Maudits Fantômes / Cursed Ghosts
This game is from ldjam.com, which is currently unavailable.
You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive (may not load correctly).
You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive (may not load correctly).
Every ten seconds, the 10-second pellet is gulped. And every ten seconds, those cursed ghosts float for their non-lives, not to be brought by the Mighty Claw to one of the coloured gods as assorted offerings.
Where do you fit in this? Well, you play as the claw.
An arcade-styled speedy short-term memory game. *Pac-Man* meets red light, green light.
Some more information (not that much!) is in the README.md from the GitLab repository, especially some ideas I have.
The game alternates between ‘night’ and ‘day’ phases. During the night, you can observe the colours of the ghosts; during the day, you can grab and release ghosts. The goal is to release ghosts on the sideway receivers (the four static coloured Pac-Mans), matching the colours. The target number of ghosts is indicated in the upper-left corner (‘Sacrifices’), while the remaining number of full night-day cycles is indicated right to the Power Pellet icon (also in the upper-left corner). *[In version 1.1, ‘Harvest’.]*
There is no maximum level, the game goes on (until level 49, see below). *[In version 1.1, the game goes back to level 1 after level 38.]*
COLOURBLIND MODE: in colourblind mode, numbers get displayed to make up for colours (both on daytime ghosts and receivers).
* Arrow keys to move the claw
* Space to catch/release a ghost
* Navigator: Disclaimer: as fullscreen was not working properly, display is just a little different (smaller resolution, and also a small zoom out from v1.0.2). See this devlog for details about debugging.
* Linux: it is somewhat uneasy to provide a one-size-fits-all Linux binary because of the variety of distributions, but using the .love file I uploaded, having Love2D should be enough. There is also a solution involving AppImage, although I could not test it. See here for more detail.
(05/10/2022) Current legitimate Compo version is 1.0.1, which is basically version 1.0 + colourblind mode + level-skipping key.
(06/10/2022) OUT NOW: post-Compo version 1.0.2 with better parameters for difficulty steepness and for the ghosts’ ‘night shift’ duration. ;) Although this is really the original version ‘done right’… I am not replacing the original one as I am not sure this would be fair, but you can still take a look if you want to see some more justice done to the game. See devlog for details (including better tiles and a difficulty fix). You can also download the 1.0.2 navigator version (in case you can make it run somewhere), but take notice that the current itch.io player runs 1.0.1.
(05/10/2022) HOPEFULLY COMING SOON: post-Compo version 1.1 with stackable ghosts, and possibly a mode with pre-designed levels. Another idea I had and will try here, which is even simpler to program, is a *Tetris*-like ‘Panic Mode’ where you get more ghosts with time, and have to take them out as long as possible before the whole space is full. (And also, getting the screen hidden or colours ‘blurred’ for some time as a penalty for holding a ghost at night, which would make more sense than merely getting immobilised.) I am willing to bet I would totally have had the time to make this one for the Jam deadline, and possibly the night of the Compo deadline. (11/10/2022) OUT NOW: modes are saved for a future version 1.2, but layers, more challenging difficulty, and a lot of user-friendly details have been added! :) The mouthful devlog is there. Once again, downloading the 1.1 navigator version is possible. I think things are getting interesting here, stressing again out of fairness that this should not be judged as the Compo version, although it can give a hint about the game’s potential and extensions. (For the record, debugging collisions and shadows was a massive time black hole! This version would have been riddled with occasional front-depth shadows in competition conditions…) Either 1.1 or 1.2 is ‘Jam version done right’.
I came up very late with the complete idea, while I thought of the cheeky allusion to the famous arcade mechanic very quickly. I would have had the time for the whole layer mechanic and carefully crafted levels based on it (including implicit tutorial progression) had I not had so much trouble with my thought process (I wavered between a whole host of wildly different concepts!); actually, I might have been able to make it in less than one or two hours, and certainly for the Jam deadline, but I wanted to challenge myself for the Compo rules. Playtesting was also minimal with the final conditions, but having a series of increasingly difficult levels is a makeshift solution; the formulae are super easy to tweak, although I am unsure this would count as bug fixing… (Edit shortly thereafter: I simply decreased the number of cycles. This was really one mere instruction and this feels way more reasonable! No change in mechanics.)
I may upload a version with layers elsewhere, so stay tuned if you are interested! :slight_smile: (But not here, as I believe upgraded versions are not authorized even if the original stays available and pinpointed? Not sure, the rules do not say; maybe you know.)
* Framework: Love2D
* Sound effects: jsfxr + Audacity
* Nothing else for the graphics, as everything here is managed entirely programmatically (except for the icon and thumbnail/cover), and often vectorially. So, Sublime Text! :slight_smile:
* As a side note: for reducing and compressing the animated GIF, iLoveIMG is useful.
[All solved in version 1.1]
* Since I (voluntarily) let the grid at a constant size, and since there is no cap on the number of ghosts nor vertical stacking of ghosts programmed, I suspect you will run into an infinite loop if you reach too high a level. (A quick inequation solving leads me to believe this would be level 49. Hey, after all, the original *Pac-Man* had a notorious bug for level 256! Mine is just not a cool power-of-2-related one.)
* Ghosts sometimes collide, while they should not. This is only seldom a problem, except maybe in very advanced levels.
* It seems that you sometimes cannot grab a ghost right after having released it. Unsure.
* Not really a bug per say, but display depth is not (yet) handled, so, do not frown if you see a ghost pass behind another one when it should not. Consider it ghost magic. :3
* v1.1: Ghosts will first finish their current movement (including staying still) before falling, in a Wile E. Coyote fashion: this is on purpose. :)
* v1.1: preventing superimposition is dealt with by stacking upwards. See point 35 from the devlog.
