Maze Bat by oliver_day
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.
| Link | https://oliver-21.itch.io/maze-bat |
| Link | https://github.com/oliver-21/maze |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/maze-bat |
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🗨️ |

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.
Somehow I managed to get stuck twice on start of a new (second) level (after completing the first).
Also, I found it odd I'm getting so many votes on humour (does that category mean entertainment in this situation?)
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.
Well done :)
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!
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?
@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.
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,
Great job anyway !
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.
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.