Dinolution by Evil Cult

made by Evil Cult for LD24 (JAM)

Dinolution is a platformer where you play through the journey of a dinosaur across the world. Some obstacles may present themselves that prove tough or impossible, and here your character can evolve to a new form to meet the challenge.

The game can be played with a keyboard or a gamepad. It has been tested on Windows but may well run on Linux or Mac OS X. Please give it a go and give us feedback!

Keyboard Controls

Movement - WASD, Arrow Keys, or Numpad.
Jump - Space or Control
Run - Shift (left or right).
Attack - Enter, Numpad Enter, or R.
Pause - Escape

Gamepad Controls (XBox layout)
Movement - Left stick or D-Pad.
Jump - A Button
Run - X Button
Attack - B Button
Pause - Start Button

The Evil Cult Team

Luke Baird
Andrew Beasley
Patrick Beasley
Brendon Byrnes

Java Applet	http://www.evilcult.net/dinolution/
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=8607

Ratings

Coolness	71%	3
Overall(Jam)	3.39	64

Audio(Jam)	3.41	63
Fun(Jam)	3.58	28
Graphics(Jam)	3.89	56
Humor(Jam)	2.12	145
Innovation(Jam)	2.08	239
Mood(Jam)	3.03	89
Theme(Jam)	2.64	152

Feedback

CappaGames

29. Aug 2012 · 02:24 UTC

Nice graphics and music. I may have run into a bug on the submersion stage. There's a platform to jump off of to get over a wall but the player falls right through it. Other than that its a fun game.

🎤 Evil Cult

29. Aug 2012 · 07:08 UTC

There's a bug with platforms that are only a single tile off the ground causing subsequent platforms to become impossible to land on. This was mostly avoided with map design as we didn't have enough time to fix the bug, but we forgot a point in the Submersion level where it's left in.

Thanks for playing!

SecondDimension

30. Aug 2012 · 19:04 UTC

Hey really excellent platformer! I liked the overall style of the graphics, the platforming was interesting and I really appreciated that the enemies dropped hearts along the way (for people like me who are not that good at platform games). Good work guys

Kayelgee

30. Aug 2012 · 19:34 UTC

your collision detection is weird, you shouldn't be checking if the center of the dino is on the platform instead you should check the whole width of the dino. It feels really awkward the way it is now as half my dino can be on the platform and I still fall down. Jumping is also strange as not only my y acceleration decreases but also my x acceleration. This takes a lot of momentum out of the game. If you'd fix these two issues the game would play much smoother and would have some momentum going on.
The rest seems pretty polished. Controls are a little awkward but I can live with that.

robcozzens

30. Aug 2012 · 19:45 UTC

That was great!
There were a couple minor glitches, but overall it was really fun.

🎤 Evil Cult

30. Aug 2012 · 20:09 UTC

Kayelgee, I disagree regarding collision detection. The collision detection currently lines up with the feet of the dinosaur. If your feet touch the platform, you don't fall. If it were the width of the dinosaur then the dinosaur would appear to be floating in mid-air, which would look and feel quite weird.

I agree to a certain point with the jumping, but there was a reason that it acts the way it does - the player has the opportunity to re-position themselves on the x-axis while in mid-air to control their fall. Ideally it'd take into account the momentum of the jump and modify that, but there unfortunately wasn't time to fix the code to do this.

harusame

30. Aug 2012 · 21:31 UTC

Nice graphics and good music :) Weird collisions ^^ And I think your control keys for attack and rush are not judicious.

CapGrip

31. Aug 2012 · 00:13 UTC

Super Mario style. Nice

berkano

31. Aug 2012 · 20:10 UTC

Beautiful graphics and really enjoyable gameplay. I loved the music and the "submersion" effect really jumped out. Great work - will definitely be playing this for a while!!

🎤 Evil Cult

02. Sep 2012 · 02:19 UTC

I was hoping somebody would notice the underwater effect. :) Thanks.

yettatore

02. Sep 2012 · 07:52 UTC

Interesting game. I have played it quite a while. The one criticism that I can do is: The "attack control" is very difficult to use together with the rest... At least to me...
Good job man, good job.

lesterpig

02. Sep 2012 · 08:30 UTC

Good game and nice graphics, but need some musics ;)

timtipgames

02. Sep 2012 · 08:32 UTC

I enjoyed playing this. I connected my xbox360 controller because I thought the keyboard control is bugged, but I think there is a general bug concerning jumping: Sometimes the dino "stutters" above the platform/ground and the game logic doesn't allow me to jump in this state. After a short while the dino stands still and jump can be triggered again. This led to some involuntary deaths while jumping fro platform to platform :) I liked the graphics and the music (also the underwater effect was really nice, although not used enough imo). I felt like it was too much inspired by super mario or classics alike, but overall it was really a fun game to play.

Dietrich Epp

02. Sep 2012 · 09:35 UTC

Got stuck on the submersion level, where I couldn't jump on top of a platform because I would just fall through it. Nice graphics and sound though.

Kmad

02. Sep 2012 · 09:35 UTC

Really fun game with very classic mechanics. I liked the dino evolutions/power-ups and the effect where the music changed when you went underwater was a lovely touch. Great work.

🎤 Evil Cult

02. Sep 2012 · 10:17 UTC

@timtipgames, that bug was annoying me. I fixed it today after rewriting a lot of the collision detection and movement code, and I'll be uploading a post-compo version after judging is over (so as to not break the rules. :)

yosh

02. Sep 2012 · 17:09 UTC

Nice little game with good Graphics and Audio.
Well done!

Sakuyan

02. Sep 2012 · 17:30 UTC

it looks like hard work was involved here, good job

Yakka

03. Sep 2012 · 11:52 UTC

Nice realisation, good platformer, but I don't think it matches really much with the theme.

🎤 Evil Cult

04. Sep 2012 · 07:46 UTC

@Yakka
The theme of evolution was conveyed via the upgrades you can get that evolve your character to get new abilities. We had much bigger plans for this system but sadly didn't get the time to implement them. Had we gotten everything we wanted out of the system much of the core gameplay would have revolved around it.

AdventureIslands

04. Sep 2012 · 21:36 UTC

Can't get it to work unfortunately, clicking the link just gives me blank, gray screen.

patrickgh3

05. Sep 2012 · 18:54 UTC

The game had a nice feel, and was pretty balanced. I wish the game would have told me that you jump higher while moving. There was a serious glitch (in my opinion) - when you land on a platform, it takes about half a second before you can jump again. Other than those control issues, the game was pretty fun.

🎤 Evil Cult

06. Sep 2012 · 02:44 UTC

@patrickgh3, this was one of the issues fixed for the post-compo version. :)

shard123

15. Sep 2012 · 16:27 UTC

Simple but really fun! The graphics and music were great and it was really easy to pick up and play!

johnfn

18. Sep 2012 · 00:36 UTC

Really nice visuals. Really good audio. There are a few glitches, but nothing major. Great work.

jprogman

18. Sep 2012 · 00:37 UTC

The controls should be a bit more responsive, but this is a very nice game to say the least!