Maze Bat by oliver_day

[raw]
made by oliver_day for Ludum Dare 56 (JAM)

A simple & relaxing ascii art maze game.

For Browsers: Widen your window to stop itch.io from clipping the edge of the game.

Maze generation, object placement and navigation code written by me. Note: the game is infinite.

This game is designed to be a bit of a standalone/experiment.

image of game

Ratings

Overall 918th 3.11⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Fun 921th 2.89⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1031th 2.38⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1010th 2.75⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 761th 3.27⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Humor 868th 2.321⭐ 44🧑‍⚖️
Mood 821th 3.181⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Given 71🗳️ 88🗨️

Feedback

🎤 oliver_day
06. Oct 2024 · 11:01 UTC
Notes: I only have one tiny creature (the bat) but I hope that won't matter too much. If you have any feedback, or find any bugs please post them here.

Edit: I think the only significant changes I have made are to the messages at the top of the game. Also fixed player movement and some subtle bugs with the rain later in the week.
Hakusai
08. Oct 2024 · 04:34 UTC
Love the ascii art style and the ^^bat animation!
khaotom
08. Oct 2024 · 04:35 UTC
Nice and chill.
Stephen L. De Rudder
08. Oct 2024 · 04:49 UTC
This was very interesting since I like a good maze. I noticed the score was reset for each maze but, everything doesn't have to be a competition.
LDJam user 233347
08. Oct 2024 · 10:01 UTC
lovely art style and mazes. would have liked to also be able to collect other things than the Os.

Somehow I managed to get stuck twice on start of a new (second) level (after completing the first).
LDJam user 120290
09. Oct 2024 · 08:54 UTC
Love the ascii art!
MotoIlyuha
09. Oct 2024 · 11:03 UTC
For a game made solo, this is a very decent result. I like your ASCII style. Respect from me!
🎤 oliver_day
10. Oct 2024 · 00:57 UTC
@xparker maybe in a later game. You probably got stuck because of a bug where the game stops accepting a particular direction (tried to fix). Sorry about that,

Also, I found it odd I'm getting so many votes on humour (does that category mean entertainment in this situation?)
Ronn Fever
10. Oct 2024 · 02:55 UTC
Chill vibes, what a nice vibe break from the standard LD submission. It was nice to solve a maze with an animated ascii bat (PS: love the ascii bat! ^^) and just let the music play.
stormburpee
10. Oct 2024 · 04:57 UTC
Ascii style is awesome! I'd like to see you continue this idea and add in more creatures. You've done extremely well though! Animating the ascii bat was a nice touch.
Damien Black
10. Oct 2024 · 07:26 UTC
Ok, it's a simple game. But I think there is always a quite power in doing something simple very well. Map gen seemed really good. I liked the background elements that made reading the map non-trivial. Animation on our character was a good touch. Particle effects were an unexpected detail.

One time the two coins were right next to each other. I did get the "stuck" bug when I was spamming left while hitting the level end.

Congratulations on the game.
splittheatom
10. Oct 2024 · 11:07 UTC
Simple game made wonderfully well, loved the chill music and the little character animation. Couldn't help but see a little guy laughing all the way through the maze!
Well done :)
Linky439
10. Oct 2024 · 11:57 UTC
Quite a nice short game! The mazes seem to be very well generated, the graphics are an great take on ASCII art (and the bat is cute!).

I think I had an issue at one point where I started my third maze and despite a space being at the bottom, I couldn't proceed, but overall no big deal. Congrats on your first jam game!
Lizz
10. Oct 2024 · 18:34 UTC
A simple yet easy to get game without big instructions. This is what my mind needed. The art is coherent if that is the word [the smiley face is fun, it made me laugh a little], the music is calm and it feels not hurried. Though I do miss a growing complexity in the game to keep me from zoning out, but it also is the charm of the game! As for the humour rating question, I rate it when it is not disabled.
LDJam user 383013
10. Oct 2024 · 18:47 UTC
Not bad
Wouter52
10. Oct 2024 · 19:09 UTC
Fun little game! I like how its like ascii-art but with modern twists to make the game feel more juicy! It's very appearent that the yellow things need to be collected. However, the first level I got one of those were in the middle and naturally I thought it was my character. I was confused for a moment there :sweat_smile:

I'm not really a fan of the music. It sounds too cooperate for my taste. I work in an office and have to hear that on a daily basis. But hey, at least there is music! I think music really adds to the mood of the game. I would have expected something more 8-bity in this one :-)
The gameplay is cute, but I was expecting some new elements being thrown in level by level. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled by other LDers :-)

You mention that the level generator was coded by yourself, that's impressive! What techniques did you use to ensure there would always be a path to the exit?


Edit: I see this is your first entry! Congratz!! How has the LD experience been for you?
f1tzy
10. Oct 2024 · 19:56 UTC
.... I was transfixed. Love the use of ascii assets. Music was good and I got in to the zone. I had vertical control break on me in level 3, not sure why. Really cool mood for this. Would love to see more some time if you continue.
🎤 oliver_day
10. Oct 2024 · 20:06 UTC
@stormburpee, @wouter52, I'd have liked to add in a few more creatures like a `ooo` to chase the player and maybe a some items like a key `@-` (but didn't get time).

