For the intended experience please play this game at 1024x768 windowed. Thanks!
Oh no! The Game (DOS) has sadly ran out of disk space (not enough floppy disks). In a desperate attempt to salvage the project the game is deleting its own levels. In the midst of its painful struggle it completely forgot that you, the Player (transistBOT) are a key part of the Game. If you are deleted, it's all gone. Get to your hub immediately so you can get back to work. This game has 5 challenging levels (1 boss level) all of which should take you 7-10 minutes to finish. How many deaths must you suffer till the end?
Controls
- Arrow Keys | Move Left and Right - X | Jump - Space | Restart Current Level - Esc | Go back to home menu & Exit Game
Known Issues
- Game sometimes not properly recognising when the Player landed on the ground thus not playing a sound effect or playing a particle effect - Mini-hops murdering ears (level 2 prime example) - Music may overlap when finishing a level
Changelog
Version 1.1: August 13'th 2018:
Improvements:
-WEBGL BUILD WOOO!
-The hitbox for the pointer has been greatly increased
-Can finally exit the windows build
-Can now return to home menu
Fixes:
-Fixed unintentional level exploit on Level 3
-Fixed unintentional level exploit on the Boss Level (Level 5)
-Can no longer jump around pointer infinitely
-Fixed player collider not being disabled when selected by pointer
-The rare crash on level 1 seems to have disapeared
Every and all feedback is wanted and appreciated. If you hated, despised or want this game to rot in the deepest, dankest depths of hell, please tell me why, so next time I can make something better. Thank You :)
The game seemed a little too difficult, probably slow down how often the mouse deletes an item. Also, I don't believe there was a way to exit the game.
@dk5000p Thanks for your review! (First!). To help me narrow down the problem what level/s did you find most difficult? I'll make sure to tune it down.
Also damn! Of course! If I'm suddenly not building html anymore I need to have some way to exit the game. Thanks for pointing that out!
Really clever take on the theme. Definitely an idea worth expanding on. I agree with the previous comment though, Its definitely a bit too hard. Would probably be better if the mouse deleted items a bit slower in earlier levels. Other than the difficulty, the game is really great though, good job! :D
Hey there... it would be nice if you could set the windows build to windows that way i could download it using the itch.io app... ANY HOW i liked the game but could not get past level 2 after 80 deaths!
The mechanic is very original, and the gameplay was very fun. I had some problems when adjusting the resolution though, because the text and play button overlapped, but the start up resolution worked totally fine!
@memel06 I really struggled finding an art style, I ended up going for more of a simplistic minimalist look, though I do agree that the levels need a bit more decoration.
Just a simple difficult platformer. I actually really enjoyed it, it took me a bit to realize how to defeat the boss but when I did it was pretty awesome. Great game, I'd actually love to see this game expanded with more levels and bosses and everything and maybe see it on steam or something. Just be careful to make an exit button.
Really original game. I must say it is a bit too hard (took me forever to get past level 2), you need to ease the player in before you whoop his ass xD Still it's one of the most innovative games I've played today. Good job :O
Nice unique platformer. Each level felt like you had to figure out something new, and it always felt good when you finally got it. The trick to the boss level is especially clever. I also like the song, but I don't like the death sound because it hurts my ears.
@svenardocom Github decided to remove a bunch of my files from the repo for some mysterious reason. I'll have to try and find a way to get those back online
@phantomopenboxing Just jump on the platform above you, jump on the one to your right where there is now probably a gap, jump over the gap and the the hub. It's all about speed and accuracy.
The core mechanic of the game is pretty neat and is used in some pretty creative ways. Having the pointer act as both a time limiting factor as well as a tool that you need to actually beat the level is pretty interesting.
It took me a while to beat level 2 because I didn't realize you could stand on the pointer.
A lot of the challenge of the game comes from the player not exactly knowing if doing something is actually possible -- e.g. on level 3, I didn't know that I could make it to the bin-switcher before the pointer deleted the red cube. This also applies to the boss level. I've never really played a platformer where I didn't have good enough intuition about my movement to not know whether a given jump was possible, so this was new (to me, in any case).
This was quite refreshing. Especially fighting the mouse icon kind of changed perspective of our everyday use case with computers.
I think many of the previous reviewers mentioned most of my points. While I kind of enjoy finding out on myself what to do, it was quite surprised how often the mechanics changed and I had to kind of relearn. For example standing on mouse pointer while before it was my enemy.
