GhostVac

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Fun little game!! reminds me of that old windows flipper game. Nice aesthetics

Fun game, great artwork! Really enjoyed!

Looks amazing and plays very well! Super polished. Well done!

Unfortunately, this game does not fit the theme.
BUT
It's pretty fun, simple and good looking! I even beat the boss.

funny game!

I kinda wish there was an arcade game like this in real life.

I liked the idea of sucking ghosts with a vacuum, even if i don't see the relation with the theme (yeah it's optional, fair enough i can respect that) :D.

The arcade machine feel was a nice touch, but i found the gameplay / physics a little too frustrating for me to be honest. I think this is because i had to spend a lot of time waiting for the ghosts to get sucked in by the vacuum in my playthrough ?

It's such a fun game to play! (ngl got a bit addicted). If I were to critique it a little bit, it doesn't really fit the theme, and there's no easy restart button, which made it a bit annoying to reload the page every single time I wanted to replay. But overall, amazing graphics and making it seem like a real life stimulation! Got me really into it.

It's pretty funny! Simple but awesome. I love the Pixel Display!

Took a second or two to figure out the mechanics, but then I was having quite a lot of fun. The art and animations were really well made as usual! I think it did get a bit stuck on the boss because I had no ghosts to suck and blow left but the timer kept ticking down, so perhaps one or two never got released between the rounds?

Absolutely love the art, especially the little screen in the back.
Enjoyed it enough to play it twice too. Though, the second time through the time kept going even when I scored all the ghosts, not sure what happened there.
Overall one of the better games I've played this jam, but I'm not sure how it relates to the theme.

Great idea for a little arcade game. I like the LED display as well. Some more fun SFX (think pinball or slot machine) or music would've been good. The boss felt the same as the regular level.

Not on theme but great work i really enjoyed. Didnt even know this type of thing was possible in construct.

This is awesome, my favourite bit was the reflections of the screen of the floor, it felt so real! Little arcade simple but fun, not very fitting the theme, but extremely polished (except for the lack of music, some bit tunes or similar could have been a perfect fit). Outstanding!

Really fantastically nailed the aesthetic!

And here I thought all you did was pixel art but wow was that machine life like! Gameplay-wise I liked the mechanic of sucking up the ghosts and then shooting them into the holes. Reminded me of those games of skill that you find in carnivals and places like that. From time to time it was a little difficult to suck up the ghosts but hey that is how those machines get you to put more quarters in! :wink: All in all this was yet another example of your extraordinary talent, not only as an artist, but as a game designer too!

Incredibly polished and quite addictive. Looks and feels really good, and I love the arcade machine concept.

That was so good! 💜 First Wobble Jump and now this. Does a game like this exist physically IRL or did you come up with the whole thing?

Presentation is incredibly CUTE with the little faces on the screen. And genuinely feels like an arcade machine (love that reflection, like Le Slo said!)! At least for me it's got the difficulty to boot as well—the boss was *tough*!

Loved the sounds too but unfortunately some of them were a bit too shrill for my ears to cope with, sorry about that. 😅

LOVED IT. 💜💜

(also I spent way too long figuring out 幽霊退治 👻)

Fun little game!

Brilliant and charming! The graphics are amazing (and I'm still baffled about the fact that it's actually 2D) and I could not really put it down after I started playing! Awesome job!!

Really cool, you nailed the arcade machine feel. The vacuum sounds of it turning off and on when the game is getting ready is really nice. Sometimes the game freezes when it reaches the boss and the timer pauses, but it was easy to refresh and try again. There were also really nice animation on the marquee with the ghosts. nice job!

AWESOME graphics, stunning

Just saw this in a livestream and tried myself! Amazingly fun game! Super creative and very unique! :smiley_cat:

Such an awesome looking game! Everything looks like as if it's a real arcade machine. The pixel scoreboard, the reflections, the green balls, they just look real!

I sometimes have a problem that after the first round the vac doesn't work and I'll have to restart, but it looks awesome :smile:

The look and feel of this is phenomenal. Game itself is pretty simple/easy but the whole presentation really sells it.

Really cool game, especially how you worked with the graphics (3D game in 2D engine). I enjoyed playing it. It was satisfying, well themed, and had amazing visuals (especially the shine on objects). The game could benefit from some difficulty modes, where an easier mode would have a faint line to the hold because aiming at the left and right holes took some adjusting to. Overall, really good game that I had fun playing! Keep it up!

