HELPME_ by Sestren

[raw]
made by Sestren for LD26 (COMPO)
Have you ever wanted to get a high score? What if your life depended on it?

You are a researcher who has accidentally been shrunken down in size. Luckily, hidden away inside of one of your favorite classic game cartridges is an easter egg that will send out a distress beacon. But, in order to activate it, you must get a high score and enter "HELPME" at the name submission screen. That won't be easy, since using the game's controller now requires lots of extra legwork now that you're only a couple of inches tall.

Don't forget to bring your supply of shrunken experimental baseballs; they will help you hit buttons very quickly that are far away from you.

Controls for "INVADER" are as follows:

Move with the D-Pad
Shoot with the B Button
Activate your shields with the A Button. Shields last for 2 seconds, and recharge after 15 seconds.
Respawn after a death with the Start Button
Select Button (as usual) does nothing

Bug Fix (04/30/2013 1:47 PM CST): The enemy spawning time multiplier was not properly being reset after a Game Over, resulting in the game's difficulty setting remaining stuck for longer than it should be. This resulted in the need to reset the entire game in order to reset the difficulty. This has now been fixed as a potentially game-breaking bug. Since it doesn't affect anyone's playing the game the first time through, I hope fixing it doesn't disqualify my entry. Thank you, Jellycakes, for helping me find this bug.

Post-competition version: The "Web (Post-Compo)" link will always point to the latest version of the game, so check back in the coming weeks for updates or follow me on Twitter, @JshCrrgn.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.64 167
Audio 2.52 662
Fun 3.48 173
Graphics 3.13 477
Humor 3.88 21
Innovation 4.34 8
Mood 3.19 309
Theme 3.64 446

Feedback

nurabsal
29. Apr 2013 · 03:59 UTC
huge cred. this had me all smiles
Kom
29. Apr 2013 · 04:12 UTC
I like this take on the theme, quite an amusing way to control a game within a game.
Zccc
29. Apr 2013 · 23:50 UTC
Very nice ideia, loved the NES controller :P
Masadow
30. Apr 2013 · 00:43 UTC
Very interesting concept !
PurpleMoustache
30. Apr 2013 · 00:46 UTC
This is really really good.
The only complaint I have is making the cut-scene text either faster, or letting the player skip to the next part.
fussycashew
30. Apr 2013 · 00:47 UTC
Really awesome! I love your take on the theme, as well as the gameplay in general.
ataxkt
30. Apr 2013 · 00:48 UTC
Ahaha, excellent! Thank you for this!
Zim the Fox
30. Apr 2013 · 00:48 UTC
Hahaha! I loved this. That is all I have to say. I think I got an score around 70.
allinlabs
30. Apr 2013 · 00:49 UTC
Haha fun and creative idea :D it take time to get used to the control, but once you're mastering it, you're back to the good'ol days when you were just a child in pajamas on a sunday morning playing the NES. Had a good time, thanks :)
Mark Hildreth
30. Apr 2013 · 00:52 UTC
Very neat idea, my highest theme score yet. I was sorely disappointed when the game ended.
Dax
30. Apr 2013 · 01:01 UTC
Cool way to control the game, that was a good point that you can throw balls to hit fire wile moving
SuperlevelSebastian
30. Apr 2013 · 03:44 UTC
Cute!
Mago
30. Apr 2013 · 13:06 UTC
Very original and cool concept and amazingly the game itself is simple, fun and extremely attractive.
Pinkerator
30. Apr 2013 · 13:08 UTC
Original idea, nice graphics and pretty hard gameplay! Now I got how gamepad in two hands make game easier ;)
Jellycakes
30. Apr 2013 · 16:24 UTC
Well made, pretty interesting concept and good fun to play around with. A little bug with the difficulty but other than that a well made game. Nicely done!
ilovepixel
30. Apr 2013 · 19:31 UTC
Really innovative. First time I see a game like this.
Zim the Fox
01. May 2013 · 02:32 UTC
I'm kinda disappointed the konami code does not work! x3
🎤 Sestren
01. May 2013 · 13:02 UTC
@Zim: I love the idea of in-game cheat codes that work. If I can manage time to make a post-compo version, it will definitely have something like that.
GFM
01. May 2013 · 14:15 UTC
This was really interesting! But I found the control schemes a little hard. =X
Andrew Shouldice
01. May 2013 · 23:16 UTC
This is an interpretation of "minimalism" I haven't seen much of. Nice work!
enzo
02. May 2013 · 05:38 UTC
now I'm wondering why nobody's had this idea before! super original!
Bernhard
02. May 2013 · 18:10 UTC
Very funny interpretation of the them :-)
SuperDisk
03. May 2013 · 00:23 UTC
Quality stuff.

However, you could kind of circumvent the system by standing on the gamepad with the scientist and clicking the button with your mouse. Then, it's almost like regular space invaders but the rocket continues on.
LTyrosine
03. May 2013 · 00:24 UTC
5/5 on innovation. The start button could work as pause =D

Amazing job.
SonnyBone
03. May 2013 · 00:26 UTC
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
GENIUS!
One of the best uses of the theme I've seen. Great job!

I love how you have the select button and you can even press it but it does nothing at all like usual. HAHA
HybridMind
03. May 2013 · 00:38 UTC
Oh this is funny! Love the idea and it was executed pretty darn great. I almost got a highscore (38!) Awesome.
sharbelfs
03. May 2013 · 00:49 UTC
Great idea of the controller.
HelkeGames
05. May 2013 · 19:12 UTC
Nice game, i like the concept! Well done :)
MinionStudios
05. May 2013 · 21:10 UTC
Awesome! love the hand-drawn look for the "real world"
Ray_Mickelino
05. May 2013 · 22:43 UTC
Awesome. 5 stars all the way
sP0CkEr2
07. May 2013 · 04:21 UTC
speechless -- awesome effort!
Eternal_Rest
08. May 2013 · 07:55 UTC
Not a bad Idea. It needs more than just this to be a complete game tho. I seemed to only half loost my highscore when I died tho. I had 99, got game over and started again with 49.
sara.mena
16. May 2013 · 12:45 UTC
I like the idea and the game is really funny to play and unusual :) Sounds are neat and the handdrawing feel is cool. I really wish you could polish this game a bit more :D
🎤 Sestren
16. May 2013 · 13:16 UTC
Work on the post-compo version has been slowed down by life events, however, for those that are interested in following my progress, I think I'll go ahead and post the link to the post-compo version for now, with the understanding that it's still a work in progress. I have a lot of ideas I'd like to implement for this game before I call it done, so I'll probably be working on it long after the voting period is over.
farmergnome
17. May 2013 · 02:56 UTC
Full Marks for Fun and Innovation and theme, fantastic idea that could definitely be furthered after, I would love to see different games being played with the same mechanics, maybe even different controls (analog sticks, flight sticks, racing wheels, real world dangers, etc) oh man, the possibilities are endless. Ether way, fantastic entry.
farmergnome
17. May 2013 · 02:57 UTC
I should probably play the post compo version now...
mildmojo
17. May 2013 · 06:09 UTC
Cool mechanic! Tough with a touchpad, but that's true of most keyboard+mouse games. The lo-fi graphics felt just right, and the indirect controls felt pretty good. Miniature baseball collection was genius.
ilo
17. May 2013 · 20:03 UTC
Very clever. Like farmergnome said, the idea has a lot of potential, using different genres of games to test the player in unusual ways. Imagine a two player mode (or "one man/two controllers" mode)! :)