Alone With Myself in a Box by Aaron

[raw]
made by Aaron for LD22 (COMPO)
Concept:
"You're in a box, which you escape from by destroying the walls. Completing a level creates a copy of yourself with your current stats, a Shadow Link, that follows you to all future levels. Unfortunately, he dislikes how you smell and wants you to go away. Being unable to speak, his only way of expressing his feelings is to shoot you in the face."

Controls:
WASD - Movement.
Mouse - Aim and shoot.
E - Swap through weapons.
R - Deletes your local save file (to start a new game).

Tools:
AS3/Flash/Flixel @ FlashDevelop (code).
Paint.NET (art).
Musagi (music).

Rant:
2nd Ludum Dare finished. Woot. ^__^ Yay for Flixel. After spending the last 3 hours of the Dare attempting to compose music, I was reminded how terrible I am with it and ended up keeping the music from my first day build--parts of which are drum samples from DrPetter, if it sounds a bit familiar. All in all, this LD was another ridiculously awesome, fun, and enlightening experience.

Attached background mp3 to go with the screen shots: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43348544/bgbeat.mp3

Hope you guys enjoy the final product as much as I enjoyed making it. Cheers! :D


edit: The updated post compo version is not meant to be judged! It was worked on for ~a week after the Dare finished as I continued developing the game for funsies and uses music from my actually musically talented friends. Posted in case you enjoyed the original and wanted to see what happens if you leave a kid with lots of awesome feedback.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 3.16 138
Audio 2.79 186
Community 2.77 237
Fun 3.09 103
Graphics 2.98 233
Humor 2.56 130
Innovation 2.80 210
Mood 2.14 407
Theme 1.98 587

Feedback

Wiering
19. Dec 2011 路 16:46 UTC
Nice game, but it became extremely difficult after level 2, because I was always almost dead before I could figure out which of the 4 sprites was me.
馃帳 Aaron
20. Dec 2011 路 01:46 UTC
That's something I didn't notice after hours of playing it until just so use to the starting positions/subtle color differences. Thanks for the feedback, Wiering! :)
qrunchmonkey
20. Dec 2011 路 01:51 UTC
I had a lot of fun playing this but past level three I wasn't able to even kill one of my past selves before dying.

The graphics and musc were great, but it would help a lot of there was some marker indicating which of the sprites you're controlling (just the bullet color isn't enough)
馃帳 Aaron
20. Dec 2011 路 04:32 UTC
qrunchmonkey, I'm glad you liked it! To my knowledge, the all time high level score isn't much better, lol. In restrospect, I definitely agree with you that a marker (perhaps different/more bold outline color) would have really helped.
ziomorti
21. Dec 2011 路 17:01 UTC
The game is really cool (one of the funniest I've played), but I think it doesn't suit the theme very well. Great job btw!
tcstyle
21. Dec 2011 路 22:18 UTC
I like the basic idea, but why do you get money for destroying a wall?
馃帳 Aaron
21. Dec 2011 路 23:41 UTC
tcstyle, thanks :) I wanted to reward players for interacting with everything, so I added that incentive to promote destroying stuff. It's not very obvious, but taking out walls while there are still clones shooting at you also rewards more score and money.
Quimby
22. Dec 2011 路 02:31 UTC
Great work; High marks across the board.
It gets pretty tough pretty quickly (level 4 was crazy), but it is action RPG progression based gameplay at its purest.
It is a great example of why Ludum Dare is so awesome, filled with enjoyable yet minimalist gameplay, loaded with brilliant industry related humor, and some rockin' tunes.
Definitely one of the better games I've stumbled across so far; Give yourself a cookie.
Shigor
22. Dec 2011 路 14:07 UTC
Good little game - if you just made char's sprite little different :/ I gave up in fourth or so level, because I was usually dead before I found out which sprite is me...
Benjamin
22. Dec 2011 路 23:43 UTC
nice music and graphics. It would add fun if you could hide behind obstacles, it would also make the game easier ! More fx on shot, hit and impact would be great !
馃帳 Aaron
23. Dec 2011 路 18:46 UTC
Thanks for the feedback, guys! I really appreciate it. I'm continuing to fix the game up on the side, and all the feedback's helping tons. :)
summaky
26. Dec 2011 路 18:14 UTC
Yes, after level 3 or so the games becomes completely unplayable due to difficulty.
Make A Game
28. Dec 2011 路 21:00 UTC
This one of the best games I've seen thus far!
I loved the fact that there was even a tutorial level.
The whole scene + sounds created a very agreeable mood. Congratulations. Hope you get a good final score!

