Dedicated User Defined Entity (D.U.D.E.) by Bros.
About the game
This game is a combination of Platformer and Card Game.
You play as the Dedicated User Defined Entity (D.U.D.E.) Bot a mighty android capable of all imaginable features. But unfortunaly he can only walk left and right without further support.
Use memory cards in order to temporary enhance the features of the D.U.D.E. After a short time, the features will reset, forcing you to equip new cards.
The goal is to get the highest score possible. Gain points by clearing the levels. But keep in mind: Equipping cards will reduce your score drastically! The more cards you use simultaniously, the more points it will cost. E.g. 2 Cards cost 100, and 3 Cards already 1000 Points!
If you don't have any fitting cards, discard them by the cost of 1000 points. Or try to solve parts without any cards only by walking.
Controls
The controls are displayed on screen. Only keyboard is supported, but if you want to use JoyToKey or something similar these are the controls in general:
| Key | Action | |---------------|----------------------| | Arrow | Movement, Navigation | | X | Jump, Confirm | | C | Dash | | Return/ Enter | Start | | R | Reset |
It can also be mapped on a NES-Gamepad for Retro-Feeling.
It runs on Java
In order to play the game, you must have Java installed on your computer. JRE 1.6 or higher is required.
Development Notes
This is my second Ludum Dare game. Suprisingly it went exactly like the first one. For the good parts, as well as the bad parts.
Last time I could not add any sound or music. Now the exact same: No audio at all. I'm very sorry about that. I try to practice this... hopefully... Graphics took forever but I hope you apreciate them.
I did everything on my own, except the level designs. My brother gave me a helping hand there. As well as soul support.
Thank you for reading
| Windows | https://github.com/BrosLD/LD41/files/1940475/LD41.DUDE.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dedicated-user-defined-entity-d-u-d-e |
Ratings
| Overall | 563th | 3.474⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 572th | 3.316⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 295th | 3.684⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 375th | 3.868⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 312th | 3.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 706th | 2.667⭐ | 17🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 862th | 2.944⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 14🗨️ |
Too bad it didn't have any sound, 'cause the game is really cool! I whish there was a key to as for a new card instead of a timer.
Overall, solid entry!
@Glorious Kittens Jepp. Unfortunately I noticed it after the first day, and changing genres at that time was impossible. Cool name btw.
@Rombus One point regarding the source. I noticed a huge implementation mistake: When you read the code, please replace all LinkedLists with ArrayLists. I iterate through the Lists via indexing to avoid object allocation of an Iterator but used the wrong list implementation causing a running time of the for-loops with O(n²) instead of O(n) that could be done using ArrayList. I'm sorry about that. _If you know about all that stuff..._
Otherwise the code should be okayish. I used techniques from [ForeignGuyMike](https://www.youtube.com/user/ForeignGuyMike) and [GameProgrammingPattern](http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/).
It's a really neat idea, some tightening to the controls would be nice, it feels a bit slippery.
The constant change of variables keeps one alert of the characters capabilities.
Nice work!
Since you can discard cards anytime, there is not much challenge here, yet. Maybe a puzzle game approach would work well, where you get a set of cards and have to choose for every situation, with the "every enhancement card" as a kind of joker. Or the RNG could be adjusted so you don't get combinations repeatedly that are not fit to let you progress.
I really dig the idea, though, and see a lot of potential here! :)
With only 3 or so hours left, I had to create "real" levels by hand. The "discard hand" feature was implemented, so the user can get rid of his hand if there are no fitting cards, as I could not easily predict, which cards will be useful.
Long story short: the ideas where completely planned, but the time was missing to implement the features in a correct manner.
Simple, kind of an obvious idea and not at all incompatible! Sure the theme isn’t great, so let’s skip it. There is potential in this “random skills to get through a level” idea. Having to switch the skills every 10 odd seconds isn’t too thrilling though as it breaks the flow.
How about picking 3 skills out of 5 available, where every combination is still usable? This would require clever level design, but improve the experience, I reckon. Some levels could automatically select a random set of skills so that the player cannot go with their favorites all the time.
The graphics are indeed nice, 16-bit retro feelz. I wouldn’t mind the black background if the assets were even more retro (think Atari xx00 and early NES), but currently it does detract from the style. Audio would have added a lot, you’ll get there eventually!
Ok effort, you should have disabled humor and mood in my opinion.
Overall:* 2.5 (Below average)*
Fun:* 2.5 (Below average)*
Innovation:* 3.5 (Above average)*
Theme:* 3.0 (Average)*
Graphics:* 4.0 (Good)*
Humor:* 1.0 (Non-existent)*
Mood:* 1.0 (Non-existent)*