DOS: Deletion (of) Old Stuff by Call_me_Nutty
For the intended experience please play this game at 1024x768 windowed. Thanks!
Oh no! The Game (DOS) has sadly ran out of disk space (not enough floppy disks). In a desperate attempt to
salvage the project the game is deleting its own levels. In the midst of its painful struggle it completely forgot that you, the Player (transistBOT) are a key part of the Game. If you are deleted, it's all gone. Get to your hub immediately so you can get back to work.
This game has 5 challenging levels (1 boss level) all of which should take you 7-10 minutes to finish. How many deaths must you suffer till the end?
Controls
- Arrow Keys | Move Left and Right
- X | Jump
- Space | Restart Current Level
- Esc | Go back to home menu & Exit Game
Known Issues
- Game sometimes not properly recognising when the Player landed on the ground thus not playing a sound effect or playing a particle effect
- Mini-hops murdering ears (level 2 prime example)
- Music may overlap when finishing a level
Changelog
Version 1.1: August 13'th 2018:
Improvements:
-WEBGL BUILD WOOO!
-The hitbox for the pointer has been greatly increased
-Can finally exit the windows build
-Can now return to home menu
Fixes:
-Fixed unintentional level exploit on Level 3
-Fixed unintentional level exploit on the Boss Level (Level 5)
-Can no longer jump around pointer infinitely
-Fixed player collider not being disabled when selected by pointer
-The rare crash on level 1 seems to have disapeared
====================
This game was made with the amazing BitPotion font by Joeb Rogers. Find it here: https://joebrogers.itch.io/bitpotion
Every and all feedback is wanted and appreciated. If you hated, despised or want this game to rot in the deepest, dankest depths of hell, please tell me why, so next time I can make something better. Thank You :)
| Windows | https://call-me-nutty.itch.io/dos |
| Source code | https://github.com/TheNuttyGamer/DOS |
| HTML5 (web) | https://call-me-nutty.itch.io/dos |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/dos-deletion-of-old-stuff |
Ratings
| Overall | 433th | 3.258⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 474th | 3.031⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 220th | 3.453⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 443th | 3.369⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 625th | 2.516⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 438th | 2.697⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 191th | 2.911⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 64🗳️ | 67🗨️ |
Also damn! Of course! If I'm suddenly not building html anymore I need to have some way to exit the game. Thanks for pointing that out!
Please, tweak difficulty!
Graphic stile is ok, maybe it needs some tuning.
The idea is clever and well fitting with the theme.
Good work jam bro, and have a nice day!
Thanks for the feedback!
@ajay-2002 Thank You!
It took me a while to beat level 2 because I didn't realize you could stand on the pointer.
A lot of the challenge of the game comes from the player not exactly knowing if doing something is actually possible -- e.g. on level 3, I didn't know that I could make it to the bin-switcher before the pointer deleted the red cube. This also applies to the boss level. I've never really played a platformer where I didn't have good enough intuition about my movement to not know whether a given jump was possible, so this was new (to me, in any case).
Overall I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I think many of the previous reviewers mentioned most of my points. While I kind of enjoy finding out on myself what to do, it was quite surprised how often the mechanics changed and I had to kind of relearn. For example standing on mouse pointer while before it was my enemy.
I think the rounds are short enough that learning by error would work (SuperMeatBoy anyone?) however the sound on failure was really hurting my ear - probably due to the bad headphones I have to wear while the rest of my gang is asleep.
I think it is innovative enough that you should risk spending some more time balancing it out after the jam. However I wasn't able to beat it yet. Will gladly try it again soon.
Good job!
@stateoff I didn't realise the sound would be so ear grating, I'll definitely change that after the Jam. Also, I most certainly will keep working on it after the Jam, I do still have lots of ideas for how I can integrate the pointer into more levels.
Thanks for both of your lengthy reviews!
And: why did you put jump on X instead of Space and why did you put restart on Space? I kept hitting space and wondered why the level wont start :smile:
@geeitsomelaldy I'll include some more control schemes in the post jam version. I didn't think of people naturally pressing space thanks for pointing it out!
@susanto Thank You!
The game mechanic was really cool and showed its best side in the boss fight.
I would suggest to lower the volume of the 'death sound' (thank god I didn't used headphones...)
so subtract quite a number of deaths from my initial number of deaths
If you make some polishing, it will be really solid game. Good luck!
version. It's great to see though that you still had lots of fun :)
Oh, I love the idea! It would be extra fun if player could vary tactics depending on cursor's actions (correct me if there are such cases, 'cause I didn't manage to finish the game). Also, cool music, it fits the game perfectly!
The whole collision detection glitch is partially my fault since I still don't know how to implement a proper jumping system. I tried raycasting (as I have in previous projects) but the way I implemented it meant that when the player jumped since the ray was still in contact with the ground it recognised it as having landed. So if I gave the player 2 maxJumps it would actually be 3. I ended up just going for
collision detection and checking the players y velocity which is why level 2 is the glitchiest and also why hitting a wall creates particles.
