Weapons of Mass Construction by dan.jeffrey

[raw]
made by dan.jeffrey for LD25 (COMPO)
**MADE A FEW QUICK CHANGES TO LEVELS FOR LESS OP AND MORE MINDBOGGLING STUFF, PLAY "FIXED" VERSION FOR THESE CHANGES***

Also, make sure to read the post-mortem! http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2012/12/19/weapons-of-mass-construction-a-post-mortem/

You are a malevolent god who wants to stop all good guys in the world.

The good guys have gotten lazy and have created a robot to do the work for them: the Heroic Emulated Redeemer Object (or H.E.R.O. for short.) They have mass-produced them and sent them out through teleporters to save Princess Goat. Your goal is to STOP THE ROBOTS FROM SAVING THE DAY!

(Btw, the problem I needed to fix is that I gave myself 999 of each item for testing purposes and forgot to change it back on one of the levels, so it goes)

Tools used:
GameMaker
SFXR
GraphicsGale Free
Paint.NET
LabChirp

PROTIP: Make sure and let H.E.R.O. run through the level without obstructions before you try and solve so you know what path he'll take!

This is also the first game I've ever completed so yay.

Ratings

Coolness 66% 3
Overall 3.72 49
Audio 2.97 182
Fun 3.72 36
Graphics 3.39 203
Humor 3.23 137
Innovation 3.66 81
Mood 3.30 120
Theme 3.63 178

Feedback

arkeus
17. Dec 2012 路 03:54 UTC
I like the idea a lot. There are quite a few places where it seems like the solution is easier than it should be (given 2 or 3 spikes and it only takes one), but outside of that it's really neat.
leothecool
17. Dec 2012 路 03:59 UTC
Pretty fun, I wish i could click the portal to make him start so I wouldn't have to take my hand off the mouse.
netgrind
17. Dec 2012 路 04:01 UTC
That was a cool little game. I found a few spots where I couldn't place spikes where I should have been able too, not quite sure why...
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
17. Dec 2012 路 04:05 UTC
[b]netgrind[/b]

I had to put in some spots where obstacles couldn't be placed to avoid some exploits. Kinda cheap copout, but I needed to get the game done. :P
ZwodahS
17. Dec 2012 路 04:08 UTC
To add on to that , the bomb is really OP :D
TheCze
17. Dec 2012 路 04:14 UTC
Game is really well done, however I think I saw a game with exactly the same idea recently somewhere else (I think it was a Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight concept).
apophenia
17. Dec 2012 路 04:21 UTC
Really like this. Haven't gotten all the way through, but one thing I notice is that if you're given two of the blue guys, you can almost always destroy H.E.R.O. just by putting them in the two adjacent squares next to the portal that deploys him.

Also would be cool if the spikes displayed inverted when hovering underneath a surface to make it easier to visualize.
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
17. Dec 2012 路 04:24 UTC
Make sure to beat it, the ending will make you shed tears!
dcolgan
17. Dec 2012 路 04:25 UTC
Awesome awesome game! It felt like a legit finished product. And it kept me interested long enough to completely finish it. The ending was a bit anticlimactic, but I wasn't exactly expecting a deep plot for a puzzle game. One minor nitpick is that it seems like the bomb guys make some of the later levels too easy. I didn't need to use the other items sometimes and could just put a bomb out and it would eat the robot.

The bomb guys are hilarious, by the way.

Excellent job! Especially for your first game ever!
adnzzzzZ
17. Dec 2012 路 04:27 UTC
This was pretty cool and well done, congratulations.

And like someone said, it would have been really useful to make it start with space or clicking on the portal.
Felix20
17. Dec 2012 路 04:28 UTC
neat little game, I liked the graphics and sound.
the flag graphic could use some work, but everything else looks good.
Also you can place bombs at the beginning and they kill the hero really easy >:)
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
17. Dec 2012 路 04:28 UTC
dcolgan-Thank you very much!

