Wow, that was a very clever gameplay style. I liked the code-esque intro and power pickup style. It took a little bit to get used to, but after the 6th probe, I got it figured out. Good job :)

I really liked the way the levels replayed, but changed with each probe. I couldn't get through the 'use your probes as step' level cause I couldn't get on top of them (i didn't have jump, and couldn't go and get it cause i'd just fall in the hole). Maybe im missing something? Overally really innovative idea, would like to play more - maybe a hint of what im doing wrong? ;)

Cooool! The art looks really nice, retro in a great way. The abilities are fun to play with. Nice job!

Nice to see HaxeFlixel still being used! Really liked the concept. Playing as a new probe each time and having to recollect modules allows for some interesting design. The power down option seemed slightly buggy though, as my probes would end up in places I didn't put them. That aside, I think there's definitely potential to expand on this concept post-jam. There's a lot of cool things you could do with disposable probes!

Really interesting premise, I also got stuck at the probes as steps part haha.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

@greysphere @Johnnyc1423 I had trouble understanding what you were talking about at first, but then I realized that you had never returned to the replicator and made your upgrades permanent! That is totally my fault for not making that more clear! If you grab the jump upgrade and go back to spawn, all future probes can jump. Same with all the other upgrades.

A better design would have make the player cross the replicator after getting the jump upgrade teaching that technique. And possibly displaying a message like "Jump module downloaded. All future probes will be equipped" or something. I blame the short jam timeframe!

@xel I love Haxeflixel. The physics can get weird when you have multiple dynamic objects interacting, which might account for the probes moving around between levels. The other reason is how it was coded. It saves the room state whenever you leave or die or whatever. Well, I spawn an invisible powered down probe on top of the player probe so the position is saved, but sometimes the two interact in funny ways, which moves the powered down probe unexpectedly. Fixing it would have required an hour to rewrite a bunch of code and I didn't have time in the Compo timeframe. I have since though, so it will work better in the post compo!

It`s looks "retro" in good definition of that word. Movement can be little more smooth and you can add music, but that is really good game.

This game really hooked me. You should develop this game further!

interesting!

The Game Is Pretty Cool!!!
The sound is working perfectly
The game's idea is pretty good and nice
It was fun to play your game brother

Very solid entry! The main gameplay mechanic was quite interesting and fun and I think there are a lot of possibilities that you can explore with it if you decide to continue work on this. Obviously there are a lot of things you can polish up, but as this is a Jam title lack of polish is understandable. I'd say that even though the art wasn't bad I think that there are quite a few assets that still look like programmer art and clash with the style of the game (such as the power bar for example). I will also say that the probes felt a little floaty. I don't mean this in a bad way, since it didn't really hinder my experience, but perhaps some more careful work on the animation speed in relation to the speed of movement will fix up this issue (they felt like they were animating too slowly for how fast they were moving). Also some pacing issues could be addressed, such as perhaps speeding up the time it takes to upload upgrades. I might just be nitpicking at this point. Regardless, very solid entry!

Really cool game and the graphics looks really good! The gameplay was really clever and it was overall very fun to play. Would have been nice with some more sound effects tough.

great take on the metroidvania style, would love to see this fully developed!

A lot of really cool ideas here and I really liked the walking animation. There were a few things that could be improved though. It'd be nice to have the text-skip button make the current text finish scrolling rather than display the next message right away. Also using the Enter key as the stick button seemed like a bit of a weird choice. Was also a bit weird how the camera scrolled past the level boundaries. Other than those small things, a really nice entry. Good work.

Thanks all! I've been spending most of my free time playing other's games (and building an American Ninja Warriors course for my kids!) but I have had some time to work on the game a little. I'll be releasing a post-compo game soon with many of the suggestions I've received. So thank you for making them!

@nanolot - I agree on all points. The text does need to fully display on a button hit and then advance on the next hit. That whole screen is on my "revisit and make this work" list. It also needs some quick instructions telling you what your options are (space to advance, escape to skip). The enter key choice was honestly because I never decided on a control scheme. Sometimes I play with arrows and others wasd. I actually have all the code in the game to allow the player to rebind the keys to whatever they want, but I was going to put the option on the main menu, which I ran out of time to implement... The camera isn't supposed to scroll on small levels and follow the player on large ones, but I mixed up a < > and now it does. It is fixed in the next version. Thanks for all the great feedback!

