LudumData

Jetpack Caverns by Mental Atrophy

[raw]
made by Mental Atrophy for LD29 (COMPO)
Important:
I have just added a Linux and OS/X version, but I am uncertain if they will work--leave a note in the comments if not. They require Python33 or higher and Pygame 1.9.1. To run these versions of the game, execute the main.py script inside the scripts directory.

http://www.pygame.org/download.shtml
https://www.python.org/download/

Instructions:
Linux and OS/X versions require Python33 or higher and Pygame 1.9.1

Move with the WASD keys.
Aim and click with your mouse to shoot.
Hold the mouse button and release to unload a charge shot. Charge shots do extra damage and can break dirt walls.
Reach the exit to win.

Background:
This game was written in Python using Pygame/SDL libraries. Music was created in FL Studio and sound effects were created via BFXR. Graphics were drawn in Paintshop Pro.

My Thoughts:
I was slightly better at staying on task this time, but still didn't get a lot done. I only have a few enemy types and the level was thrown together really quickly to meet the submission deadline. Sorry! I'll do better next time... Though, maybe I should do the Jam instead for the extra time.
Windows (.exe) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87770923/Jetpack%20Caverns.zip
OS/X (.py) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87770923/Pygame/Jetpack%20Caverns.zip
Linux (.py) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87770923/Pygame/Jetpack%20Caverns.zip
Source https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/87770923/jetpack_caverns_source.zip
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=26025

Ratings

Coolness 85% 2
Overall 4.32 8
Audio 4.11 20
Fun 4.36 4
Graphics 4.33 39
Humor 2.29 659
Innovation 3.16 482
Mood 3.65 139
Theme 3.88 98

Feedback

FyberOptic
28. Apr 2014 · 03:27 UTC
Hey we really did make similar games, eh? But yours is really fleshed out. I like all the various weapon upgrades, the barriers you have to figure your way through while fending off baddies, and the destructible environment. One of my favorites so far.
Somfunambulist
28. Apr 2014 · 04:31 UTC
I really love the graphics.
DrMelon
28. Apr 2014 · 04:35 UTC
Reminds me of Megaman and Contra combined. It was awesome!
darkinferno
28. Apr 2014 · 06:11 UTC
It was really good. But those upgrades are not so special.
Pheonise
28. Apr 2014 · 06:50 UTC
Absolutely perfect; visuals were consistent, powerups were interesting to use, and movement was tight. The retro feel was also perfectly captured, I fell in love with it instantly!
Zazibar
28. Apr 2014 · 15:40 UTC
Fantastic entry, I'd love to see this expanded. Well done!
JALgames
28. Apr 2014 · 15:43 UTC
Good! Especially the graphics, which are purely awesome, and the music, whihc is only disturbed by the low-quality sounds
sam101
28. Apr 2014 · 15:43 UTC
Ireally loved your entry: the graphics and the music are really good, the gameplay is fun, the game is hard without being too hard. The powerups are just a bit useless. Well done !
elpaulo
28. Apr 2014 · 15:52 UTC
I really enjoyed the way the player move. Nice physics engine !
okeedokeben
28. Apr 2014 · 15:53 UTC
This is a must play! Super responsive controls, fun, challenging. It looks and sounds amazing!

Is there a way to go full screen? I accidentally clicked outside the window a few times. :)
🎤 Mental Atrophy
28. Apr 2014 · 16:05 UTC
okeedokeben, in the game folder is a settings file. Find the line that says fullscreen and set it to 1. You'll probably want to change the resolution to one that your monitor supports, but it needs to be a multiple of the screenbuffer size or things will look weird (and might behave weird too). It's a software renderer so making the resolution too high will impact performance quite a bit, which is significant for a game that isn't very performant at all at the moment.
🎤 Mental Atrophy
28. Apr 2014 · 16:10 UTC
Also, you should be able to change the screenbuffer size without breaking the game. It would just expand the viewport size and increase the internal resolution, so if you want to change it to 16:9 you could try setting the screenbuffer to 320x180 and the resolution to 1280x720. You'll have less vertical resolution resolution, though.
Jools64
28. Apr 2014 · 20:04 UTC
I really liked this game. Fantastic graphics and really solid and fun game-play. The music was also very retro sounding and cool and the sound effects worked well with the game. Great job!
drnick
28. Apr 2014 · 22:35 UTC
A great game indeed! I always appreciate destructible scenario. Remembers me of Mega Man. It's funny how both our game's stories have to do with landing in strange planets :)
🎤 Mental Atrophy
28. Apr 2014 · 22:41 UTC
I forgot it had a story. My intro scene was just a screenshot of some text in my IDE because I needed to make something snappy. Whatever I added there outside of the controls was off-the-cuff, on-the-fly, and without consideration.
Suese
29. Apr 2014 · 00:48 UTC
The meat and potatoes here were outstanding. I was sad when it was over.
loggs2
29. Apr 2014 · 00:48 UTC
Really enjoyed playing, it was a lot of fun. The movement felt great and was my favorite part.
cleitoneldorn
29. Apr 2014 · 00:49 UTC
This is amazing, you should really think about doing a full game based on this!
Almost
29. Apr 2014 · 01:01 UTC
The game is fun, and for a level that you claim was made at the last minute it is pretty long.