I think the rounds are short enough that learning by error would work (SuperMeatBoy anyone?) however the sound on failure was really hurting my ear - probably due to the bad headphones I have to wear while the rest of my gang is asleep.
I think it is innovative enough that you should risk spending some more time balancing it out after the jam. However I wasn't able to beat it yet. Will gladly try it again soon.
@themonsterfromthedeep oh. Is that why everyone was failing level 2? Ok, I'll have to present that mechanic more literally then. It certainly seems like I need to work on presenting mechanics to the player so they have a good idea of what may be possible and what 100% isn't possible.
@stateoff I didn't realise the sound would be so ear grating, I'll definitely change that after the Jam. Also, I most certainly will keep working on it after the Jam, I do still have lots of ideas for how I can integrate the pointer into more levels.
Fun game, lots of nice puzzle mechanics to figure out and a nice take on the theme! Did find it very difficult, but that's not a bad thing. Was very satisfying to beat a section after failing it so many times. Well done!
Really difficult, even from the first level. And muscle memory meant I kept hitting space every now and again when trying to jump and resetting the level.
Very interesting platformer mechanics, and music at some point becomes mesmerising.
And: why did you put jump on X instead of Space and why did you put restart on Space? I kept hitting space and wondered why the level wont start :smile:
@tudvari I find that arrows + X work better since your hands become less squashed. I found that putting my index finger on X and my thumb on space was the most comfortable. But to each their own.
@geeitsomelaldy I'll include some more control schemes in the post jam version. I didn't think of people naturally pressing space thanks for pointing it out!
Very fun game, I enjoyed it a lot! Difficulty was fine for me, only 168 deaths to beat the game :) The game mechanic was really cool and showed its best side in the boss fight. I would suggest to lower the volume of the 'death sound' (thank god I didn't used headphones...)
@call-me-nutty well, I accidently pressed 'space' in the first level for quite some time before I noticed that 'space' was not the button for jumping (death counter increases rapidly when you keep 'space' pressed) >.
It's really interesting idea! But I found the levels some hard. And yes , there are some problems with colliders :) If you make some polishing, it will be really solid game. Good luck!
Really liked the idea of running out of disk space. However, I have to agree with what others have already mentioned about the game being too difficult (especially level 2). There were a few collision issues, nothing major though. Also, pressing X to jump seemed quite odd. Overall, it was a fun game:).
Fun platformer, but the difficulty ramps very quickly and requires some very precise jumps. A slower difficulty ramp would probably help people get more invested in the game and have the endurance to beat the game.
@keyurrana@aplite I'm definitely going to work on the pacing and difficulty ramp for the post-jam version. It's great to see though that you still had lots of fun :)
If game development was a science, the collision detection would be an endless source of articles and publications. -_-
Oh, I love the idea! It would be extra fun if player could vary tactics depending on cursor's actions (correct me if there are such cases, 'cause I didn't manage to finish the game). Also, cool music, it fits the game perfectly!
@yngvarr I was trying to think of some interesting ways of allowing the player to mess around a bit more in the levels but it takes a painfully long time trying to create and think up such levels. In the post-jam version I'm definitely going to allow the player to mess around a bit more with the mouse pointer.
The whole collision detection glitch is partially my fault since I still don't know how to implement a proper jumping system. I tried raycasting (as I have in previous projects) but the way I implemented it meant that when the player jumped since the ray was still in contact with the ground it recognised it as having landed. So if I gave the player 2 maxJumps it would actually be 3. I ended up just going for collision detection and checking the players y velocity which is why level 2 is the glitchiest and also why hitting a wall creates particles.
Pretty intersing and original game, would have benefitted from a more gradual incress in dificulty in the early levels I thnk. Though I'm just bad that these sorts of games :P
Came across your game thanks to your post on the main page (marketing works? who would've thunk it!), so a couple of things.
1. This starts WAY too hard. The first level should be an introductory one and needs to be beaten on the second try, tops. I understand that for a developer who plays his own game for hours on end, it's hard to gauge what's difficult and what's not, but it's better to err on the side of easy. (I really enjoyed the concept for the second level, very creative.)
2. As many other people have said, collisions could be better. I died a few times because of that.
However, I think you've made an interesting game. Would like to see a post-jam version for sure.
@sidewalksleeper This is my first game where I actually had to remember making a good difficulty curve (my last game doesn't count since that felt like more of a proof of concept), I completely forgot to actually give the players one or two starter levels so they can get to grips with the controls, instead I gave them a confined, fast paced level that gives the player no time to get his bearings together, I REALLY messed up on that part.