Short but fun experience with super cool graphics! I found the game via your post talking about how you achieved the 3D-looking aesthetic in full 2D and I'm impressed at how well it does the trick.

The tie to the theme may have got a bit lost from your original concept, but the game might have become better in return, so that's fine :) It does offer lots of potential from multiple areas, I could even imagine some kind of multiplayer game modes fitting well with this.

Congrats!!

Awesome! Great concept, and the graphics are excellent (I loved the LCD boss faces). The perspective made me think it was the pinball minigame from Sonic Spinball at first :P Gameplay is fun but a bit hard to get used to - feels like it starts out hard and gets easier as there's fewer ghosts to block your path. The bit of lag on movement and ambiguous angle of the vacuum made it difficult to aim too. Beat it after a few tries - the timing on the boss is pretty brutal, but I guess that level of difficulty makes sense for an arcade game! Pretty solid experience overall. Great work!

Played it, it reminded me a bit of space cadet, the windows XP flipper. But your game is way more beautiful, realy impressing what you were able todo with fake 3D graphics.

This is super cool, love the shiny/plastic-y look and the the screen in the back. It really sells the aesthetic!

I loved this! also I think it fit the theme in a clever way. I had to keep my highscore attempt ALIIIIIIVE! also thats not 3d?! what? honestly rock solid and addicting! good show!

Love the aesthetics and the boss battle!

Great game! The 3D effect is very well done!
Congrats!

This is a really cool game, even without all the technical wizardry going on behind the scenes! The boss is really hard, but I felt motivated to get back there and beat it each time! I love all the little arcade machine features, like how it shoots out the balls to reset, and how you can see different reflections from the glass and other parts of the machine. I really love the board in the background, it's exactly what an arcade game would have, and looks awesome. All round a really cool game, I only wish it was longer! :heart:

This *really* sells the setting and it feels like playing a real arcade machine - the graphics and sound design are really impressive, and the way the suction works feels very satisfying and realistic. It doesn't quite have the excitement of pinball - it's a bit slower and less flashy - but everything doesn't have to and it feels like an obscure machine you could find in a corner of an old arcade down the pier.

FINALLY A GAME THAT CALLS ME A BOSS!! HAHA FUN AND GREAT GAME! LOVED IT!! Also I think I encountered a bug by click on the up button and the game was stuck i couldn't move?

Pretty fun, great 3d renders (didn't know Construct 2 did 3d) and concept.

The suction sound is a bit noisy which is 100% how it would be IRL.

I made it to the "boss" but didn't beat it. :tired_face: Also I ran into a bug where the Z key stops working... I clicked for focus and it still didn't work :scream:

Big arcade mood, wish I could go to an arcade and play this for real :laughing:

Hey Christina, first and foremost, big fan of your pixel work. It's really interesting to see a standalone game of Luigui's Mansion vacuum. The arcade table is beautiful and sleek, and everything connects together nicely, although I wasn't sure what to do after finishing all initial ghosts - it would just repeat itself over and over?

Amazing graphics and great gamefeel. That score display is so sick! it's really unique! The "shooting" is juicy but I think you could add even more juice when the player traps a ghost. First boss was a little too hard for my taste. Amazing work! 4.5/5

Polished entry! The art is outstanding. Simple mechanic executed well. Would have loved a coin slot or button to press for restarting. Impressive jam!

Very cool, it felt maybe a little slow for the balls to get within range of the vaccum if you miss a goal, but other than that, very nice to play, and impressive for a 2d game engine!

Top marks for innovation!

I really love how this feels like an arcade that could actually exist.

Very nice game! 3d objects in 2d space works really well! I honestly felt like I was playing a real life arcade game. good job!

The LCD Screen at the top really worked well! One thing that I wish was added was some form of mouse controls, I feel like that would emulate the arcade experience a little better.

Ahaha, this is really funny and unique. In a nutshell it's like Luigi's Mansion mixed with Pinball and Hungry Hungry Hippos. The score display is obviously so, so cool. The controls feel really nice, and I like how the difficulty scales. I couldn't beat the boss right off the bat but I bet I could with some practice. Overall it feels really immersive and like a real pinball table. I think you could add a little more feedback for when the ghosts go in the goals (maybe sounds or flashing lights) but other than that it's a really tight game.

