, 13:02
Hi Smea! If I press Enter whenever in the game it shows me Success it's a Bug?
Nice job!
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roninfight15 Dec 2015, 13:58
It is freaking hard :o
Very interesting concept, nice art (I like the simplicity of it) and relaxing tune, but my god is this game hard. I wasn't able to complete the tutorial, even after watching the tuto video.
The concept is simple in theory, but thinking in 3D, rotating one too much and having to come back full circle, projecting where the other cubes will be and the path of Ben, superposing cubes to change their color. Wow.
That's already hard enough without a timer, but the 3-tries mechanic makes it even harder.
I saw the stream, and I was very expectant to try your game! the concept is very original, you get 5 stars for innovation. However, sometimes it was visually confusing, couldn't see what cubes were selected or what colors, which doesn't favor the fun aspect. Still one of the best :)
Very cool idea and slick presentation. I agree with others who have said that it's not clear enough which blocks are what color. I'd highly recommend fully texturing the blocks to differentiate them, instead of a thin outline. Also, with the fixed camera, it can be difficult to tell where a block is in space -- if you keep working on this and add a movable camera, I think that would help a lot. Great job so far, I hope you continue this!
Comments19
I like the idea and the graphics - colors that are not overwhelming but give it a nice accent.
Good job!
Controls are really confusing, but this is extremely innovative as a concept.
Did you base the window size on the resolution of the current monitors/display, by the way? My game window was too tall for a single monitor and I wonder if that's cause I have my two monitors aligned top to bottom? Maybe something to watch out for if so.
Anyway, pleasant stuff!
Best quote ludum 2015
Even though I played trough the tutorial, the game wasn't really clear to me. I think some better highlighting of the selected cube(s) would help a lot.
@paradxil : this sounds like your hardware is not supported unfortunately. i hope you won't judge the game based on that experience. can i ask what graphics card and driver version you're using ?
Nice job!
Very interesting concept, nice art (I like the simplicity of it) and relaxing tune, but my god is this game hard. I wasn't able to complete the tutorial, even after watching the tuto video.
The concept is simple in theory, but thinking in 3D, rotating one too much and having to come back full circle, projecting where the other cubes will be and the path of Ben, superposing cubes to change their color. Wow.
That's already hard enough without a timer, but the 3-tries mechanic makes it even harder.
Otherwise, good game, I liked it. Well done!