Where do you fit in this? Well, you play as the claw.
An arcade-styled speedy short-term memory game. *Pac-Man* meets red light, green light.
Some more information (not that much!) is in the README.md from the GitLab repository, especially some ideas I have.
How to play
The game alternates between ‘night’ and ‘day’ phases. During the night, you can observe the colours of the ghosts; during the day, you can grab and release ghosts. The goal is to release ghosts on the sideway receivers (the four static coloured Pac-Mans), matching the colours. The target number of ghosts is indicated in the upper-left corner (‘Sacrifices’), while the remaining number of full night-day cycles is indicated right to the Power Pellet icon (also in the upper-left corner). *[In version 1.1, ‘Harvest’.]*
There is no maximum level, the game goes on (until level 49, see below). *[In version 1.1, the game goes back to level 1 after level 38.]*
COLOURBLIND MODE: in colourblind mode, numbers get displayed to make up for colours (both on daytime ghosts and receivers).
Controls
* Arrow keys to move the claw
* Space to catch/release a ghost
Platforms
* Navigator: Disclaimer: as fullscreen was not working properly, display is just a little different (smaller resolution, and also a small zoom out from v1.0.2). See this devlog for details about debugging.
* Linux: it is somewhat uneasy to provide a one-size-fits-all Linux binary because of the variety of distributions, but using the .love file I uploaded, having Love2D should be enough. There is also a solution involving AppImage, although I could not test it. See here for more detail.
Versions
(05/10/2022) Current legitimate Compo version is 1.0.1, which is basically version 1.0 + colourblind mode + level-skipping key.
(06/10/2022) OUT NOW: post-Compo version 1.0.2 with better parameters for difficulty steepness and for the ghosts’ ‘night shift’ duration. ;) Although this is really the original version ‘done right’… I am not replacing the original one as I am not sure this would be fair, but you can still take a look if you want to see some more justice done to the game. See devlog for details (including better tiles and a difficulty fix). You can also download the 1.0.2 navigator version (in case you can make it run somewhere), but take notice that the current itch.io player runs 1.0.1.
(05/10/2022) HOPEFULLY COMING SOON: post-Compo version 1.1 with stackable ghosts, and possibly a mode with pre-designed levels. Another idea I had and will try here, which is even simpler to program, is a *Tetris*-like ‘Panic Mode’ where you get more ghosts with time, and have to take them out as long as possible before the whole space is full. (And also, getting the screen hidden or colours ‘blurred’ for some time as a penalty for holding a ghost at night, which would make more sense than merely getting immobilised.) I am willing to bet I would totally have had the time to make this one for the Jam deadline, and possibly the night of the Compo deadline. (11/10/2022) OUT NOW: modes are saved for a future version 1.2, but layers, more challenging difficulty, and a lot of user-friendly details have been added! :) The mouthful devlog is there. Once again, downloading the 1.1 navigator version is possible. I think things are getting interesting here, stressing again out of fairness that this should not be judged as the Compo version, although it can give a hint about the game’s potential and extensions. (For the record, debugging collisions and shadows was a massive time black hole! This version would have been riddled with occasional front-depth shadows in competition conditions…) Either 1.1 or 1.2 is ‘Jam version done right’.
A little backstory
I came up very late with the complete idea, while I thought of the cheeky allusion to the famous arcade mechanic very quickly. I would have had the time for the whole layer mechanic and carefully crafted levels based on it (including implicit tutorial progression) had I not had so much trouble with my thought process (I wavered between a whole host of wildly different concepts!); actually, I might have been able to make it in less than one or two hours, and certainly for the Jam deadline, but I wanted to challenge myself for the Compo rules. Playtesting was also minimal with the final conditions, but having a series of increasingly difficult levels is a makeshift solution; the formulae are super easy to tweak, although I am unsure this would count as bug fixing… (Edit shortly thereafter: I simply decreased the number of cycles. This was really one mere instruction and this feels way more reasonable! No change in mechanics.)
I may upload a version with layers elsewhere, so stay tuned if you are interested! :slight_smile: (But not here, as I believe upgraded versions are not authorized even if the original stays available and pinpointed? Not sure, the rules do not say; maybe you know.)
Tools
* Framework: Love2D
* Sound effects: jsfxr + Audacity
* Nothing else for the graphics, as everything here is managed entirely programmatically (except for the icon and thumbnail/cover), and often vectorially. So, Sublime Text! :slight_smile:
* As a side note: for reducing and compressing the animated GIF, iLoveIMG is useful.
Known bugs
[All solved in version 1.1]
* Since I (voluntarily) let the grid at a constant size, and since there is no cap on the number of ghosts nor vertical stacking of ghosts programmed, I suspect you will run into an infinite loop if you reach too high a level. (A quick inequation solving leads me to believe this would be level 49. Hey, after all, the original *Pac-Man* had a notorious bug for level 256! Mine is just not a cool power-of-2-related one.)
* Ghosts sometimes collide, while they should not. This is only seldom a problem, except maybe in very advanced levels.
* It seems that you sometimes cannot grab a ghost right after having released it. Unsure.
* Not really a bug per say, but display depth is not (yet) handled, so, do not frown if you see a ghost pass behind another one when it should not. Consider it ghost magic. :3
Known non-bugs
* v1.1: Ghosts will first finish their current movement (including staying still) before falling, in a Wile E. Coyote fashion: this is on purpose. :)
* v1.1: preventing superimposition is dealt with by stacking upwards. See point 35 from the devlog.