Fun and simple, feels like it should be a mini game in an RPG/Open World game. Great use of a shiny texture and reflection with dot screen. Cool seeing the balls roll around in the back when the doors opened like a real machine would.

This was cool, although I kept getting a technical error so I didn't manage to complete it. My vacuum would just randomly stop working. Really interesting the 2d/3d thing you have going on.

Hello! Your game was played during my stream!

If you want to know the timestamp of when your game was played you can see it in this spreadsheet:
https://tinyurl.com/yau8hjzn

And then look in my latest videos and find your game being play (after the current stream ends)
https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos

It's a pleasant surprise to see a Construct Game with 3D Graphics in play!
Nice Execution of the animated LED Display.
Those creature-balls are quite random & tricky to handle, especially for the BOSS-round.

Bug?: while you have a creature-ball in ghost-vac possession, after a while during BOSS-round, the ghost-traps lock-up (instead of its usual open/close cycle).

I'll acknowledge to how others have mentioned of this cross-over: Luigi's Mansion mixed with Hungry Hungry Hippos (and a dab of Pinball LED display for that Redemption Arcade game feel..) :dizzy:

I love the artwork! I feel like this could have been a really solid entry if it was a bit more fleshed out. General arcade stuff like highscores, grungy chiptunes, and flashing lights would have really tied this together. Would have loved to see more stages and bosses. It's a lot of fun to play around with!

Dig this a bunch, simple mechanic that feels a lot like a coin-op arcade game. I could very easily see myself playing something like this at Dave & Busters. Good challenge, a lot of fun! Well done! One issue my vacuum stopped working when I got to the boss on my second playthrough, should check that out.

One of the most polished graphics I have ever seen on Ludum Dare. I really felt like I was at an arcade machine! The game is very fun to play: after I finished it, it made me want to play again, which happens very rarely on game jams. The only thing that bugged me was that sometimes I managed to hit a door perfectly but the other balls inside threw my ball away :(

Overall a really great entry!

It goes without saying that you guys and gals did a great job with this. Christina you are clearly very talented! It was great fun playing on stream last night with you!

really cool game, does it exist in Japan or something like that in real life? i really like it, but it doesn't fit the theme that well.

Thinking this is all just 2D sprites with a lot of trickery and know-how is so fascinating to think of. On that same note, thank you so much for including the source code, as I can see people actually learning a lot by analyzing what really happens in there.

Goes without saying that the game looks and plays fantastic, but it's just outshined by the aforementioned education potential. Phenomenal work!

@trexxak I'm glad! I hope people don't learn from my incredibly crappy code. For example there's a bug where the game hangs before the boss. It's definitely because I didn't use proper enum states, because I was making it up as I went. But yeah, I'm happy to share technique, absolutely

@turritom @joemag @ethebakesmith @ithildin @le-slo @matt-greenbury @celdur @colinbellino @alexascher

THEME

First things first, I did let the theme get lost in development. The game was initially about feeding balls to a creature via the hatches, to keep it alive. The gameplay has stayed exactly the same, you still have to feed the hatches before time runs out, but arcade games live and die on how easy they are to pick up. I thought the metaphor of busting ghosts was more apt. So the story the game tells isn't about "keeping it alive",but I'm ok with it. I prioritized gameplay over metaphor.

Re: people who ask whether I copied an existing machine: I would swear that there's nothing like this game in any amusement hall, BUT, searching through my reference folder this week, I found

THIS

It's a two player game where you score goals on each other using 2 blowers! It's even ghost themed, and it's obvious to me that I totally stole those flat-bottomed ghosts that are part ball and part air hockey puck!

I was obsessively researching electromechanical games a few months ago, and it obviously stuck with me subconsciously!! That said, my game is significantly more sophisticated and gameplay is very different, so no, nothing like this exists anywhere, to my knowledge.

@vernalbehemoth @colinbellino @local-minimum @celdur @kunonooni @brain-in-a-bowl @adhesion @justcamh @neontropics
@johnnysix @nelson-william @ruthiepee @eldogg @acronaut @joemag @turritom

Game Design breakdown:

A sort of pinball-ish, sort of shooter-y, sort of tractor-beam type arcade physics gameplay.
I wanted to realize the fantasy of busting ghosts like Ghostbusters or Danny phantom. I felt it would be fun to make it a two step process: get the ghost, then a trap opens, then you have a limited time window to shoot your ghost in there.
Two peaks of pleasure: successfully sucking and trapping a ghost, and then managing to exterminate it by successfully aiming it into a trap.