In the post jam version that I'm working on currently I have mostly fixed the collision issues, the ear rape landing sound on Level 2 for example and particle effects have been completely fixed but I'm still not satisfied with how the general collision detection feels.
It took me some time to finally finish it I struggled on level 3 because I didn't pay attention in level 2 and just did the level without using the grey area (so I was clueless until I noticed passing the grey area made the cursor change direction) It's true that it is not easy, however given that there are "only" 5 levels (which is normal, it's a game jam after all), the challenge made them worth playing, but I can understand that it can be frustrating to struggle on an early level Nice challenge overall ^^
Hey I just played the game, cant pass level 2 haha. Here are some feedback of mine.
- First, the death sound effect, I wont be surprised if people have complained about that, but Im sure a quick fix would do.
- Second, moving platform should have the player sticking to it, here is a useful pointer for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R_AdDK25kQ. Chasing the moving platform really drove me nuts so I could count your game as a rage game haha.
- I think the collision is fine. But the movement of the character doesnt seem right. He is a block with spike, which suggests that he should be heavy and slow, but in fact he moves sooo fast its almost too hard to control him. I overshoot his jump a lot of time though, it could get annoying in combination with chasing the moving platforms.
Otherwise I think your game is very promising if you have some more time to polish it. What I like about the game is that even though it is a platformer with moving platform, the movement of the platform is known in advance by players, such that they know the pointer would come and collect that platform so there is some time to plan everything out. Very potential idea, great work! And congrats on getting 50 ratings, now its 51 xD
@inferture Thanks for the insightful comment. For my post jam version I'll certainly be focusing on making introductory levels which solely focus on one new mechanic so your scenario doesn't occour again. Thanks for playing once again! :D
@nam-nguyen - Death sound is getting patched in V1.2 today (eek, maybe not, Unity Collab doesn't support branching and I'm a bit uneasy about making 2 projects under one repo since work for V2 is already underway) - Thanks for the video, I was actually painfully googling for a solution during the Jam but couldn't find any resources (I'm not a video tutorial type of person) but I'll get watching! - I was really unsure for what kind of character I wanted to go for. I ended up making a transistor kind of character which doesn't even fit with the damn story! (The game is set INSIDE the game NOT a computer GRR). I need to come up with something new. - For V2.0 I've already completely adjusted the players movement. You can no longer double jump when walking of ledges, the player has greater vertical control, more gravity, less air friction, the player feels heavier and your general horizontal reach whether on the ground or jumping has been reduced. - I'm actually adding a "net mode" into V2.0 which will give the player a bunch of info on the current level, such as which bins connect with which changer, which blocks will eventually get deleted. I think conveying information to the player is something I really messed up on here which is another reason why people found the gane so difficult.
@call-me-nutty Great job! Your game is a great example of mechanic first polish after, I think you got a bunch of feedback here about the mechanic, should be very helpful for your post-jam version. Best of luck!!
@nam-nguyen That was my focus during this Compo! For too long have I been making games that rely on content and not working on fleching out a mechanic and flexing it to it's limit, seems to have worked here. Thank You!
@the-icy-one Poor collision detection is definitely a problem in this version same with the death sound. In the post-Jam version I assure you they'll be gone.
Super hard - I can't get past the first bit of level 2! *Read some comments above while writing some feedback*. Oh, you can walk on the pointer...
A lot of people have mentioned the tricky collisions, so I won't touch on those more, but it seems that nobody has mentioned level design and progression things, which caused my confusion about walking on the pointer just now, so I'll touch on that.
The wisest thing I can say is this golden rule: Every time you introduce a new mechanic, introduce it on its own, in it's most simplest form possible. Your player knows nothing. Your levels should build on and challenge the player's knowledge base step by step. So for example, you'll set up your levels & progression to be something like this:
* Moving/jumping - no pointer at all. * Pointer introduced - doesn't interact with the player but selects a bunch of random blocks that don't affect the platforming/goal/gameplay in any way. * Walking on the pointer - no tricky platforming that the player thinks they can make with tricky platforming/jumping. (i.e. your beginning of level 2) * A platforming challenge that can only be completed with a double jump. * Player being targeted by pointer, has to run for their lives. * Combine multiple of the above. * Simplest possible introduction of area that switches the cursor tracking to different recycle bins. * Combine multiple of the above. * Simplest possible physics puzzle without multiple markers. * Combine multiple of the above. * etc.
