Marvin's Message by ryluu
Our first Ludum Dare, and our first game jam. Please enjoy!
Follow Marvin on his journey to deliver his message as he slowly powers down. You as the player will also lose power as your controls become more and more limited as systems progressively shutdown. Find new ways to beat levels and solve puzzles as Marvin's functions change.

Controls:
Arrow keys or WASD to move
R to restart
Space to use drill function

Changelog:
-Redesigned nearly frame-perfect jump in level 4 (see comment from @baby-dino-herd)
DISCLAIMER The Windows version contains a few bugs not present in the Flash version, including a visual glitch and significant lag near the end of the game. For this reason, we recommend trying the Flash version first.
| Source code | https://github.com/RyanLuu/LD39 |
| Flash (web) | https://wmerges.itch.io/marvins-message |
| Windows | https://wmerges.itch.io/marvins-message |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/marvins-message |
Ratings
| Overall | 300th | 3.545⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 351th | 3.256⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 263th | 3.349⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 200th | 3.841⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 288th | 3.864⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 473th | 2.237⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 288th | 3.463⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 40🗳️ | 45🗨️ |
Thanks for the feedback!
It's a good game, good job!
The degrading controls look like a cool mechanic and the screenshots have brilliant cave colors. I wish I could say more: the flash game won't load due to the following error: "Access denied: Anonymous users do not have storage.objects.get access to object itchio/support/Game.swf"
I also really liked the pixel art.
Didn't care too much for it at the beginning, because it's very slow, but it got better after a while. The graphics are very good (especially the background) and the controls feel pretty good as well. There's maybe a bit too much gravity involved. I feel like I can barely stand a chance against the velocity when falling, but when jumping into the air I accelerate like crazy.
Overall nice little game. Good work.
I loved finish that game :)
And the music is really great! Good work!
Simple but effective graphics. I really like the little rocky edges in the tileset. Nice sound effects and very fitting music that captures the urgency of the situation.
The message prompt at the top is a really nice touch that helps the player understand the game without being intrusive. My only complaint from that perspective would be that it would have been nice to have had a boulder to drill at the very beginning of the game, because that mechanic confused me at first, and I thought something had gone wrong when nothing happened as I pressed space (expected to be supposed to drill into the walls of the level before I found the first boulder).
It's interesting that the reset button is a necessary mechanic as the player realises their mistakes and need to redo stuff. The levels were just short and easily navigable enough that it wasn't a pain even to reset near the end of one. Nicely balanced.
I like it! Nice job! c:
That's too bad, as I really wanted to try this game after having read about the shutdown-mechanic.
Thank you for your kind words and constructive criticism!
Here's my discussion with leafo in the chat:
> g12345: quotes on the game: "For some reason, the game won’t load in both Firefox and Internet Explorer for me."
> leafo: well, for whatever reason the person who embedded this game used our "html5" mode, and uploaded an html page with the swf on it
> leafo: so they aren't using our swf embed code, which is tested
> g12345: ah...
> leafo: so they could have just messed up their implementation
Perhaps this will help you fix the flash version.
I also wanted to say that the room where everything turns red when you enter (and when you die)... I died a lot in that room and it because completely red and I had to restart.
Otherwise, it's nice.
I really like how losing your various capabilities opens up new puzzle possibilities. It's kind of like the NES game Blaster Master...except in reverse. The physics had a really good feel also.