The ghosts would have to move around a bunch, to provide a moving target.
If I had time (I did!) I wanted to implement a boss with a higher difficulty obviously, but also a slightly different mechanic: this time hatches open up and close automatically and randomly. Those same hatches that used to be ghost traps, now represent vulnerable spots of the boss.

Suction is an illusion!

I went about implementing a "suck" behavior. Now, real-world vacuums do not suck that far! My solution was to "engineer" one blower fan that blows uniformly through 20 small holes arranged in a half circle opposite the player. Each of those holes opens via a circuit, depending on the angle of the ghost vacuum. Probably a potentiometer, or maybe even more primitive, through 20 distinct contacts on the rotating vacuum side. The effect looks like sucking ghosts, even though it's actually ghosts being blown towards the player.

The same blower fan also periodically diverts some air to blow away from the player, so that the ghosts move around on the playfield.

But the illusion of sucking doesn't stop there: When a ghost is near the vacuum, it really *does* suck it in (I emulated a suction force, by making it dependent on the inverse square of the distance - i.e. it gets weak at even tiny distances from the source).

When a ball is close enough, a sensor triggers a magnet at the tip of the vacuum, so the ghost is locked. Then, in order to shoot the ghost fast, a kicker is activated that sends it flying. Just blowing it away wouldn't be half as snappy or consistent or satisfying. So that called for more fakery.

Also to keep the balls from flying into the hatches on their own, I implemented a bump/ ridge in front of the hatches - i.e. a barrier for most balls, unless they're moving fast enough to overcome the bump.

To keep the balls from spilling out of their traps, the back half of the playfield is a platform that's angled back: I apply a small force toward the top of the playfield on any captured ball. When the game resets, the platform is raised, and the slope is enough to send the balls toward the player and out of the traps.

It looks extremely simple, but it would probably be expensive to manufacture: there are sensors for the balls going in and out (so that the game knows when to score or reset). To stay realistic and keep "costs" down I didn't implement flashing lights on the playfield or other gimmicks. Those games usually rely on cheap segmented monitors (already a Dot Matrix Display is luxury), and one core mechanical gimmick (the blower).

I think it's a fascinating field of game design, and I pride myself for thinking things through and implementing real-life mechanics.

Known Bugs

thanks to all the feedback from players, I'm now aware of a timer bug. It doesn't always trigger, and seems to only trigger on slower systems or browsers. I did however track it down, and it's completely because of my sloppy spaghetti code: I'm not setting the enum state of the game properly. And because of that I had to use lots of if-statements, which is exactly the sort of thing the state machine design pattern is there to avoid. I'm still debugging this. In any case, don't emulate my mistakes!

@jivers99 @marcusnystrand @vernalbehemoth @alexasche @skitzogamer @heyycap @thristhart @kunonooni @brain-in-a-bowl
@ava-skoog @fatsheep @harry-alissavakis @aeveis @despdair @bitpokit @quarter-up-studios @ithildin @adhesion @rohezal @peterfiftyfour @ethebakesmith @teammonumental @justcamh @neontropics @yellowlime @splitpainter @patsui @johnnysix @nelson-william @jonrei @ruthiepee @eldogg @alexrose @acronaut @alchemic @joemag @max-louis

3D is an illusion!

Then there's the fake 3D using sprites. That was a lot of work to figure out, especially since I made this in a 2D engine. The source code gives it away, you can have a look. But it's basically projection math. Dividing by Z to convert "flat world" coordinates to "projected" coordinates. Then the flat world can be used to design a playfield in 3D

2D playfield for designing and testing

3D playfield built on the 2D playfield. For displaying the game at a more immersive angle.

2D physics on the right, sprites on the left.

The one and only sprite used for the ghosts. They get Z-sorted, based on the ghosts' Y coordinate, and also scaled depending on Z.

The combined shadow and reflection sprite, that follows the ghosts around, on a separate layer (i.e. canvas) with universal 50% layer opacity:

The ghostvac plastic nozzle is a prerendered 60-frame animation. Each of those 60 frames corresponds to one of 60 degrees that the ghostvac is constrained to.

