The Game of Mao

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.28
Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.22
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.95
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.67
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.37
Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.21
Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.54
Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.17
Made by Danny88881 for Ludum Dare 45

You start with no rules or information, can you find your way out of each chamber?

Press R to restart

Rules of Mao:
1. Do not discuss the rules of mao
2. See rule 1
3. See rule 1
4. See rule 1
5. See rule 1
6. See rule 1
7. See rule 1

There are 12 stages total

This is a pretty hard game

Send me a screenshot if you win!

Software used:
Godot 3.1 (Game engine)
Graphics Gale (Pixel art)
FL Studio demo (music)

Comments27

JediNeeson
JediNeeson7 Oct 2019, 01:09
Really impressive. It's so hard to deal with the head collision! Your graphics and music are perfect. The only thing I don't understand is 1.2.3 for the player controller, it felt really weird. GG, great work!
Danny88881
Danny88881author7 Oct 2019, 01:20
Thanks for the review! The 1 2 3 player control is there just to mess with you as are the the other rules ;)
crunchykingcobra
crunchykingcobra7 Oct 2019, 01:21
Really nicely put together. The subtle escalation of rules and difficulty is well handled, although some of the difficulty comes from the awkward jump height. Alternation melted my brain for a few minutes before it all clicked into place. The overall style is very appealing and I like the soft corners on everything.
kuviman
kuviman7 Oct 2019, 01:31
Really good game, I enjoyed it a lot! Took quite a bit of time though!

Here's your screenshot :)

There is some issue - on 144hz monitor boxes are not pushable very often, and then I moved to 60hz one and everything became playable again. I'm pretty sure it depends on the monitor - maybe something happens if too little time passed since last frame on level reset?
Danny88881
Danny88881author7 Oct 2019, 01:35
@kuviman Wow great job! I'm seriously impressed you managed to beat all the levels. They took me a long time to test and create.
I think that the error you are facing has to do with delta calculations that I forgot to include, I would like to fix it but I don't know Ludum Dare's policy on fixing bugs.
SirFetishFancy7 Oct 2019, 03:04
I like the music, the player character is absolutely adorable & I like the color palette. But rule three being you die at random times made me quit, & the room before it with the boxes was frustrating because of the jumps even though I understood the puzzle. My favorite game jam game so far though.
Danny88881
Danny88881author7 Oct 2019, 03:17
@sirfetishfancy Haha, sorry about that. There is a pattern for all of the rules you just need to figure out. The name of each of the rules gives a hint as to what the actual rule is. Thanks for playing my game though, I also got really frustrated play-testing my own game, which was probably a sign that it was too hard :/
I hope you enjoyed the game!
Cybikitty
Cybikitty7 Oct 2019, 19:56
The graphics and music of this is so wonderful! It HAS however made me rage quit a little just for now, but I'll for sure come back to it and try my best to beat it! :smile:
mutuware7 Oct 2019, 20:05
Nice stylized aesthetics! Pretty hard kept losing my head.
Danielcmcg
Danielcmcg7 Oct 2019, 20:37
Beautiful game, fun to play and nice rules and puzzles!
spacey3d
spacey3d8 Oct 2019, 01:30
Got difficult but fun! The rules were clever, and thanks for introducing me to the game of mao. I think the white+grey is a little light compared to the brown/green and other colors- I'd like to see them just a little bit closer.
EoG
EoG8 Oct 2019, 01:33
You balanced the difficulty very well! Annoying but achievable
MattWagar
MattWagar8 Oct 2019, 01:52
Everything felt bouncy and fun in all the best ways. Good animation, clever mechanics, and just all around a good time.
Norris Eldridge8 Oct 2019, 02:09
This is a fantastic game! It's simple but really fun to figure out. I like the chill music to offset the difficulty too :P
cottontshirtz8 Oct 2019, 02:56
It's a good thing the music is calming; as the more rules get added, the more difficult it becomes...
Miryuu_Sekka8 Oct 2019, 14:39
interisting but hard =,,,3
*this maaaarrrrrrio reference is good ^^
ahistyap
ahistyap8 Oct 2019, 21:30
I spent more time more than I should playing this game, but still didn't manage to complete it LMAO. Great game overall, innovative mechanics and cute graphics too!
Ferdi8 Oct 2019, 22:37
I could totaly pay for that game. Awesome job, I really love it. New fav for this jam
philomory8 Oct 2019, 23:15
This is... really hard. Also the first time I loaded it I just had a black screen with music, but, I thought that was the game! I was pushing every button the keyboard, eventually I quit and reloaded and it loaded properly and I got to play :stuck_out_tongue:

My only other complaint is, at least in WebGL in chrome, once the Alternation rule in place, if you turn rapidly back and forth too quickly it seems to kill you, I'm _reasonably_ confident I pressed the keys in the correct order. It made midair turns extra hard in some spots.
woody_builder
woody_builder9 Oct 2019, 00:12
Really good puzzle game, you did a nice job there. I don't know why but there is something that feels like FEZ... maybe the music added to my brain melting on puzzles :stuck_out_tongue:

Also I had the issue mentioned by kuviman on a 144hz monitor. Other than that everything was good.
gamesplusjames
gamesplusjames9 Oct 2019, 19:35
This was a really awesome looking game! It was fun but also hard :D Great work!
AmigoPadilha9 Oct 2019, 19:45
Great game, really hard as the game progress!
Nice job!
coffeedrinkers9 Oct 2019, 22:28
Great game! Quite hard but satisfying at the end! Loved the art!
ZackNAttack15 Nov 2019, 02:12
Got it!

The only problems I really had with it were the fact that past rule 3, pressing 1 at the start of the level kills (tripped me up during the final level but was fine otherwise), past rule 3, pressing 1 and 3 simultaneously kills (i feel like the best solution would be fore the character to keep moving in the last direction moved during it) and that during the final level 5 times I died because of crates clipping in the ground when stood on.

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