LudumData

Minimum by jlm

[raw]
made by jlm for LD26 (COMPO)
Something of a cross between a puzzler and a stealth game.

Inspiration came from the idea of a system that didn't work well when too big. I borrowed ideas from deck building games, then tried to emphasize the pain of not planning your hand well. Which in turn is impossible to do if you don't keep your collection very minimal.

Sorry for the lack of music - I'm not a musician and didn't want to ruin it with what would end up being very horrible sound.

Windows and Linux x86_64 binaries provided.
Building from source is easy if you need 32bit linux, single dependency is SDL2 (which you can put the source of into the game's top-level directory and CMake will pick it up.)

Windows http://files.arcticpaint.com/ld26/Minimum.zip
Linux http://files.arcticpaint.com/ld26/minimum.tar.lzma
Source https://bitbucket.org/jlm/ld26
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=5438

Ratings

Coolness 64% 3
Overall 3.22 501
Fun 2.97 572
Graphics 3.03 554
Humor 1.62 991
Innovation 3.51 256
Mood 2.72 725
Theme 3.47 624

Feedback

kogyblack
29. Apr 2013 路 03:08 UTC
Very simple and well done!
Although lacking music (and an quit button), and the collision being, sometimes, imprecise, I liked it xD

Also, I'm waiting to test SDL 2.0 on release.
馃帳 jlm
29. Apr 2013 路 03:34 UTC
Ah yes... it's actually always imprecise! All approximated bounding box collisions. Never got around to improving it. Probably should have worked on that instead of getting the Windows build.
cahman
29. Apr 2013 路 03:38 UTC
A little hard to figure out what was going on, could use a good introduction.
kogyblack
29. Apr 2013 路 03:40 UTC
Yeah. 48h is a bit short for improving xD
The quit button issue is caused 'cause the window created is taller than my screen (notebooks..) so I can`t click the quit button..
Anyway, I liked it.. Reading the code right now, `cause I program in SDL 1.2 (most time + OpenGL).
semi
29. Apr 2013 路 14:01 UTC
Huh, a little confusing at the beginning, but it turns out to be pretty great! I love the switching between black and white, the exploration and the way the skill collection is handled / rotated. It's an awesome combination of gameplay elements to create something really fun and unique. Great job!
馃帳 jlm
29. Apr 2013 路 14:08 UTC
I would have liked to ease players into the mechanics a little gentler by predefining the start position more. And I had great ideas for visual effects and animations that would have helped a lot... 48 hours... little sleep... no OpenGL calls...

Thanks for taking the time to figure it out and glad you enjoyed it!
Arkazon
29. Apr 2013 路 16:06 UTC
Nice but a little hard to get into - could use some explanation on some of the mechanics and as others have said - the collisions being that imprecise makes it tricky to control.
馃帳 jlm
29. Apr 2013 路 16:20 UTC
I drew some inspiration from Star Seed Pilgrim in that I wanted it to be a little difficult to figure out. Games feel more rewarding to me that way. Making the effects of your actions more obvious though is definitely something I would have liked more time to do.
timtipgames
29. Apr 2013 路 16:56 UTC
It took me 10 minutes to figure out what the hell was going on, but once I got it, I enjoyed this game deeply.
馃帳 jlm
29. Apr 2013 路 17:14 UTC
@timtipgames That's exactly what I was hoping for! Thanks for sticking with it :)
Zathalos
30. Apr 2013 路 02:18 UTC
Yeah, this game took me like 5 minutes to figure out but once I got it, it was pretty cool. I liked the gameplay concept of collecting only the powers you needed and not all of them. If you collect too many, you have to waste too much power to cycle them. I like the concept but don't like the way it's presented ie. the art. If you changed the art style and made the enemies less unforgiving, you could have something really cool here. Good job.
Trench
30. Apr 2013 路 08:25 UTC
It could use a set of instructions but other than that, pretty fun!
PiotGuy
30. Apr 2013 路 08:51 UTC
Really cool ! Simple and effective =)
AestheticGamer
30. Apr 2013 路 13:08 UTC
While the item system sort of confused me, I did have a semi good time with it. I feel differentiating some of the graphics for items and enemies would of made it less confusing sometimes as differentiating them while being chased sometimes was a bit confusing. Still, a fairly unique shooter/survivor concept matched with an interesting take on minimalism.
Jubjub.
30. Apr 2013 路 14:32 UTC
Very minimal indeed, though I like the hexagonal styling. I like how small you've kept the file size on this one, too!
manax
30. Apr 2013 路 23:45 UTC
Interesting game. Agree with other commenter, collision detection could have been better, got "wrongly" killed a couple times. ;)

I was confused by the inventory, took a little while to realize it was cycling through them. I assumed there was another key to control it, which I kept looking for... but now I assume there isn't. Still not quite sure what the timer was for, nor what the green globs were for.

Good concept, with a bit of refining, you'd have something quite fun.
PTSnoop
01. May 2013 路 18:08 UTC
I had a few issues with the collision detection, but apart from that, very nicely done. The world needs more puzzle/stealth games!
IceCliff
04. May 2013 路 09:13 UTC
I really really enjoyed this! It did however need a good tutorial.
ohsqueezy
07. May 2013 路 08:59 UTC
I enjoyed wandering through the environment and seeing what situations arose. Great hexagon maze and distribution of power-ups and enemies!
f7f5
16. May 2013 路 21:30 UTC
There's some really cool stuff in here, but it's really confusing when you start playing, which can be tricky when you are trying to rate as many games as possible and don't have much free time :)

I also felt I was just wondering around without a purpose. Is there a goal other to survive as long as possible? Very original, nevertheless.