@wouter52, I think I just got a bit tired of 8-bit music after my last game (a pixel art platformer that didn't work) and wanted something else. I'd like to be able to customise the music to be both simple and not that fast paced so maybe I'll use something like BeepBox in the next game jam.

I coded the maze generator by moving around the "centre" deleting the wall in that direction and adding in walls as necessary; I started with a simple maze with a guaranteed single path from any place to any other place and added on to that (I can't remember the name heard about it somewhere online). I just moved it around randomly which takes a lot of passes and has a tendency to average out around the area it started; a more efficient algorithm might try to take an overall rout then layer shorter randomness on top of that.
Fenderbate
11. Oct 2024 · 16:14 UTC
I don't think the music fits, but the game is great! I liked the general vibe of it.
🎤 oliver_day
11. Oct 2024 · 21:29 UTC
@fenderbate yes, It does sound a bit modern for an older style game, but I was trying to do something different this time.
Tharinda Kodikara
12. Oct 2024 · 04:43 UTC
Well done on making this game. I love the background music!
bacalear
12. Oct 2024 · 10:23 UTC
super!
Planetary
12. Oct 2024 · 17:58 UTC
Since this is a game with ASCII graphics, I love the animations! Maybe in the future a great idea is to generate the mazes from scripts for example. But overall, since this is the first event you've attended, this game is great! Congratulations!
🎤 oliver_day
12. Oct 2024 · 21:43 UTC
@Planetary thanks for playing. Not sure what you mean by generate from scripts; I used Golang for the maze generation code.
Sibi
13. Oct 2024 · 13:10 UTC
Very relaxing little game. Impressive how much mood you can create with just some ASCII.
Hi Im Greg
13. Oct 2024 · 17:25 UTC
Nice little game. Loved the audio and graphics. Feel was really nice. A bit of preposition or narrative (just a touch) would have been nice, just so I have an idea what I am and what I'm doing in the game? Am I bat collecting berries or something? I really wasn't sure.

However, I enjoyed playing it. Not normally a fan of mazes, but the overall vibe of the game kept me playing for a few levels. Not sure if anything changes later in the game or not, but it was a chill experience,
groennisse
13. Oct 2024 · 20:00 UTC
the best kind of game is the kind where you can pretend to be productive while fooling around and solving mazes in another tab
🎤 oliver_day
13. Oct 2024 · 21:29 UTC
@hi-im-greg I kind of wanted to get directly into the game but your right a bit of text would have nice. I couldn't think of anything good though. Would have liked to change up the levels a bit but only got a varying level style working.
🎤 oliver_day
14. Oct 2024 · 01:02 UTC
Some people have mentioned that the bat looks more like a smiley face or a dragon. Interesting, even though that is not what I intended.
loveapplegames
14. Oct 2024 · 09:18 UTC
Cute little game. The "ascii" art is effective and charming. I would have liked the mazes to get bigger and more challenging though.
Jeffez
14. Oct 2024 · 09:28 UTC
Nice little game. Was fun to try to to solve the different maze. Maybe adding an other incentive than finishing the level would have been great, like a timer or a movement count.

Great job anyway !
bashem
14. Oct 2024 · 15:12 UTC
Cool game. A countdown could definitely spice the things up! Should be easy to manually set up if there's a small set of maps and spawn points for the coins, otherwise you could think of more dynamic approaches to avoid making the maps unbeatable, like fine-tuning the countdown by evaluating the minimum paths required to get to the coins and then out of the map. I'll come back later to check if there's a post-jam version!
🎤 oliver_day
14. Oct 2024 · 20:48 UTC
@bashem maybe in a week, got exams at the moment and I would like to try out some other games after that. I was more thinking of being chased but a countdown would be interesting as well.
MistaGiggles
15. Oct 2024 · 17:28 UTC
Nice relaxing game. Really like the simple visuals and the music. Controlled well and was fun to play!
Dianavi
17. Oct 2024 · 20:55 UTC
Cute little game in Ascii, a little repetitive but cool and relaxing ^^
Recher
17. Oct 2024 · 21:34 UTC
It's cool and nice, but it's just a labyrinth.

The way you used ascii characters to create sceneries is cool, and it makes a nice atmosphere. But some sceneries look like wall with a slightly different color, it's a bit confusing. I took some time to find a path in the first level because of that.

We just don't know what are those yellow circles we have to pick, and what is this final blue circle we have to pick/open.
🎤 oliver_day
17. Oct 2024 · 23:09 UTC
I have tried a few different things with the soundtrack: decompressing the entire soundtrack at the start pauses execution on the web; if I stream as it decompresses, it cuts out every once in a while. I eventually decided to just load it at the start.

Obviously doing custom loading in JS and building a separate system for web and desktop would be more efficient, but I don't know much about doing that. Maybe I could try a different library though.
Suchista
19. Oct 2024 · 20:33 UTC
Nice little game, kudos for using Go for the jam project.
deadroach
21. Oct 2024 · 02:53 UTC
Love the music!
Amikatag
25. Oct 2024 · 19:08 UTC
Pretty fun little game