Ahem! Enough wishy-washy advice giving from me... The concept is great and I really enjoyed it! Following and looking forward to your next jam. :thumbsup:
@gwinnell Sorry if it took a while to reply. Thanks for the feedback! I was a bit low on time for levels so I just had to try and cram all the level elements I wanted to show off into 5 levels. The bullet points there are really helpful and I'll make sure to go along with it in future versions. Thanks for playing!
70 deaths should not be an A+. Oh well, I'll take it!
A platformer with a twist. Ehh, the twist is novel sure, but a bit finicky. This is mostly due to the jittery collision detection *(enough specific comments on that already)* and the tight timing of the jumps. For instance in the last level you could easily add a bigger window of opportunity by moving the bottom most trash can all the way down to the edge of the level.
Obviously the graphics would use a lot of work as most objects are temp boxes or a varying colors and sizes. The few custom sprites emanate a pleasant Supaplex vibe, but look out of place at the moment.
No bugs, that's good. The workmanship isn't there yet.
@huvaakoodia 70 deaths? Funnily enough it seems like you did better than most people here. I've fixed the collision detection (it was a stupid mistake as well). Due to the way I implemented the pointer mechanic, me not being able to come up with an art style at all and Unity's atrocious 2D tilemap system right now, I had no idea how I was going to do my Graphics, it's still something I'm pondering with.
Comments78
Also damn! Of course! If I'm suddenly not building html anymore I need to have some way to exit the game. Thanks for pointing that out!
Please, tweak difficulty!
Graphic stile is ok, maybe it needs some tuning.
The idea is clever and well fitting with the theme.
Good work jam bro, and have a nice day!
Thanks for the feedback!
@ajay-2002 Thank You!
It took me a while to beat level 2 because I didn't realize you could stand on the pointer.
A lot of the challenge of the game comes from the player not exactly knowing if doing something is actually possible -- e.g. on level 3, I didn't know that I could make it to the bin-switcher before the pointer deleted the red cube. This also applies to the boss level. I've never really played a platformer where I didn't have good enough intuition about my movement to not know whether a given jump was possible, so this was new (to me, in any case).
Overall I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I think many of the previous reviewers mentioned most of my points. While I kind of enjoy finding out on myself what to do, it was quite surprised how often the mechanics changed and I had to kind of relearn. For example standing on mouse pointer while before it was my enemy.
I think the rounds are short enough that learning by error would work (SuperMeatBoy anyone?) however the sound on failure was really hurting my ear - probably due to the bad headphones I have to wear while the rest of my gang is asleep.
I think it is innovative enough that you should risk spending some more time balancing it out after the jam. However I wasn't able to beat it yet. Will gladly try it again soon.
Good job!
@stateoff I didn't realise the sound would be so ear grating, I'll definitely change that after the Jam. Also, I most certainly will keep working on it after the Jam, I do still have lots of ideas for how I can integrate the pointer into more levels.
Thanks for both of your lengthy reviews!
And: why did you put jump on X instead of Space and why did you put restart on Space? I kept hitting space and wondered why the level wont start :smile:
@geeitsomelaldy I'll include some more control schemes in the post jam version. I didn't think of people naturally pressing space thanks for pointing it out!
@susanto Thank You!
The game mechanic was really cool and showed its best side in the boss fight.
I would suggest to lower the volume of the 'death sound' (thank god I didn't used headphones...)
If you make some polishing, it will be really solid game. Good luck!
version. It's great to see though that you still had lots of fun :)
Oh, I love the idea! It would be extra fun if player could vary tactics depending on cursor's actions (correct me if there are such cases, 'cause I didn't manage to finish the game). Also, cool music, it fits the game perfectly!
The whole collision detection glitch is partially my fault since I still don't know how to implement a proper jumping system. I tried raycasting (as I have in previous projects) but the way I implemented it meant that when the player jumped since the ray was still in contact with the ground it recognised it as having landed. So if I gave the player 2 maxJumps it would actually be 3. I ended up just going for
collision detection and checking the players y velocity which is why level 2 is the glitchiest and also why hitting a wall creates particles.
Lovely concept idea. Physics were quite wonky. What a shame there are so few levels, this idea could be much more flexed out.
1. This starts WAY too hard. The first level should be an introductory one and needs to be beaten on the second try, tops. I understand that for a developer who plays his own game for hours on end, it's hard to gauge what's difficult and what's not, but it's better to err on the side of easy. (I really enjoyed the concept for the second level, very creative.)
