LudumData

The Initiate's Spell by Nut

[raw]
made by Nut for LD28 (JAM)
You are an initiate wizard, collecting tomes of arcane knowledge, but you only know how to cast one spell. Which spell is it? Your adventure will be different depending on which spell you know. (There are three possible spells)

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This is my first Ludum Dare, and I had a lot of fun making this game! Puzzle Script is a great tool.

Before Ludum Dare, I was working on a patch that would allow Puzzle Script games to use music from Beep Box (another great tool!). I didn't get it working before the jam started, but I plan to finish it up and make a post-comp version of my game with the music I wrote integrated. Meanwhile, you can play with music by just clicking the music link above and letting Beep Box run in another tab while you play the game.

Hope you enjoy the game! Oh, and do take care when handling fire.
Web http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=7998213
Music http://www.beepbox.co/#3sbk9l0egt2a7g0fjbi0r0w3011f0000d1113c2000h0000v2002o3210b0g8Qdg42d3k10zgRpSyqCM00000000008y810g410g4p24VFzMC64Cm2IossoY8jClXwsw7ydDrUz9P4ReMusVDx3C49OAQKNusV2U1Vw6s1GSKbSgsPqSBsucuVSKbWh5MbqViSZH0sYiqfUw8ANU1g2w50942os0jfybp1g2w50agn0jbCb91g2w50awsk3yoG0p6i38SgpgdyaA6hAwO4ReEJA6NwgczCWGoJw6NA0Oer1A0S8Ggp6g38Sgl0UCbygshBwOeb1BwSoJw50agk0F1JwS8JA50agk0VGb91g231i2I5eO01j0Y4wC9w939pwh8c-M5CU2P01r0mpwbcDoA6ro2Ps1o2g000
Source http://www.puzzlescript.net/editor.html?hack=7998213
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=31779

Ratings

Coolness 57% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.11 262
Audio(Jam) 2.42 377
Fun(Jam) 2.97 228
Graphics(Jam) 2.54 437
Humor(Jam) 2.05 349
Innovation(Jam) 2.90 248
Mood(Jam) 2.70 342
Theme(Jam) 2.83 240

Feedback

Seigeengine
17. Dec 2013 路 05:10 UTC
Reasonably enjoyable, but I found the overly pixely aesthetic a little hard to interpret at times, and the game seemed to pretty arbitrarily jump between performing really fast and really slow. The sound also freaked out when I burned myself to death the one time.
Berzee
17. Dec 2013 路 05:28 UTC
Nice music, nice graphics (mmm, chunky pixels), nice everything. I'm going to come back to this one and try to beat it, for after a fair bit of puzzling I am still a mere lowly apprentice!
馃帳 Nut
17. Dec 2013 路 05:33 UTC
Huh, that's weird. What do you mean when you say the sound freaked out? I can't reproduce it (although if you were playing the music, I've known Beep Box to occasionally flip out for a second or two, so maybe it was that?). Also, did the performance inconsistency happen just while playing as the fire wizard, or with everybody?

Thanks for the review!
Chaoseiro
17. Dec 2013 路 05:33 UTC
Nice game, and awesome music too :P
I just managed to get one tome, it's really difficult to control the fire kkk
馃帳 Nut
17. Dec 2013 路 05:35 UTC
Oops, I should address specific people with my comments. Previous one was to Seigeengine.

Thanks for your review as well, Berzee! Glad you enjoyed the game!
馃帳 Nut
17. Dec 2013 路 05:36 UTC
Chaoseiro: yeah, fire is probably the hardest. You need to get lucky to some extent to keep the fires from getting out of control. Try reloading the game to get one of the other spells! Thanks for reviewing!
GrinCreative
17. Dec 2013 路 05:45 UTC
I liked it, unfortunately the art is too bad and I stuck with one (I don't know what is that) monster behind me. :(
馃帳 Nut
17. Dec 2013 路 05:57 UTC
Thanks for the review, GrinCreative. I don't really understand what you mean that you are stuck with a monster behind you. Maybe a critter has blocked you into a narrow space? Press z to rewind moves if you need to.
Unept
17. Dec 2013 路 19:11 UTC
AWESOME. I love the depth of the game, totally surprised me. Very well thought through. Also, sucks to get cornered by a sheep.
馃帳 Nut
17. Dec 2013 路 19:49 UTC
Thanks Unept! Yeah, I'm starting to get annoyed by the critters too. I might move the snakes to a different layer in the post-comp version; not sure it makes sense to be able to walk over sheep the same way though.
Berzee
18. Dec 2013 路 04:19 UTC
Hmm, I came back to try beating it with the water-related power. There must be something I'm misunderstanding with that one, because I'm not able to reach the nearest tome at all with that one (or are there different tomes available for different powers?).
馃帳 Nut
18. Dec 2013 路 05:40 UTC
Berzee: all the tomes are reachable with all the spells. The water power is hardest at the beginning. Maybe try exploring some other areas and come back for that first tome later.
馃帳 Nut
18. Dec 2013 路 05:42 UTC
Actually, the first tome is pretty hard with all the powers, now that I think about it. Maybe I should have placed them differently for a smoother learning curve.
udinjelek
18. Dec 2013 路 06:33 UTC
Love when playing fire, hehehe.. but I don't get it when use water spell?? when use to lake, the lake become soil and walk able but it happened only for one tile or I what I did wrong? :-? anyway nice game :D
NiceAlexanderAS
18. Dec 2013 路 06:34 UTC
I don't know what is happening , some guys are talking about music but i don't hear anything but the sound effects o.0... the first time i played i couldn't do anything i could only move :(. After i hit restart i could burn stuff and could play. The game was fun , kind of hard tho :P and the art work i know was simple but the idea is there, very cool! but was kind of hard to intepret as Seigeengine said! Anyways great work and congrats on your first Ludum Dare! :D
馃帳 Nut
18. Dec 2013 路 06:44 UTC
udinjelek: you have to put the water you're carrying down somewhere before you can pick up more : )

