Ascii commando by nullval
controls have been adapted from commodore 48 to modern controls.
- WASD, Arrowkeys -> move
- Space -> pause
- WASD, Arrowkeys (while paused) turn up or down the audio
Get the numbers onto the 8 green bits to correctly encode the letter. don't worry, there's only upper case letters so it shouldn't be too difficult (spoilers the first 3 bits are 010!)
be careful when you are pushing the bits around since you can only push, not pull and you have limited space (but also this is a demonstration of how letters were encoded on limited memory space.)
I also found this strange old manual btw. I'm just sharing the first few pages, after that it's mainly boat cruise advertisements.
~This seems to be the relevant excerpt from the manual~
The future is yesterday!
Computers have taken the workplace by storm and entered the everyday North American household, Kids as young as 5 years old are learning to use these fantastical wiz machines and it doesn't seem to be slowing down!
We here at Nullval entertainment feel a responsibility to teach the young generation about the most responsible use of these new wonder machines. Memory may not be a problem now, but only a fool is certain of the future. ~~no, that's not a dig at you dear reader~~
This program is designed to teach and emphasize how computers store letters in it's memory, letters that you have seen in books, on posters or even... in this manual.
Your job is to move the 1's and 0's to their correct spot in the byte (a byte is a science word for 8 bits (which is itself a science word for a 1 or 0)) be carefull one wrong move and you might put away a bit you need!
It would be unfair, and therefore entirely within character of us to expect you to remember all the possible encodings. We have however experienced quite a bit of, interesting, feedback. Therefore we have a translation table underneath:
01000001 A
01000010 B
01000011 C
01000100 D
01000101 E
01000110 F
01000111 G
01001000 H
01001001 I
01001010 J
01001011 K
01001100 L
01001101 M
01001110 N
01001111 O
01010000 P
01010001 Q
01010010 R
01010011 S
01010100 T
01010101 U
01010110 V
01010111 W
01011000 X
01011001 Y
01011010 Z
~~ this ends the excerpt ~~
| Link | https://guynullval.itch.io/ascii-commando |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/ascii-commando |
Ratings
| Overall | 889th | 3.188⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1110th | 2.38⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 144th | 3.96⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 569th | 3.64⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 618th | 3.54⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 467th | 3.354⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 598th | 2.82⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 774th | 3.271⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
Sadly, the gameplay, much like the source "education entertainment" it is emulating, just wasn't very fun for me. It's funny, yes, and definitely a mood! But the controls feel a bit terrible to use, I couldn't just hold down a key when needing to go across the entire screen for example.
Or when stacked it was not clear which number would move when I pushed them. (Maybe they are not supposed to be stacking up inside each other in the first place?)
There also does not seem to be a way to recover if you push a block into a corner/edge. Not sure what would help here, perhaps if the field wrapped the boxes around and movement looped as well to remove the edges completely.
I think adding sound might have gone a long way to making it feel better to play.
A great improvement would be to make a little "ok" sound when the correct digit was pushed onto a target. The game would be technically able to stand up without the manual as well if that was added.
I loved the style of the game, the graphics nailed that retro low memory aesthetic! Nice work making an entry!
@gawain-doell wow thank you for the amazing feedback, this is honestly some of the most detailed and well written feedback I've ever received for any creative work I've made. I do agree that the gameplay is not the most entertaining, but at the same time it's also very close to the mark of what it's emulating.
@kanity thank you so much for the feedback :D It's pretty impressive that you just memorized the encodings XD I had to look them up constantly, so I thought it would be waaaay to difficult to just memorize.
Sometimes I suffer from imposter syndrome at work. But now, thanks to this game, I know that I am a REAL programmer!!! Lol!
As an aside, I too couldn't figure out how to get my Godot game to run on ldjam player.
I completed some letters, but sometimes it was not clear why it wasn't complete yet. :thinking:
The gameplay isn't the most fun, but I enjoyed the manual and I like the esthetics of the game!