Minotaur and the Theseus by hgcummings

[raw]
made by hgcummings for LD33 (COMPO)
You are the Minotaur, and Theseus is coming to find you and kill you. He's faster than you, but you know the Labyrinth intimately and can outwit him. If you can evade him until his light burns out, then the tables turn and you have a chance to prevent him ever escaping the Labyrinth.

*Changelog*
24/08: Very minor change to clear state between games (fixes occasional odd behaviour when starting a new game after the first one)
27/08: Highlight explanatory text a bit more clearly. Very minor collision detection tweak to avoid crossovers.
05/09: Fix console error (no functional impact)

*Post-compo version*
Visual hints about the gameplay state: Remaining time and Theseus detecting the player's location.
Corrected arithmetic in pathfinding logic (was slightly wrong in the compo version, but happened to give about the right answer anyway).
Tweaks the the colour pallette and the Theseus sprite.

Ratings

Coolness 64% 3
Overall 3.82 73
Audio 2.48 560
Fun 3.63 120
Graphics 2.74 643
Humor 2.26 660
Innovation 4.47 4
Mood 3.42 197
Theme 4.14 53

Feedback

Suese
24. Aug 2015 · 02:11 UTC
Innovation 5 stars.
Yamzho
24. Aug 2015 · 19:50 UTC
Nice game there ! Concept is interesting.
bombjack
24. Aug 2015 · 20:07 UTC
very original. I also liked the flipping of the labyrinth. cool ;)
LeekAnarchism
24. Aug 2015 · 21:04 UTC
Really enjoyed playing this -- the wall-flipping mechanic made it interesting by allowing me to set up a barrier against Theseus (as he seems to be slower at pushing walls)

The minimal audio gives the game lots of tension -- perhaps adding some footstep sounds of Theseus (which can get louder as he gets closer) could make it even more tense (if that's what you're aiming for!)

I found the Tricksy difficulty level to be pretty well balance -- not convinced Monstrous is possible :)
Donutttt
25. Aug 2015 · 20:55 UTC
Cool idea, cleverely implemented, like it
WubAlliance
25. Aug 2015 · 21:00 UTC
Fun game! The difficulty levels seem very steep. It would be nice to have more of a meter to indicate how much longer you have to run for, Theseus making a break for it almost caught me by surprise. Good job nevertheless!
🎤 hgcummings
25. Aug 2015 · 21:07 UTC
Thanks to everyone who's given feedback. @WubAlliance: Yep, definitely agree about having a meter to indicate the time left. This was one of the first things on my feature list (e.g. a graphic of a candle burning down) and I never quite got around to implementing it.

I agree that the difficulty levels are a bit steep. Didn't really spend a lot of time balancing them. I did at some point convince myself that Monstrous was possible if you got very lucky, but I'm not sure this is actually the case.
Pickens Inc.
26. Aug 2015 · 15:04 UTC
Adored it. I had been following your posts (as I have said, soft spot for randomly generated stuff) Kinda annoyed when after evading Theseus who was near the entrance at the time of his candle going out, I didn't realize he'd try and escape.

Luckily, he moves so slowly through swivel walls that I caught up :) made me really appreciate the Minotaurs advantage. I don't think everyone likes it as much as I do, but I thought it was tense, fun, and I love the maze's swivel walls.
Ithildin
26. Aug 2015 · 23:22 UTC
Brilliant concept! I was cursing at Theseus after being caught stupidly the first two times when I accidentally discovered about the wall flipping. That was a master addition. Still, even if I evaded him he managed to escape...for now.

Great, great job :D
Sanju
27. Aug 2015 · 22:06 UTC
I liked the "spinning-wall" mechanic.
Hippomancer
27. Aug 2015 · 22:22 UTC
Goddamn Theseus!
TeamCosmitronique
27. Aug 2015 · 22:23 UTC
The concept is phenomenal. I had a lot of fun playing this. The mechanics were very interesting.
Chronodrax
27. Aug 2015 · 22:25 UTC
Nice game and innovative mechanics :)
Too bad that you can cross Theseus without anything happening if he moves at the same time,
ans if Theseus is behind a wall that you're moving then he's not pushed accordingly, thus allowing him to move through walls to reach you.
Using the AI's stubbornness I could survive in Fiendish difficulty just by hiding behind a 90° angle wall, 1 tile from Theseus, and move when he pushed the wall to try to reach me.
Without using that technique I couldn't do it on that difficulty level ^^'
Niebule
27. Aug 2015 · 22:27 UTC
This was really fun to play! great game! Can't say much of anything negative about it.. maybe some music would've made it even better!
🎤 hgcummings
27. Aug 2015 · 22:41 UTC
Thanks for all the feedback everyone. @Chronodrax - interesting, I coincidentally just pushed a very minor bugfix that I think resolves the crossing issue. Not sure about the more complex case of hiding behind a wall. I agree there are probably a couple of breaking strategies though. Was a little bit tricky to balance the difficulty and make it hard enough to get around Theseus in time to block the exit.
FrederickK
28. Aug 2015 · 04:27 UTC
Clever and hard! A timer would be nice.
Nice job!
Linus123xbb
28. Aug 2015 · 15:37 UTC
Great game, it was very nice to play and indeed quite a lot of fun. Cool and interesting!
Wryxo
31. Aug 2015 · 21:29 UTC
Nice idea. Very nice.
bentglasstube
01. Sep 2015 · 02:40 UTC
Really interesting concept and very enjoyable. With some more graphical and audio polish, this could be a legit game.
rogberth
01. Sep 2015 · 20:28 UTC
Interesting game. Really smart mechanism.

See if there's an icon in the url box to enable my game! =)
Zeriver
02. Sep 2015 · 15:38 UTC
Hahaha nice idea, i really enjoyed playing your game. Lack of any background music actually helps with building tension. Simplistic but elegant graphics. Hmm maybe with some changes it could be a great mobile game?
bombjack
02. Sep 2015 · 18:53 UTC
very original and refreshing gameplay.
bombjack
02. Sep 2015 · 18:55 UTC
oops looked like I already commented it earlier ^^ anyway it's really worth mentioninng again the originality of the gameplay :)