ASM Hell

by vilix64
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.85
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.52
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.88
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.95
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.21
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.96
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.45
Dungeon adventure and writing assembler in DOS are incompatible you say? No, they're not. And also you need a lesson in assembly. Luckily for you, there's a game that perfectly suits your needs.

Start the first level by command `START 0`.

Side note 0: The first two levels are tedious, but after those two, it's all about algorithmic thinking.

Side note 1: Yes, I know this is the game that nobody asked for, but trust me, I suffered more when I had to write it than you will when you'll have to solve something using assembler.

Side note 2: Normally, this would be considered cheating, but hey, I know some puzzles are not easy and that I flunked the tutorial part. Here are solutions to all 13 layers.

Side note 3: To get excited, you can watch a boring gameplay of the 9th layer (solution spoiler):

Tools: Phaser as framework, GIMP for sprites, "music" by fiddling with WolframTones.

screenshot
Tools: GIMP

Comments100

Memel06
Memel0623 Apr 2018, 05:12
As a programmer, I loved it!
And.. I can hear some screams from the past... how you managed to programmatically create all this levels?
YOU DID AN AWESOME WORK! The game is clean, no bugs or random problems that usually occurs in jam games.
TimeLoad23 Apr 2018, 05:15
OH HEELLL NAH!!! I aint completing this!! Even though I'm pretty sure I could, I honestly can't be bothered. Took me too long to get through the first few levels. But I love the game!! Lost it at the start when you said "Click 'RUN', Cry, Debug, Succeed" X3 I absolutely know how that feels
ddolgov
ddolgov23 Apr 2018, 05:18
Dude, it's awesome! Best what i played at this moment. When i will be free i try to complete all levels. But i think 'FAST' mode must be more fast 🙃
CaptainDreamcast
CaptainDreamcast23 Apr 2018, 05:41
It has a nice sense of pacing, the way the levels introduced more and more felt well-designed. I had fun playing it and progressing. The only time I got stuck was at the very beginning, because I misread the move syntax.
Cryovr
Cryovr23 Apr 2018, 05:44
very engaging i must say
mao
mao23 Apr 2018, 05:47
Finished all but the last level, which I plan to do tomorrow. Nice idea, it has a lot of potential! It plays pretty well, aside from some annoyances with the text editor.

Luckily for me, I've played TIS-100, so I have a leg up on the puzzles!
Distrait23 Apr 2018, 06:02
Neat idea, played through a few levels. Just spent 48h programming and learning programming, I'm done for now :P Top marks though!
Bookworm3123 Apr 2018, 06:07
Dang! This is super neat (and far to reminiscent of writing assembler in college...thank goodness it wasn't in binary or something) and tons of fun. The sound effects are cool, and the levels are definitely engaging. I didn't finish yet (currently working on lvl 5), but I'm definitely going to be coming back to finish it.
SeaHam23 Apr 2018, 06:52
Oh god...why. After coding for 48 hours this is not the break I needed hahaha. Very cool game though, I'll have to finish it when I'm rested.
Apples_mmmmmmmm
Apples_mmmmmmmm23 Apr 2018, 07:03
I'll have to come back to this, but I absolutely love the idea behind it.
ffs230923 Apr 2018, 07:18
This game is so brilliant, it's simple and still fun and challangeing at the same time. Solid game you put out there!
Aarre Entertainment
Aarre Entertainment23 Apr 2018, 07:41
This was a gem that can easily be made into a full game, maybe even mobile like some coding games. It's something I will be coming back to even when this event is over.
AlexHoratio
AlexHoratio23 Apr 2018, 07:56
This is a really cool idea, well done!!!
bcvery123 Apr 2018, 08:09
Great idea! Really good fun
RazorSh4rk23 Apr 2018, 08:20
ah, yes, writing assembly is definitely something i do as relaxation
Petro Shoferystov
Petro Shoferystov23 Apr 2018, 08:49
If I was a Neo, after playing this game I would say "I know kung fu"! :)
IronyGames
IronyGames23 Apr 2018, 09:00
Great game! As feeback, I've found myself using the "start" and "end" keys to navigate thru the lines, that would be a nice addition :)

