LudumData

Mimic by Chaserbrown

[raw]
made by Chaserbrown for LD35 (JAM)
Mimic is a game inspired by the real life sea creature, the Mimic Octopus! The Mimic Octopus literally shape-shifts in real life to take on the appearance of other sea creatures.

Tools Used:

- Eclipse + Java
- My own Game Engine, Retrojump
- Photoshop
- Audacity

This game was made initially for the Compo, but I had technical difficulties at the last second. The file was initially 300 megabytes, and it wasn't playtested yet. Also, it wasn't the easiest to run. I've fixed those problems.

For the most part.

I haven't tested the game on OS/X or Linux. This is because I only have Windows computers, so had no way to test it on any other OS. Also, some Windows computers are having a problem where they're getting an exception.

Because of this, please, please tell me which OS you're on when commenting. If you have an error, please let me know.

Now on to everything else...

This game was made by one person, from scratch (except for a self-made game engine and fonts). The game itself took 40 hours to make, and it's proven to be incredibly difficult. I challenge you to play through the whole thing.

Good luck.

If you, for some reason, don't want to have the full incredibly incredible, awesomely awesome, amazingly amazing, stunningly stunning experience of Mimic, please, at least look at the soundtrack and skim through it. My better tracks were later in the game.

You can contact me through Twitter (@chaseplays_)

I hope you enjoy!

I have created a post-jam version now. Rate me based on the original, but if you're playing to have fun, the post-jam is much easier. If you've played the original, you've know that it had some difficulty issues.

Thanks to Mike Kasprzak for helping me with a problem I had!
Original https://chaseplays.itch.io/mimic
Post-Jam https://chaseplays.itch.io/mimic-postjam
Soundtrack https://soundcloud.com/chaseplaysmusic/sets/mimic-ost
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=61940

Ratings

Coolness 77% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.24 546
Audio(Jam) 3.58 188
Fun(Jam) 3.02 626
Graphics(Jam) 3.29 559
Humor(Jam) 2.81 347
Innovation(Jam) 3.02 572
Mood(Jam) 3.16 496
Theme(Jam) 3.88 152

Feedback

MajorLeagueBaker
18. Apr 2016 · 20:24 UTC
I can't play it, i get the error "A Java Exception has occurred"
fairwolf games
18. Apr 2016 · 20:32 UTC
not bad a little too hard for my taste tho :P
Arvydas
18. Apr 2016 · 20:35 UTC
Great submission, enjoyed the theme. Was not fast enough at some parts, and gave me vietnam style flashbacks with the eel (AKA flappy bird)
MeritLeave
19. Apr 2016 · 05:43 UTC
When I try to run it I sadly get "A Java Exception has occurred".
maizewallin
19. Apr 2016 · 05:51 UTC
Fun!
shohs
19. Apr 2016 · 08:04 UTC
Pretty good, nice graphics and music. The shapeshifting mechanic was smooth and I think it worked out well. It would be cool if the different transforms weren't just reskins of each other though. But overall, good job!

(by the way, there seems to be a bug that if you're not running at 1080p, the buttons detection is off. This happened on Windows 10)
Somnium
19. Apr 2016 · 09:25 UTC
Interesting game, although very hard :) It has a nice variety of different powers.

