Snowballing Out of Control!

Is 495 the max? I want to play forever.

The game was really fun! I wish there was a harder mode where you could go for longer, and that the track was wider!

Thanks for the feedback, everyone! :smile:

@regularjohn4: I set 495 lb as the maximum weight as I found that anything beyond that makes obstacles way to difficult to avoid. I might increase it, though.

@nardandas: In the future, I will add an endless mode, and allow the snowball to move freely around the whole map.

I really wish there was a border or fence or something to distinguish the boundary because I kept going for patches that were out of reach. Well done and good fit for the theme.

Very cool, specially for a java lover like me haha

I have some suggestions:
- Add outline to important objects like the snowball, the trees & stuff
- Add fog to hide the object popping (Object apearing far away)

the game is fun, especially when you are lucky enough with grass patches and gain insane speed!

fun concept! wish it has some audio, though

Great game really like the style and the idea on the theme :D

I have Windows 7, 32-bit, Intel 945 integrated graphics with OpenGL 1.4, and I just installed the latest version of Java 8. The game starts, then a tall black window appears and closes a moment later.

Edit: I tried it from the command prompt and got this error:
```
Exception in thread "LWJGL Application" com.badlogic.gdx.utils.GdxRuntimeExcepti
on: OpenGL 2.0 or higher with the FBO extension is required. OpenGL version: 1.1
.0
Type: OpenGL
Version: 1:1:0
Vendor: Microsoft Corporation
Renderer: GDI Generic
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglGraphics.initiateGLInstances(Lwj
glGraphics.java:380)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglGraphics.initiateGL(LwjglGraphic
s.java:259)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglGraphics.setupDisplay(LwjglGraph
ics.java:250)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication.mainLoop(LwjglApplic
ation.java:144)
at com.badlogic.gdx.backends.lwjgl.LwjglApplication$1.run(LwjglApplicati
on.java:126)
```

Fun game, good job. I liked the perspective, and it ran well. Do you spawn an object for each tile? Or is it only a few colliders near the player over a mesh with UV textures?

This little game is deceptively fun (and tricky!). At first I thought I was supposed to gather snow to build a massive snowball, and then I saw the error in my ways. Took me a couple tries to get to the finish. Now you just need to add a wintery jingle.

Fun little game. I found the controls overly sensitive until I realized just tapping the left/right keys was a better approach, still took me several attempts to get to the finish and then it told me I was slow. :D lol

1:12:57

467lb

good game

I think You may implement something to reduce the snowball size and add particle animations on it, that would make this game a stress-killer

the maxium is 500lb? I want to have a screen-sized snowball:(

Minute and half and 495 pounds later I arrived at the finish line, given
my weight, I think it is a worthy achievement :D

Good job on this one guys!

@jonathan50 Sorry, libGDX doesn't support OpenGL 1.x anymore.

@fangzhangmnm Thanks for the feedback. You can run the snowball over grass to reduce its size. I'll add some animations and increase the maximum weight in the future.

@ham-and-swiss Everything is just a 2D TileMap projected with a PerspectiveCamera. All of the collision detection is done in 2D, as well. Every object is just a rectangle on the tile map, and when they intersect, a collision occurs. When the snowball interacts with the tiles below it, the game is just setting the tiles at the snowball's location to the snow tile.

@rodel77 Thank you for the feedback! I'll look into implementing your suggestions.

@thorneto Good idea! Thanks.

Cool game (no pun intended)! I do notice, though, that there's no real penalty to being slow, so what I did was get as far as I can with a small snowball, then, if I feel that I'm losing control of the snowball, I would purposely hit some snow. The snowball would gain a bigger collider, but I also wouldn't have much ground to cover before the finish line.

How do you make a game using Java, though? I'm curious. I saw some people doing the same thing, and I also saw a few submissions here that use Java.

Oh, and the game reminds me of Antarctic Adventure on the NES.

@ueki-shurei2006 Thanks! I created the game using a Java game development framework called LibGDX.

How do you use software rendering?

@Jonathan50 The game should use software rendering automatically if a compatible GPU isn't detected. Make sure you're using version 1.0.2.

I've got 1.0.2, and I get the same error as before.

I feel like the graphics could use some work, but the game is definitely fun and could be addictive, I enjoyed it!
EDIT: I also enjoy the meter and counter graphics, great job!

Awesome game! If I had to improve anything:
- at higher speeds the ball don't have to slow down on collision with snow bank
- add some particles on hit with tree and snow bank!
- music and audio
It could be a hit on android! Just make the steering by accelerometer!

Great job! I very much enjoyed this one. The art style was pleasing to the eyes and the random generation gave the game replayability. When I first started, I was trying to get the snowball as large as possible, but after finishing the run I was told I should go faster next time. Maybe something at the beginning explaining the goal is to get there quickly would be useful. It took me a couple runs also to discover that the grass made me smaller (thus giving me an advantage) and I also think that would be nice to have explained. Additionally, I wasn't sure about the function of the ice/water. I thought the water would kill me if I went over it or the ice would be slippery, but it seemed like I could move normally over those tiles. All of those issues can be fixed with a simple tutorial at the beginning or just some text that pops up before the run though. In the end, the gameplay was pretty fun once I understood the rules.

@chipmonkey Thanks for your feedback! The ice is supposed to accelerate you more, and the water behavior has not been implemented yet. In the finished game, there will be a quick tutorial at the beginning.

@arputikos Thanks! All of those suggestions should be implemented in the final release.

@ryki Thank you for the feedback. I'll be reworking the graphics for the final release.

Pretty smooth, and I think a great concept :smile:

Anyway, I think it would _seriously_ help this game if it had some jingly music (mayhap with bells in) and/or some SFX with snow sounds. ... but this has been mentioned already I see. (Why'd you opt out of 'Mood' anyway? It has a decent mood I think?)

Another thing that I can think of is that the snowbanks, even if they connect brilliantly to the _theme_, don't do anything _other_ than make life difficult for you, meaning that the best way to play the game right now is to avoid them completely, like you would with trees. I think you can make this mechanic more interesting (and you even have the 'grass = less snow' implemented already) is if it also had some positive, like if the added snow made you either go faster, or _make you able to survive more trees to the face_. Just a suggestion of course!

@remco You actually are supposed to avoid the snowbanks. But your ideas on adding positives to having more snow are quite good. I've been considering replacing the "three hits and you lose" system with using the weight of the snowball as health. Thanks for the feedback!