Also, I can't access your vilix.xyz webpage
Chaseplays
Chaseplays23 Apr 2018, 09:21
Wow... that took a while to beat. Nice work, though! The game is really well-polished, and it was fun to figure out the solutions to each level. I don't have many criticisms, but I did realize that, on layer 7, it asks you to input "a", "b", and "c" variables without specifying which is which. I'm not sure if that's allowed as a "bug fix", but I did need to look at the solution to figure out which to use. Otherwise, after about an hour, I got all the levels done (prime numbers were really hard, but... in a good way). Great job!
Kirill Nepomnyaschiy
Kirill Nepomnyaschiy23 Apr 2018, 11:51
Holy cow, how does one even make a game like this in just 2 days. I suck at programming so I couldn't go past level 2 but I bow to you for hardcorness, sir
SMILEY_4_
SMILEY_4_23 Apr 2018, 14:15
I really enjoyed this game. Great idea and execution
stormburpee
stormburpee23 Apr 2018, 15:20
Lovely work! Reminds me off the good old days.
metamorphling23 Apr 2018, 15:24
Hands down, this is the winner. Best entry out there, good job.
(although the game would be so much better without the music, it kills my ears)
mrspeaker
mrspeaker23 Apr 2018, 15:51
"Unknown command 'mov'" pffft ;) I'm a sucker for anything that has a faux language in it! My only complaint is I'd have preferred some blippy sound effects to the Math.random piano.
-FA-23 Apr 2018, 15:52
Wow! Just wow. This is the best game so far.
Noxbuds
Noxbuds23 Apr 2018, 15:56
Interesting game. Was fun to write code in a game, reasonably unusual thing to do ;) The music set the mood nicely aswell
niborious
niborious23 Apr 2018, 16:53
Lol cool game. I found the second level pretty daunting, I didn't want to have to type out a bunch of move commands. I found myself wanting to just write some sort of ai to just keep going forward and turn at a wall or something. I would have loved it if there were some way to check your surroundings, like is there a wall in front of me or something.
Silent Tower Games
Silent Tower Games23 Apr 2018, 17:10
I've got to say, this is definitely the most atmospheric ASM simulator I've ever played (it may also be the only but hey). Mixing that idea with a dungeon sim fits pretty well, I say. The music isn't bad, and it does help set the mood.

It's well-executed and polished. The UI was easy to use and understand, except that it would've been cool to go to the next level automatically instead of having to type it in every time. I assume that's part of the concept though.

It felt good to accomplish a level, and made me feel kind of smart, but the actual gameplay was mostly about counting tiles and remembering which number goes which direction. I only finished two levels.

But after all, it's a game about going to hell and being forced to write machine code. I think this is a fairly well-made game that's aware of its tedium.
dalbinblue
dalbinblue23 Apr 2018, 17:30
I think you found a good audience for your game here with a high programmer demographic. I love games like space chem, so this is up my alley. It took me a while to figure out the numbers as they were random until I realized you run through several iterations to prove someone didn't brute force a solution, which is nice. While the interface is simple, that was a lot to build in 48 hours, so kudos.
vilix64
vilix64author23 Apr 2018, 17:44
@Silent-Tower-Games, @Noxbuds Hi. I'm sorry you found it tedious. On the other hand, only the first two levels are about counting tiles. The rest is about algorithmic thinking. :slight_smile:
Silent Tower Games
Silent Tower Games23 Apr 2018, 18:33
@vilix64 oops, that's my mistake for only playing two levels in before judging. Sorry!

After playing farther in, it gets pretty deep. I really enjoyed layers 5 and 6. Layer 7 was a little much for me to do right now so I stopped there again.
Alans Antics23 Apr 2018, 18:45
I was getting through the levels pretty well. Then I got to the last one, and I'm like "Nope."

