CursorVsMan by monkeymad2

[raw]
made by monkeymad2 for LD23 (COMPO)
Hi,
I couldn't dedicate a lot of time to this Ludum Dare because I have exams next week...

Anyway, here's my game - you'll need cgywin if you want to turn it in windows since it uses the curses library.

You play a cursor trying to stop someone from typing a text file by messing with them a bit.

It's the "Tiny World" inside the computer, though that's a bit of a stretch.

Should work 100% fine on Mac and Linux if you have Python installed, windows will need to be run within cgywin (I think...)

To run go to a terminal window and type "python CursorVsMan.py readMe.txt", you can use pretty much any text file instead of readMe.txt!

Ratings

Coolness 36% 809
Overall 3.05 387
Fun 3.24 193
Graphics 2.00 821
Humor 3.94 17
Innovation 4.24 19
Mood 3.14 182
Theme 2.15 804

Feedback

Cosmologicon
25. Apr 2012 路 03:06 UTC
Ha, that was such an interesting concept once I got the hang of it. There needs to be more strategy or skill involved, but it's a good idea.

That is a hilarious suicide note.
hamburger
28. Apr 2012 路 00:40 UTC
This game looks awesome, but I'm trying to avoid cygwin on this computer.
yoklov
28. Apr 2012 路 04:44 UTC
I swear this happens to me all the goddamn time.

Fun game, I agree with the other poster that more strategy would make the game much more interesting
dukope
28. Apr 2012 路 04:53 UTC
Love the concept. Not much of a game at the moment, but very creative.

I was messing around with the arrows and got an exception (OSX Lion):
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "LudumDareTinyWorld/CursorVsMan.py", line 397, in <module>
curses.wrapper(main)
File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/curses/wrapper.py", line 43, in wrapper
return func(stdscr, *args, **kwds)
File "LudumDareTinyWorld/CursorVsMan.py", line 290, in main
stdscr.move(cursor.row,cursor.col)
_curses.error: wmove() returned ERR
馃帳 monkeymad2
28. Apr 2012 路 22:48 UTC
@dukope I guess that means you won! ;)
Rectifier
30. Apr 2012 路 06:13 UTC
Lovely idea. I'm a big fan.

I recognize that traceback, too. With Curses, you not only get an exception if you try a row/column that's offscreen, but also can't write to the _bottom right corner_ of the screen either. Some incredibly ancient legacy thing; all my curses stuff adds an extra throwaway row to be safe.

It's a shameless plug, but if you'd like to checkout a cross-platform Python text console library, I've got one I've been developing for compos. My entry used it, you can see it at https://github.com/jtruscott/pytality .
robcozzens
05. May 2012 路 06:23 UTC
Super cool idea. I felt cheated though... I had carefully and slowly built up the user's anger and right when I had him, his suspicion jumped through the roof!
Hume
07. May 2012 路 22:16 UTC
Love the concept, the fake suicide note (the forlorn philatelist), and there's some challenge here to understand flow (should that affect typing speed?) and time your typos at just the right moment. For bonus points, I progressed from mucking with the cursor to trying to insert common letters to create common misspellings. I don't know if it helped; it was just fun to do.

Full marks for fun. I don't know if I've been more delighted with figuring out a game system during the whole competition. I'm weird that way, but this is awesome.
馃帳 monkeymad2
12. May 2012 路 00:20 UTC
Thanks a lot @Hume!

I actually started writing function for finding how close the letter you've typed is to the position the hands would be at at the keyboard, I was going to have the common ones slip under the suspicion better - but I don't think I actually implemented it.

I did use the function in reverse though, occasionally the AI will make typos using keys near the one they wanted - meaning the game will eventually win itself given a large enough text file...
trylle
12. May 2012 路 13:03 UTC
Funny game. I had to open a terminal to a linux box to play this game, but it was worth it. :)

Seemed to crash every time I pressed backspace, though. I also didn't quite get the logic of the user correcting the document, though. I mean, it just turns out a godawful mess anyway, especially if you move the cursor up and down. :D
JellyFame
12. May 2012 路 13:58 UTC
Hilarious!
namuol
12. May 2012 路 14:45 UTC
xD

Love it. Would've felt a little more genuine if the AI actually did a reasonable job correcting its mistakes, but it was hilarious nonetheless.

Some sound effects of typing and frustrated profanity would really add to the hilarity. Bravo!
Fenyx
12. May 2012 路 16:55 UTC
Couldn't run on windows, switching to Ubuntu to try it out... :)
olav_st
12. May 2012 路 17:11 UTC
Cool concept. It does not really fit the theme though, but still cool.
maxman43
13. May 2012 路 04:27 UTC
Sorry, but I don't really want to mess with installing a bunch of stuff just to play this game. I hope you make a web version of any future LD games you make, because those are a lot more likely to be played.
Jiddo
13. May 2012 路 10:25 UTC
Lol. This was quite a cool idea. It'd be awesome to incorporate this into someone's text editor. I like it, but I'm not sure how well I think it fits the theme. Good work!
Tom 7
13. May 2012 路 21:37 UTC
This is a cool idea! It seems pretty buggy; it crashes with an exception when I press backspace and the typist doesn't usually succeed in correcting typos on my computer. But it is fun to mess with him. I think that with a decent model of likely typos (seems like any typo arouses just as much suspicion, even inserting @ every time or something), it could be a game of some skill...