Who let the robots out? by wallacoloo

made by wallacoloo for LD21 (-)

You command a robot trapped in a military base. By mining nearby materials and building more robots, you might just be able to amass an army big enough to destroy your captors.

It is nearly complete, except I was unable to add sound, an ending, or tune the settings in time.

Here's a timelapse of me designing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4cr_uDKHd8

Libraries: None.
----------------
Software:
- haXe (programming language)
- swfMill (builds an swf from multiple source graphics)
- Paint.net (graphics creation tool)
- Python (for scripting a small build system)

Web	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23538783/main.swf
Source	http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23538783/LD21.rar
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=4981

Ratings

Coolness	3%	183
Overall	2.67	318

Audio	1.00	371
Community	2.45	247
Fun	2.00	407
Graphics	1.83	432
Humor	1.45	352
Innovation	3.50	85
Theme	2.44	376

Feedback

🎤 wallacoloo

22. Aug 2011 · 06:39 UTC

Haha, I just discovered a bug. When 1 robot is trying to deliver materials to another robot that is far away, the materials just get teleported. The robots don't bother to find a way to meet up. This is partially due to the pathfinding algorithm I wrote - I limited it to only calculating paths that were within 40 tiles for performance reasons.
Oh well, you can consider this a feature :P

geckojsc

23. Aug 2011 · 16:03 UTC

Wow, that's a neat and complex system you've made there! It's a shame there's not more to do, but you scored really high for innovation!

ratking

23. Aug 2011 · 19:04 UTC

Very complex game, huh. I like the building aspect of it, but the presentation is lacking a bit. There is seldom feedback for my actions (particles! sounds!), and the tiles are not so nice to look at - and there are so many of them ...
Perhaps zooming in a bit would be cool? Having a tutorial is great BTW, although the font was too small.

🎤 wallacoloo

23. Aug 2011 · 19:36 UTC

Yeah, I was rushed with the tutorial. I started it about 15 minutes before the entry deadline. I accidentally made the container too small, and fixed it by just shrinking the text instead since I was in such a hurry.

callidus

23. Aug 2011 · 19:37 UTC

nice idea and quite complex, good to have a tutorial but there didnt seem much to do after completing it.

mikolalysenko

24. Aug 2011 · 00:09 UTC

Well, this is a very ambitious and unusual game no doubt, and for that alone I am willing to give it quite a few points. However, it is also a bit unweildy at times and it is difficult to figure out what the goal is. The idea of programming the robots is really cool, but it seems difficult to use properly.

johnfn

24. Aug 2011 · 06:46 UTC

Very ambitious - something I like to see! Would like to see this game developed further also.

demonpants

25. Aug 2011 · 17:54 UTC

There is a lot to like here, but the main issue is the lack of feedback. My harvesters stopped harvesting and just clogged up my base once my base was "full," so I decided to build an expensive unit and it appeared to never get built. I was never sure the maximum amount of cost I could spend, how much I had, etc. So, I never made it past the turrets. The times I tried, I just got slaughtered. Sad, this seems like it would be very fun.

tcstyle

27. Aug 2011 · 19:58 UTC

I'm impressed. Quite a deep game for being made in 48 hours.
Unfortunately the interface and choice of colors isn't that good (pathfinding also an issue). With improvements in that part, this could made a great game.

hamburger

05. Sep 2011 · 05:33 UTC

Impressively ambitious! I love the idea of anything being programmable as anything. I'm glad there was a tutorial, but I couldn't quite figure out what I was doing. Needed more feedback for my actions; I could barely tell if I had guys selected or not, and whether they were acting on my commands or autonomously.