I noticed that my projectiles ceased to exist when they reach the edge of the screen, which made it a bit tedious to dig through a wall at one point since I was trying to do so from a distance.
biscuitdough
29. Apr 2014 · 04:54 UTC
great level design, just maze-ey enough.
coquinounet
29. Apr 2014 · 09:21 UTC
Very nice gameplay, i finished the game :D very fun !
Ludipe
29. Apr 2014 · 09:36 UTC
Really fun game mixed with the retro feeling and nostalgia. Great entry!
Jeremias
29. Apr 2014 · 12:11 UTC
I played through it and yeah, that was a lot of fun! Sad that you had no time to elaborate on this, adding more mechanics or enemy types. I really liked the background music, too. Nice work!
bitserum
29. Apr 2014 · 13:34 UTC
Really fun, blasting everything off with both powerups acquired was a joyride :D
JoeProgram
29. Apr 2014 · 14:02 UTC
I really love the destructible walls and the two different enemy types. The health system was well balanced - I got low, but didn't die. The controls are really solid, and fun to jump into. I skipped over the charge shot instruction the first time I played - I think you were using the buried gate to try and teach the player, but I had already discovered the charge shot upgrade, and I thought I just had to farm enemies till I got it. Really solid work!
geekdrums
29. Apr 2014 · 14:14 UTC
Great controllability and visual/sound effect. I loved it!
SaintHeiser
29. Apr 2014 · 15:05 UTC
Good game, man!
Mechanics looks promising =)
Also interesting point with destructable ground.
_Rilem
29. Apr 2014 · 15:48 UTC
Simple idea but executed very well. There's quite a bit of polish in here and it shows. The flight controls are super responsive, so after a few deaths I could dodge and kill very efficiently. The feeling you get when you have multishot + instant charge shot is just amazing. You'll see the terrain crumbling around you and enemies dying everywhere. :D

The only bad point was the ending, it was very abrupt. Just when I was enjoying myself! :D But that's completely understandable for a gamejam.

For it's stylish 8 graphics, crunchy sounds and responsive gameplay this is so far my favorite compo entry.
jomomomo
29. Apr 2014 · 18:30 UTC
Can't play windows games. :-(
🎤 Mental Atrophy
29. Apr 2014 · 18:51 UTC
jomomomo, I have added a Linux and OS/X version if that covers your needs. However, they are untested and probably don't work, and have some prerequisites listed in the summary above.
thaaks
29. Apr 2014 · 18:54 UTC
Great gameplay, cool graphics, sfx and music! Hats off!
Huder
29. Apr 2014 · 20:56 UTC
I really liked when you combine triple shoot with rockets and spam fire like hell :D
Will you continue this project?
spartangeek
30. Apr 2014 · 00:01 UTC
amazing game! I love the retro sounds! Controls are perfect and combining the two power-ups effects is sooo fun.
Only things to improve I think is the end of the game and the story. 5/5 anyway! Congrats
PIXEL^3
30. Apr 2014 · 04:57 UTC
I'm actually not sure how to comment on this without sounding like a hyperactive child so here it is.

OMG that was amazing my entire childhood relived in 5 minutes thank you very much kind sir!

