Empty by Puzzlem00n

made by Puzzlem00n for LD23 (COMPO)

Your world has just been conceived, but it's very tiny, pointless, and lacking of a third dimension. You long for a worthwhile purpose.

This game revolves around the mechanics of sliding puzzles with platforming. You can cling to walls, and use key combinations while on them to move the blocks. It's slightly harder than a normal sliding puzzle, given that you can't reach blocks sometimes due to your platformer nature.

It's partly untested and has some bugs, but hey, it's playable. If you belong to the "Other OS's" category, just download the copy of Love2D for your system:
https://love2d.org/
and run it from the source.

EDIT: Hey, guess what, it's impossible to beat this game! Neat, right?
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/04/23/im-sorry-i-thought-we-were-all-making-impossible-torture-machines/

EDIT NUMERO DOS: I've decided to create a post-compo version that you can actually beat. Of course, you probably shouldn't rate me on it.

EDIT NUMERO TRES: Due to requests, a 32-bit version of the original has been ported. Never thought people would want to play an unbeatable game so bad, did you?

Windows 64-bit	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74538317/Empty.zip
Source/Other OS's	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74538317/Empty.love
Windows 32-bit	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74538317/Empty32.zip
PostCompo-Windows	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74538317/postEmpty.zip
PostCompo-Other OS's	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/74538317/postEmpty.love
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=11003

Ratings

Coolness	100%	1
Overall	2.29	807

Audio	2.33	487
Fun	1.84	838
Graphics	2.22	755
Humor	1.94	580
Innovation	2.80	492
Mood	2.26	687
Theme	3.00	450

Feedback

Fireblend

23. Apr 2012 · 20:39 UTC

Controls are definitely a bit awkward, but hey, I made it about half way through the puzzle!

jeroenimooo

23. Apr 2012 · 20:43 UTC

Second game i could not finish so far D: These are the kind of puzzels i suck with D: also the buggy controls frustrade me after a while, Cool idea though :)

🎤 Puzzlem00n

24. Apr 2012 · 02:02 UTC

Hey, guess what, you can't solve it at all! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

blob

26. Apr 2012 · 17:28 UTC

Didnt think these kind of puzzle could have no solutions hehe. Bummer. The concept of mixing platform and a puzzle can be cool but it seems to just slow down the process of solving the puzzle in many case. Its a tough style of game to make.
Nice little music going.

Jeremias

27. Apr 2012 · 18:35 UTC

Hi puzzlemoon!
Your game is very strange and difficult to control like you said (buggy collision). Nice idea to get the theme as a tiny window :)

Make A Game

28. Apr 2012 · 00:59 UTC

Having the same problems has everyone else. :\

🎤 Puzzlem00n

28. Apr 2012 · 01:49 UTC

@Make A Game, I wouldn't say the others are having problems, I would just say you have the same criticisms. But yeah, I know, the game isn't exactly under the category of "games that do not induce the need to rage quit within the first two and a half minutes."

Make A Game

28. Apr 2012 · 02:13 UTC

@Puzzlem00n:
No, I really wasn't able to control the game properly. I kept struggling with the controls and clipping through the boxes, unable to move them to where I wanted to. After a while I got stuck on a box and trying to get out of it would just move it left or right. Sorry, I should have been more specific.

🎤 Puzzlem00n

28. Apr 2012 · 02:17 UTC

Oh, I see. I apologize for that, it was the one thing I knew I could fix, but I put it off for other things.

RHY3756547

28. Apr 2012 · 21:28 UTC

Sweet idea to mix these puzzles and platformers.

🎤 Puzzlem00n

28. Apr 2012 · 21:32 UTC

Yeah, that's me, tons of good game ideas, but they never come out like I want...

Cake&Code

29. Apr 2012 · 00:07 UTC

Wow that was really hard! I pushed some tiles around for a while, I think that's the point right? In the end I couldn't do anything more and the buggy collisions were getting me nowhere. I finally looked here to find it is unbeatable!! xD

Interesting concept and I like the teensy window.

yoklov

29. Apr 2012 · 15:32 UTC

Graphics are okay, Somewhat fun but the unbeatable aspect of it prevents me from spending more than a few minutes on it.

Controls need a lot of work. Too hard to push those boxes around.

hamburger

29. Apr 2012 · 21:31 UTC

I love playing in the really tiny window. I would say that's the most literal take on the theme I've seen. :)

Nick Cash

01. May 2012 · 02:46 UTC

So tiny! With some tweaking of the keyboard controls and maybe an option to make the screen bigger it would have been better, but still interesting.

