LudumData

What Goes In Must Come Out by SimplePotential

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made by SimplePotential for Ludum Dare 47 (COMPO)

My Compo entry for LD47, "What Goes In Must Come Out".

Not a lot of time to dedicate to this so I stripped down to using HTML and JS Only this time around, no Unity. Used Bfxr for the sound effects.

I took a lot of inspiration from old DOS style games such as Snake.

Controls: At the title screen, Pressing S, Space, or Enter will start the game.

P will toggle Pause

M will toggle Mute

Use Arrow Keys or WASD to move; Game will actually start once you start moving

You are the White box.

Note that you can pass through the wall to the other side of the screen

Refresh the page to start a new game

While I consider myself well versed in HTML and JS, I was completely new to using the Canvas for anything other than Graph style work but found it remarkably easy to build on. If I was doing it over I'd change a lot of code, such as how I'm building the title screen.

I opted for nothing other that drawing shapes and text on the canvas in order to stay in my time restraints and in the Compo. I rather like the old school look though. It'd be pretty easy to switch to actual icons too though.

A note about balance... I play tested as much as I could but it is still pretty random. Try it again a couple times if you die right away. You should be able to get a score of at least 1000 points I think. I average between 3,000 and 10,000 points.

My play testers went from saying it was too hard to now being too easy. Let me know what you think, I wouldn't mind fleshing this out a bit more, cleaning up the code and using as a tutorial on my site.

playing.png

UPDATED ON 10/19/2020:

Working more on this last few days but nothing new ready to deploy. Added a bonus item that will show when there is X amount of poo on screen with a spawn chance that increased for every X poo. This helps a bit with garbage clean up if you manage to get high scores and helps with lag. However lag is still an issues I'm tracking down. I know it is happening as the arrays get larger. I can see it in the delta times going from about 10-15ms toward start of game up to 30ms or so the longer you play.

UPDATED ON 10/14/2020:

I've been working a bit on a post jam version. Which is always something I say I'll do but never quite get around to it. Change log below but most significant is I've narrowed down the lag I think and have take steps to mitigate it. More work to do still but far more playable at higher levels.

Post Jam Version: https://simplepotential.com/projects/LD47v2/game.htm

  • Changed keyup Event Listener to a switch statement rather than multiple listeners
  • No longer using keyCode on the KeyboardEvent object
    • Using “code” as keyCode has been deprecated
    • Adjusted appropriate code to check based on string matches rather than numeric codes
  • Removed “S” as the way to start the game
    • It is now Space or Enter.
    • “P” can also be used to Start the game
    • The same keys all now pause the game as well.
  • Pooing can now occur when you are >= 50% belly.
    • Speeds up game play
    • Keeps it more interesting
    • Currently a 5% chance to poo when above 50% belly
    • At 100% belly, you poo all excess % just as you would have before
  • Corrected bug with Player movement cost
    • I was adding/subtracting based on players Belly fullness but never using the value from that calculation so your energy cost was always flat.
  • Removed play speed increase based on score.
    • Thought this might be the source of lag but I’ve managed to reproduce the lag I think so still investigating
    • Game is fast paced enough without increasing the actual play speed though
  • Corrected all spellings of Collision
  • Added more commenting
  • Food is now removed from game play if it gets poo on it.
    • I mean, who wants to eat food with poo on it right?
  • Mouse cursor now hidden from the game play area
  • Pressing F2 will now start a new game without having to refresh the page
  • Max food that can spawn at any time is now 30
    • This balances the game a bit
    • Also helps a bit with the lag since there is less things to collision detect
  • Turned player moving sound into a loop rather than play/stop each tick.
    • This has helped a lot with lag
    • Removing all sound gets rid of all lag but I’d prefer another solution and I’m still investigating.
Youtube https://simplepotential.com/projects/LD47/game.htm
Youtube view-source:https://simplepotential.com/projects/LD47/game.htm
Youtube view-source:https://simplepotential.com/projects/LD47/game.js
Youtube https://simplepotential.com/projects/LD47v2/game.htm
Youtube https://github.com/SimplePotential/What-Goes-In-Must-Come-Out
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/what-goes-in-must-come-out

Ratings

Overall 585th 2.689⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Fun 541th 2.667⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 570th 2.556⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Theme 609th 2.261⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 604th 1.966⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Audio 470th 2.378⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Humor 368th 2.264⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Mood 568th 2.145⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Given 49🗳️ 59🗨️

Feedback

TolMera
05. Oct 2020 · 04:14 UTC
Awesome an HTML Game!

