I am Malware by Finn
Programming and project manager: Finn Truman
Artists: Daniel Bristow and Niall Deacon
I am Malware is a game set in the Magus universe, a world created by the mind of Finn Truman, in the middle of its timeline. You play a new recruit for the Dream Hackers, a vigilante group of prodigy hackers. You will use three types of viruses to dig your way through servers in four levels. It is recommended you play the tutorial.
Made in GameMaker: Studio. You MAY look at the source code, but Ludum Dare being Ludum Dare, it is very messy. This is not code to go by example.
If you don't want the fullscreen: Alt + Enter
Thank you to Dan and Niall for getting through this. This was their first game jam. Dan's now crying in the corner as he injects himself with coffee.
NOTICE: There appears to be some confusion about the levels not finishing. This was a comment said by the artists when they play tested it, too. It is explained in the tutorial that you (usually) have to go back to where you started to finish it. That is why I said above that it is recommended you play the tutorial. I will not change this because I don't like stealth games that just end the mission when you complete the objective, I don't believe that to be good design.
Artists: Daniel Bristow and Niall Deacon
I am Malware is a game set in the Magus universe, a world created by the mind of Finn Truman, in the middle of its timeline. You play a new recruit for the Dream Hackers, a vigilante group of prodigy hackers. You will use three types of viruses to dig your way through servers in four levels. It is recommended you play the tutorial.
Made in GameMaker: Studio. You MAY look at the source code, but Ludum Dare being Ludum Dare, it is very messy. This is not code to go by example.
If you don't want the fullscreen: Alt + Enter
Thank you to Dan and Niall for getting through this. This was their first game jam. Dan's now crying in the corner as he injects himself with coffee.
NOTICE: There appears to be some confusion about the levels not finishing. This was a comment said by the artists when they play tested it, too. It is explained in the tutorial that you (usually) have to go back to where you started to finish it. That is why I said above that it is recommended you play the tutorial. I will not change this because I don't like stealth games that just end the mission when you complete the objective, I don't believe that to be good design.
Ratings
| Coolness | 36% | 1752 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.40 | 365 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.83 | 80 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.40 | 285 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 2.95 | 727 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.56 | 657 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.47 | 190 |
| Mood(Jam) | 3.16 | 494 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.63 | 383 |
Game is good, I like it. But I can't finish 1st level. I disabled every server and nothing happens.
Yeah, an "exit" sign would be helpful. Nice graphics and sounds, by the way :)
I also didn't really like the "try your luck with the worm", not knowing where any of the vents would lead me to. This is forcing us to play and replay levels until we memorize each connection. It seems very unfair, even for a malware ;)
Except that, I actually like this game. It's fun to sneak around using different abilities. The music is really good and matches the atmosphere of the game perfectly.
Anyway, very neat concept! It was really fun to go around with the different abilities sneaking through guards. Music and art was great too! It would be nice to have an indication where the vents go to (although not necessary, really your call), and the game was unforgiving on mistake, got caught then game over. Couldn't finish, but I'll try again ^^
That aside, the game has a pretty cool premise (albeit not terribly original) and efforts were made to give this thing some context, so hat's off to ya'll for that.
One of the early bits of tutorial text disappeared before I had read it all; if it mentioned how to switch between the three malware types, I missed it; only figured it out after mashing buttons. I think they would have been more convenient on the right-hand side of the keyboard, so I could easily play with two hands, and thereby move/act and switch to a different malware type more rapidly. As it was, worming through a vent and then hiding as a trojan was awkward.
Not knowing which pairs of vents were connected was frustrating. Maybe that was actually part of the gameplay challenge: Figure out the connections without doing anything that will get you caught. But since I entered the game with a different mindset, I found that lack of information annoying.
I was confused by the tutorial saying one normally needs to go to the start to finish the level, but not actually being able to do so within the tutorial level.
I felt like having to go back to beginning was a bit unecessary, though.