We used a personal framework based on the __Machinations__ and __Mission/Space__ frameworks (by Joris Dormans), created inside __Unity__ for my master's thesis called __MaruGen__!
You are a space explorer. Looking into strange, cubicle worlds! __Cubic Explorer__ is a procedural game about a Magical space dude! Travel through different cubic worlds, and full-fill different objectives!. Enemies and item will react differently, according to random parameters. Random planets, keys, mystery boxes, conditions and objectives await you!
How we made this game
One of the central ideas of this game was to use a framework I developed for my master's thesis. Right now its called __MaruGen__, which means __MA__chinations __RU__leset __GEN__erator.
I took ideas from the concepts of __Micro-Machinations__ and __Mission/Space__ frameworks by Joris Dormans, an created a tool that can be used to "generate" Worlds, mechanics and objectives, given a series of user defined rules and a series of packaded rulesets executed in a certain order to create procedural spaces and mechanichs.
The idea is to find a way to explore the concept of _"emergence in games"_, mainly described by Dormans in his frameworks, and by other game designer such as Keith Burgun and Raph Koster. And in the end this is an attempt to codify those frameworks and ideas in a useful tool.
Screenshots
A Possible world space that this system generates.
A Machinations diagram for the player. This can be extended with rulesets.
This game was surprisingly super fun to play. At first I was unsure what I thought of the game but after I started to see how the game functions I started to really enjoy it. Just dont try to attack while going through a door as that breaks your ability to attack at all ;)
A very good exploration game with random goals and stats!
The marugen is also a very nice feature here, we can see the potential of that kind of generation. The music helped a lot setting the atmosphere of the game.
I had some issue passing the door as I would have love being able to enter a door from the back of it, and sometime I just didn't wanted to enter a door and did it anyway.
Maybe adding a button press to interact with the door could be a good idea.
I was also sometimes confuse due to the lack of information the game give you, for instance for the "good" and "bad" boxes, it's unclear what are the real effect of them without an explanation text poping up in the ui.
Is interesting this new Marugen system, a lot of potential for future developments. Also, the game was fun and invites you to explore, I like the art and the music was good too, the game have a interesting feeling of loneliness in the space. Good Work!
Charming presentation, great visuals and solid audio. Travel the universe beating up doggos with your trusty stick!
Not immediately obvious that you can get different goals if you play again unless you've read the full description here. Some mission objectives were considerably more interesting than others. Great entry!
I'm a huge fan of (and sucker for) procedural generation (most of my LD entries have used it, even if this time didn't), but procedurally generating the gameplay (rather than just e.g. the map) is a really neat concept! Full marks on innovation, and I wish you luck on your Master's thesis.
Great work with MaruGen. It looks very intuitive, with a lot of configuration options. Replaying generated levels was fun every time.
I've noticed a little thing:
The text in the Objectives and Conditions panel seems blurred. I have the same issue in my game, and while investigating it I've found out that unity renders blurred text when the position or size of the game object or parent game object contains decimal places. This might be the cause.
A very good one! Just to comment, my only problem is that I didn't know exactly what was my objective. Maybe that's because I don't like to read any instructions ;). Congrats!
Hey I really enjoyed your game! The ruleset generator was super interesting and made for a good read. But that wasn't the only strong point of the game. I thought the graphics were really great and added a lot of highly professional polish to the game. The UI was also really solid apart from a few minor typos. I liked the sound effects a lot too, and the addition of the (really nice I might add) BGM was yet another stroke of polish that really assisted the game.
A couple of possible improvements I could suggest: (1) Enemies don't seem to have i-frames even though they do flash, so you can hack them down really quickly. They could probably afford to be a little tougher too. I liked the range of animations on them a lot though. (2) As mentioned earlier in the thread there were a few bugs, although one I noticed is that sometimes you enter doors while not walking toward them (just by getting close enough, as though there's a square hitbox right in front but it doesn't check whether you're walking "north" w.r.t. the camera).
Thanks a lot for the cool and really interesting submission! Great luck on the rest of the LD and on your thesis submission. Hope you enjoy the rest of your LD and we see you again! :D
The HTML5 version on gamejolt got stuck on loading -- I guess it doesn't play nice with ABP.
The procedural generation of cubic worlds is interesting but after seeing a couple it felt like every world was the same aside from their texture and what assortment of random doors or objects appeared. Different objects and enemies unique to a particular type of world (ie - ice) would add a feeling of each world being special in its own way; the enemies could use have their appearance and an attack (to add to the challenge and avoid the feeling of "oh, just another block enemy") randomly chosen based on the world type.