Very cool, I was trying to avoid the walls for the entire run, so was really surprised when I hit the wall and passed right through :)

I love the sounds, and they give a good bit of feedback when you hit a block that's good/bad (I think the brown box was bad?)

![Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 2.12.00 pm.png](///raw/5e2/1/z/362d7.png)

![Screen Shot 2020-10-05 at 2.11.53 pm.png](///raw/5e2/1/z/362d8.png)
APBakeWare
05. Oct 2020 · 04:15 UTC
I like the DOS style feel. It really plays like one. I think the game struck a balance between easy and hard. With more time, I think that icons to help differentiate between colors would help color-blind players like myself. Although this might take away from the style of game the blocks provide.
🎤 SimplePotential
05. Oct 2020 · 13:22 UTC
@tolmera - Thanks! Yes the brown ones are bad they're the "poo" :) I may update the title screen to indicate you can pass through the wall to the other side of the screen.

@apbakeware - Thanks! Color blindness was my main concern with play ability, I thought about adding a letter to the middle of the squares to help differentiate them but ultimately it was causing my some positioning issues so I abandoned it. I think I could set it up with an icon mode, might do that in the future then the player would could use their preference.
Nestral
05. Oct 2020 · 14:43 UTC
So, on the third attempt I managed to get over 200 points without dying, after that the game was really easy until the point, when a lot of area was covered by poo and food, and the game actually started lagging a bit. I ended up with a pretty good score, I think.

![Снимок экрана 2020-10-05 191200.png](///raw/305/92/z/36781.png)

To solve the difficulty problem, I think, you just need to make the start easier, and the rest harder. You could probably spawn a couple food before the start of the game, so the player had a chance to get to one of them before dying. In the mid-game (what I call a stage before poo overflow) you could limit the amount of food being able to spawn(not sure how hard it is in js, never used it).
The rest of the game is pretty simple, and not too bad for a quick jam.
🎤 SimplePotential
05. Oct 2020 · 16:13 UTC
@nestral - thats a good score! Good suggestions too, thanks. I hadn't experienced any lag even when simulating food and poo overload, any chance you can provide pc specs and browser you used?
BeaverGames
05. Oct 2020 · 19:20 UTC
Nice HTML coded from scratch! at least it looks like it was. It was a little hard to figure out what to do, but the rest was good!
🎤 SimplePotential
05. Oct 2020 · 19:37 UTC
@beavergames - Yeah, 100% coded from scratch aside from a copy paste of the audio object form w3c, didn't figure there was a need to write something that was going to be identical to what I wrote.
minibobbo
06. Oct 2020 · 04:09 UTC
That was a nice little diversion. I stopped around 6000 points but I think I could have gone much higher. ![poo.png](///raw/b17/z/38c29.png)

I think the problem is that you don't ever have to poo. Just wait until you are under 50% before picking up the purple and just randomly eat greens until you can get to a purple with under 50% food. Maybe you could add some objects to dodge or have the game change in some way as you progress?

Nicely done coding everything from scratch!
🎤 SimplePotential
06. Oct 2020 · 14:45 UTC
@minibobbo - thanks for the feedback! I'm thinking of making poo happen randomly when above something like 25% or maybe after using too much %. I wanted to do levels where maybe after a certain score you could progress to a new room with obstacles or other monsters.
Douwe_Ravers
06. Oct 2020 · 20:00 UTC
It's a nice and unique little game. In my opinion the game was a little to long although it gave me a sense of being very good at it :D
06. Oct 2020 · 20:06 UTC
the sound effects are so cute! and this is one of those simple & addictive games, i am happy it exists ･ﾟ✧
🎤 SimplePotential
06. Oct 2020 · 21:07 UTC
@douwe-ravers - I've had mixed reaction with family and friends, most find it too difficult but some find it overly simple. Definitely needs some more balancing.

