Screened by hexagore
A **furiously** difficult platform game inspired by some of my absolute favourites. My take on the theme is to take the concept of looping in level design to absurd extremes, constantly reusing sections of the level in order to maximise the gameplay.
Once you can do it, it takes about 9 minutes to complete.
Instructions Which No-one Reads:
There are two exits: You must go between each exit until you escape from the screen. Sadly each time you try to use an exit the world becomes much, much worse. Makes you wonder why you even bother, doesn't it? Discover what lies beyond! Or fail to!
Platform:
- This is a WebGL game so it should run on any computer with a decent browser and a non-terrible GPU without plugins.
Controls:
- Cursor keys.
- More Cursor keys.
- Any cursor key you like.
- Although WASD also works if you're one of those rare right handed people.
Tips:
- YOU CAN ONLY JUMP ONCE YOU'VE STOPPED BOUNCING. Takes a lot to push away from the ground.
- You're a big thing far away, not a small thing. You're a lot heavier and have more inertia than you might expect. Anticipation is the ...
- The longer you hold 'up' when you jump, the higher you'll jump. Mostly you'll just bump your head on things though.
- For the final obstacle, try coming to a stop before jumping over those...things. Whatever they are.
- This game is totally possible to beat. Full video playthrough to come.
Agh it doesn't work:
- Not loading: It seems to take a while to finish loading for some people. If it seems to be taking too long, try reloading it. No idea what's causing this!
- WebGL being a bit experimental and new, if it doesn't work in Chrome try Firefox. If it doesn't work in Firefox try Chrome. If you're using Internet Explorer, try Chrome! Or Firefox! Thank you for being patient.
- On Linux: There's a problem with Intel GPU drivers, apparently, which is breaking WebGL.
OMG MY FPS!:
- Built in Intel GPUs on old and/or cheap laptops are absolutely horrible. Luckily you can make it a little easier on your computer by reducing the size of the browser window and reloading the game. The game's playable between 30-60fps, but below that you're going to struggle a lot. Again, thank for you for being patient. See above re: "Experimental" and "New".
Making Of:
This was made in Javascript using the lovely Three.JS for help with the WebGL stuff, my own game library and lots of open source code. Blender was used for the level design, Reason for recording the music and sound effects, and the number of the day is 42.
UPDATE:
I've changed the audio so that it's using an HTML5 Audio tag instead of the Web Audio API which means the game doesn't need to wait for the music to download before starting. Hopefully this will fix loading problems. *fingers crossed*
UPDATE 2:
Ported the game to support right handed people by adding WASD controls. Sorry.
UPDATE 3:
Added a post-compo version which is basically the same game but the bounce and inertia has been toned down a lot so some people made find it a little easier to beat/get used to. Tweaked the graphics a bit to add support for retina displays and a few other things that don't make a huge amount of different tbh.
Once you can do it, it takes about 9 minutes to complete.
Instructions Which No-one Reads:
There are two exits: You must go between each exit until you escape from the screen. Sadly each time you try to use an exit the world becomes much, much worse. Makes you wonder why you even bother, doesn't it? Discover what lies beyond! Or fail to!
Platform:
- This is a WebGL game so it should run on any computer with a decent browser and a non-terrible GPU without plugins.
Controls:
- Cursor keys.
- More Cursor keys.
- Any cursor key you like.
- Although WASD also works if you're one of those rare right handed people.
Tips:
- YOU CAN ONLY JUMP ONCE YOU'VE STOPPED BOUNCING. Takes a lot to push away from the ground.
- You're a big thing far away, not a small thing. You're a lot heavier and have more inertia than you might expect. Anticipation is the ...
- The longer you hold 'up' when you jump, the higher you'll jump. Mostly you'll just bump your head on things though.
- For the final obstacle, try coming to a stop before jumping over those...things. Whatever they are.
- This game is totally possible to beat. Full video playthrough to come.
Agh it doesn't work:
- Not loading: It seems to take a while to finish loading for some people. If it seems to be taking too long, try reloading it. No idea what's causing this!
- WebGL being a bit experimental and new, if it doesn't work in Chrome try Firefox. If it doesn't work in Firefox try Chrome. If you're using Internet Explorer, try Chrome! Or Firefox! Thank you for being patient.
- On Linux: There's a problem with Intel GPU drivers, apparently, which is breaking WebGL.
