Keep Drogon alive is a submission to IndiQ game jam and LDJAM46. It's a joint project betwen me and llunapuert. The game idea and BGM were due to llunapuert.
On the surface, this game is a Game of Thrones theme, inverse space invader, Ikaruga-clone. Beneath the surface, it runs on a simulated quantum computer and demonstrate an important concept in quantum physics!
When Drogon is red, its state is |0>; when it's blue, its state is |+> = |0>+|1>. When the arrow is read, it's a Z-basis measurement; when it's blue, it's a X-basis measurement. Whether Drogon gets hit is determined by the measurement outcome of |1>. When Drogon and arrow have the same color, the measurement outcome is 100% |0>, 0% |1> and therefore, it never gets hit. When they are not the same color, the measurement outcome is 50% |0> and 50% |1> and therefore, Drogon gets hit 50% of the time.
The quantum computing aspect is implemented by a MicroQiskit-Lua quantum simulator developed by Decodoku.
The science is demo using Qiskit in a jupyter notebook here
This game is also an entry to IndiQ quantum game jam, a side quest to LDJAM with sole additional requirement of the game can run on a real quantum computer or a quantum simulator. Please rate the game for that jam as well in the HTML link below! Thanks a lot for playing and rating!
Wow! I like the art style, music and the arcady feel of the game. The gameplay is nice and simple, although a bit too easy if you decide to not change your color at all :D, I'd suggest making it so it changes every couple of seconds. Other that that, it's a fun game!
@bredcrumb Thanks a lot for playing and rating the game! I thought the game is difficult without changing the color. You must be really good at playing games!
The quantum computing stuff goes way over my head, but it's very original!
Notes: * Like @bredcrumb I also thought it was a bit too easy, and I like their suggestion * It says "press 'O' to start" but for keyboard it wasn't easy to figure out that meant the 'Z' key
@rrsmtz@princesschoochoo Thanks for playing and the feedback. I really thought the game was quite difficult! But I guess most people here are veteran gamers so I should have ramped up the difficulty. About the control, it’s my bad not to mention the the buttons of Pico-8 (the game engine I used) on keyboard. (X maps to X and O maps to Z) The instructions are now added to the game page.
Comments5
Notes:
* Like @bredcrumb I also thought it was a bit too easy, and I like their suggestion
* It says "press 'O' to start" but for keyboard it wasn't easy to figure out that meant the 'Z' key
As mentioned it seems a little easy atm as you get constant streams of one colour for a long period, and they even heal you.
One minor point, it said press (O) to restart at the end, but it didn't work for me. (Pressing Z or X)