2. As many other people have said, collisions could be better. I died a few times because of that.
However, I think you've made an interesting game. Would like to see a post-jam version for sure.
@sidewalksleeper This is my first game where I actually had to remember making a good difficulty curve (my last game doesn't count since that felt like more of a proof of concept), I completely forgot to actually give the players one or two starter levels so they can get to grips with the controls, instead I gave them a confined, fast paced level that gives the player no time to get his bearings together, I
REALLY messed up on that part.
In the post jam version that I'm working on currently I have mostly fixed the collision issues, the ear rape landing sound on Level 2 for example and particle effects have been completely fixed but I'm still not satisfied with how the general collision detection feels.
It's true that it is not easy, however given that there are "only" 5 levels (which is normal, it's a game jam after all), the challenge made them worth playing, but I can understand that it can be frustrating to struggle on an early level
Nice challenge overall ^^
- First, the death sound effect, I wont be surprised if people have complained about that, but Im sure a quick fix would do.
- Second, moving platform should have the player sticking to it, here is a useful pointer for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R_AdDK25kQ. Chasing the moving platform really drove me nuts so I could count your game as a rage game haha.
- I think the collision is fine. But the movement of the character doesnt seem right. He is a block with spike, which suggests that he should be heavy and slow, but in fact he moves sooo fast its almost too hard to control him. I overshoot his jump a lot of time though, it could get annoying in combination with chasing the moving platforms.
Otherwise I think your game is very promising if you have some more time to polish it. What I like about the game is that even though it is a platformer with moving platform, the movement of the platform is known in advance by players, such that they know the pointer would come and collect that platform so there is some time to plan everything out. Very potential idea, great work! And congrats on getting 50 ratings, now its 51 xD
- Death sound is getting patched in V1.2 today (eek, maybe not, Unity Collab doesn't support branching and I'm a bit uneasy about making 2 projects under one repo since work for V2 is already underway)
- Thanks for the video, I was actually painfully googling for a solution during the Jam but couldn't find any resources (I'm not a video tutorial type of person) but I'll get watching!
- I was really unsure for what kind of character I wanted to go for. I ended up making a transistor kind of character which doesn't even fit with the damn story! (The game is set INSIDE the game NOT a computer GRR). I need to come up with something new.
- For V2.0 I've already completely adjusted the players movement. You can no longer double jump when walking of ledges, the player has greater vertical control, more gravity, less air friction, the player feels heavier and your general horizontal reach whether on the ground or jumping has been reduced.
- I'm actually adding a "net mode" into V2.0 which will give the player a bunch of info on the current level, such as which bins connect with which changer, which blocks will eventually get deleted. I think conveying information to the player is something I really messed up on here which is another reason why people found the gane so difficult.
Thanks for the feedback!
A lot of people have mentioned the tricky collisions, so I won't touch on those more, but it seems that nobody has mentioned level design and progression things, which caused my confusion about walking on the pointer just now, so I'll touch on that.
The wisest thing I can say is this golden rule: Every time you introduce a new mechanic, introduce it on its own, in it's most simplest form possible. Your player knows nothing. Your levels should build on and challenge the player's knowledge base step by step. So for example, you'll set up your levels & progression to be something like this:
* Moving/jumping - no pointer at all.
* Pointer introduced - doesn't interact with the player but selects a bunch of random blocks that don't affect the platforming/goal/gameplay in any way.
* Walking on the pointer - no tricky platforming that the player thinks they can make with tricky platforming/jumping. (i.e. your beginning of level 2)
* A platforming challenge that can only be completed with a double jump.
* Player being targeted by pointer, has to run for their lives.
* Combine multiple of the above.
* Simplest possible introduction of area that switches the cursor tracking to different recycle bins.
* Combine multiple of the above.
* Simplest possible physics puzzle without multiple markers.
* Combine multiple of the above.
* etc.
Ahem! Enough wishy-washy advice giving from me... The concept is great and I really enjoyed it! Following and looking forward to your next jam. :thumbsup:
A platformer with a twist. Ehh, the twist is novel sure, but a bit finicky. This is mostly due to the jittery collision detection *(enough specific comments on that already)* and the tight timing of the jumps. For instance in the last level you could easily add a bigger window of opportunity by moving the bottom most trash can all the way down to the edge of the level.
Obviously the graphics would use a lot of work as most objects are temp boxes or a varying colors and sizes. The few custom sprites emanate a pleasant Supaplex vibe, but look out of place at the moment.
No bugs, that's good. The workmanship isn't there yet.
Thanks for your review!