~AlucardX60
BallpointPress
30. Apr 2014 · 05:49 UTC
I love the art style. Great jetpack controls.
lekochen
30. Apr 2014 · 14:48 UTC
Highly polished in all respects. It's really fun to play! Well done!
RPWhitaker
30. Apr 2014 · 23:02 UTC
great game, loved the destruction
trueyomic
30. Apr 2014 · 23:35 UTC
This was very fun! I was able to crash the game by holding the left mouse and right mouse at the same time (found that out on accident). I loved the minor exploration and challenge in the short level that was provided. The neat thing about it all is that it would be easy to "mod" and have users make their own levels too.
🎤 Mental Atrophy
30. Apr 2014 · 23:47 UTC
Ah... Good catch--I missed that. It is some vestigial code that I forgot to remove, back when I was deciding how to do the charge shot. Initially, you built up a charge meter for every shot, and then right-click would shoot the charge. So it's trying to do that, but trying to create an object with the wrong arguments.

You can actually create your own levels right now... mostly. One thing I forgot to do was the player placement, which is hard-coded instead of finding the right object. So, as long as that same area of the map is open space, you can create maps using the Tiled Map Editor.
Garris
01. May 2014 · 14:14 UTC
Fun game. And hard! The physics of the jetpack feel just right, and destructible terrain is always a nice touch. It really adds an extra level of depth to a shooter like this.
tomvert
02. May 2014 · 11:05 UTC
Wow your game is in my top 5 for this ludum dare, I can't play much since Im at work, but I'll try to finish it later.
GFM
02. May 2014 · 14:29 UTC
Really well polished and fun game!
Graphics were great and so was the audio.
Now, if you kept working on it and made a larger level (or various) and bosses... that would be awesome! :)

It lacked a bar to tell when a power up was about to run out, though...
Cake&Code
02. May 2014 · 21:43 UTC
Really great audio! I was impressed with the music, and the graphics were great. The game itself had great tight controls, and I think it would be neat to see it moving forward.
ohsqueezy
03. May 2014 · 14:40 UTC
Brilliant attention to detail, especially in physics and animations. I'm also very impressed with your use of Pygame!
Moosefly
03. May 2014 · 16:38 UTC
Really juicy and fun to play. Controlled awesomely too. All I can really say is that I would've loved more content, but for something made in 48 hours it was more than enough!

Anssi@MooseflyGames
Frump
04. May 2014 · 06:28 UTC
Excellent! Did a great job of invoking the good old 8-bit feel. The art style particularly reminds me of Megaman and Cave Story. The controls were really fluid and fun. I'd play more!
ActionRemix
05. May 2014 · 03:48 UTC
The meat and potatoes here were outstanding." - agreed. There's definitely a solid foundation here. Detonating bomb pillars was a fun goal in itself.

The upgraded weapons leave too soon. I believe the upgraded weapons would feel more powerful if they were given more permanence, although maybe I am too entrenched in the genre's tropes.

And thank you for making binaries. A few people have just uploaded their Python source and I haven't been able to play. ;)
Christina Antoinette Neofotistou
06. May 2014 · 00:20 UTC
Absolutely fantastic. Juicy, cool and nothing retro about the gameplay! Graphics are just beautiful. Powerups made me feel super-awesome.
Lots of attention to level design as well, I loved how I was taught I have to dig to open the second door. An amazing entry for 48 hours, kudos!
ultramailman
06. May 2014 · 23:53 UTC
Nice. I like how you can dig through some parts of the world. It would be nice if the power-ups are more permanent but weaker.
igpollitzer
08. May 2014 · 05:56 UTC
Great game, excellent work. Loved playing it a couple of times! Loved the 8bit look and sounds with smooth controls.
Bernhard
10. May 2014 · 15:49 UTC
Cool graphics, cool movement, cool weapons, impressive entry!
gre
11. May 2014 · 15:46 UTC
Cool graphics, polished effects. Nice audio.
Incredible destructible terrain.
Congrats
Ditto
11. May 2014 · 16:27 UTC
Really cool entry, the graphics are super good, the soundeffects and music suits the game very well! Controls are maybe a bit sluggish but that is probably just my personal taste. Veeery solid! :D
kiririn51
19. May 2014 · 16:01 UTC
Nice gameplay and lovely visuals, would really like a more fleshed out version. Music is pretty good as well, I'm always amazed at devs that can do everything by themselves, reminds me I need to get around music!