Nicely made game. Even by level 11, I was still typing "MOV" instead of "MOVE".
nilstastic23 Apr 2018, 18:50
This is such an excellent idea, and it would work very well in an educational institution- Nice graphics as well - excellent work!
coldmoose
coldmoose23 Apr 2018, 19:25
Super cool puzzles and a great game overall. I wanted to try the harder levels and wish I could skip to them though :p
jacobturn23 Apr 2018, 20:35
I couldn't get through level 0.
But was an interesting idea.
CodeBastard23 Apr 2018, 20:37
I didn't play it throught but a shortcut for the run, fast and stop on keyboard would be nice for such an input heavy game.
PronomicalArtist
PronomicalArtist23 Apr 2018, 21:43
Impressive game. Definitely unique among the other games. It was fun working out the fastest way through the level. Good job.
wsKilljoy
wsKilljoy23 Apr 2018, 21:56
This game will haunt me. Good job.
Jake Cope23 Apr 2018, 23:43
This game is a 10/10. Fantastic idea and fantastic execution. Very similar to TIS-100 but brings its own ideas to the table. If you are a programmer, this is the game for you. Great job dev!
James Dunlap
James Dunlap24 Apr 2018, 00:07
I love coding games, and this one is no exception! It created a great atmosphere and was very well done. I have saved it to come back to it when I am not suffering from coding fatigue after 72 hours of coding!
gdort
gdort24 Apr 2018, 01:48
Definitely a game for programmers :smiley:
I really liked it!
LandoSystems
LandoSystems24 Apr 2018, 02:40
Great game, super impressed that this sort of game could be put together in the compo timeframe. Was a littlle confused at first whether A1 (in MOVE A1 A2) should be positive or negative, but a little experimentation sorted it right out. Really enjoyed it, great work!
vilix64
vilix64author24 Apr 2018, 05:50
@Jake-Cope I never thought that someone would actually finish it. I'm impressed. Thank you for your time and kind words.
jusw8524 Apr 2018, 07:34
Dammit I spent way longer than I should have on this one..

I can share my solutions if anyone's interested, I compared them to the official solutions after beating the game, some of them are rather different.
vilix64
vilix64author24 Apr 2018, 07:48
@jusw85 Hi, thanks for playing my game. Could you please share your solutions? I'd be very interested in seeing what you came up with. :slight_smile:
nidup
nidup24 Apr 2018, 08:29
Cool concept and very solid realization :rocket: The level design is properly balanced, the commands are quite easy to understand, the overall ambiance is good thanks to a minimalist artwork thats suits well this kind of game. Good job :thumbsup:
jusw8524 Apr 2018, 08:44
@vilix64 My solutions here, SPOILERS obviously

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/four-hours-in-chernobyl/$92898

[edit] forgot to mention that I loved the game btw, otherwise I woulnd't have completed it :)

[edit] Seems like the game takes the minimum cycle / line over multiple solutions as your high score. Some solutions optimise for lines, some for cycle length. It would be great if the game could keep track of multiple solutions, too much work in an LD setting, but a nice to have feature.
bobismijnnaam
bobismijnnaam24 Apr 2018, 09:02
Great game! I stopped at the arithmetic part as it was getting tedious and there are other games as well, but loved it! Only thing I was missing were comments and the fact that for most levels exhaustive testing is possible, i.e. in the left/right level you only have to test two inputs for an answer to be correct, and now it just bruteforced it 4 or 5 times. Very nice game!
DeadlyMidnight24 Apr 2018, 09:27
Really interesting idea and neat use of games for education! Bit tedious, as a programmer I was like the last thing I want to do right now is write more code after 72 hours of writing code. Theme wise not sure DOS ASM counts a game genre, but the idea is so cool I think it makes up for it.
bombjack
bombjack24 Apr 2018, 10:28
It's really hell :) nice concept
elHombreBanana
elHombreBanana24 Apr 2018, 13:29
I like the concept! It gets really challenging directly from level 1 xD

Very minimal, very simple, very nicely done. Congratulations!
ruerob-hyky
ruerob-hyky24 Apr 2018, 14:49
Haha! A great game! It really feels like assembler! hahaha!
I still have to finish it completely, but after a day of coding for work I have to relax a bit! hahaha!
I will finish it later! That's for sure!!

Thank you for the game!!
croewens
croewens24 Apr 2018, 15:05
I checked out this game yesterday but decided to come back today as I was to tired to be programming after putting 30+ hours into my submission :smile: First off all, this mini-game is a solid 10/10 for me. It’s well-executed, unique and polished game. Next version could be binary or something :wink:

I’d love for you to review my submission as well.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/keyboard-warrior

Dixonary
Dixonary24 Apr 2018, 16:36
Really interesting idea, and very well implemented. Being a programmer (as many of us are!), I don't often like taking my hands off the keyboard, so some keyboard commands for play/run would help with playability.