(and the bomb guys were easily my favorite part, hence why they're the icon!)

Anyways, with the bomb fellows, the thing is I programmed everything in first, then made the levels. The bombs were the last thing to implement and by that time I wanted to focus on making a finished product rather than polish. Plus, when you know the solution that you made up for the level, you don't notice its faults. 'Twas fun to make though!
Somfunambulist
17. Dec 2012 路 04:29 UTC
Stellar game! I am biased toward well-designed pixel characters, and this game has em! Overall good, however there's a bug that allows me to place enemies right at the door of many levels, which is effectively an automatic win. Very very impressed with this one!
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
17. Dec 2012 路 04:36 UTC
Hey, I just added a small update to the "fixed" download for the door exploit, if y'all wanna try it! ;)
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
17. Dec 2012 路 04:39 UTC
Somfunambulist- Ha, and I thought my pixel art was awful!

Take that, self-criticism!
vids
17. Dec 2012 路 07:21 UTC
Great graphics and really fun gameplay, love the hero's AI that we're tasked to manipulate, wonderful! I would've made it mouse-only too.
maiev
17. Dec 2012 路 11:34 UTC
Amazing. The gameplay itself was very smooth and allowed for a lot of different solutions. I really wish the controls were mouse only.

- Bombs completely OP but were a lot of fun to use.
- Some levels felt like the solution were really simple compared to what was expected.
- I really wish the last level was longer because the scrolling large map has a lot of potential.
barret907k
18. Dec 2012 路 07:28 UTC
Nice. Very fun.
Joncom
18. Dec 2012 路 08:06 UTC
I like your tiles.
naufr4g0
18. Dec 2012 路 16:46 UTC
Really good and innovative puzzle game! Congrats!
I love also graphics and sfx.
A question: Why hero wins also if he doesn't touch the flag?
GameRespect
19. Dec 2012 路 11:57 UTC
Just an awesome game. It's well put together, the aesthetic is nice. Well done!
WiseGAMER
19. Dec 2012 路 14:44 UTC
One of the best games I have seen here! keep up the good job!
Maristak
19. Dec 2012 路 19:53 UTC
Love the game! Was so much fun & fits the theme realy well
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
20. Dec 2012 路 04:20 UTC
Thanks for all the nice comments, folks!

Also, naufr4g0, it's basically a result of some lazy coding shortcuts. You gotta do what you gotta do, man. It's a hard knock life.
kibertoad
20. Dec 2012 路 08:11 UTC
Good idea, wish there was more varied gameplay and less dependency on hero jump trajectory calculations.
ReveLorenfield
20. Dec 2012 路 08:46 UTC
Nice puzzle game :)
Good job
Cyboot
20. Dec 2012 路 18:07 UTC
Quit a good game, I enjoyed playing it. I don't really know why, but I love this kind of graphics.

I really love the gameplay concept of making the level so difficult that the hero must die as it is the opposite of what you want if you are the hero yourself.
One small note, I would like the level to be more different because after 5 or 6 level of doing almost exactly the same thing I got a little bored.

But nevertheless, good game. Great Job and gratulation on finishing your first game :)
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
21. Dec 2012 路 04:34 UTC
Yeah, I discussed the progressively stale levels in the post mortem, it's definitely a weak point for the game.
nilstastic
22. Dec 2012 路 14:22 UTC
Good: I liked the idea of the game. Nice graphics.
Improve: Level #1 = to hard, and the text to small =)
馃帳 dan.jeffrey
24. Dec 2012 路 02:19 UTC
Level 1...too hard...........what? You literally have to press enter, buddy. There is nothing else you do on that level. There isn't even a PUZZLE.
Mista Koo
25. Dec 2012 路 17:04 UTC
Good game. A bit on the easy side though, could do with tougher levels.

It's kinda funny how a reverse platformer is a puzzler.
Although I wonder why is the hero advancing through harder levels :P? Maybe you should've started with the hardest level but made most traps already there except for that one safe path.