Pathos by McFunkypants

[raw]
made by McFunkypants for LD25 (JAM)
Pathos - by McFunkypants

A tragic love story and pathfinding puzzle game.

The brave Princess Pea is on a quest to rescue her one true love, Sir Mushroom.

Torment them by building a labyrinth.

Can you drive the lovers apart without making it impossible?

// Art Credits:
// Johannes Sjolund
// Luke Mehl
// FantasyMapMaker
// Music Credits:
// Piotr Pawlowski
// Sound Effects by SFXR
// All assets are either public domain or CC-BY-ATTR

// Grateful thanks to the artists above and everyone
// who participated in the LPC at opengameart.org
// as well as the Ludum Dare and #onegameamonth communities.

Written in HTML5 (javascript) using canvas. Levels designed using TILED export to JSON data. The maps are done in two layers, one for background tiles like grass and flowers, and a second that represents objects that can block pathfinding.

There are 5 levels that you can select from on an overworld fantasy map, with a bonus level that is randomly generated.

This is a turn based strategy game that uses the a-star pathfinding AI algorithm as the base mechanic. Two lovers are randomly placed in the terrain and your job is to spawn new walls in such as way that instead of walking closer to each other for a tender reunion, our intrepid lovers are driven farther and farther apart.

The strategy here is that you can't make it completely impossible for them to reach each other. A true villainous spirit wants to have them never lose all hope - to never give up - but to experience the heartbreak of a love that is just out of reach.

I hope you like it! I had so much fun making this. Thanks to the Ludum Dare community for being so awesome.

P.S. Your new year's resolution: join www.onegameamonth.com in 2013! Follow the hashtag #1GAM or #onegameamonth on twitter. We've created a community of game jammers with OVER 1000 MEMBERS. Join us!

Kind regards,

Christer Kaitila
(@McFunkypants)

Ratings

Coolness 10% 1150
Overall(Jam) 3.66 44
Audio(Jam) 3.19 104
Fun(Jam) 3.43 53
Graphics(Jam) 4.00 57
Humor(Jam) 2.83 121
Innovation(Jam) 4.02 11
Mood(Jam) 3.45 50
Theme(Jam) 3.95 36

Feedback

rumachine
16. Dec 2012 · 22:15 UTC
Great game!
TheSheep
16. Dec 2012 · 22:58 UTC
Very nice idea and a good use of the LPC tiles.
thristhart
17. Dec 2012 · 04:19 UTC
The random starting positions made it feel too luck-based at first, but I eventually started winning consistently when I started taking into account the fact that they move as I place obstacles. I knew my TD mazing skills would come in handy! Take that, mom.
Faust
17. Dec 2012 · 04:49 UTC
This is excellent
CoffeeOnimal
17. Dec 2012 · 08:11 UTC
Thank you for making a game that can tell me my "torments were perfectly executed!" I haven't felt such evil glee in a long time ;)
Great game!
NuSan
17. Dec 2012 · 08:23 UTC
Nice graph and interesting concept
zedutchgandalf
17. Dec 2012 · 10:21 UTC
The levels won't load in Firefox on Mac (the intro and map load just fine). But they do in Safari.
The game is very nice, though!
My only complaint is that sometimes it can be a bit hard to see whether they can walk over a certain tile or not (especially on Thando Shores)
bradleypollard
17. Dec 2012 · 16:54 UTC
Art is nice, concept is certainly unique (it's a strategy game masked by the theme of love) and it fits the theme well. Good job!
loren
17. Dec 2012 · 18:21 UTC
Nice! This was a lot of fun, such a cool idea.
Xavier
17. Dec 2012 · 18:40 UTC
Good job! Like so much how you've played with Pathfinding concept!
Atomic
17. Dec 2012 · 19:16 UTC
Great idea, had never played anything like this before! Sometimes you can't tell what's a tile and what's not, specially on the easter island one. Doesn't run in FF 17.0.1, had to use Chrome (argh). Great game overall!
Tanner
18. Dec 2012 · 05:41 UTC
After playing this game... i now know that there should be another level of evil behind the lawful evil sphere called funkypants evil.

