{"author_link":"\/author\/swizzcheez\/","author_name":"swizzcheez","author_uid":"16129","comments":[{"author_name":"EwChap","author_uid":"50010","time":"Apr 20, 2015 @ 5:27am","epoch":1429507320,"text":"Was not able to understand what to do here. needed a bit more help. I was slipping time and nothing was changing or moving so I am not sure what I was supposed to be getting out of that. I love the idea of using a formula to fight enemies, but overall couldn't figure it out."},{"author_name":"swizzcheez","author_uid":"16129","time":"Apr 20, 2015 @ 12:42pm","epoch":1429533420,"text":"Understandable -- if you feel like it know that inthe first few levels the aliens are immobile (meant them to be the easy ones).  Just use constants for X\/Y.  At level 3+ the first moving ones appear.  (Sadly there isn't a lot of variety allowed in the time I ended up having.)"},{"author_name":"Lo-X","author_uid":"24781","time":"Apr 21, 2015 @ 12:36pm","epoch":1429619460,"text":"Weird game. The idea is nice, but I guess I'm not good enough at maths :p Indeed, a bit more help would be... helpful. It took me time to understand what to do, why the first enemies weren't moving, etc."},{"author_name":"j_peeba","author_uid":"5503","time":"Apr 21, 2015 @ 12:45pm","epoch":1429620000,"text":"Yeah, a more gentle learning curve would have been beneficial. You could hold off for a while before even showing the player all the information there is. Like for example, reveal the variables (and the related help text) for the variables only once you would need that etc. :)"},{"author_name":"swizzcheez","author_uid":"16129","time":"Apr 22, 2015 @ 2:15pm","epoch":1429711800,"text":"Good ideas -- I wonder if I can consider those "bugs".  ;)"},{"author_name":"TeamCalcium","author_uid":"53017","time":"Apr 23, 2015 @ 12:28pm","epoch":1429791780,"text":"I didnt understand what to do, the help on the right wasnt very helpful."},{"author_name":"SowiHowl","author_uid":"51327","time":"Apr 25, 2015 @ 8:09am","epoch":1429949040,"text":"The idea is great but kind of strange to play it..."},{"author_name":"Stechas","author_uid":"44644","time":"Apr 25, 2015 @ 8:31am","epoch":1429950360,"text":"Numbers are powerful weapon indeed, so idea is great. But it takes time to understand what to do in game."},{"author_name":"RockhopperGames","author_uid":"46057","time":"May 5, 2015 @ 9:36am","epoch":1430818260,"text":"Good idea for an educational game, but unfortunately the end result is lacking polish. It's not clear how it wants me to format my answers, and it doesn't seem to reset correctly after failures (moving aliens stopped moving). It's a shame, since it looks like you'd be on a good thing with some more work!"}],"images":["ld32\/16129-637c77c214f9486a62a1e690fbcd7254.jpg"],"links":[{"url":"http:\/\/formulablaster.com\/game#\/playing","text":"Web"},{"url":"https:\/\/github.com\/swizzcheez\/ld32\/tree\/ld32-ext","text":"Source"}],"metadata":{"g_key":"10329","g_author":"16129","g_event":"LD32","g_eventkey":"27","g_subevent":"COMPO","g_urlkey":"10363","g_title":"FormulaBlaster","g_status":"UCHK1","g_place":"99999","g_commentcount":"9","g_site2_node_id":"0","g_hide":"N","g_has_icon":"Y","g_rqueue":"0","g_random":"0"},"nds":[],"node":null,"orig_images":["http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/444368\/16129-shot0-1429493181.png-eq-900-500.jpg"],"text":"Aliens are invading! The world's last hope is a wrecked piece of alien tech than can shoot them down. Unfortunately, the only input it has uses algebraic positioning. On the plus side, it is able to pause time.\r\n\r\n(Hint: first few levels the red aliens don't move, so the formulas are constant.  \"t\" is required in the formula at level 3+ for the blue and green aliens.)\r\n\r\n---\r\n\r\nSo this was a last-minute turn around on what I had originally thought about at around 2PM today.  Originally, this was going to be some sort of algebra hack-n-slash where you'd have to solve algebra problems to kill the monsters.\r\n\r\nAfter much hair pulling, I took a step back and think this is far more approachable.  It's far from polished and may break in weird ways still, but hey, that's 8 hours for you...\r\n\r\nI considered dropping into the jam to add more than a couple of formula, maybe I'll expand this later, but I really needed some sleep anyway.  Pity I hadn't stumbled on this idea to begin with instead of coming up with it on Sunday... :P\r\n\r\nBranch is left open so as to deal with any bugs...\r\n\r\nBONUS: Incidentally, the work for the original attempt is still intact -- try the following (vary the number at the end to get different formulas).  It should be pretty obvious why I ended up feeling I couldn't get a solid game out of this attempt in the time allotted:\r\n\r\nhttp:\/\/formulablaster.com\/formula\/render\/simple\/42\/\r\nhttp:\/\/formulablaster.com\/formula\/render\/quad\/83\/\r\nhttp:\/\/formulablaster.com\/formula\/render\/twovar\/123234\/\r\n","title":"FormulaBlaster"}