Size-o-Tron 3000 by SamH

[raw]
made by SamH for LD32 (COMPO)
A puzzle-platformer game with an unconventional weapon.

There are four controls: left/right, jump and fire. Most common keyboard controls (WASD, arrows, space, enter, etc.) work as you would expect, as well as gamepads. You can only fire when the Size-o-Tron 3000 is powered by a special battery.

There are still bugs. “P” pauses, “R” restarts the level.

WARNING: the post-compo links are VERY IMPROVED versions and benefited from a few extra evenings of tweaks and polishing; you’ll have more fun playing these, but you should vote based on the 48-hour version! There is no WebGL for the 48-hour version because it’s unplayable (the physics engine had a lot of floating-point bugs).

Ratings

Coolness 75% 2
Overall 2.88 812
Fun 2.85 728
Graphics 2.61 812
Humor 2.21 814
Innovation 2.65 852
Mood 2.40 920
Theme 2.88 873

Feedback

NuSan
20. Apr 2015 · 09:28 UTC
Great game, it only need more levels and a speedrun mode! A reset button would be nice too.
peecestudios
23. Apr 2015 · 00:26 UTC
Awesome game. The grass tiles dont seem right make them look more natural. Some of the objects dont match up with there hit boxes witch made it kinda difficult.
DeadFragment
24. Apr 2015 · 15:56 UTC
It would be nice to be able to move in smaller increments. Also some monsters would move ridiculously fast. The level design and progression of diffuclty was very good however besides from level 10 which seemed abit of a leap in difficulty, but the game has lots of potential!

-Neith
GameQuester
24. Apr 2015 · 23:07 UTC
In Level 8 I got stuck in a wall and couldn't continue or restart the level. Beside that, this is a fun platformer.
Ryusui
25. Apr 2015 · 06:40 UTC
My biggest gripe with both versions is that the "unconventional weapon" doesn't really come into play until the end. That said, if that's what you can do with one extra day, I'd love to see what would happen to this game if you had a whole extra week!
fragileannihilator
25. Apr 2015 · 08:28 UTC
With more time you could have made a really nice platformer. For some reason I didn't manage to run the post-compo version...
UrbanHelsing
25. Apr 2015 · 09:11 UTC
Controls were good but not perfect. The level design and progress was great.
elpaulo
25. Apr 2015 · 10:33 UTC
More levels based on the guns please !!! :-)
Mak
25. Apr 2015 · 10:47 UTC
The level design is very good, and you have a good curve of difficulty here, but there are some problems you need to tweak : Movement is not precise for such small levels, for bigger ones will be nice, the weapons are used very little which makes me sad, because they are good. And the worst of all is that hitboxes are very little clear. This may be because I am more a mechanics guy than a graphics guy, but I think is better to choose recognizble square-like sprites than to make it prettier at the cost of clarity.
🎤 SamH
25. Apr 2015 · 14:25 UTC
Thanks for all the comments so far! I reworked the levels so that most of them have you use the gun.

@Mak, indeed hitboxes are very frustrating; my problem is that I use the same box for physics and for damage detection, which is not how it should be done (but, well, I was in a hurry…).
monkeedude1212
26. Apr 2015 · 12:29 UTC
Nice idea.
rburema
26. Apr 2015 · 12:31 UTC
thoughts:
- Fun idea ... so why wait until the game is more than halfway over to introduce the main concept? Introducing one element at a time is a great way to learn a game, but I this may have been overkill. Although I could see it if there ever was a 'full-sized' version.
- Nice, smooth movement ... only a bit finnicky when playing with the keyboard. I almost gave up at the first monster.
- This lazy sunday is (possibly) really clouding my brain but; is there a way out of level 8?
- Close to 0 restart time after dying :-)
Chaoseed
26. Apr 2015 · 13:11 UTC
It's quite playable, and the graphics are great. The idea is sound. However, I found it rather difficult. I don't know if it was because the controls are finicky, or if you just designed the levels to need a lot of care...In the pink level, it took me half a dozen tries just to avoid the spikes and pits to get to the battery. Then I shrank the blocks, carefully jumped over the spikes...and fell in a pit. It really crossed the line from 'fun' to 'rage' there.

But hey, that's the kind of thing you can fix with polish. ;)
🎤 SamH
26. Apr 2015 · 14:58 UTC
@rburema: I didn’t have enough time to do good level design for the 48-hour compo, unfortunately; the game would have been great with 30-ish levels. All levels are doable, though, but which one is level 8 depends on which version you played (I uploaded another one right this afternoon).

@Chaoseed: I’m a Super Meat Boy player, so that might explain some of the level design… but I also try to reward players who think of alternate strategies; for instance, do you know that in the pink level it’s a lot safer to only shrink one block? Try it :-)
Interface
26. Apr 2015 · 17:29 UTC
Great game and love the graphics. Really great entry.
lizard455
26. Apr 2015 · 21:02 UTC
Pretty cool, I just wish the resize mechanics was used more.
DKoding
26. Apr 2015 · 21:06 UTC
Not bad. Missed sound. You should probably supply the compo version as a web version as well.
TeamFlare
26. Apr 2015 · 22:14 UTC
Cool game :)
I didn't get it first ( I seldomly read the manual),but you did a pretty good job at introducing stuff :)
It's pretty challenging, but I made it through all levels ( of the post compo ) Thanks for taking the time to polish that up :) it's awesome.
phi6
27. Apr 2015 · 09:36 UTC
Couldn't get the Windows post-compo version to work, complained about missing xinput.
Multiplexor
02. May 2015 · 00:35 UTC
Nice game! Tough it's a bit hard, In my opinion the levels are too unforgiving.
OadT
03. May 2015 · 10:21 UTC
Really cool and innovative idea! I played both versions, nice to see you still worked on your game. The levels in the post-compo version used the mechanics better, but also the original version is a solid entry. But please use another button than start to start :P simply use any key, and use A and B instead of X and Y.
davidB
03. May 2015 · 16:47 UTC
nice progression in level design
davidB
03. May 2015 · 16:49 UTC
I like evolution in the post-compo
ZYXer
03. May 2015 · 21:08 UTC
Good platformer. I like that idea with the shrink/expand gun. It would be nice if the player had a little bit of acceleration, would make the player more controlable.