Curse of Hardai by Incredible Ape
Explore the cursed temple as it evolves to defeat you.
Controls: WSAD/Arrows
Code: Josh Schonstal
Art: Ian Brock
Sound: Guerin McMurry
It's over 10mb, so it might take a minute to load.
NOTES:
We didn't finish. The main thing that's missing is a win condition. At first, you were just going to get three chances to beat any one level. If you died three times in a row: game over. Your score would have been either the number of levels completed or the number of generations survived. We scrapped that though after realizing that some levels took a lot more than three tries to "figure out" and that it was quite satisfying to finally beat them. Now we're thinking about having a set number of levels and your score would simply be your completion time.
The level generation uses a genetic algorithm. You play a set of procedurally generated levels, and the game evaluates them for fitness; then, it takes the most fit levels and mates them together, creating a new generation of offspring levels. Since there is no mutation and the levels only have a single "chromosome", they tend to evolve into a very uniform population after a few generations, which eventually leads to getting very similar levels until you restart, and since there is no win or end condition to force a restart, you can essentially get stuck playing levels that are nearly identical to one another repeatedly.
There are also a lot of sound effects we didn't get around to putting in but those will be added in future versions.
Controls: WSAD/Arrows
Code: Josh Schonstal
Art: Ian Brock
Sound: Guerin McMurry
It's over 10mb, so it might take a minute to load.
NOTES:
We didn't finish. The main thing that's missing is a win condition. At first, you were just going to get three chances to beat any one level. If you died three times in a row: game over. Your score would have been either the number of levels completed or the number of generations survived. We scrapped that though after realizing that some levels took a lot more than three tries to "figure out" and that it was quite satisfying to finally beat them. Now we're thinking about having a set number of levels and your score would simply be your completion time.
The level generation uses a genetic algorithm. You play a set of procedurally generated levels, and the game evaluates them for fitness; then, it takes the most fit levels and mates them together, creating a new generation of offspring levels. Since there is no mutation and the levels only have a single "chromosome", they tend to evolve into a very uniform population after a few generations, which eventually leads to getting very similar levels until you restart, and since there is no win or end condition to force a restart, you can essentially get stuck playing levels that are nearly identical to one another repeatedly.
There are also a lot of sound effects we didn't get around to putting in but those will be added in future versions.
| Web | http://schonstal.org/swf/LudumGame.swf |
| Source | https://github.com/schonstal/ludum-dare-24 |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=12165 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 40% | 719 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.82 | 21 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.47 | 57 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.82 | 10 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 4.09 | 37 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.33 | 122 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.28 | 63 |
| Mood(Jam) | 3.11 | 79 |
| Theme(Jam) | 2.94 | 105 |
One more thing, the typical mixing patterns that I found were purple+gold, purple+green, and purple+green+gold. Why there's no green+gold mixed rooms? :(
Great game =)
The graphics are pretty good too, kind of reminds me of Mega Man.
Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at schonstal.org.
A fine game all around.
Well done!
What about the theme?
A few things I'm missing:
- a clear goal / death condition, like you already mentioned.
- stats displayed during gameplay - e.g. Level number, time taken so far, deaths, times levels have evolved..
- sound effects for dying, completing a level etc
Cool music too.
PS. Sorry to hear you weren't able to get our game working :( If you get time could you tell us if the console prints any error messages when you try it? or take a screen.. much obliged!
What I a little bit wished for was a bit more clarity on what the heck is happening. It *seems* like you have a pack of randomly generated levels, and each "round", the levels mutate a bit or combine with each other somehow? I'm given no clue what's actually happening or why though. It also would have bene nice to know for a fact if I was actually going toward anything. There was a point when the levels didn't seem to be getting any harder, so I just kinda stopped playing. Enjoyable up to that point, though.
But it's a nice game overall!
I also hope you might continue work on this post-jam and turn it into a full-featured game with more obstacles, environments, enemies, and SOUND!!
MIND. BLOWN.
Dude, that is amazing - The game was really challenging to the point I thought the levels MUST have been all designed.
Game of the LD for me. Blown away.
So, the game wasn't as fun as I was expecting, but I'm sure it could be!
The procedural levels could be a bit more ... "stronger". You don't really notice how they are spliced together. Still, nice work!