NiceAlexanderAS: The music thing is explained in the game description above. Do you know what color hat you had the first time? Each spell should have a brief visible effect even if you're not near an object it can interact with, so I'm not sure what went wrong for you.

Thanks for the reviews, both of you!
Lipedal
18. Dec 2013 路 23:26 UTC
Awesome game! Really shows what you can do with PuzzleScript in the matter of little adventures. Incredible that you did this puzzle-world design in so little time, having to take care of at least 3 possible solutions for each of the 7 artifacts :o Plus, love the music! I stopped playing to have dinner and caught myself whistling the tune every once in a while. The music and the puzzle design build a really solid exploration mood, like you see in the first Zelda games. Grats!
travislucia
19. Dec 2013 路 01:02 UTC
Puzzle Script is something I have very much wanted to try and this is helping encourage me.
馃帳 Nut
19. Dec 2013 路 04:38 UTC
Thanks so much for these reviews, Lipedal and travislucia! I'm really glad you enjoyed the game!
archaeometrician
21. Dec 2013 路 16:12 UTC
Nice graphics, I like the concept. Great work :)
馃帳 Nut
21. Dec 2013 路 16:17 UTC
Thanks, archaeometrician!
jimmypaulin
22. Dec 2013 路 21:01 UTC
I had fire, that is one dangerous spell! Absoltely love the graphics though - I thought I was pushing things with 8x8 sprites in my game and you show how much life you can get out of 4x4 - outstanding! I was hoping for a bit more feeling of progress when I finally managed to burn that green dude out but he just disappeared. So then I tried to burn him to, hey ho ;) Thanks enjoyed this very much!
馃帳 Nut
22. Dec 2013 路 21:09 UTC
jimmypaulin: Green dude? I'm not sure what you're talking about. Glad you enjoyed the game though! Thanks for the review!
kibertoad
22. Dec 2013 路 21:16 UTC
visuals look fine, but it's sure hard to understand what the hell is going on and what I am supposed to do about it.
HeroesGrave
22. Dec 2013 路 21:16 UTC
That was one of the most fun games I've played this LD.

I finished it, and then I realised there were other ways to play.

Well done.
larb
22. Dec 2013 路 21:24 UTC
I like the pixel graphics, but they are a bit too simple in some places. I didn't realize at first that there were boulders on the brown part that I could move. It just looks like impassable rocks.

Beside that, it's really fun. Good puzzles when you have the move spell. Great entry.
馃帳 Nut
22. Dec 2013 路 21:56 UTC
Ooh lots of new reviews at once! Thanks everybody!
jimmypaulin
23. Dec 2013 路 22:18 UTC
Heh, I meant the little character top right of ur main screen - obviously not a dude wearing minty green fireproof pants ;)
Seigeengine
24. Dec 2013 路 06:13 UTC
@Nut
Yes, it happened while playing the fire wizard, but was going on from the very beginning, so in case you were thinking it might be related to me having set the world on fire. I was using the link to soundbox, but I don't know. It happened exactly when I burned myself to death.
馃帳 Nut
24. Dec 2013 路 07:04 UTC
jimmypaulin: oh the tome? yeah you are just supposed to collect those (and not let them burn). I dunno why the little pedestals they sit on are bright green; I think I meant to change the color and forgot to get back to it.

Seigeengine: Hmm yeah maybe I should do some more testing with lots of fire and see if I can reproduce this.
euske
04. Jan 2014 路 00:27 UTC
It's a fun puzzle game, but what's the point of animals? They're nice decoration, but it's annoying when they blocked a narrow path.
馃帳 Nut
04. Jan 2014 路 04:46 UTC
esuke: yeah, they're just decoration. One of the things I would change in retrospect (and I still plan to do a post-jam version! at...some point!) is to allow the player to walk over them, at least the snakes.
馃帳 Nut
04. Jan 2014 路 04:47 UTC
Oops, pressed submit too soon. I also meant to say thank you euske for the review!
sekaru
04. Jan 2014 路 11:54 UTC
Lovely concept and surprisingly challenging. Although, like a few other people I really couldn't stand the graphics.
馃帳 Nut
05. Jan 2014 路 05:57 UTC
Thanks for the review, sekaru!
Striwx
05. Jan 2014 路 17:14 UTC
The rapid step-by-step movement and the big pixels give me some headaches. I'll try later.
Striwx
06. Jan 2014 路 13:09 UTC
It reminds me some puzzle from the games of Michael Brough, very cool !
馃帳 Nut
06. Jan 2014 路 19:54 UTC
Oh wow! I consider that a great compliment (I'm a big fan of Michael Brough's games); thanks Striwx!
olafsworld98
07. Jan 2014 路 01:57 UTC
i dint get the point of it