The prerendered plastic border was sliced and placed on top or behind the ghost balls, accordingly:

Further Development

The things to add to this game are definitely: score and a survival mode-type gameplay.
Maybe a bonus mode where you freely shoot hatches. Nothing that requires more mechanical gimmicks! It's the limitations that make this kind of machine attractive to design for.

Also an operator's settings menu, including highscore reset and timer difficulty adjustments, which also double as accessibility options. Disabled players love arcade challenges too, and giving a leeway of a few extra seconds to make the game beatable by everyone is high on my list.

Thank you for playing!

GHOSTVAC

That was fantastic! A really unique, fun little LD game. It was so much like playing a real arcade game - the attention to detail is fantastic! A few things really stood out to me:
- the LED display - so good! The scrolling title screen, the messages when you get a ghost in, the "boss" - such a great addition.
- the reflections - they made the game board just pop so much!
- the sound effects - the vacuuming sound and the other various shunting and movement sounds were so appropriate and so well used.

The gameplay itself was also fun - lining up shots felt great, and if you missed you really felt the "just a little to the left next time" feeling. The sucking of the ghosts was a little random and felt a little unfair sometimes that the ghost would just fly away, but it's a minor nit.
I loved the two modes - the first mode felt like it was teaching you and easing you in - then the "boss" comes and ramps up the difficulty. Great stuff. I'm just sad it's so short - I want more modes, more bosses, more time playing!
The polish was great - seeing the ghosts floating around in the back instead of just disappearing was such a neat little touch.
This would have got almost perfect scores from me - the lack of connection to the theme is slightly sad, and maybe some music would have really finished the atmosphere.
In any case, really great job!

@marcusnystrand Thank you

Cool idea. I like the arcade machine style. The game itself is very interesting and I like the boss fight. Unfortunately I was only able to start the boss fight once in the html build. The other times the fight did not start. I think, because not all balls entered the playfield? But I'm not sure.

Anyway, nice idea, wonderful graphics. I liked it.

This is really cool. It's fun to play for sure, but more than anything I was impressed by your breakdown of how you achieved the 3D in a 2D engine. Very cool!

@christina-antoinette-neofotistou ah yes, i gave it another go on another machine and it went smoothly this time. I guess it was an issue on my side, my bad. Updating my vote :)

@colinbellino no need

Really cool idea. Thanks for the technical explanation in the comments! I would really like this to be a physical game to play, I bet it would be really fun.

Fun! Really liked the arcade presentation: it feels like it could be a real arcade machine. And that LED screen has so much character. I had a hard time hitting those side doors, but I got enough better at it eventually to beat the boss on my third try. Luck may have had something to do with it.

A bit hard to aim and a little too hard, but other than that it's an amazing game. The sound and graphics were definitely the best so far! Good job!

This was really well made. Behind the scene post mortem was interesting, very convincing 3d-effect! I would love to play this as a real arcade cabinet!

I have no idea why you'd decide to use 2D sprites instead of 3d shapes in that case, but I have to admit it looks good. :D

@khud0 because construct 2 is a 2d-only engine and does not do 3d. Thanks for the kind words

@happy-fish-gaming-co thanks! The two players who thought it was hard so far were playing on an underperforming system/ browser. Chrome or the desktop version is recommended. Otherwise maybe I should look for a bug

This is cool! The suction mechanic is unique and fun. Also the graphics is really beautiful. Especially I love the cute ghost animation on the timer display. I can't believe all of this arcade machine is made with 2d sprites. Great job!

nice and fun arcady game. well done bro.

I've very much enjoyed your brake down.

I think this could use some leader boards.

@abdurrahman-khallouf leaderboards or at least local high score is a very good idea, thank you

sorry sis :D didn't really notice. although sometimes I'd call my sister bro. lol.

Really awesome arcade game. I kinda wish this excited in real life. The boss was definitely much harder!

Great Game, i would love to play this in real life too hahah, feels really amazing to play, nice job!

My game never made it to the boss round successfully unfortunately. That's a shame, would have loved to see more of this!

AH! This really made me feel like a kid at an arcade trying to get tickets! Wonderful job!

You know I enjoyed it from the time I spent on stream playing it :D Had such a great FEEL to it. It definitely takes some talent to do something as simple as this and make it feel like a genuine arcade machine. Cool design, presentation and an all-round good experience.