LudumData

UnderTheLibrary by Delca

[raw]
made by Delca for LD29 (COMPO)
EDIT: the game now works with IE (100% tested on IE 10.0.15), and should work on Safari and Opera too. Sorry for the inconvenience, and have fun playing it!

IMPORTANT NOTE: It seems like the game will not work on anything besides Chrome or Firefox because of the use a non-standard function. As porting to others 'platforms' is allowed past the submission time, I will have an updated version up by tomorrow I think. Thanks for checking my game anyway, and please come back later ;-) .

In UnderTheLibrary (yes, camelCase is mandatory), you play as a humanoid robot thrown in the basement of a library.

Your ultimate goal is to find a way back to the surface (because let's be honest: being trapped underground is a little bit scary).

On your way, you may find books with some interesting content inside. Collecting them all will yield absolutely nothing.


Controls:

Arrows keys: walk / move on a book ladder
Up arrow: jump
Enter: confirm dialog
Web (all browser) http://delca.github.io/UnderTheLibrary/nocrash
Web (original) (no IE/Safari/Opera) http://delca.github.io/UnderTheLibrary/
Source https://github.com/Delca/UnderTheLibrary
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=24934

Ratings

Coolness 96% 2
Overall 3.46 289
Audio 3.24 263
Fun 3.24 376
Graphics 3.74 222
Humor 3.05 225
Innovation 2.60 899
Mood 3.44 236
Theme 3.42 417

Feedback

liamtwose
28. Apr 2014 路 10:00 UTC
Neat little platformer, very polished in places, I did keep getting stuck on the first drop following the button, for some reason, if getting too close to the wall? otherwise overall a great game. Love it.
Seyroth
28. Apr 2014 路 14:58 UTC
I loved the visual style and the "computing" dialogs :) Unfortunately I didn't reach the end due to getting stuck twice after the first drop. Is this done on GameMaker ? Collision code is a bitch, I should know, I lost about 10 hours with mine this week-end ;)
PaperBlurt
28. Apr 2014 路 15:33 UTC
The visual and mood I'd say are the strongest points in this game.
Gameplay is not bad and fun to see a game taking place in a library.
PoQA Games
29. Apr 2014 路 16:12 UTC
It looks great, but it crashes after pressing the first button to follow down the platform :( I really wanted to see what else is there in the game!
馃帳 Delca
29. Apr 2014 路 18:25 UTC
Thanks for your feedback! I did push this button a lot to playtest the rest of the level (before I remembered about moving my spawnpoint), so I am not too sure about what is happening here. I will try to find out as soon as I come home.

@Seyroth: I used JavaScript and Phaser as my game engine (and that was because I lost So much time with collision code the first time too T_T)
馃帳 Delca
29. Apr 2014 路 18:34 UTC
Apparently, this is because I used Math.sign(), which is not supported by all browsers at the moment. Could you please tell me which browser/version yo0 used when encountering the crash ?
MunkeeBacon
30. Apr 2014 路 21:50 UTC
This was pretty cool, the art was substantially pleasant to look at and it is a really interesting idea. I seemed to fly through the walls somehow a couple times, which is obviously a bug, but that's not a big deal. Great job!
HelixFox
01. May 2014 路 08:20 UTC
Managed to get stuck by somehow getting enemies sitting on top of a ladder that I needed to go up :(
馃帳 Delca
01. May 2014 路 09:38 UTC
@HelixFox: maybe there is a way to get them to move? Try to be horizontally aligned with them.
teambrookvale
01. May 2014 路 09:49 UTC
For me this the best so far! Awesome graphics and sound, solid gameplay, good level design. Very well done!
IcyLava
01. May 2014 路 09:58 UTC
For some reason it seemed that the collision worked better on the original, maybe it was just a coincidence. Interesting little game, didn't get any books though.
馃帳 Delca
01. May 2014 路 11:13 UTC
@IcyLava the onyl difference between the two version is that I implemented the Math.sign() function myself on the second version. No collision code was modified, all that is done in the Phaser engine I used.
metjm
01. May 2014 路 11:45 UTC
Made it through, despite that one tricky jump at the end where you essentially have to stand on the correct pixel...