OMG MY FPS!:
- Built in Intel GPUs on old and/or cheap laptops are absolutely horrible. Luckily you can make it a little easier on your computer by reducing the size of the browser window and reloading the game. The game's playable between 30-60fps, but below that you're going to struggle a lot. Again, thank for you for being patient. See above re: "Experimental" and "New".
Making Of:
This was made in Javascript using the lovely Three.JS for help with the WebGL stuff, my own game library and lots of open source code. Blender was used for the level design, Reason for recording the music and sound effects, and the number of the day is 42.
UPDATE:
I've changed the audio so that it's using an HTML5 Audio tag instead of the Web Audio API which means the game doesn't need to wait for the music to download before starting. Hopefully this will fix loading problems. *fingers crossed*
UPDATE 2:
Ported the game to support right handed people by adding WASD controls. Sorry.
UPDATE 3:
Added a post-compo version which is basically the same game but the bounce and inertia has been toned down a lot so some people made find it a little easier to beat/get used to. Tweaked the graphics a bit to add support for retina displays and a few other things that don't make a huge amount of different tbh.
| Web (HTML5) | http://screened-hexagore.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/ |
| Post Compo (HTML5) | http://screened-hexagore.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/postcompo.html |
| Full Playthrough (Youtube) | http://youtu.be/hxOXRC1UxFg?t=4s |
| Source | http://screened-hexagore.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/screened-src.zip |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=34027 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall | 3.58 | 212 |
| Audio | 3.41 | 166 |
| Fun | 3.17 | 468 |
| Graphics | 4.06 | 67 |
| Innovation | 3.06 | 610 |
| Mood | 3.66 | 81 |
| Theme | 4.01 | 149 |
And wow, impressive usage of ThreeJS :)
keys do nothing :/
Long time loading and seems at a low fps rate.
enjoyed it though! :)
initia killed me but it's a great element
Answer to you comment in my game page - ( does the "play button" appear ? - did you try to update your unity webplayer )
Level 2 is too hard, I tried about 20 times to pass it, people might drop it faster. I end up on level 4. Nice entry!
The way of using the level over and over again is very creative and fits the theme well. I like how seeing the things to come terrifies and motivates you at the same time. The only gripe I have are the controls.
I loved the particle effects and the scan-line effect. The music fit the game just fine, and all together it felt pretty solid.
It was a bit difficult though, both myself and my son tried and we only arrived to level 3 :)
Good job!
The game itself is quite hard, I'm going to try again!
Great concept, very pretty! I like the subtle use of hte circles in the background. Really punishing though, I couldn't get used to the loose controls. I'm really happy to see that WebGL games can be this good! :D
Visual style is great!
Anyways, enough about my lack of skills...I enjoy those CRT scan lines on the orange objects! And all the movement and glowing makes things feel so foreign, well done!
Nice concept and graphical style!!
Although, as a fellow game developer, I understand that you wanted the controls to be part of the difficulty, but, as a player, it felt kind of... artificial, maybe? Like, most of the time, I wasn't playing against your game, I was playing against the controls...
After you figure out that you can hold 'up' to jump right after you touch the floor, this stops being a problem. Then, there's the fact that you maneuver better on the air, being able to make a complete stop by jumping and adjusting your speed. So, the only thing left was the slow acceleration/deceleration.
Of course, this is a different kind of platform than the usual (that has more tight controls). Perhaps adding animations to the player and, for example, ice to the floor the controls would be better accepted. This kind of "mind trick" can help make others understand you intent with the game.
Don't take, by all that, that I thought your game was bad. It wasn't!! I only didn't like the fact the most of the difficulty came from the controls, and not from the level design itself.
Still, the game was well made! I really liked all the effects, nice use of shaders, there. I gotta admit that the song loop got tiring after a while, but it was nice, initially.
=D
I think a less steep difficulty curve that helps ease the player with bouncy controls would do loads of good to the game.
The music was pretty amazing too, but it got a bit repetitive. The high-pitched sound (violin? rusty gate?) would have worked better if it only showed up once in a while instead of almost all the time.
(I was frustrated by the controls, but I see you've fixed that in the post-compo version. Still just as ridiculously hard, but now it feels like a hard *game* instead of hard *controls*.)
awesome game
Looks great! So many nice visual touches; really very nice on the eyes.
Found this tough as hell, but action felt very very solid which I appreciate. Will keep at it and see how far I can get. For now, let me just say well done for a great game here!
The gameplay is quite interesting too with the motion inertia increasing the game difficulty, it fis the mood well.
It's a shame because the level design and the theme exploitation look good!