Nineties Holywood Hacker by Casino Jack
Hack like in a cliche nineties Holywood movie, with sweet rigs, bright colors, lasers, and apparently some sort of spaceship!
First you need to build a link from the entry point (white( to the access (blue), then when you're ready, fly your program to the access through the link and destroy any rogue programs, anti-virus and firewalls you come across.
My first entry to Ludum Dare and it's been heaps of fun and swearing. I've decided I love Flixel, as it would have taken me so much longer to do this with anything else. I did have trouble with the theme and it does occur to me that this probably would have been perfect for 'Build it then use it', but I swear I came up with it while brainstorming for TinyWorld!
The general idea came from wanting to do something top-down in Flixel, but randomly deciding to mash it up with Pipeline. This part was going to be an actual game with a timer, but I ran out of time.
First you need to build a link from the entry point (white( to the access (blue), then when you're ready, fly your program to the access through the link and destroy any rogue programs, anti-virus and firewalls you come across.
My first entry to Ludum Dare and it's been heaps of fun and swearing. I've decided I love Flixel, as it would have taken me so much longer to do this with anything else. I did have trouble with the theme and it does occur to me that this probably would have been perfect for 'Build it then use it', but I swear I came up with it while brainstorming for TinyWorld!
The general idea came from wanting to do something top-down in Flixel, but randomly deciding to mash it up with Pipeline. This part was going to be an actual game with a timer, but I ran out of time.
| Flash Web | http://omgames.co.uk/ld23.html |
| Direct to SWF | http://omgames.co.uk/SuperSmashPipes.swf |
| Source | http://omgames.co.uk/ld23.zip |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=11139 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall | 3.32 | 231 |
| Audio | 2.16 | 555 |
| Fun | 3.14 | 257 |
| Graphics | 2.80 | 479 |
| Humor | 2.57 | 272 |
| Innovation | 3.77 | 84 |
| Mood | 2.59 | 499 |
| Theme | 2.54 | 664 |
I totally love the humor and the retro graphics are very pleasing.
-Health recharges should probably be cheaper. Like maybe $1 for one health. Coins also "die" pretty soon after they're dropped without warning.
-Mouse aiming might be better than having 8 input keys, and would probably allow you to try some more interesting enemy designs
-There's gotta be a way to make the level building more intuitive. Right now I just have to wait for the piece I want and place all the garbage pieces in random squares off in the corner. There's enough empty space that I never have to really worry about running out.
But it was REALLY fun :)!
Nice graphics, fun and all :)
I think is awesome the fact that you have to "design" the way to the other link and then follow it to go to the goal.
I put this to my "play later" list (later = 20 days of testing and voting)
A great one, congratulations!
Cheers!
Lots of gameplay to it, too. I like that in a jam game!
Some points that could use improvement:
1) Was a bit tricky to figure out the tile logic of the world-building part
2)Rather frusturating to build a nice short path and then be killed by those ANNOYING shooting robots
...Hey, wait a minute: Health recharges? Is that what those coins are for?
It's rather slow paced. It feels less like action than "Line up with an enemy, start shooting, wait, dodge it, wait, wait, dodge it, aim at next enemy". Also, because there are so few enemies in each stage, it feels empty.
It's hard to keep track of where you are. It would be awesome if there were a minimap during the shooting bits.
I got frustrated with placing pieces, but then I figured out, you can't place a piece if it doesn't match up? That does make sense, but with a little work it could be better. How about if the game checks if there's a valid path, and it won't let you place a piece that makes the path invalid? Also, what happens if you run out of room? Perhaps you could place pieces over previously placed pieces to delete them.
I'll be looking forward to later versions! ;)
> Recharging your health should be cheaper, if not free
> Making sure enemies don't spawn too near the exits would be good so I don't get killed as soon as I enter a room
> Some pieces looked like they would fit on the puzzle but the game wouldn't let me put them there... I'm not sure if I was missing some rule.
Either way, amazing job!
The only way I see this getting better is to put some music behind it. Well done!
A small issue: health didn't reset after a game over.
http://imgur.com/FSAcA
No, really?! If that was mean, how should I call this one? Come on.
Though I must say, the concept is brilliant. 5/5 innovation for sure.
This would be an incredibly awesome game if the gameplay itself was more dynamic. I had more fun in the "puzzle" part and speculating how my experience would be than actually playing the action part, which was slow and became boring very quickly.
you definitely should work more on this and make a full game out of it, it has a lot (and I mean A LOT) of potential.
Congrats!
Right now it's a bit messy though, maybe the player should have a minimap. And have a faster initial speed. With better graphics, background music, etc, i could be much better game. Right now, something is lacking to make the action part entertaining. There is no really interesting challenge right now. I'm sure all of this can be fixed but this start is already very interesting, thanks !
And to the guys saying "good idea, bad implementation" : thank you, you are being very useful.
I'm not sure if you scale the percentages of red/orange/green squares scales as the player progresses, but you should. The orange/red squares are really difficult with the starting ship.
Enemies often spawn too close to the room's entrance, which doesn't give the player a fighting chance. There should probably be a minimum spawn distance.
It felt like the silver/gold coin drop rate was independent of enemy difficulty. It'd be nice to get more gold coins from difficult enemies so there's an incentive to build through red squares.
The upgrade mechanic kept me playing for about 30 minutes ('til I hit the impossible level). The upgrades felt pretty good.
After a few levels, I figured out how difficult different room shapes would be and I could place them in smarter ways. I liked that second-order strategy.
Overall, nice work!