@shell-pirate - The energy bar is actually an out of the box Haxeflixel FlxBar object. So you are correct, it totally doesn't fit in the rest of the art. Also, one of the items on my list is "match walking animation speed to player speed" since the floaty feeling of the movement is even worse after you get a speed upgrade.

In the actual game the replicators you use to spawn probes and upload the upgrades will function as a sort of save point and you wouldn't hit them that often. You will also go to another screen between the despawn and the spawn where you can pick your "loadout", so I'll have to revisit all the timings as things change. Thanks for the great feedback!

The idea of the game is good. Promising for a more large and polished game. Great work!

very nice interpretation of the theme. good game design.

Fun, Played till the end. I thought the artwork was really nicely done, the main character is pretty cute.
Had a little problem getting the stick to wall to trigger sometimes but got there in the end. Liked the robotic humour in the dialogues. The using previous drones mechanic as steps mechanic is interesting although the the amount of retreading the same areas it causes is a bit of a downside and could become boring if you had to go far. Got a lot of potential, Good work.

Cool game, I've only seen one other metroidvania-esque game this jam and you did a great job on yours. The first notable thing was the jump animation was excellent. Even though it's a "small" thing, the fact that you see it a lot, you get to appreciate such a smooth animation. Secondly, you had a good mix of multiple lives + Metroid upgrades for a unique gameplay experience. I looked forward to each new upgrade to see what you had in store.

The level design was really good and I really liked the animation of the probes. You have some very cool mechanics that I've not seen before in a game. This definitely has a lot of potential to be expanded and I hope you pursue this after the competition.

Oh this was pretty fun! nice use of the items and nice levels too.

If you want you can probably expand this into a larger game, too.

Is there any possibility of HTML5 version?

On my first playthrough I skipped the lower two upgrades and went straight to the end by stacking probes. I like collecting the different upgrades and slowly building up my skills. The screen transitions and respawn animation could have been a bit faster though. Having to press the directional again after a screen transition was a tiny bit annoying.
Also really liked the boot up sequence.

@eremiell Yes, there is a possibility of an HTML5 version. I actually have it built but Haxeflixel has some limitations with HTML5. The biggest one is that blend modes don't work, which means that all the camera fades and polish doesn't work correctly. The latest versions of Lime and OpenFL (which Haxeflixel is built from) fix some of these issues, but until HaxeFlixel gets an update I'm stuck working around it.

Working around these limitations is on my to-do list. Don't know when I'll get to it though.

@klianc09 I was wondering if anyone would do that. I actually was going to put in a different message at the end where the computer complains about sequence breaking, but I ran out of time :smile: I agree the transition times need to be faster. I didn't think about having to press the direction keys again. I'll have to fix that in the next version.

@automatonvx I hear you about the wall stick. It probably wasn't sticking because you weren't pressing against the wall when you hit enter to stick (at least that is the problem when it doesn't work for me). The conrol scheme needs to be redone. It is on the list.

*Flash!* Here's hoping they get the HTML5 version running soonish.

Neat mechanics. Collecting upgrades and shutting down to help your future selves, well designed progression through the levels too. There's not a lot to complaint about really. Some ambient sounds and background art would have improved the presentation.

It is curious how you went from Mistreated Probes to Probe Abuse! Good work!

Nice art style and good game concept. Keep it up!

@HuvaaKoodia re: the name change. As I wrote the dialogue for the computer I found over time that out sort of took on a life of its own. The title change going from "mistreated" to "abuse " mirrors my own personal journey as i really gave myself over to the writing. Aren't we all really capable of looking at others as disposable and isn't that really abuse? Its calling it simply mistreatment grossly understating the pain that a "others are disposable " worldview causes? Can my simple game awaken us to a sense of shame at out own deep seated sense of apathy?

Just kidding. I actually just forgot the name of my own game between posting it to my site and the ludum dare page.