PS- We also used flixel in our entry game but we had a lot of trouble with it. Glad to see that it worked for you!
Drabiter
03. Jan 2012 路 11:46 UTC
I like the upgrade system and the idea is pretty unique, try to defeat yourself - although it's pretty difficult to tell which player apart. The gfx and bgm are nice. If I can suggest, adjust the difficulty down a bit because it's very hard - like others said. Great game. :)
SonnyBone
07. Jan 2012 路 19:18 UTC
UHHHHHHHH
I played this game for WAYYYY too long.
This is fun as crap, even if it is a little broken. I don't feel the theme connection all that much, but this is something that you should DEFINITELY keep working on! Being able to click on the weapon you want while IN the level would also be nice. Being able to increase FIRE RATE would be great, too. This is goooood stuff, so CONGRATS! OH... and all the little sayings and references... HILARIOUS!!! WALRUS BUTT
Milo
08. Jan 2012 路 01:30 UTC
I liked this game quite a bit. Its controls were really intuitive and didn't get in the way. I enjoyed all the little bits of text that popped up when you die (and I died a lot). Not quite sure how the theme connects though...
馃帳 Aaron
08. Jan 2012 路 03:43 UTC
Thanks for enjoying it, guys. :) I interpreted the theme as to be just yourself--but clones count as yourself too, right? Bit of a stretch, haha. In reflection, I regret not balancing it just so you guys can keep having fun and not remembering to communicate the theme inside the game. :(
Snuffypot11
08. Jan 2012 路 04:00 UTC
Too hard to identify which character you are
SonnyBone
08. Jan 2012 路 11:01 UTC
Your updated post compo version just proves that 48 hour prototypes can turn into GREAT things. I had a blast with it up until Level 11. WTF HAPPENED. I dig the addition of the shield / gears / etc. NICE. But I do miss the funny sayings between screens. Thanks for pointing me to the update!
waynebeam
09. Jan 2012 路 03:37 UTC
really great! that was a lot of fun. i love the look and music, and the bonuses after each level was well done. played a bunch of wasd and mouse shooters but this felt better than most. wish for a little more connection to the theme. awesome job!
Cosr
09. Jan 2012 路 07:58 UTC
I don't really like how you get money for destroying wall sections. It rewards you for putting up with the tedium of destroying all the walls after you beat a level (and you would end up significantly more powerful for doing so than if you only destroyed the one wall you need to move one).

It would be nice to be able to autofire by holding down the mouse button. Having to click so much is annoying. And I would have much preferred to use the number keys to change weapons, rather than pressing 'e' to cycle (in fact I kept trying to use the numbers to change weapons the whole time I was playing, and then had to think for a moment about which button I was supposed to be pressing).

It was fun beneath the complaints, though, and I liked the weapon names. Could have done with some sound effects to go with the music.

I played up to level 5 (I think), tried it once, then quit. I only got that far by mining all the walls in most of the previous levels for money (see above).

Also, sometimes when your score is really high, the number will wrap down to a new line and overlap with your HP.
馃帳 Aaron
09. Jan 2012 路 14:48 UTC
Thanks a lot for the detailed criticism, Cosr. It's awesome, I really appreciate it. :D