Glitch by Mathieu Muller
Requirements
Windows
- Framework .Net 4.5 or better
- OpenAL (https://www.openal.org/downloads/oalinst.zip)
Linux
The game requires the following packages to be installed:
- libopenal-dev
- mono-runtime
For Ubuntu/Debian based Linux systems, you can run:
sudo apt-get install libopenal-dev mono-runtime
Mac
If anybody is able to run the game on Mac, please tell me in the comments. I don't have the computer to test this!
The Story
In a far future, the Earth has been forsaken by humanity, leaving robots to their fate. For many centuries, robots performed their task, upgraded themselves in search of perfection. And then it happened. The Glitch. A small deficiency in a neural network shut down every networked robot on the planet.
The only survivor of this holocaust is a small ancient little robot named M.A.I.N. (Mobile Artificial Intelligence Navigator); it was too old to be affected by the Glitch, and now, it is the only one which will be able to save the robots!
How to play
The target of every level is to reach the EXIT cell, but the robot is pretty stupid by itself. You need to give him instructions by placing directions (the four arrows on the bottom of the screen) on the map. To do so you can drag and drop the arrows in the level. You can also drag the level around.
When your plan is set, you can click on top right the "play" button, which will tell M.A.I.N to proceed as scheduled. You won't be able to change your programmation, so plan carefully!
The four first levels are a bit like a tutorial, explaining new things and new level features. The fifth and last one start to get harder :).
Around the game
For a long time I wanted to make a game that my daughter would be able to play, that doesn't requires skills and reflexes; besides this, she loves helping me while I'm doing games from the Ludum Dare, and I wanted her to take her first grasp at programmation.
Next features planned
More levels. More specifics cells (with items to pickup in a stack and to release). There is a lot of improvements possible in this game....
Windows
- Framework .Net 4.5 or better
- OpenAL (https://www.openal.org/downloads/oalinst.zip)
Linux
The game requires the following packages to be installed:
- libopenal-dev
- mono-runtime
For Ubuntu/Debian based Linux systems, you can run:
sudo apt-get install libopenal-dev mono-runtime
Mac
If anybody is able to run the game on Mac, please tell me in the comments. I don't have the computer to test this!
The Story
In a far future, the Earth has been forsaken by humanity, leaving robots to their fate. For many centuries, robots performed their task, upgraded themselves in search of perfection. And then it happened. The Glitch. A small deficiency in a neural network shut down every networked robot on the planet.
The only survivor of this holocaust is a small ancient little robot named M.A.I.N. (Mobile Artificial Intelligence Navigator); it was too old to be affected by the Glitch, and now, it is the only one which will be able to save the robots!
How to play
The target of every level is to reach the EXIT cell, but the robot is pretty stupid by itself. You need to give him instructions by placing directions (the four arrows on the bottom of the screen) on the map. To do so you can drag and drop the arrows in the level. You can also drag the level around.
When your plan is set, you can click on top right the "play" button, which will tell M.A.I.N to proceed as scheduled. You won't be able to change your programmation, so plan carefully!
The four first levels are a bit like a tutorial, explaining new things and new level features. The fifth and last one start to get harder :).
Around the game
For a long time I wanted to make a game that my daughter would be able to play, that doesn't requires skills and reflexes; besides this, she loves helping me while I'm doing games from the Ludum Dare, and I wanted her to take her first grasp at programmation.
Next features planned
More levels. More specifics cells (with items to pickup in a stack and to release). There is a lot of improvements possible in this game....
Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it's free)
So we can include also your game in the video ;)
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game's description.
Game is fun and reminds me of a laser and light bulb game, as well as my first steps in programming with LOGO language on a TO-7.
Waiting for more levels (would be nice to see the level number somewhere)
I can press enter to start the game but dragging or dropping doesn't work for me.
Looks nice, though.
In total game very polished!
While actually playing it I would have really liked the robot having a joyous animation to match the sound. And have one per direction of movement. And everything, pipes, doors and such too. The music was really great but the rest of the content should match that mood too, I think. (I get it is a lot of work for LD, but in case you plan to work more on it).
The puzzles were really a bit too easy, they didn't allow for mistaking the solution but just increased the number of steps. Again, I get this might reflect more of the time challenge of LD than your ideas for the game. However possibilities to consider if you decide to make this into a full game:
* Have the turn tiles care for the entry directions (making it 8 turn tiles in total, possibly more if you include U-turn). To not make the tiles too many you could just have 'turn left', 'turn right' 'u-turn' and let the user rotate with mouse scroll before and/or after placing. This would allow running over a turn tile without begin affected and much more complex solutions with the same number of tiles in level.
* Have limited number of tiles so that you have to reuse, and actively manage tiles while the robot is running. This line of thinking also introduces time as potential challenge, that a level might have to be completed within a certain amount of time. This can be managed by starting to run the robot before the path has been fully laid out. It would also be possible to introduce a 'speed up' tile that boosts the speed of the robot for a couple of tiles.
I could see me playing many many levels of this game once taken to the next level of completion! In other words, great start, now go finish it ^^
I must say I haven't played many Mono games before, so I don't actually know if this is just your game or I have this problem with every Mono game.
Thanks for the reply, too. :)
Putting my stupidity aside, this is a really cool game. Very good mechanics, interesting puzzles. I'd love to see more levels, but I totally understand that part. In such a short time it's pretty hard to make a lot of content. Is there a way to reset a level ? I made one mistake before pressing play and I was forced to run the level to die so I could restart. Trying to drag the arrows out of the levels pans the view so there is not much I can do. The music is really nice. I wish your daughter is having fun with this game, because it is a really good one. Great job !
This improved version will also feature new game mechanics, and new levels.
If i had to just point out one tiny negative thing, the fact that you can't erase an arrow you misplaced so you have to play the puzzle and wait for the restart to try again, but really it's noting much.
With more levels and a few more features to diversify the puzzles it can become a great full game,
so congrats to you it's a solid entry all the way :)
I didn't like that I had to install OpenAL; that would be best to package in with the game rather than to have to install it separately.
I liked the puzzles, and more levels of increasing complexity would be great.
I would have liked to be able to enlarge the window, so I could see more without having to scroll.
It would have been good if the little robot guy's graphic would turn when he makes a turn.
Overall good job.
Wish I could write funny music too during the mad LD days :-)