@milk - Thanks so much!
Pincushion
07. Oct 2020 · 00:34 UTC
The game's pretty easy if you eat purple. Those greens don't give enough energy to live on. I found that if I eat enough purple, I can have it with a side of brown.

Good job making 3 colours of squares fun. Also, it's cool that you tried something new.
Barrier
07. Oct 2020 · 10:04 UTC
The game seems to be slowing down the longer I played, at some point it got unplayable. But it is pretty nice otherwise.
burnedkirby
07. Oct 2020 · 12:24 UTC
Nice simple game, easy to understand, challenging to get a high score. Good work!
JudgeZedd
07. Oct 2020 · 15:42 UTC
Sometimes simple is the best, and sometimes things haven't changed much over the years because they didn't need much doing to them in the first place, and I think that's where I am with this. Really simple concept, well executed, fun time.
cogcomp
07. Oct 2020 · 15:46 UTC
That was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. Nice game idea! Well done!
🎤 SimplePotential
07. Oct 2020 · 20:31 UTC
@pincushion - Yeah, some balance is needed. It was intended to be a strategy but too easy to abuse.

@barrier - Heard that from one other in the comments. Any chance you can provide the browser you used and some high level PC specs? I haven't been able to replicate but both my machines are gaming rigs.

@burnedkirby - Thanks!

@judgezedd - Thanks, exactly what I was going for and it was a good place to try out a new technology (new to me anyway).

@cogcomp - Lol, thanks. My brother said something similar and apparently wasted too much time on it
Unicornfrog
08. Oct 2020 · 01:30 UTC
Nice pure js game :)
🎤 SimplePotential
08. Oct 2020 · 01:35 UTC
@unicornfrog - thanks!
Vleue
08. Oct 2020 · 20:29 UTC
when the game started I almost expected a snake like game, where the length of the snake would depend on how full the belly is, which would also give a clue to how close to death you are without looking in the corner.

fun game, with just a few coloured squares, nicely done!
🎤 SimplePotential
08. Oct 2020 · 20:35 UTC
@vleue - Thanks! Yeah, I need to visualize the Belly better. Either color change, size change, or something. Originally it was very much more snake like, but I wanted to get away from that and I had a funny bug where the snake tail would drop off and thus poo was born
island-jam-2-group-3
08. Oct 2020 · 20:39 UTC
Simple but cool game!. I missed having retry button instead of having to refresh though.
🎤 SimplePotential
08. Oct 2020 · 21:54 UTC
@island-jam-2-group-3 - Thanks, yeah scrapped a New Game (as well as score board) due to time constraints but I do plan a post compo version with some improvements at some point.
09. Oct 2020 · 18:47 UTC
Nice Idea. I like how you interpreted the loop as what goes in comes out. Some of the blocks start to overlap when you play for sometime. Maybe you can add like a collider and check if a block exists? I don't know which engine you would be using so you could do like check if something is already present and if yes then don't place green or purple block there. Anyways nice game. :smile:
🎤 SimplePotential
09. Oct 2020 · 20:11 UTC
@leofiremage - Thanks! I didn't use a game engine, I wrote everything custom in JavaScript but I do have collision detection and could certainly add that type of thing.
Unimaginable_Code_Studios
09. Oct 2020 · 20:12 UTC
Fun game. Nice interpretation! Fun and challenging! Well done!
🎤 SimplePotential
09. Oct 2020 · 21:46 UTC
@unimaginable-code-studios - Thanks!
Flaterectomy
10. Oct 2020 · 16:43 UTC
Super simple concept, but it works. In the end I scored 7520 points.

I noticed some purple cubes covered by brown poo squares, but other than that everything seemed to work well.

As for graphics, well... they're cubes, and in colour tones on a black background that don't really come across as a balanced colour palette. I'm glad you had the audio that was there, and it definitely suits the retro look of the game, but there's clear room for improvement there as well.