The soundtrack is excellent! I remember spending precious time listening to it, when you posted it on the main page during the LD ;) A pity you removed all the "extra" songs from the soundtrack :)
TheMeorch
20. Apr 2016 · 04:04 UTC
Nice work -- the mood, art and music are all super charming. I found the difficulty a bit extreme and the resets a bit jarring, given the large size of the characters, the small spaces they had to fit in, and the speed at which I had to navigate. If you could ease the player into the difficulty more, I could really get into maneuvering the levels while enjoying the great tunes!
stefvanschie
20. Apr 2016 · 14:31 UTC
It was a little bit too hard.
stalker1586
20. Apr 2016 · 15:18 UTC
An interesting approach, though even pass the first level is difficult. (for me)
Pontifex
20. Apr 2016 · 16:04 UTC
Great idea, but too difficult to be enjoyable.
teamross
21. Apr 2016 · 11:02 UTC
It was a bit difficult for me.
But great idea and concept overall!
w1n5t0n
22. Apr 2016 · 04:14 UTC
Good use of the shapeshifting theme!
fin_nolimit
22. Apr 2016 · 06:04 UTC
Very addicting game! I liked the art too... especially the floating planet! Excellent take on the endless runner-type! Nice job
rayman1900
22. Apr 2016 · 16:49 UTC
I'm on Windows and I have 2 screens. The windows is really big, so I dunno if it was scalling properly to my width and height. Anyway, great game you have there, really ^^ I was soo confused at first because my character was going full speed and I was very wondering myself why the text was going so fast and all, so I tried the keys that I saw in the text passing blindly until I got the turtle and then it was really surprising that you added the tutorial as a gameplay element, so really inovative here ;)
NPException
23. Apr 2016 · 09:58 UTC
Very good work! Too hard for me to even beat the first level after the tutorial, but a lot of fun to try nontheless :D
nihilaleph
23. Apr 2016 · 13:55 UTC
Great game! Really liked the concept, the art and the music! The original version was really unforgiving and had some collision problems, and was reaaally difficult, couldn't finish the first world ^^; The post-jam version however seemed way easier (still some levels were hard, but over all was easy, some of them was basically keep using octopus power).

Btw the window was way too big for my monitor xp but still was able to play it. After finishing grassland the menu didn't go to fantasy world, I had to manually change the world, and Lava lake seemed impossible >.< had to skip it.

Anyways congrats for your entry!
abcdef65g
23. Apr 2016 · 22:07 UTC
Yeah, the original version is definitely way too hard for me (which makes me depressed, since I'm a platforming nut and I enjoy unforgiving games like the SMT series)! And the resolution issue on my 720p screen makes it hard to select buttons too.

Other than that, this is definitely one of the strongest entries I've played so far in the jam. The mechanics are solid, graphics are cute, and the soundtrack is amazing. The take on the theme was clever too (Go mimic octopi!). I'm humbled by your time management skills to make this game on your own!

Definitely looking forward to your future work.
mooncalf
24. Apr 2016 · 07:37 UTC
The aesthetic was amazing. A great production overall.

Losing when I hit the top was a bit unexpected. It also raised the difficulty significantly.
blaclegi
24. Apr 2016 · 20:14 UTC
Good game, although it was quite difficult - the tutorial text also scrolled past quite quickly so was hard to read. An interesting concept though - it was fun!
Fabraz
26. Apr 2016 · 03:12 UTC
Definitely slow down that text next time! :)
CAT_IN_THE_DARK_WOOD
26. Apr 2016 · 03:19 UTC
Linux version works well. That is really nice take on theme, and graphics is pretty cool. Some flappy-eel gameplay is OK to, but a bit hard in my taste. Good entry overall, thank you!
Jupiter_Hadley
30. Apr 2016 · 12:30 UTC
Really neat concept, though I didnt get why I was dying sometimes. I included it in my video compilation series of Ludum Dare games, if you’d like to check them out :) https://youtu.be/1ovNEwCi_RI
puppetmaster
07. May 2016 · 20:36 UTC
Very cool theme implementation.
My first thought was, I'm a snake why can i fly :-)
Keep up the good work!
Jungle
07. May 2016 · 22:20 UTC
Nice concept, fits theme very well. Congrats!
Aaranos
08. May 2016 · 02:48 UTC
Well made. I think the game is very unforgiving in terms of smacking into walls but it has a nice set of mechanics. The movement being controlled by what form you are in is a bit of a gimmick but it fits the theme well.
TheCain
08. May 2016 · 04:53 UTC
Way too difficult. But interesting nonetheless. I didn't know about the mimic octopus.
Also, I wasn't hearing the music on the original.
But i'll rate you on the sound-cloud music.
It is pretty good, and no reason to let your efforts go to waste.
Sean
09. May 2016 · 06:10 UTC
The game was far too difficult for me to enjoy it (I was just getting frustrated), but I did listen to a few tracks from the soundtrack as you suggested, and they're great! It's really impressive how much quality music you managed to put together in such a short time.

Kudos for using your own engine btw! Although I didn't enjoy the game, it didn't seem to have any noticeable technical issues which is quite an accomplishment for custom engine games.