Great!
Oivin F
Oivin F24 Apr 2018, 19:49
Most engaging LD game i've played, sucked me right in.
Managed 128 cycles on the last one by checking only against multiples of prime numbers under 10 (2, 3, 5, 7, 9)
broken-matrix24 Apr 2018, 19:50
This game is great, super nice, the atmosphere is great, definitely deserves 5 in most categories.
Lewis Quaife24 Apr 2018, 20:01
Ohh this is cool - I spent way too long playing this 🙃Perfect place to launch a game like this too where you have an audience of many programmers.
Blinkenlights
Blinkenlights24 Apr 2018, 20:18
I'm afraid I can't seem to play this. It either doesn't display properly or won't accept my keyboard input? Never heard of such a thing. Running on Firefox, Linux.
microwerx
microwerx24 Apr 2018, 20:40
This was very interesting. This is the kind of game that you want to play for a while. Fun music.
vilix64
vilix64author24 Apr 2018, 20:47
@Blinkenlights Hi, I'm sorry the game didn't work for you. I'm running Chrome on Ubuntu and had to disable my Vimium extension, which eats input by itself, in order for the game to run properly. I admit, that the input could be handled in a more robust way, but it's too late now. Apologies..
theslate
theslate24 Apr 2018, 22:04
Good programming game. I wish the puzzles didn't rely on counting so much :)
neonian24 Apr 2018, 22:08
Love the unsettling music, well done!
anathem25 Apr 2018, 01:14
Dangit. I really wish I didn't have to go to sleep now... wanna finish that game!

Nice work!
Subhajit Nath
Subhajit Nath25 Apr 2018, 02:58
Ahem... I think I will learn ASM before playing this. :sweat_smile:
Great innovative concept nonetheless.

As this is a text game, it'd be great if mobile support is added. What I am asking for is when use input is required, user has the option to type from the game screen itself.
acoto87
acoto8725 Apr 2018, 05:06
This type of game always make me smile. I found myself several times hiting the key Home and End to go to the start or end of the line as I usually do in my programming, but I get frustated each time because the browser scrolls the page 😑.

I enjoy it very much. Very well done!

PD: Finally I escape from hell (so far I spent more time on this game than any other from this LD, and I think this will remain true):
spthiel
spthiel25 Apr 2018, 09:37
I really like theese kind of games where you have to solve puzzels but at the same time they learn a bit of coding.
Love the game!
Rapter
Rapter25 Apr 2018, 10:58
Nice game , 5/5 !!! Good luck!!!
NoNiMad
NoNiMad25 Apr 2018, 13:50
This is awesome! As a fan of every Zachtronics game, it reminds me a lot of TIS-100 by the graphics, and it a really good reference for me. No bug, except that the directions are swapped for me (1 is horizontal and 0 vertical, but that's not really a problem).

Very, very well done!
steve25 Apr 2018, 15:44
This was fun, I think some kind of measure/coordinate read out so I didn't have to count squares would be useful though :)
Carvster25 Apr 2018, 18:49
Couldn't get the HTML5 versions to run in firefox for some reason so switched to chrome. Awesome game! could be a quite educational puzzle game for people learning ASM!
Hellblade26 Apr 2018, 06:29
Your website documentation seems to be incorrect (on http://vilix.xyz/?p=asmhell), it says:
A1 is the amount of steps (can be negative), A2 is the direction (0 for horizontal, 1 for vertical)

But the direction is opposite in the game, 1 for horizontal.
Was good once I realised that!
Gerickos26 Apr 2018, 14:44
Nice concept dude :)
fanatrick
fanatrick26 Apr 2018, 18:01
Really cool, very reminiscent of Human Resource Machine
Jajakeim
Jajakeim28 Apr 2018, 09:17
Wow, really nice job!
Yngvarr
Yngvarr28 Apr 2018, 10:46
Programming the way out, huh? Sounds a bit familiar. =)

I love assembler and this game is relaxing for me. I also like the choice of a font and a character's appearance. The game appears to be carefully polished, it even saves programs into a local storage, what's better than this! However, I found a lack of keybord shortcuts a bit annoying, the need of touching a mouse to run a program or just to press 'OK' is not the expected behaviour for an ASM-related game. And also I didn't find a way to consult a manual page during programming.

All in all, the game provides a wonderful geeky kind of fun! Nicely done!
Jonathan Daar28 Apr 2018, 14:53
Wow the concept for this one is so brilliant, I loved the asthetic and concept!! GREAT JOB!
saintheiser29 Apr 2018, 07:07
Hmmm, these style gameplay usually is a part of "programming course". Maybe it sill good learning game XD
For me this game qite boring (maybe because I'm professional progranmmer XD and all puzzles turns nerdic for me instead difficutl)
Some thigs that I'll fix if this game was mine:
1) Something with blocks counting. It's annoying to count >6 blocks.
2) True asm hasn't mouse inpit. So all command should be from keyboard.
3) True asm has only command line. All grafix should be ACSII art I think.