That said, a solid idea executed well enough. Good job!
🎤 SimplePotential
10. Oct 2020 · 17:29 UTC
@flaterectomy - solid feedback, thanks!
Ramble House Games
10. Oct 2020 · 23:59 UTC
Solid little game, I had fun.
🎤 SimplePotential
11. Oct 2020 · 00:21 UTC
@ramble-house-games - Glad you liked it!
toby1645
12. Oct 2020 · 13:31 UTC
Cool retro feel. However I find it a bit difficult to get started, I kept running out of food before I could reach the next piece. I don't know if that's just me being bad or the game. Anyway not that bad for something made in HTML5 and JS in 48 hours.
🎤 SimplePotential
12. Oct 2020 · 13:37 UTC
@toby1645 - Thanks, great feedback. My post version is going to generate food guaranteed in movement distance. And more like 10 hours of work too, so that's why I didn't get to things like making sure you'd have food in range.
Doc_Moustache
12. Oct 2020 · 19:47 UTC
I quite liked the game. Maybe the beginning was a bit difficult (always running out of food) and was about to make me miss the main "end game" part of the game where it's to avoid your own poo, that is created because you eat too much food with your speed. Which was nice!
🎤 SimplePotential
12. Oct 2020 · 19:51 UTC
@doc-moustache - Thanks for the feedback. Definitely some balance work needed.
Flying Dog Fish
13. Oct 2020 · 17:10 UTC
Simple but fun. The controls seemed to get sluggish towards the end, when a lot of stuff was on the screen.
🎤 SimplePotential
14. Oct 2020 · 01:19 UTC
@flying-dog-fish - thanks, I'm trying to fix the sluggish controls, haven't pinned it down yet
noxymu5
15. Oct 2020 · 08:15 UTC
I don't relly like that player moves in increments mush slower than its size. It leads to difficulties with aligning to the food and avoiding poo. Also I had some problems, when I clearly did not touch poo, but collected it anyway. And performance seems to worsen, when you play some time. Other than that, I really think that thats pretty addictive and good game. Add leaderboard and that is a pretty complete game, ready to publishing to some marketplace!
🎤 SimplePotential
15. Oct 2020 · 17:01 UTC
@noxymu5 - thanks, good feedback. I think I have most of the lag fixed in the post jam version, it looks to be related to sound mostly. And yes, I need to get it to move in pixel increments relative to the player size and spawn food/poo accordingly. I haven't noticed the collision issue, but will check into it, could be a visual issue with ticks to draw version movement.
healthire
24. Oct 2020 · 12:26 UTC
It started off hard and got easier as the game progressed, because more food spawns as you play and there's more food spawning than you need. The game also slows down as you play so it's easier to control. Other than that it works fine and the gameplay is solid, well done!
🎤 SimplePotential
25. Oct 2020 · 23:59 UTC
@healthire - Thanks! I have a new version in the works but it is nearly a complete re-write but it should take care of most of the slow down. Apparently the Canvas object doesn't take kindly to having the entire thing redrawn over and over. So I'm working on a layered canvas approach that I think will take care of the issue. The food has been balanced a bit more too.
Tim Eriksen
27. Oct 2020 · 14:33 UTC
Cool game! Working in js + canvas is a lot of fun! The game is simple but works well, I like it :)
notime4games
27. Oct 2020 · 16:51 UTC
Good job! I experienced the slowdowns aswell, I'm on a new gaming rig with Firefox here. As was mentioned the non-alignment of the squares were annoying, and also just passing (0 pixels from the other square, not intersecting. Even diagonally) resulted in a hit so I sure ate some stuff I didn't intend to :)

Would have been more enjoyable without the slowdown, however the basic idea is good and could be expanded upon. My best score was 12245. Oh, and I couldn't restart once I lost so I had to refresh the window everytime. Brave of you not to use one of the common game engines. :) Overall, well done!
🎤 SimplePotential
27. Oct 2020 · 22:29 UTC
@tim-eriksen - Thank you! I enjoyed making it, I had some experience with Canvas through building charts but first time trying to use it for a game.

@notime4games - Thank you as well! Pretty sure I figured out the lag issue I just gotta take time to rewrite it :) As for the restarting of the game, I have that in the post jam version but didn't get it into the original unfortunately. Not sure on the collision issue, I haven't experienced it. My guess is I have something messed up in the collision function maybe a float is getting parse as int and rounding off the position. I'll look into it.