Not Quite Alone by Bloodyaugust

[raw]
made by Bloodyaugust for LD22 (COMPO)
IF IT DOESN'T RUN, GO HERE: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=20914

***HOW TO PLAY***
Press Q on an available space to build a robot(turret).
Press W to build rocket ship parts.
Both of these actions require one part each.
If wall health reaches 0, you lose.
If you build 20 rocket parts, you win.
You may only build turrets when there are no zombies on the map.
You may only build turrets in a position that does not block the zombies route to the end.
Press M to pause/play music.
***HOW TO PLAY***
***STORY***
You are Liam Mith, an engineer. Your goal is to escape Post-Apocalyptic Earth via a rocket. You must balance building of defenses with the building of your rocket, as the zombies *will* overrun you. Sooner than later.
Liam Mith is, as far as he knows, the last person alive in the world. Any communications by radio ceased about 2 years ago, when the Virus hit. The year is 2047, and the world is much different than now. Technology had made absolutely incredible advances. We were on Mars, we were traveling throughout the the solar system to gather materials. Most governments across the world had crumpled, and people did as they pleased. They used their will to shape the world around them, not other people. It was a golden age.

Unfortunately, progress sometimes has side-effects. The entire world was connected electronically. Everyone wore an iEye (pronounced eye), a contact lens that had the power of todays supercomputers thanks to Quantum Computing. Everything, even your toilet, was wired for network access.

Then the Sun, like it does, screwed everything up when it decided to emit a solar flare so massive it consumed Mercury entirely. The resulting wave of electromagnetic energy had an odd effect, because of the safeguards we had put in place against it to protect our precious electronics. Near instantaneously, every person who was wearing their iEye went abso-freaking-lutely insane. The massive radiation had caused instant cancer in nearly every place of the body, and fried certain parts of the iEye programming. The effects varied pretty widely, but one thing was constant: insanity.

Our current concept of Zombies does not cover what happened to these people. Image what would happen if every cell in your body simultaneously went through a period of such rapid uncontrolled growth, that you went from standing to mush. The pain these people went through is absolutely indescribable, and if not for their iEyes, they would have been killed instantly. But obviously, that didn't happen.

The iEye was the only processor left, and the sudden radiation burst caused it to fuse with the brainstem in most cases. The effect this had was clear and present: you had formings of flesh running about at lightning speed with only animalistic functions left to them, but amplified by Quantum Computing. Essentially, super-intelligent beings with a wisdom score of 0. The remaining people of Earth were almost all engineers who worked underground during the incident, building the sacred electronics in pristine environs.

Liam Mith was one of those engineers. This is his story, as played by you.
***STORY***
The Post-Mortem can be seen here: http://bit.ly/vKBPUd
The timelapse is here: http://bit.ly/sEpTOP

Ratings

Coolness 39% 328
Overall 1.73 662
Audio 2.90 152
Community 2.50 326
Fun 1.36 677
Graphics 1.73 638
Humor 1.40 524
Innovation 1.36 673
Mood 1.90 484
Theme 1.73 637

Feedback

uzimonkey
19. Dec 2011 路 05:48 UTC
Seems to be a tower defense game. I couldn't figure out how to place turrets. I managed to get one placed somehow, but it wouldn't shoot anything. Great music though!
馃帳 Bloodyaugust
19. Dec 2011 路 06:31 UTC
Did you read the README? Or the description here? Just press Q on an open space. :)
And thanks!
FrankieSmileShow
20. Dec 2011 路 00:30 UTC
Its a little odd to see this elaborate story written for a game that looks so abstract and simple, with no story element actually appearing in the game. Is it because you're planning on expanding on it somewhat later? Such a weird thing to focus on otherwise!
Dietrich Epp
20. Dec 2011 路 09:20 UTC
It's a bit slow, the first couple waves are a lot of waiting. Thanks for the postmortem.
馃帳 Bloodyaugust
21. Dec 2011 路 00:33 UTC
@FrankieSmileShadow: I like to write my backstory first, it's just the first step in my creative process. It *was* going to show through quite a bit more, but like my postmortem says, I just didn't have the time.
@Dietrich Epp: Indeed they are... and there really isn't much strategy or variation to the gameplay to make it interesting. The final release will have a "next wave" key. And thanks for reading the postmortem, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
SusanTheCat
04. Jan 2012 路 01:52 UTC
No suitable graphics card. :(
lorancou
05. Jan 2012 路 16:30 UTC
Same here. Damn HiDef profile, this thing hates me.
Sheep
06. Jan 2012 路 16:27 UTC
+ Music! Really liked it!
- Don't put your story and controls in a text file. I want to play a game, and thus the story and controls in that game.
- I didn't really get what I was supposed to do (even when I read the text file).
- Ugly pink zombies

Try to put your story and controls in the game next time. It will make a huge difference.
xilefian
06. Jan 2012 路 16:48 UTC
I press Q and W on open spaces but nothing happens for me?