Most realistic depiction of what evil really means.
Oreganik
18. Dec 2012 · 05:45 UTC
Simply incredible. Authentically fun and engaging, very good looking presentation... all around great.
Oreganik
18. Dec 2012 · 05:55 UTC
BTW: there are problems in Firefox 17.0.1 on OS X 10.7.5. Levels (specifically Jolly Island, I didn't test others) don't fully load. Worked fine in Chrome.
Beerman
18. Dec 2012 · 23:43 UTC
Incredibly frustrating - always a sign of a good puzzle game!
Great idea, well executed - nice job.
Keevor
19. Dec 2012 · 00:32 UTC
Love it! very addictive. I assume you can't win.
🎤 McFunkypants
19. Dec 2012 · 06:28 UTC
Thanks for all the kind words! I just fixed the bug in Firefox and other browsers. It should work "everywhere" now. It was a single line change: just two bytes difference. =D
ahmed.majd
19. Dec 2012 · 11:21 UTC
Good idea, somewho, hard to play, but good.
SamoojaMies
19. Dec 2012 · 11:31 UTC
Smart game! Outstanding art also. Very solid.
Per
19. Dec 2012 · 13:22 UTC
Really nice game mechanics!
Music and graphics is great as well!
NostraDamon
19. Dec 2012 · 19:39 UTC
The idea is excellent and I had fun to play it, but I really think you should display a grid of "walkable" tiles.
michax
19. Dec 2012 · 20:32 UTC
Hahaha :) Truly great idea for game mechanics. Damn those lovers!
Jesse Freeman
19. Dec 2012 · 21:05 UTC
Great game idea, totally different then I would expect. Well executed!
Mythalore
19. Dec 2012 · 22:11 UTC
Nice take on the theme and well executed!
ahm99
20. Dec 2012 · 02:54 UTC
That was interesting, good job :)
Dir3kt
20. Dec 2012 · 08:15 UTC
Great idea well executed :) Especially like the idea of driving the lovers apart without making it impossible!

One little detail, sometimes it's hard to know if a rock makes it impossible or not. Some kind of grid would have helped there.
Hatscat
20. Dec 2012 · 10:50 UTC
Really evil! hehe ^^ great game, very nice!
Winterblood
20. Dec 2012 · 23:54 UTC
Great concept, beautifully executed! Frequent confusion whether a rock will block the route or not, though - could do with the grid being clearer. Also some random start positions really hard to beat. Enjoying playing it though! <bookmarks>
GeorgeBroussard
23. Dec 2012 · 05:40 UTC
Neat concept with trying to keep two lovers apart. I think there's an idea here worth exploring but currently the mechanics are a little off. I sort of blindly clicked as thinking about a path seemed like too much work (grid too large?) I think it may just be too hard to see the path, or that people aren't willing to try that hard without easier ramp up from smaller areas? In any case, good idea and would pursue it some more.
krutech
25. Dec 2012 · 21:34 UTC
Fun mechanic. Won a couple of times. Had to see all the areas because the tiles are really nice.
recursive frog
28. Dec 2012 · 05:57 UTC
Hah, this reminds me a little of pierrec's entry about the League of Mildly Annoying supervillains. I enjoy that you managed to stay true to the theme without resorting to shock value, and that you took a non-obvious route to get there (much like the lovers have to!)

Really quality entry. Not much I can offer in the way of improvements on this concept.
davidwparker
28. Dec 2012 · 17:41 UTC
Great idea. I love the use of algorithms :)
refreshcreations
30. Dec 2012 · 01:00 UTC
A* pathfinding the game! haha, had fun playing through this one, really nice spritework, the bgm adds to the mood and there's some nice strategic play involved, huzzah! I occasionally mistook the half tiles as walkable on the Moai Island level but aside from that lil thing, really groovy!
fishbrain
30. Dec 2012 · 14:04 UTC
Innovative idea, and gorgeous graphics! Nicely Done!
Joseph Miller
31. Dec 2012 · 19:32 UTC
Great game. I love the innovative mechanic and the interpretation of villainy. There were a lot of nice looking assets, and the title screen is very nice. I wish there were more tools at my disposal other than just rocks, but it's a minor complaint.
tripleVisionGames
06. Jan 2013 · 13:56 UTC
I enjoyed the puzzling of this and I like the art you've done for it (or that Johannes has done)
radmars
06. Jan 2013 · 21:17 UTC
Great concept, great execution - though I think the random starting positions make it a bit too unpredictable. A level can go from super challenging to trivial the next time you try it.