Great job, this is a very well-rounded 48 hour entry!
Bonus points for the TPP reference! :D
XrXr
01. May 2014 路 16:16 UTC
Wow, very well done platformer! Nice visuals, good controls and nice level length! Sweet!
WhiteWolf93
01. May 2014 路 16:20 UTC
Not bad, also the robot is cute :o
Team-KwaKwa
01. May 2014 路 16:21 UTC
I was stuck in the walls more than once, but I finished the game nonetheless and it was still fun to play. Good job!
馃帳 Delca
01. May 2014 路 16:35 UTC
@Team-Kwakwa that has to do with how Phaser checks for collision. I has the same problem on LD27, and did away with shortening the delay between collision checks. However, it was easier to deal with when I was doing the code myself :S
klianc09
01. May 2014 路 20:19 UTC
This game laggs terribly in firefox for me, and in chrome I don't have audio :( But what I heard was well done. Although the dialogs (monologs?) are funny, I wish they were skippable or faster. And I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like this, but I found some books and they didn't seem to be hidden, but rather have been on the way to the end.
馃帳 Delca
01. May 2014 路 22:27 UTC
@klianc09 the game ran fine on my PC and my Surface RT; then again, it is written in JavaScript :S ...
About the audio: I actually forgot to test it again (had some music on while testing), and it seems to not work in IE either. I may look at it, but it seems to be something in the Phaser engine...
For the books, at least one is put on the way to the end, and at least one other is really hidden (try searching for rats).
JavadocMD
02. May 2014 路 06:29 UTC
This was a very solid entry. The art is all very fitting. The spiders gave me the creeps. Gameplay was challenging but not impossible. Required some non-linear thought to complete. Good amount of humor: the messages kept me engaged with the story.

Possible ideas for improvement: R to reload from the last checkpoint. Also the first checkpoint where you learn to use book ladders sends you back before you read the text, which is a little annoying since you can't just skip the text outright. None of the others I ran into seemed to have that problem though. You could have made another puzzle to solve as you antigrav'd out. :)
DanEEStar
02. May 2014 路 10:11 UTC
Solid game. I liked the atmosphere with the music!
The jump behaviour is a bit odd.
I liked the game
littleball
02. May 2014 路 11:56 UTC
Fantastic game, well done! I had a lot of fun playing.
copain
02. May 2014 路 13:12 UTC
nice idea for the new capalities.
(some collision bug)
xdegtyarev
02. May 2014 路 19:38 UTC
nicely done! Congrats!
Penguincat
03. May 2014 路 02:37 UTC
Nice platformer with some fun dialogue - including the optional books! The art and audio fit the story well.
Crowbeak
04. May 2014 路 05:14 UTC
Not bad. I like the graphics. There were places where it felt like my death was a result of the controls rather than my own lack of skill.
SyBen
05. May 2014 路 00:18 UTC
My favorite 48 hour game so far, impressive !
koe415
05. May 2014 路 00:51 UTC
Very polished platformer. Good story and it was just plain fun exploring after you started to pick up various books. My only complaint would be how loose falling left and right were when certain areas required precise controls. Otherwise, great job!
Teesquared
10. May 2014 路 18:00 UTC
Nice interface and theme. Spiders suck.
JoshOS
11. May 2014 路 11:06 UTC
I liked it. Some dialogs are in a bad position because they are located in places where you can die 2 or 3 times and you have to read them each time ,maybe you could find them a better position or deactivate them the first time they are opened.

The rest is good :)
danbo
11. May 2014 路 14:01 UTC
Fun platformer, though the one thing I could pick a hole in would be the extreme inertia in the air coupled with no inertia on the ground, going down the shaft on the second map was rather annoying...
frogcheese
11. May 2014 路 15:54 UTC
It's a cute little platformer with nice graphics and an impressive amount of polish, though it was a bit slow and wordy when explaining some of the basic concepts like the enemies. I still had fun with it, though - good job!
rvmook
16. May 2014 路 13:27 UTC
Maybe next time try building level in a way so you can see ahead enough without taking a leap of faith. Right now I sometimes just had to walk or fall right into an enemy without actually knowing it was there. Nice little game though.
Brian Stegmann
17. May 2014 路 19:46 UTC
A nice and polished platformer. The controls were a bit tricky to get used to, but other than that, great job.