Lovely concept idea. Physics were quite wonky. What a shame there are so few levels, this idea could be much more flexed out.
1. This starts WAY too hard. The first level should be an introductory one and needs to be beaten on the second try, tops. I understand that for a developer who plays his own game for hours on end, it's hard to gauge what's difficult and what's not, but it's better to err on the side of easy. (I really enjoyed the concept for the second level, very creative.)
2. As many other people have said, collisions could be better. I died a few times because of that.
However, I think you've made an interesting game. Would like to see a post-jam version for sure.
@sidewalksleeper This is my first game where I actually had to remember making a good difficulty curve (my last game doesn't count since that felt like more of a proof of concept), I completely forgot to actually give the players one or two starter levels so they can get to grips with the controls, instead I gave them a confined, fast paced level that gives the player no time to get his bearings together, I
REALLY messed up on that part.
In the post jam version that I'm working on currently I have mostly fixed the collision issues, the ear rape landing sound on Level 2 for example and particle effects have been completely fixed but I'm still not satisfied with how the general collision detection feels.
It's true that it is not easy, however given that there are "only" 5 levels (which is normal, it's a game jam after all), the challenge made them worth playing, but I can understand that it can be frustrating to struggle on an early level
Nice challenge overall ^^
- First, the death sound effect, I wont be surprised if people have complained about that, but Im sure a quick fix would do.
- Second, moving platform should have the player sticking to it, here is a useful pointer for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R_AdDK25kQ. Chasing the moving platform really drove me nuts so I could count your game as a rage game haha.
- I think the collision is fine. But the movement of the character doesnt seem right. He is a block with spike, which suggests that he should be heavy and slow, but in fact he moves sooo fast its almost too hard to control him. I overshoot his jump a lot of time though, it could get annoying in combination with chasing the moving platforms.
Otherwise I think your game is very promising if you have some more time to polish it. What I like about the game is that even though it is a platformer with moving platform, the movement of the platform is known in advance by players, such that they know the pointer would come and collect that platform so there is some time to plan everything out. Very potential idea, great work! And congrats on getting 50 ratings, now its 51 xD
- Death sound is getting patched in V1.2 today (eek, maybe not, Unity Collab doesn't support branching and I'm a bit uneasy about making 2 projects under one repo since work for V2 is already underway)
- Thanks for the video, I was actually painfully googling for a solution during the Jam but couldn't find any resources (I'm not a video tutorial type of person) but I'll get watching!
- I was really unsure for what kind of character I wanted to go for. I ended up making a transistor kind of character which doesn't even fit with the damn story! (The game is set INSIDE the game NOT a computer GRR). I need to come up with something new.
- For V2.0 I've already completely adjusted the players movement. You can no longer double jump when walking of ledges, the player has greater vertical control, more gravity, less air friction, the player feels heavier and your general horizontal reach whether on the ground or jumping has been reduced.
- I'm actually adding a "net mode" into V2.0 which will give the player a bunch of info on the current level, such as which bins connect with which changer, which blocks will eventually get deleted. I think conveying information to the player is something I really messed up on here which is another reason why people found the gane so difficult.
Thanks for the feedback!
A lot of people have mentioned the tricky collisions, so I won't touch on those more, but it seems that nobody has mentioned level design and progression things, which caused my confusion about walking on the pointer just now, so I'll touch on that.
The wisest thing I can say is this golden rule: Every time you introduce a new mechanic, introduce it on its own, in it's most simplest form possible. Your player knows nothing. Your levels should build on and challenge the player's knowledge base step by step. So for example, you'll set up your levels & progression to be something like this:
* Moving/jumping - no pointer at all.
* Pointer introduced - doesn't interact with the player but selects a bunch of random blocks that don't affect the platforming/goal/gameplay in any way.
* Walking on the pointer - no tricky platforming that the player thinks they can make with tricky platforming/jumping. (i.e. your beginning of level 2)
* A platforming challenge that can only be completed with a double jump.
* Player being targeted by pointer, has to run for their lives.
* Combine multiple of the above.
* Simplest possible introduction of area that switches the cursor tracking to different recycle bins.
* Combine multiple of the above.
* Simplest possible physics puzzle without multiple markers.
* Combine multiple of the above.
* etc.
**Ahem**! Enough wishy-washy advice giving from me... The concept is great and I really enjoyed it! Following and looking forward to your next jam. :thumbsup:
A platformer with a twist. Ehh, the twist is novel sure, but a bit finicky. This is mostly due to the jittery collision detection *(enough specific comments on that already)* and the tight timing of the jumps. For instance in the last level you could easily add a bigger window of opportunity by moving the bottom most trash can all the way down to the edge of the level.
Obviously the graphics would use a lot of work as most objects are temp boxes or a varying colors and sizes. The few custom sprites emanate a pleasant Supaplex vibe, but look out of place at the moment.
No bugs, that's good. The workmanship isn't there yet.
Thanks for your review!