I don't wanna be an @ by ashdnazg

[raw]
made by ashdnazg for LD26 (COMPO)
CONTROLS (READ THIS): One press of any key (WASD) and your character starts moving in that direction (same as snake). If you're holding a key down, you're doing it wrong.
If the same key is pressed again, you stop. If another key is pressed you start going in that direction.

I know it's a bit weird, the alternative was to make you press a key for every single step (like H is used for fighting).


Story and other stuff:
All was nice and well for the stickpeople,
until the evil programmer decided that even though anything with ASCII graphics is definitely minimalistic,
Roguelikes must be the way to go for LD 26 ("Yo Batch, one characterz so minimalistic!").


The world is collapsing, stickpeople transform into @'s, the walls can (and will) kill you!
You should run (right) for your life.


Written in Batch, sweat and tears (Developing was truly a technical adventure).
Download the file, unrar and run "main.bat"

Many thanks for playing my game!

https://github.com/ashdnazg/ld26

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.92 825
Audio 1.79 999
Fun 2.32 1101
Graphics 2.89 669
Humor 3.08 155
Innovation 3.70 148
Mood 2.50 926
Theme 4.04 135

Feedback

martijn
29. Apr 2013 · 07:46 UTC
It gets points just because you wrote it in batch
guestcheap
29. Apr 2013 · 07:52 UTC
^Seconded
This is the craziest thing I have ever seen.
erdos
29. Apr 2013 · 08:14 UTC
I really want to play this but I'm on a mac and I can't get it to work in dosbox, will be coming back to this one when I get to the office (PC), pretty awesome effort to write this with bat files!
HELLO23
29. Apr 2013 · 10:31 UTC
LOL ! A Whole game in Batch !
I really enjoyed !
Very nice graphics !
ps. check my game it is also in console :)
AnnynN
29. Apr 2013 · 11:11 UTC
Kudos for doing such a game in batch! :)
tiffi
29. Apr 2013 · 11:32 UTC
damn you walls!! +1 for batch!
yinbar
29. Apr 2013 · 12:17 UTC
I had no idea this was possible.
Zer0XoL
29. Apr 2013 · 12:19 UTC
Nice work.
Pickehut
29. Apr 2013 · 12:31 UTC
I imagine it was kind of a pain in the ass to write that in batch^^
I'm a fan of roguelikes so I liked the concept of your game.
However, I wasn't able to control the character properly (don't know if that's my own fault or the game's) and it was kind of annoying to be forced to restart the game everytime you die.
Great work though!
comrad_gremlin
29. Apr 2013 · 16:54 UTC
+ points for batch, as mentioned before :)

I like the amount of work you've put into this, but controls are not very responsive:

sometimes after going right with D and then pressing W my character has stopped, then, all of a sudden, it started to go top and hit the wall.
karsyf
29. Apr 2013 · 16:54 UTC
lol, how, I don't even...
🎤 ashdnazg
29. Apr 2013 · 18:36 UTC
@Everybody Mentioning controls:
I should have written it clearer. One press of any key and your character starts moving in that direction (same as snake). you should not hold the key down!
If the same key is pressed again, you stop. If another key is pressed you start going in that direction.

I'll add this to the description.
I'm aware this type of controlling is bad. Unfortunately it's the best thing I'm able to implement, and even though I tried quite a lot, I couldn't circumvent this. :(

@Everybody mentioning batch:
Many thanks! However, you should think what you are actually saying when you post that :)
The sad part is I kinda agree :)

@Pickehut:
I know the quit and restart part sucks, I'm not sure if I could make some in-game restart option, and if it'd save time at all. I suppose I should have tried to implement this.
cahman
30. Apr 2013 · 12:08 UTC
Well, that made my day! But why is everyone else going to the left??? What do they know that I don't?
🎤 ashdnazg
30. Apr 2013 · 12:15 UTC
@cahman: It's an illusion, there are also many guys going to the right, but since you're at the same speed (and since you're gonna die) you'll never reach them. :)
OnlySlightly
30. Apr 2013 · 12:42 UTC
Wow serious points for writing in batch. I can't even imagine how you'd begin to do that.
fullmontis
30. Apr 2013 · 15:43 UTC
You are insane, a game in batch! Hahaha good job!
drstik
30. Apr 2013 · 15:45 UTC
Five stars for innovation!
ericlass
30. Apr 2013 · 15:46 UTC
Awesome idea to do this in batch.
DaveDobson
01. May 2013 · 15:31 UTC
Very clever idea to make a DOS game for the minimalism competition. Total style points. I think the game is a little too hard - I played several times and only barely got to the part where my fellow stickmen turned into at signs. Great concept, though. I love the audio track :-).
vgcharlienash
01. May 2013 · 16:22 UTC
Nice! Good that others decided to do their game in batch too :) Perhaps we could work together sometime.
AtkinsSJ
02. May 2013 · 15:55 UTC
:D This is completely crazy. Two thumbs up for it even working!
gmaker
03. May 2013 · 06:53 UTC
so cute!! nice job! =)
Robrock55
03. May 2013 · 12:30 UTC
What is this game ? Seriously, batch files ?
Full for innovation ! But this is so long to move....... :(
🎤 ashdnazg
03. May 2013 · 13:02 UTC
My appologies :( As weird as it sounds, the game actually requires a high-end CPU...
GranaDa
03. May 2013 · 14:55 UTC
Odd idea but cool.
Rafael Sales
03. May 2013 · 15:36 UTC
Cool game dude. Congratz!
Blinked
04. May 2013 · 00:24 UTC
Wow, nice job!
Covenant
04. May 2013 · 10:04 UTC
Amazing work... never thought you could do something like this with batch files... :)
TenTonToon
05. May 2013 · 06:58 UTC
Sir, I hereby name you Duke of Ludum Dare and King of the Minimalistic Hill! The game, as a piece of software, gets the highest possible rating by being written in batch. The animations are hilarious, and do not get me started on "sound design". Pure genius!

On the other hand, gameplay seemed to boil down to basically get the character running in a straight line and mash the H key every time a stickguy got nearby. It almost became old, fast. Almost. The fighting animations kept me coming back for more XD

In more ways than one, this is the game against which every other entry should be judged.
Congratulations! :)
🎤 ashdnazg
05. May 2013 · 09:00 UTC
@TenTonToon: And that's without exaggerating!

btw, gameplay-wise, it is usually better to bypass the stickguy, as you waste more time (and are more evil) if you beat it to death.

@Everybody: Thanks! I'm considering writing a post describing how the game works under the hood. It might be of interest to some.
TenTonToon
05. May 2013 · 13:08 UTC
Thanks for the pro tip! I'll try the game again, running by my fellow stickdudes and clenching my teeth, fighting the urge to go all ascii-fu on their asses XD
And a post-mortem of this particular game's development would indeed be really interesting! :D
Shigor
07. May 2013 · 11:31 UTC
Fantastic :)
marnaouf
07. May 2013 · 14:11 UTC
Very interesting technical take on the theme.
KEFIR
07. May 2013 · 16:30 UTC
Why there is no rates for programming? Because this is amazing programming work with such limited abilities! Let's say this is innovation. Really cool!
ethankennerly
08. May 2013 · 04:53 UTC
The walking ASCII character interested me. If you continue to develop this, I'd be curious what other tropes of text or command line you might include.
lightnarcissus
15. May 2013 · 13:17 UTC
Kudos to you for writing it in a batch. The game is pretty fun and hell nothing can be more minimalistic than batch and ASCII characters. :D
🎤 ashdnazg
19. May 2013 · 09:25 UTC
Many thanks!