This is one of the best projects I've seen in this jam. Also, I'll investigate about the references you have included in the description. It can have some minor problems but the overall is neat and it's funny to play until the end. Congratulations!
Really nice fez-style rotation mechanics, nice concept and graphics too! Well done to get this done in time, I had a really fun time playing it (although I died just 1000 points from 8000!), good job!
Wow what a really interesting game, I really really dig the aesthetics of this the cube worlds I'm completely digging. The game was also very solid and well done, it's addicting, I would love to see more different worlds and enemies would of been nice but overall it's fantastic, great work! :D
Wow, I'm really impressed with this game. Not just the gameplay and the nice aesthetics and all, but also from a technical aspect. The whole concept of dynamic goals, rules and conditions is something that really deserves being further researched. Personally I haven't encountered this mechanic elsewhere, and even if it exists in other games, I don't think it's that popular. But I truly believe that something like this can be groundbreaking if examined more. It could be applied into a new kind of roguelite/roguelike games where not just the levels, but the actual "game" is random. Your game had that implemented really well in my opinion. Also it had really nice and simple graphics, and it was a fun game overall. Great job on the game and on your system, I think you're onto something really exciting!
This was really neat with how you handled rotations, but I got a little lost. I think it might be worth compressing the gameplay down a little and having the player's actions be a bit more guided. Good entry!
That was a lot of fun! The mechanic worked well and keeps you guessing. If I had to give a suggestion I would say ad footprints to Mr.Ka So you can tell were you have been in the last few seconds. Other than that Fine Job!
I did it! Won with 41 left on the time limit. It was fun exploring and finding the things, but I would like for the mystery boxes to do something more than they did. But it was a relaxing game and I liked it.
Comments27
The marugen is also a very nice feature here, we can see the potential of that kind of generation. The music helped a lot setting the atmosphere of the game.
I had some issue passing the door as I would have love being able to enter a door from the back of it, and sometime I just didn't wanted to enter a door and did it anyway.
Maybe adding a button press to interact with the door could be a good idea.
I was also sometimes confuse due to the lack of information the game give you, for instance for the "good" and "bad" boxes, it's unclear what are the real effect of them without an explanation text poping up in the ui.
Overall, a very enjoyable game! Congratulations
(You can see me playing this game for the first time on the vod https://youtu.be/lXUmif8KKxM?t=1m10s )
Not immediately obvious that you can get different goals if you play again unless you've read the full description here. Some mission objectives were considerably more interesting than others. Great entry!
In which the heroes are trapped in a cyberspace and the computer force them to complete random tasks in different virtual worlds.
the gameplay mechanics are very interesting and innovative. Graphics and sound are doin' just fine.
It's very difficult, but not impossible to beat the game ;)
I've noticed a little thing:
The text in the Objectives and Conditions panel seems blurred. I have the same issue in my game, and while investigating it I've found out that unity renders blurred text when the position or size of the game object or parent game object contains decimal places. This might be the cause.
A couple of possible improvements I could suggest: (1) Enemies don't seem to have i-frames even though they do flash, so you can hack them down really quickly. They could probably afford to be a little tougher too. I liked the range of animations on them a lot though. (2) As mentioned earlier in the thread there were a few bugs, although one I noticed is that sometimes you enter doors while not walking toward them (just by getting close enough, as though there's a square hitbox right in front but it doesn't check whether you're walking "north" w.r.t. the camera).
Thanks a lot for the cool and really interesting submission! Great luck on the rest of the LD and on your thesis submission. Hope you enjoy the rest of your LD and we see you again! :D
The procedural generation of cubic worlds is interesting but after seeing a couple it felt like every world was the same aside from their texture and what assortment of random doors or objects appeared. Different objects and enemies unique to a particular type of world (ie - ice) would add a feeling of each world being special in its own way; the enemies could use have their appearance and an attack (to add to the challenge and avoid the feeling of "oh, just another block enemy") randomly chosen based on the world type.
http://imgur.com/a/Hdq4B
It is a very innovative game. Tough, but addictive. Overall, nice work. :slight_smile:
Rate me also https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/survival-game
This was really neat with how you handled rotations, but I got a little lost. I think it might be worth compressing the gameplay down a little and having the player's actions be a bit more guided. Good entry!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hype-time