Anyway good game, which has more potential to get good game for beginer programmers.
Hisfantor29 Apr 2018, 12:42
feels like this one programming game we played with in early high school
Darkphnx
Darkphnx29 Apr 2018, 15:59
I really enjoyed the concept for your combining 2 different genres! I think it would've felt a bit more natural if there were options to start, stop, and speedup the game directly from the keyboard. Overall great work!
Bigaston
Bigaston30 Apr 2018, 10:28
Very fun to play ^^ I like the gameplay but sometimes this is very hard!
gamepopper
gamepopper30 Apr 2018, 12:34
A pretty clever way of playing using assembly. It would be nice if there was a way to skip to the end of a line so you could easily change the right side of it without pressing right constantly. Aside from that the puzzles are good and it functions really well.
mshopf
mshopf30 Apr 2018, 18:24
Managed primes in 14 lines, after approx. half an hour of playing. I wonder if there's a shorter solution...

Awesome job! Very nice puzzles, good gameplay, even the editor does work. A few possible improvements:
* Command line editor could use a history :stuck_out_tongue:
* I'm missing a load register direct; this way I always had to use register 6 as a zero to load a constant with e.g. ADD [0] [6] 1
* There is (almost) no chance to detect whether there is a wall in the way of the character; if you had an input register for that you would have the chance to do more puzzles like escape a labyrinth etc.
* Putting markers or something similar would also be helpfull

For more ideas see e.g. Carol the Robot

Again, thanks for this little gem, I loved playing it!
Cpage1 May 2018, 03:29
So I really enjoyed this game. It was right up my alley. I would give 2 suggestions and only one that I know I tested.
One I would make it so I can access the command line history. I want to push up and just change the level param.
Two So I accidentally hit back instead of run and lost my solution. I didn't check to see if it saved or not... but if it didn't, I would make it remember the typed solution.
All in all though it was an awesome game. Well done!
arzi
arzi1 May 2018, 10:38
I like the concept, but I have to admit I looked at the second level and decided I couldn't be bothered...
zilhk2 May 2018, 08:01
Such a great idea!! The game is very well made, congrats!
niterich
niterich2 May 2018, 23:47
From what I can tell, you really nailed that early mainframe computer aesthetic and and the assembly coding and rudimentary graphics that goes along with it.

That said, as someone who isn't fond of this style, I found the game pretty frustrating. I guess it comes with the subject matter, but I found writing in assembly code to be slow and annoying, which I don't think is ideal for a video game. I would have preferred some drag-and-drop tiles, but I suppose I'm not the target audience.
Rewzu
Rewzu3 May 2018, 15:38
Amazing game! Great idea and execution, goes well with the theme. It really needs some more levels though :D
TechnoNugget
TechnoNugget5 May 2018, 08:26
I like this. Though I didn't finish past level 4 because this was the first time I've done assembly
and level 4 just seemed like a lot of work lol

Solid execution and great mashup.

Also I should note that the game didn't recognize my keyboard input unless I opened up the iframe in a new window
Jonathan Whiting6 May 2018, 15:40
It's a nice concept, but I didn't get very far because the level design required a lot of rote writing, rather than interesting learning.
ZaneDD
ZaneDD6 May 2018, 19:03
Wow, loved it! Although I encountered a bit of a near-gamebreaking bug. After using the "are you stuck or want to learn more" link once, every single time I hit enter it would open up a new tab to the webpage.
invader
invader8 May 2018, 09:44
cool concept. I like programming games in general, so titles like that are always fun to play. Kudos for bringing assembly language to the compo! :computer:
hypp
hypp8 May 2018, 20:22
Very good idea and great execution! Well done!
goffmog
goffmog11 May 2018, 17:10
This is beautiful in every sense of the word. Howww does a mortal manage to do this in 48 hours?!? Bloody well done.
Angela He
Angela He13 May 2018, 01:21
Oh goodness assembly flashbacks D: I really love 'coding' and typing games personally, and felt like you really did those games good with ASM Hell! The aesthetic was cohesive with an old computer look and the way it was designed didn't bore me despite assembly being my least liked language. Good job!!
maymakegame
maymakegame13 May 2018, 16:29
Really cool! I liked the coding/typing and I think you did a really good job on it!

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