King Circle by Artur Hawkwing

[raw]
made by Artur Hawkwing for LD 41 (JAM)

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Backdrop You are King Circle, lord of the two-dimensional universe! Unfortunately, you have a lot of enemies who think you are not fit for kingship on account of your poor logic. (You see, you were very prone to circular reasoning). These enemies have conspired to eliminate you by casting you into a third dimension; only your fast reflexes let you roll out of the way of the spell. Sadly for you, however, you still feel some tangential after effects. You now exist into both dimensions! And in both, enemies formed from fire are consumed with a burning desire to kill you. In order to live, you will have to draw upon your knowledge of shifting between dimensions to stay alive and get around the assassination attempt. Can you survive the attack, or will your attempts fall flat?

Rules: Health is shared between the two games, but all other effects are independent. You lose when you are reduced to 0 health. Your goal is to survive for as long as you can. Health is replenished after each platformer level.

Platformer: Your goal is to get to the final portal, represented by a green tile. You start out moving very slowly, but can get power-ups from the shooter to increase speed. Your speed decreases if you take damage in the platformer. Throughout the map are blue tiles—these are power ups that apply to the shooter part of the game (They replenish your weapons). When you collect them, their tile disappears. The longer you stay in the realm, the more enemies spawn. You also take damage if you stay too long in any one level the platformer, so more quickly!

Shooter: Your goal is to kill all the enemies that spawn. Over time, more and more enemies will come. There are four types of enemies, some of which grant power-ups when killed: Green: these are your basic enemies. They have no special traits. (common) Blue: these attack much more quickly than any other enemies. (uncommon) Gray: these increase the speed of the platformer (rare) Yellow: these make both you invincible for a time. (very rare)

If any of you make your own maps and post them here, I may include them in a post-LD version ;)

Controls: General: Esc: Pause Space: change games

Platformer: A: Backwards D: Forwards W: Jump S: Collect power-ups

Shooter: W: Shoot [Mouse]: Move view

Other Notes: You can also customize your own maps! Place any image file in the Assets/Maps/ directory, using the proper color code, and it will be loaded by the game.

Color code: black—standard block, red—finish block (must be present for the map to load), purple—enemy, yellow—left end of platform (for enemies to know where to turn), blue—right end of platform (for enemies to know where to turn)

Ratings

Overall 1151th 2.614⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1083th 2.619⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 845th 3.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 956th 3⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1051th 2.341⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 731th 2.386⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 804th 2.5⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1072th 2.475⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 24🗨️

Feedback

isopoly
24. Apr 2018 · 13:36 UTC
Great work! :smile: Really cool concept!!
EkkoEkko
25. Apr 2018 · 04:55 UTC
Simple but fun to play! Keep it up bro good job
🎤 Artur Hawkwing
25. Apr 2018 · 05:03 UTC
@isopoly @EkkoEkko I'm very glad to hear you enjoyed the game :-) Thanks for checking it out!
EkkoEkko
25. Apr 2018 · 05:16 UTC
No problem :dog: . Can you check and rate my game too? i need your suggestions . https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/gender-circle Thank you
🎤 Artur Hawkwing
25. Apr 2018 · 07:59 UTC
@EkkoEkko of course! I just did :)
EkkoEkko
25. Apr 2018 · 08:04 UTC
Thank you so much 😘
RAFFE
25. Apr 2018 · 08:44 UTC
Really cool game! It stays pretty simple and I like that. Concept is good! Good job man!
25. Apr 2018 · 09:13 UTC
When you have sound effects like the crash noise in FPS it makes for a very unpleasant reaction.
Seems like just 2 different games played in parallel instead of a combination of 2 genres.
I had high hopes with such an intricate story but I didn't have fun, sorry.

Congrats on getting something submitted though!
dmanzano101
25. Apr 2018 · 13:53 UTC
Nice and simple Jam Game. You did a great job!
Keep it up
🎤 Artur Hawkwing
25. Apr 2018 · 16:36 UTC
@dmanzano101 Thank you very much :)
Evan Minto
26. Apr 2018 · 07:25 UTC
Kind of tough to get the hang of. The platformer especially, since apparently you can't jump while running. Having to stop before I jump was a bit of a pain.

You're also not really using the screen real estate very effectively. There's a huge gap in the top of the platformer screen. Since I didn't notice anything happening concurrently between the two games, maybe just switch them in fullscreen rather than doing splitscreen.

I like the concept of switching back and forth between the games and having powerups for one be in the other one, but it's hard to tell what's affecting what in-game. I think this needs some more polish for that concept to really shine.
Wyatt
26. Apr 2018 · 07:35 UTC
I wasn't sure what was going on on the fps. Platformer worked, but it moved very slow. Good job getting it together!
🎤 Artur Hawkwing
26. Apr 2018 · 07:35 UTC
Thanks for the feedback @evan-minto ! I agree the screen could be used more effectively--a background image actually would have been very nice to have. (In some cases, move of the screen can be used--but only in certain levels.) The powerups in the platformer give weapons for the shooter, and the shooter increases platformer speed. However, this is easy to miss (esp. the speed) since it decreases some if you take damage in the platformer. I agree is could use some work, but I am glad you liked the idea!
🎤 Artur Hawkwing
26. Apr 2018 · 07:45 UTC
@Wyatt Thanks for checking this out!
So you know, the slowness was intentional--you can increase your speed by playing the FPS and killing grey enemies, so the FPS was there to help make the platformer easier (whereas the platformer gave you weapons to use in the FPS).
Jakupf
29. Apr 2018 · 15:10 UTC
I liked the concept of having to switch between 2 games and doing something in first game would make you stronger in second one. I think though the enemy spawning in the shooter game could be toned down a bit as you often get overwhelmed. You also mentioned blue enemies but I never saw them in game. Regarding the platformer, there could be a timer which show when are you going to take damage because right now it just feels random. As for bugs, completing the platformer level didn't restore my heatlh and I don't think yellow enemy makes you invincible, or if it does for a very short time. I took damage 1 second after killing it from other enemy. But overall game was pretty enjoyable although a bit confusing, good job!
Random-storykeeper
02. May 2018 · 20:45 UTC
So I really wanted to play your game, but regardless of what settings I choose up front, I always end up with this error message: ![King Circle error.png](///raw/360/1/z/14976.png)

I'm trying to run the game on a 64bit Windows 10...
🎤 Artur Hawkwing
06. May 2018 · 05:53 UTC
@Jakupf Thanks for your comments on my game! I agree that there could be some nice balancing changes. The blue enemies not appearing is a glitch, but the invinicibility is not. You only become invincible in the platformer, not the shooter, when you kill the yellow enemies.

@Random-storykeeper I am sorry you ran into that glitch...I am not sure why it occured though.