TickType by shockedfrog

[raw]
made by shockedfrog for LD27 (COMPO)
INSTRUCTIONS: (or just watch the in-game tutorial)

Press space before the green line touches the white line (every 10 seconds). The earlier you press, the more health you lose. The game is over if you lose all your health, or if you don't press space in time.

Random letters are displayed above the white line - type them to regain health.

Typing letters and accurately pressing space will score points and increase your level - at higher levels you lose more health when you press space early, so you need to be more accurate with timing and try to regain health quicker. The more health you have, the more points you get, so skilled players can reach later levels faster.

The game has two difficulty settings: In Easy mode, you can always see the green line. In Hard mode the line is only visible for one second, after which you have to count the seconds yourself.

ABOUT THE GAME/DEVELOPMENT:

This has been a pretty fun LD for me - I decided to try using AS3 and Flixel to make a Flash game for the first time and it's been wonderfully easy to use. This is my first serious compo entry for 3 years, it's good to be back. :)

This game isn't going to win any prizes for graphics or sound, but my main focus with this game has been the gameplay balance. I didn't quite finish that though and so the game becomes pretty much impossible above level 13 - if you get that far, you can consider the game completed. :) Make sure to try both Easy and Hard modes - they're pretty much completely different kinds of game - and share your scores in the comments.

Ratings

Coolness 57% 3
Overall 2.94 688
Audio 1.94 823
Fun 2.54 863
Graphics 2.12 1004
Humor 1.39 963
Innovation 3.65 136
Mood 2.17 941
Theme 3.41 319

Feedback

Patrick Bollinger
26. Aug 2013 路 01:32 UTC
945 Points. :D

Using Google Chrome on Mac (latest stable release) and the game is on the upper-left corner with tons of white (or should I say blue) space. Not sure if it's intentional, but it's a tad bit off for playing a game.
馃帳 shockedfrog
26. Aug 2013 路 01:45 UTC
Yeah, the game is designed to be small, but the page was just put up in a last minute rush. :) I'll put up a better page for it later.
馃帳 shockedfrog
26. Aug 2013 路 02:36 UTC
Slightly better page up for now :)

My own scores so far: Easy: 1244, Hard: 563. Hard mode is a great example of one of those games that someone can make but still be terrible at. :)
Feysoura
26. Aug 2013 路 04:40 UTC
Pretty solid. Innovation was the best part of it, never played anything quite like this.
ratalaika
26. Aug 2013 路 07:44 UTC
I like it, it's quite fun but I always forgot the space hehehe.

Quite innovative, and nice way to apply the theme!
Alink
26. Aug 2013 路 12:56 UTC
Fun innovative typing game. Hard mode is hard, but I will try again after playing many other LD games and thus having a fine grasp of what 10 seconds is.
01010111
26. Aug 2013 路 18:17 UTC
Really interesting idea, it was harder than I thought to type those letters, it might just be that I suck at typing, or that I'm only good at typing words with muscle memory. Cool idea :D
Nizan
27. Aug 2013 路 14:12 UTC
Never seen anything quite like it. Refreshing. Nice work. :)
Vile Smile
27. Aug 2013 路 16:56 UTC
Great work! Fun and challenging. The theme is conveyed very well.
Tom 7
28. Aug 2013 路 01:57 UTC
Wow, trance inducing! A nice simple concept, and definitely takes a lot of concentration to do well at...
lekochen
28. Aug 2013 路 01:59 UTC
Like it! Scored 1022 points.
Jellycakes
28. Aug 2013 路 02:43 UTC
Really cool, interesting idea especially in hard mode where the player's perception of time is tested. Got a little too hard during the later levels but it was still enjoyable. Nice one!
Drachlen
28. Aug 2013 路 03:09 UTC
I really like the idea, and the take on the theme. If you wanted to grow this into something bigger with more mechanics appearing as you go along, I can definitely see some great potential for it. Great execution!
Nick Weihs
28. Aug 2013 路 10:11 UTC
965 Points haha. I've never actually seen this kind of game before and it was actually really addictive to my suprise :0. Good stuff man!
nixeldev
28. Aug 2013 路 20:15 UTC
I havent played a game like this at all before, I enjoyed it :)
Urfoex
28. Aug 2013 路 20:43 UTC
1032 points on easy.
Nice little typing game.
HD408
29. Aug 2013 路 20:57 UTC
Quite original gameplay, stands out in the whole LD.

Hard mode is really hard here!
alts
09. Sep 2013 路 07:07 UTC
This is a really interesting game. I haven't actually seen very many timing games yet.

I do think that a score should be visible while playing. Without it it's hard to determine what the best course of action is. Is it always better to type, for example, or should I only type as much as I need to heal? A visible score would help give some feedback to the player. I also don't know if this was just my machine or not, but the timing felt off. I'd press and release the space key with about a half to a quarter second left, and it'd tell me I lost. Perhaps some issue with frame rates?
馃帳 shockedfrog
09. Sep 2013 路 19:22 UTC
Thanks for the detailed feedback :) Level progress is based purely on score - 100 points equals one level - so the blue experience bar is also a score indicator of sorts. I felt it was better not to display a complete numeric score during the game as the constantly changing numbers on screen could be distracting, especially in hard mode.

Generally it's always better to type as long as you don't miss space as a result of trying too hard. :) You score more points for typing depending on how much health you have left, with the maximum bonus being when you already have full health.

Which losing message did it display? If it said you ran out of health, then that's expected - half a second is quite a long time in this game, in fact, by level 8, pressing half a second too early would result in death even if you had a full health bar. If, however, the game over message said that you missed the 10 second mark despite pressing space before it, then there might be a bug somewhere.
Antidote
10. Sep 2013 路 19:35 UTC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW6rmIQu2l8 - My first impressions of the game ^^
馃帳 shockedfrog
10. Sep 2013 路 20:38 UTC
Thanks for that :) The tutorial was a little bit rushed and could have been a bit clearer in places, though I'm glad I at least put a basic tutorial in or nobody would understand how to play at all.