Type Away - a fast paced text based endless runner... with zombies

by matita

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.82

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.73

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.25

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.54

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.93

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.48

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.71

Zombies are chasing you. Type your commands to overtake the obstacles and survive as long as you can, if you care about your brain!

That's it, really.

I didn't have much time to work on it since I was able to start only at late sunday.

Apart from text and endless runner there is some flavour of action (spoiler: you can find a gun).

I wanted to add some adventure and RPG elements, and I really wanted to add even a trivial story, I failed but at least I got to keep the scope manageable.

There is no audio and no graphical asset, I hope you'll be forgiving for this, at the end it is just a text based game! :D

I hope you'll enjoy it, I'm looking forward to know what you think about it (good and bad feedback, we're playing but we're also learning, ain't we?)

Tags: #endless, #infinite-runner, #runner, #text based

Genres: interactive fiction

Comments24

Eudes Franco23 Apr 2018, 21:20

Man, This is fantastic! Congratulations!

stevenjmiller23 Apr 2018, 21:29

Great game! I think the difficulty might need to pick up more, as after getting into the flow of things, it becomes fairly easy. On my best run, I survived 576 seconds before stopping and letting the zombies catch up to me.

SecondDimension23 Apr 2018, 21:48

This was simple but effective. Managed to survive 101 seconds before a zombie surprised me from the right and just blindly typed "right" in a panic, and ran into its arms.

Carraka24 Apr 2018, 02:05

I loved this game. Best game to play to calm my nerves while waiting for my code to compile. I wonder if there could have been some indicator of which side of the screen the zombies were coming from, but then again, maybe that was the whole point of it being incompatible. Ha. The apparition of guns was a great surprise.

matitaauthor24 Apr 2018, 07:38

Thank you very much for all your feedbacks!

@stevenjmiller you're very right, I had not more than 24 hours to work on it so I focused on the mechanics and didn't have a chance to properly test it and mostly balance it. I'm already thinking about how I could improve in that direction, your comment is valuable!

@Carraka the absence of visual indication on where the menace is coming from is intentional, I wanted it to be fully text based in order to force the player to read and understand. I did want to vary the texts a bit more to make it even more unpredictable, maybe in an after LD version ;)

Lazlo31924 Apr 2018, 11:19

Super simple but super effective. Makes you want to keep playing for a higher score, it's a fantastic small game

Decentsauce24 Apr 2018, 11:43

Awesome game! The only issue I had was that run starts the game so when you go game over you can't read the text if you accidentally keep typing run. :p I think it said I survived in 45 seconds after I shot a zombie?

Toulou24 Apr 2018, 11:49

I love typing game, and I have to say, great game ! This is a cool idea for the theme, and it's very fun, just a bit repetitive.
But from where all theses wall come from ?!

Jupiter_Hadley25 Apr 2018, 11:18

Really fun, well made game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 41 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPm7OCu9cQ8

Cerdcee25 Apr 2018, 22:32

Love it ! But unfortunately I am too slow at typing and zombies always end up eating me... Good thing that every time you die the game gives you an advice so that you can learn progressively the actions you can do.

matitaauthor26 Apr 2018, 07:09

@Decentsauce that's the bad thing about testing your own game alone... You're right, I definitely should have chosen another command to start the game

@Toulou do you question why a plumber should jump on turtles in Mario games? :D
Jokes apart I thought the same while doing the last playtestings before publishing, but it was too late and I said "whatever, at least it is playable"

@Cerdcee glad you noticed that! I tried to go for the "learn as you play" instead of having a tutorial

Thank you all for your kind words!

larzan26 Apr 2018, 07:25

Grat game, although for me the difficulty was pretty high, usually i would just run and jump in panic, and as soon as there was a zombie from the left or right i would keep on running straight and be eaten by it :sweat_smile:
Very well done indeed, loved it. Minimalistic and fun.

Stending26 Apr 2018, 11:00

The concept of this game is REALLY amazing!

It made me panic a lot more than expected! It's so simple but so effective.

And I think it's due to the time needed to read a full sentence and understand what's happening.

Awesome game :)

cristiano.m.garcia30 Apr 2018, 00:20

Good job! Cool game!

I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.

I hope you continue with the project.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

Houruck2 May 2018, 20:57

Frantic game. I had 'jump' on my clipboard and still got eaten. :)

SamuelSousa4 May 2018, 08:15

Really neat idea. Simply but fun!

LeonLaci4 May 2018, 12:52

I saw some other text based action games but not like this. This is truly text based!
Interesting idea, but it's too fast in my opinion.

Good job! :smile:

EkkoEkko4 May 2018, 14:01

Good Concept this game have a unique concept 5 out of 5!!! Cool Game its fun to play.

Bros.4 May 2018, 19:55

I survived only for 105 seconds. But the idea is really cool. Although you only had that less time, the game is fun and feels pretty polished!

I never typed _RUN_ that fast before...

My conclusion:

Ruslana4 May 2018, 22:08

Nice idea. I can see zombies running after me in my mind :)
@bros the pic is so true :D

Hisfantor5 May 2018, 13:51

some sound do improve the chasing mood would e great

matitaauthor6 May 2018, 16:46

Thank you guys for your feedback!

@Bros. the pic is pure truth XD

@Hisfantor I didn't have much time to put any asset in it, but while testing it I thought that some well made sound could improve the experience a lot! I think I'm planning a post-jam version with a more thought random generator, some graphic improvement/text animation, and definitely some sound ;)

Jin93107 May 2018, 20:40

I am so glad that someone made text-based game. This was really fun and really great idea! It builds the tension and I like that. Truth is that some more variety in your options could be nice, so I hope you will get to some post jam versions of your game. As some mention, sound would help the mood. But I must say that current 'no-sound' version fit's this text based thing really well and I would carefully consider the sound options :) Truly original and great Entry! Thank you.

Papaver16 May 2018, 13:40

That was fun! I found out that 'jump' is a hard word for me to type. :wink: Congrats on your scores!

Other games by @matita

★3.30

★3.09