Is That Me? by Gil4

[raw]
made by Gil4 for LD33 (COMPO)
"One day Mr. Skull woke up, looked at his mirror ceiling... And got terrified! He turned into the most cruel beast of all the worlds he's ever heard of -- a human! Scared to death, he starts running, even though he's fully aware: there is no escaping yourself."

This's a runner type of game with Right and Left arrows being the only buttons you need. The only objective is to avoid some coffins that are scattered all over Mr. Skull's castle, yet there's a small twist: some of those are only seen in the mirror, some, on the opposite, have no reflection, but you have to dodge them all.

Mr. Skull is also a bit hard to stop from moving (he's seeing a human in the mirror, duh), so you shouldn't run in one direction for too long - that's an intentional mechanic to make the game harder than your usual runner.

Try going for as long as you can to rack up some nice highscores, proving that Mr. Skull is also Mr. Skill.

Game was built with Corona SDK during some short sessions I could use.

Paint was used for art (yep, with that simplicity I didn't even want to start GraphicsGale).

BFXR was used for the hit sfx, while abundant-music generator was used to create the bgm.

Have fun.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.73 782
Audio 2.74 455
Fun 2.77 636
Graphics 2.51 748
Humor 2.44 579
Innovation 2.86 554
Mood 2.82 576
Theme 2.88 744

Feedback

IndigoWolf
24. Aug 2015 路 10:25 UTC
I really like the concept but it was incredibly difficult, or I'm just bad...
馃帳 Gil4
24. Aug 2015 路 10:37 UTC
The controls might be the reason, IndigoWolf, as linear damping isn't at 1.0, and the way force is applied to the body you can't stop right the moment you release the button. That makes it more interesting than simple "move at constant speed while pressing the button, instantly stop moving when you release it".

And, well, I did want it to be hardcore, but I may have made it a bit too difficult for someone unacquainted with the genre - I had to work on some runners before, so for me they're all kinda easy now. Anyone feeling it's too difficult - don't feel bad, the problem is most likely my current vision of runners, not your skill.
vegapomme27
24. Aug 2015 路 10:51 UTC
The exe keeps on crashing when I die for the second time. Looked nice though.
Mantlair
24. Aug 2015 路 10:57 UTC
A simple endless slider game. I think there was a old school game something like this. Anyways good job. Also good music!
馃帳 Gil4
24. Aug 2015 路 11:01 UTC
vegapomme27, could you specify what windows etc you're using? I've tested quite a lot on both win 7 and win 8 laptops, no crashes occured. Tried to reproduce the crash with different scores conditions, couldn't though. Maybe you're beating your highscore, but the folder you're putting your game into doesn't let it to overwrite the highscore.txt file?
Indyo
24. Aug 2015 路 11:15 UTC
Nice game!
Maybe it would be cool if the difficulty like the frequency of coffins or running speed increased over time.
That way it would be less frustrating to loose.

However I had a good run with score 43 :D.
Somnium
24. Aug 2015 路 11:43 UTC
Pretty hard game. An interesting twist on the "mirroring".
samcoy
24. Aug 2015 路 11:45 UTC
I really quite liked this. It wasn't particularly suited to the theme imo but it was very fun.

Graphics were good, as was the music, damn well better than I could make in 24 hours.

It was really difficult because of the looseness of the controls, but that just made it more fun (it felt a bit like controlling a car on an icy road). I played for a good 15 or so minutes, got a high score of about 15.

Overall, pretty good game.
texus
24. Aug 2015 路 11:48 UTC
A bit difficult at first, but I managed to score 75 after several tries.
AnaglyphCoding
24. Aug 2015 路 11:53 UTC
Blocked by my antivirus and windows, wouldn't let me unblock for some reason. In order to be fair, I haven't rated game because of this.
馃帳 Gil4
24. Aug 2015 路 11:55 UTC
> It wasn't particularly suited to the theme imo.

To be honest, I just didn't like the theme to begin with. You know, making a game with a monster as the protagonist is possible within any theme (aside from those specifying the protagonist as something completely different), so this one felt like a waste. That's why I decided to show my own view on who the real monsters are - humans. Not saying your opinion is wrong, just clarifying why I decided to get a bit different perspective than others.

And the controls are intended that way to make gameplay a bit different from the usual runners stuff.

