{"author_link":"\/author\/pentadact\/","author_name":"Tom Francis","author_uid":"3103","comments":[{"author_name":"Tom Francis","author_uid":"3103","time":"Dec 20, 2010 @ 1:55am","epoch":1292809800,"text":"In that screenshot, I have failed to avoid detection."},{"author_name":"Tom Francis","author_uid":"3103","time":"Dec 20, 2010 @ 2:43am","epoch":1292812680,"text":"Here's the readme, don't know if I can edit it back in:\r\rScanno Domini\r\rA game about scanning stuff and then shooting it and becoming it.\r\rFirstly, I am sorry about the tutorial.\r\rSecondly, the game runs at 1024x600 but it won't try to change your monitor's resolution. \rThat may make it a little shrunk on high res monitors - I'll get a variable res version out, \rI just didn't have time to look up how you do that in Game Maker.\r\rThirdly, press R to restart! Can't believe I forgot to put that in there somewhere. As you \rmay notice, you do come back from the dead if the coast is clear. But there's something of a \rdefect in the AI where they'll sometimes stand over your corpse for evermore, contemplating\rwhat they have done.\r\rFourthly, the full controls are:\r\r\tLeft Mouse: move (hold to steer)\r\tRight Mouse: shoot (hold to keep shooting)\r\tR: restart (note to self, make sure you mention this in-game)\r\tEsc: quit\r\rFifthly, there is a goal, of sorts. Try to kill everything. You'll find there's a bit of a\rdifficulty spike at a certain point, and there is a small acknowledgment for surviving it.\rThat's all, though, no boss or story or reward.\r\rSixthly, there is a sort of knack to moving in one direction and firing in the other. Click\rfar away, right click at your opponent while you travel.\r\rSeventhly, there is a fairly major bug I didn't notice before submitting. Other than the\rvarious possible crashes, I mean. You'll know it if you find it.\r\rThat's about it. Let me know what you think on my blog: http:\/\/www.pentadact.com"},{"author_name":"alexlarioza","author_uid":"3079","time":"Dec 20, 2010 @ 3:14am","epoch":1292814540,"text":"Nifty game you have here. FYI You can fix bugs, just leave a note in your entry and leave the old file up."},{"author_name":"Devenger","author_uid":"2661","time":"Dec 20, 2010 @ 3:31am","epoch":1292815560,"text":"Good fun. Played up until the difficulty spike, then got royally trounced. Certainly there's a technique to fighting them once they're onto you, it just eludes me this late at night. Liked the spambot\/web-ad styled tutorial text - 'scan secretly now forever my lord'... disliked how your blog flagged my comment as spam. ;)"},{"author_name":"ippa","author_uid":"1087","time":"Dec 20, 2010 @ 11:28pm","epoch":1292887380,"text":"Pretty hard :). I like the enemy scanners-idea. Could be more polished, wouldn't mind seeing what I shoot for example :p."},{"author_name":"Dslayer27","author_uid":"2632","time":"Dec 20, 2010 @ 11:54pm","epoch":1292888940,"text":"neat game, the theme would have been great for LD18"},{"author_name":"ranklar","author_uid":"3268","time":"Dec 21, 2010 @ 4:31am","epoch":1292905560,"text":"Nice game! I enjoyed playing it, need a good end game for improvement, and keep the robot from being able to leave the screen (and thus disappear). Some music would have been nice, but decent sound effects, I enjoyed it, good job mate."},{"author_name":"Tom Francis","author_uid":"3103","time":"Dec 21, 2010 @ 9:53am","epoch":1292924880,"text":"Thanks everyone! Yeah, difficulty spike is a bit broken at the moment.\r\rHadn't thought about it, but you're right - this would have been kinda cool for LD18's theme of Enemies as Weapons.\r\rAlex, thanks for letting me know - I'll get a bug fixed version up (with resolution\/screen size options too hopefully) in the next day or two."},{"author_name":"Ninja Dodo","author_uid":"3406","time":"Dec 21, 2010 @ 11:04pm","epoch":1292972340,"text":"I like the sneaky scanning mechanic.\r\rOnly a couple criticisms spring to mind:\r\rI would make it so the help text stays on screen at all times. Several help bubbles passed (a little quickly btw) without me being able to read them because they were half off-screen. Putting in a rule that nudges them back if they stray off-screen would help usability.\r\rI definitely think you should add more texture (perhaps robot tracks) or other objects to the environment because it's hard to judge movement when your only reference is the enemy and a few barely visible hills.\r\rAlso, I would maaaybe add some inertia to the avatar so that he doesn't stop dead when reaching his destination or when turning. Giving it a little more weight might be more satisfying. Same for the camera.\r\rI got this crash at one point (maybe the log is useful):\r\r"ERROR in\raction number 2\rof Alarm Event for alarm 7\rfor object oBot:\r\rError in code at line 4:\r MyGun.sprite_index=global.WeaponSprite[RateOfFire]\r ^\rat position 41: Negative array index""},{"author_name":"Ninja Dodo","author_uid":"3406","time":"Dec 21, 2010 @ 11:09pm","epoch":1292972640,"text":"That last one is more personal preference though. I like games that have physics-like controls."