Alamogordo by csanyk
As always, I promise to play and honestly rate your game if you play and rate mine... just leave a comment so I'll know you did it!
This is a last minute entry... inspiration struck around 7pm Sunday. Lol.
In total, this game was built in about 10 hours. Don't judge too harshly.
There's not really intended to be any challenge here, this is just a little homage that I made to the Atari E.T. game and the dig that happened this weekend at the Alamogordo landfill.
To play:
This game commemorates the Dig at the Alamogordo, New Mexico land fill, where millions of E.T. cartridges lie buried, according to legend. Dig up a cartridge to prove that the legend is true.
Arrow keys move your digger. You can dig sideways and down, but not up, so to go back up you need to follow the tunnel you dug.
Press 'Z' to toggle between digging mode and picking mode. When you find something, switch to picking mode, and you can pick the find up. Move the Find out of the land fill pit to get points for the find.
Oh yeah, Esc quits the game, and 'R' will reset the level if you get stuck on a glitch.
Trash = 1 point
Recyclable can = 10 points
Tire = 25 points
E.T. cartridge for Atari 2600 = 9999 points.
Special note: The graphics are based on the infamous "pit" screen that was a prominent design feature in the original E.T. for Atari. These pits were a real pain in the ass, and many people complained about them, especially since there were no pits that anyone fell into in the E.T. movie.
All graphics in the game are colored using the Atari VCS NTSC color palette, with the exception of the digitized image of the E.T. cartridge, and the soda can, which are just very pixellated scaled down images that I got from google image search.
Sound effects created with bfxr. The victory music is the title screen music from the real E.T. game, sampled using Stella and Audacity.
The only enhancement in the enhanced versions is that when you pick up a Find, it gives you a bit of a clue what to do with it.
This is a last minute entry... inspiration struck around 7pm Sunday. Lol.
In total, this game was built in about 10 hours. Don't judge too harshly.
There's not really intended to be any challenge here, this is just a little homage that I made to the Atari E.T. game and the dig that happened this weekend at the Alamogordo landfill.
To play:
This game commemorates the Dig at the Alamogordo, New Mexico land fill, where millions of E.T. cartridges lie buried, according to legend. Dig up a cartridge to prove that the legend is true.
Arrow keys move your digger. You can dig sideways and down, but not up, so to go back up you need to follow the tunnel you dug.
Press 'Z' to toggle between digging mode and picking mode. When you find something, switch to picking mode, and you can pick the find up. Move the Find out of the land fill pit to get points for the find.
Oh yeah, Esc quits the game, and 'R' will reset the level if you get stuck on a glitch.
Trash = 1 point
Recyclable can = 10 points
Tire = 25 points
E.T. cartridge for Atari 2600 = 9999 points.
Special note: The graphics are based on the infamous "pit" screen that was a prominent design feature in the original E.T. for Atari. These pits were a real pain in the ass, and many people complained about them, especially since there were no pits that anyone fell into in the E.T. movie.
All graphics in the game are colored using the Atari VCS NTSC color palette, with the exception of the digitized image of the E.T. cartridge, and the soda can, which are just very pixellated scaled down images that I got from google image search.
Sound effects created with bfxr. The victory music is the title screen music from the real E.T. game, sampled using Stella and Audacity.
The only enhancement in the enhanced versions is that when you pick up a Find, it gives you a bit of a clue what to do with it.
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 2.58 | 666 |
| Audio(Jam) | 2.53 | 550 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.33 | 655 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 2.80 | 584 |
| Humor(Jam) | 3.60 | 71 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 2.52 | 594 |
| Mood(Jam) | 2.97 | 427 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.70 | 109 |
Jam final submitted 5:53 PM 4/28/2014:)
I also expected to get points once I moved the items to the top of the screen, but I had to move them all the way to the right.
Great idea for a game though, especially with the recent finds of all the ET cartridges a few days back.
Thanks RyanNielson. I would have liked to be able to spend more time on the pickup items sprites to make them more like atari graphics, but for lack of time I settled for shrinking down images until they became very pixellated and tiny. If I had to do it over with more time I would have liked to do those more properly. Your comment just confirms that my hunch is correct.
You can actually take items out of the pit on the left OR right, and I had thought about putting some kind of visual indicator there, and almost did so about an hour before deadline. I have added a post-deadline enhanced version with this feature, because I do think that it makes for a clearer goal.
Otherwise it's an enjoyable little homage, and a fun twist on the theme :)
But it's really cool for 10 hours work, and more people should make games that mimic those from the 2600 era!
NoTrueSpaceman: Yeah, maybe a timed mode would have given it some semblance of game-ness. A lot of Atari games had a no-challenge mode, often indicated with a teddy bear icon, intended for very young children. In retrospect I think this "game" if it can really be called that should have had the teddy bear.
It feels like something's missing, maybe a timer of some sort? That said, it's more relaxed like it is. Doesn't feel like it's complete but the last minute thing explains it :)
You sure did put some thought into it: the reference, the palette, the music... It contributes to the mood a lot.
01101101: Adding a timer to the game to provide a level of challenge would be an improvement... I think someone else suggested that, and it's not a bad idea. Truthfully as I was making this I didn't have a thought in my head as to how to gameify it. I just wanted to re-create the E.T. pit and throw garbage and dirt in the hole, and a means to dig stuff out of it. That's all I had time for! Although it's hardly a game, it's deliberately bad, and I'm pleased with how quickly and easily I was able to build what's here.
I also noticed that you didn't realize that you can choose the current building tool in my game in 1 player mode by pressing PgDown (remappable) which made 1 player mode incomplete for you, so if you want to take another look on the game - please be my guest.
Nice music when you found the cartridge :D