Mobius by Zeta

[raw]
made by Zeta for LD29 (JAM)
--- Mobius requires at minimum Java 1.7 to run ---

Jam entry by:

- Zeta (https://github.com/Zeta-Function) - Art, Level Design, Marketing

- SgtCoDFish (https://github.com/SgtCoDFish) - Technical direction, Programming

----- Intro for non-Mathematicians -----

You play as Blip who is tasked with replacing all missing processors in his neighborhood motherboard. Blip is not of this world; he lives on a Mobius strip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip), meaning his job sometimes requires a bit of forward thinking!

----- Intro for Mathematicians -----

You play as Blip who is tasked with replacing all missing processors in his neighborhood motherboard. Blip's universe is not like ours (it's homotopic to a circle), however is constructed from the identification of a square with opposing directions on one set of parallel sides. This construction gives us a non orientable surface which is self-intersecting in the plane, with right-handed chirality when considered embedded in a Euclidian domain. The single boundary of the surface that Blip lives on makes the smallest of motherboards infinitely long with periodicity 2. If you have a hard time visualizing this, simply consider it as the nontrivial bundle over the circle with the bundle being the unit interval.

----- Concept -----

Mobius was designed to be a puzzle platformer that relied on manipulating red platforms and walls to traverse the level, however this was easier said than done and we could not fully implement this for release, some red objects are clickable in game but are not solid. We originally wanted movement to be limited to the right direction only, however when the red objects seemed unobtainable we had to allow left movement to let the majority of levels be solvable.

----- Controls -----

D - Run

Space - Jump

P - Reset a Level

W - Use an Exit (when holding a key)

Left click on red platforms to interact with them

F10 - Skip Level

----- Getting Started -----

Download the jar file and either double click to run or run using java -jar mobius.jar on the command line.

Note: game should work on OS X + Linux, but is untested.

Ratings

Coolness 67% 3
Overall(Jam) 2.46 699
Fun(Jam) 2.19 696
Graphics(Jam) 2.83 572
Humor(Jam) 2.00 577
Innovation(Jam) 3.29 250
Mood(Jam) 2.29 683
Theme(Jam) 2.62 609

Feedback

Ragzouken
29. Apr 2014 · 11:34 UTC
liked the take on the theme!

seemed a little buggy - respawned inside a wall and at one point i feel off and seemed to be walking on an invisible floor
LastResortGames
29. Apr 2014 · 11:46 UTC
Interesting idea. I see what you were trying to do I think. I also fell off the world and had a lot of trouble getting onto the warp space so that W would register.
Siewart
29. Apr 2014 · 11:49 UTC
Argh, I have a game with the very same core (Mobius/Wopinz) mechanic laying around somewhere, I hoped no one else would ever think of it.

*mans up*

The game is still a little buggy, glitching through walls/ the red objects dont seem to have any collisions.

Anyway nice concept, with a lot of game mechanic potential, trust me ;)
DMinsky
29. Apr 2014 · 12:30 UTC
Good idea
Bekokstover
29. Apr 2014 · 12:42 UTC
Nice look and idea, but the game is a bit buggy. There are no red objects to click on, and like Ragzouken I landed on invisible platforms. So I can't really say much about the entire game. Looks promising though!
suurin
29. Apr 2014 · 12:45 UTC
Little bit broken, but nice.
Kwrky
29. Apr 2014 · 13:07 UTC
I like this game, but felt the collision detection kinda let it down.
Gravity Games
29. Apr 2014 · 13:16 UTC
It has potential, but IMHO it's really too buggy to be too much fun, sorry. I glitched through random platforms, the red platforms have no collision at all (unless that's intended), and using the warps is irritating.
SirJson
29. Apr 2014 · 13:35 UTC
A little bit buggy. You should improve the wrap space trigger. It's kinda hard to hit that right.
AmmoreChicks
29. Apr 2014 · 13:36 UTC
Interesting. I think Blip should be a little slower but there's some nice level design.
ArcturusDeluxe
29. Apr 2014 · 15:25 UTC
The idea seems like it has potential but it was really buggy. There didn't seem to be a key where it said 'collect the key', and falling off the platform got me stuck. It'd be nice to see the game fully-realised though.
tomvert
29. Apr 2014 · 18:26 UTC
I couldn't get past the first warp I pressed W, Z and every other key, it didn't work.
Jeffalisk
29. Apr 2014 · 19:03 UTC
Certainly an original and intriguing idea but did seem quite buggy (I played on Mac). Shame you didn't have time to get it a bit more stable.
PaperBlurt
30. Apr 2014 · 06:54 UTC
Nice little puzzle game.
Like the title too.
hyouko
05. May 2014 · 00:37 UTC
Interesting concept, but very buggy - as with a lot of other commenters here, I had problems with falling off the world and with getting the 'warp' to register.
xdegtyarev
07. May 2014 · 11:33 UTC
Cute and neat, love the art style!
abayb
07. May 2014 · 23:36 UTC
I wasn't able to get the first warp to work. Would love to play a fixed version of it.