DaveDobson

02. May 2012 · 00:53 UTC

I couldn't pull the one block up a row, and I needed to do so to win. This could be pretty cool if it were solvable. I see you've got that fixed post-competition - I wish I could see more of it beyond what's here, because it seems pretty cool. I like the music, too, but it would benefit from a longer loop.

🎤 Puzzlem00n

02. May 2012 · 01:11 UTC

Oh, you can pull the block up in the middle, you just need to go a bit out of the way to do it, taking extra moves. That wasn't why it was unsolvable.

Izzimach

03. May 2012 · 04:04 UTC

I think adding jumping elements to a puzzle like this is a cool idea, but the jumping controls were kind of wonky.

Endurion

03. May 2012 · 04:22 UTC

I get "Empty.exe is not a valid Win32 executable".

🎤 Puzzlem00n

03. May 2012 · 20:18 UTC

@Endurion: That just means you don't have a 64-bit computer. I assumed that problem wouldn't come up, I guess... If you're interested, I could make you a special copy.

🎤 Puzzlem00n

03. May 2012 · 20:19 UTC

I'm pretty sure that's within the rules as long as I don't change the code...

manax

04. May 2012 · 01:08 UTC

@Puzzlem00n Yeah, me too, same as @Endurion. (I'm running on XP... although it's a modern cpu.) I have lua & love loaded on my other box (was thinking about using it for the compo too), I'll try it there if I think of it.

🎤 Puzzlem00n

04. May 2012 · 20:40 UTC

Alright, I'll port it real quick, then.

dansludumdare

06. May 2012 · 03:23 UTC

Takes way more processing power than it should. Do you poll events without sleeping for a little bit?

I feel your pain about stupid mistakes. Way to take it in good humor though. Beat the game yourself before submitting it next time I guess.

There's obvious suggestions I'm not making because they're obvious and other people have made them already. One thought I had that I don't think is obvious is this: you have a small window to go with the tiny theme, but the audio is as big as ever. Maybe make it have a simple loud line and lots of quiet bits (if you make a straight up quiet song, people can just turn up the volume and you lose the effect) or stay within a small frequency range to make it feel tiny as well.

🎤 Puzzlem00n

06. May 2012 · 19:39 UTC

@dansludumdare: Thanks, that's probably the best comment I've gotten. Trust me, next LD, I'm definitely going to beat it first. I'll probably make something completely different other than a puzzle game, too, because honestly, it just doesn't feel like me.
Good comments on the music, too. I hadn't really even thought about that.

tomhunt

10. May 2012 · 00:50 UTC

I thought the tiny window size was a cool idea. The sliding block puzzle meets jumping puzzle thing seemed a bit awkward, though. The notion of making a 64-bit game (i.e. one that makes use of a >2GB process memory space) within such a tiny graphical window space seems like an intriguing challenge to me.

icefallgames

10. May 2012 · 21:23 UTC

Looks like a neat concept, but I am having a lot of trouble with the controls.
The tiny window is a nice touch!

Syntaxide

11. May 2012 · 00:25 UTC

Couldn't get it to work for me. It would start to the menu, but would crash upon hitting return.

Seems like a neat game from the description.

robcozzens

11. May 2012 · 04:33 UTC

I would try it if you had a Web or OSX version.

ericdpitts

12. May 2012 · 14:10 UTC

This was a really great idea for a game. I'm terrible at these types of puzzles anyway without the added hassle of platforming. I couldn't solved your post-compo version either. :P The controls need a bit of work, it was a bit fiddly. I'd sometimes move a block when I was just trying to jump off of it. Maybe make a change like you hold Z/X if you want to move a block or something like that? I don't know how well that would work/how feasable that would be with the way you have it now. But, I really like this idea and I feel like you should continue to develop it. I liked the background music as well.

🎤 Puzzlem00n

12. May 2012 · 17:09 UTC

@robcozzens: I do. Pay attention to the description. "Source/Other OS's." It's not really a version, but it'll work on your machine. Also, I don't really think you have a good tone on the matter, as it is as if you are demanding I develop for Web or OSX.

@Syntaxide: That hasn't happened before. What exact error do you get?

Cheesescape Ltd.

13. May 2012 · 18:20 UTC

Excellent idea. Controls were a bit awkward. My biggest problem was that the game became tedious after a while of manipulating the puzzle.

Datw

13. May 2012 · 22:42 UTC

Bonus1: towlr, anyone? Just missed the "+".
Bonus2: MiniLD#34...

Now, to the game. The controls are really messy and there aren't clues about what to do. Besides that, the compo competition is unbeatable, as you said :/