},{"author_name":"Tom Francis","author_uid":"3103","time":"Dec 22, 2010 @ 12:49am","epoch":1292978640,"text":"Thanks for the detailed feedback! Yeah, bot tracks were on my to-do list but I didn't get to them.\r\rTutorial messages used to follow the player, but I got really irritated with them obsuring schematic messages and the like once I got scanning. Didn't have time to come up with a graceful solution for dismissal, so let the player wander off if he wanted. You're right, though, they should probably stick around longer - always hard to judge when you know what they say :)\r\rThe patched version I've just linked should fix that crash."},{"author_name":"drZool","author_uid":"4","time":"Dec 22, 2010 @ 11:25am","epoch":1293016800,"text":"I think the concept is good. Tweak the controls and make better visual feedback on what you pickup and you are set."},{"author_name":"jolle","author_uid":"9","time":"Dec 22, 2010 @ 4:45pm","epoch":1293036000,"text":"Congrats on your first finished game!\r\rA score counter or something would be nice."},{"author_name":"Supermini_man","author_uid":"2490","time":"Dec 26, 2010 @ 5:00pm","epoch":1293382500,"text":"Cool concept, I think that with some polish it could be a very nice post compo game. :)"},{"author_name":"Endurion","author_uid":"103","time":"Dec 31, 2010 @ 7:23am","epoch":1293779880,"text":"This came as a very surprising fun game!\rI like the concept, and also that you generated things randomly. As it seems I got pretty lucky during my first game 'cause I blazed through the bots with ease. Not so on my latter attempts.\rVery nice! This basically needs a few different weapons and a long term goal. Hope you keep working on it!"},{"author_name":"arielsan","author_uid":"2034","time":"Dec 31, 2010 @ 10:56pm","epoch":1293835860,"text":"Cant see clearly the enemies, colors are to soft, but I really like your game."},{"author_name":"Mirroar","author_uid":"2785","time":"Jan 7, 2011 @ 10:38pm","epoch":1294439580,"text":""That sounds ominous..." D:"},{"author_name":"MrPhil","author_uid":"165","time":"Jan 8, 2011 @ 8:06pm","epoch":1294516860,"text":"Fun. The start was rough and I didn't understand the difference between scanning a live robot and a dead on at first."}],"images":["ld19\/3103-43d969600306fdc68c9b3194df5aac12.jpg","ld19\/3103-a5b5139d8a4c1c29038005c40d85a8fb.jpg","ld19\/3103-274c8e1caf9264154519d7e9f675ee26.jpg","ld19\/3103-6c63c4794e42e6fffcf5483c2e520656.jpg","ld19\/3103-e4d2bde5ebaf66eae073b57c3f61eab3.jpg"],"links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.pentadact.com\/ScannoDomini.zip","text":"Windows"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.pentadact.com\/ScannoDomini1.1.zip","text":"Patched version (not for judging)"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.pentadact.com\/ScannoDominiSource.zip","text":"Source"}],"metadata":{"g_key":"33489","g_author":"3103","g_event":"LD19","g_eventkey":"5","g_subevent":"COMPO","g_urlkey":"33519","g_title":"Scanno Domini","g_status":"UCHK1","g_place":"62","g_commentcount":"18","g_site2_node_id":"0","g_hide":"N","g_has_icon":"Y","g_rqueue":"0","g_random":"0"},"nds":[],"node":null,"orig_images":["http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/33232\/3103-shot0.jpg-eq-900-500.jpg","http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/33232\/3103-shot1.jpg-eq-900-500.jpg","http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/33232\/3103-shot2.jpg-eq-900-500.jpg","http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/33232\/3103-shot3.jpg-eq-900-500.jpg","http:\/\/ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/compo2\/\/33232\/3103-shot4.jpg-eq-900-500.jpg"],"text":"Scanno is a top-down shooter in which you encounter randomly generated enemy robots, scan them to unlock their parts, then kill them and take all their guns, shields and engines for yourself. \r\n\r\nIt requires you to both avoid discovery - while scanning enemy bots - and discover new randomly generated bots.\r\n\r\nThere were a few glitches in the compo version that I didn't spot in time, so I've added a link to a patched version that fixes them. Obviously judge the compo version, but play the patched one if you just want to have fun - it's a lot better.\r\n\r\nControls are basic and mostly explained in-game, but for reference here's the list:\r\n\r\nLeft mouse: move (hold to keep chasing the cursor)\r\nRight mouse: fire\r\nR: restart\r\nEsc: quit\r\n\r\nIn the patched version, use the number keys to pick a resolution the first time you play. It'll remember your choice in a file called resolution.txt, which you can edit if you want to try a different one.\r\n\r\nThis is my first ever finished game, made in Game Maker in two days with Paint.net and SFXR for graphics and sound respectively. I am terrible at art. Thanks for trying it out, any and all comments appreciated!<\/p>","title":"Scanno Domini"}