Thanks for the reviews, everyone! It's my first LD, so feedback is much appreciated. :)
馃帳 Gil4
24. Aug 2015 路 11:57 UTC
AnaglyphCoding, that's really strange, never had any problems with Corona-made games and antiviruses. ._.
thx4nothing
24. Aug 2015 路 12:17 UTC
Controls are a bit to slippery.
Wontonz
24. Aug 2015 路 12:22 UTC
This was great. I really enjoyed that you had to keep track of both of your skulls. The Music was fantastic. I feel like the controls felt a bit too loose and changing direction perhaps a bit sluggish or maybe the skulls were a bit too big which made it harder to navigate and weave around.
APC
24. Aug 2015 路 12:22 UTC
Cool idea. I liked the graphics of the game. Adding the momentum made it really hard though.
Phil Strahl
24. Aug 2015 路 16:42 UTC
Pretty hard due to the acceleration and feeling of "mass" of the character. I don't get the perspective, though, since the "mirror ceiling" is on the side? Anyway innovative use of the runner mechanic, making it mirrored with asymmetric obstacles. Music was nice.
lcarpentier
24. Aug 2015 路 16:49 UTC
Really difficult but nice little game
raducumiczzz
24. Aug 2015 路 18:45 UTC
Really nice concept , was very nice to learn to play it. Good work
Andrew Deem
24. Aug 2015 路 19:01 UTC
Cool idea. Controls are fine for me. My recommendation is a larger playing area. I think the game feels a little clustered as is. That aside, I still enjoyed myself.

I noticed that once I reached over 100 points the counter started over at 1. Is this a bug?
馃帳 Gil4
24. Aug 2015 路 19:49 UTC
Thanks for the feedbacks guys, this's a great learning experience for me as a game designer.

> I noticed that once I reached over 100 points the counter started over at 1. Is this a bug?

Hmm, looks like it is, and quite a peculiar one, as I can't reproduce it. After getting that score myself I even tried setting starting values at 99 for more extensive testing. And, to be honest, looking at the simple code beyond the score counter I find this bug even more strange than I thought.

As for the playing area - it was my first time using Corona SDK for the desktop game (as this's quite a new feature), and I wasn't sure I should mess with different resolutions in the short timeframe I had to make the game. So I just went with the smallest resolution that should be supported on all the PCs nowadays. Should've went for 960x720, I guess, but with the pixel art usage plans I had I wanted something more retro.
pixelgriffin
24. Aug 2015 路 23:20 UTC
This was a good start to a game. I think with a bit of Juicing you could really make this a great experience!

Additionally, Gil, for my own game: make sure you extract the files. I believe your error stems from that.

Good entry!
Clurect
24. Aug 2015 路 23:22 UTC
Great idea. The movement was nice that it didn't stop instantly. I liked the story too, funny.
inurashii
25. Aug 2015 路 00:44 UTC
Pretty good gameplay! I'm not very good at these, but the acceleration mechanic made for an interesting experience. The music seemed a little sedate, but was pretty good! The graphics not so much, but that's okay.
Eingya
25. Aug 2015 路 01:01 UTC
Not sure that the floaty movement fits the theme and the overral game that much (and it also adds to difficulty). The concept though is nifty and fun.
Realize2D
25. Aug 2015 路 01:08 UTC
Scored 23! Overall a good game, simple but well executed.
madcapacity
25. Aug 2015 路 01:34 UTC
Cool concept, some real potential there. The characters were not responsive enough. I was frustrated that the characters seemed so heavy and didn't move when I wanted them to.
Andrew Deem
25. Aug 2015 路 02:05 UTC
@Gil4

Ah I just realized what happened. No bug at all. I was misreading numbers (like a fool) thought I had a much higher score than I did.

Sorry to make you run tests and dig through code at my expense!
馃帳 Gil4
25. Aug 2015 路 06:58 UTC
Thanks everyone, the way movement works looks like the most controversial thing once again.

@Andrew Deem

Is ok, that "1" can be rather tricky. :D
Acerio
25. Aug 2015 路 09:43 UTC
Graphics were nice, and all, but it was kinda hard. I read it might be because of controls so I didn't rate poorly because of that. It was fun anyways :)
Karai17
25. Aug 2015 路 10:11 UTC
Cool concept, reminds me a bit of Goats on a Bridge. The player movement was a bit too sluggish and became frustrating though, perhaps tightening that a bit would make it more fun? Keep at it!
crucknuk
27. Aug 2015 路 21:47 UTC
Nice compo and interesting mirror concept !
parDal
28. Aug 2015 路 21:06 UTC
Nice concept, very original.

I think you could have made the acceleration be optional, like an extra difficult, I really would like to test my skills at linear horizontal velocity.
Zettelkasten
31. Aug 2015 路 15:48 UTC
Very nice game - from intro to the gameplay! The concept is really cool - but this game is difficult! I think this is mainly because of the sliding. Anyways - good job!
kidando
03. Sep 2015 路 18:25 UTC
Reminded me of the connected worlds theme for a past ludumdare. This game was hard for me. :(. Congrats on submitting your game