Cellephant by hippy-dave
UPDATE: results are in, wow I can't believe Cellephant placed 22nd overall for the compo, I'm really happy. I'm continuing to improve the game, am just starting a devlog on tigsource, feel free to follow if you like the game! https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=62222
https://itch.io/embed-upload/548700?color=333333
Cellephant is a game about a robot elephant, who has to collect batteries (aka cells) in order to power him to reach the exit. Your current battery charge is shown at the bottom, and that's how many steps you need to take to reach the next battery (fail to reach a battery = die, reach a battery too soon also = you die, because your charging circuit can't handle it or something...). It's a path finding puzzle.
I hope embedding will work at some point, if not just click the itch.io link. I recommend hitting the fullscreen button, otherwise it looks kinda titchy.
I've added a second link, to play it on the lexaloffle bbs, because that one supports playing on phones/tablets with onscreen controls. Be careful not to press both buttons at once accidentally as that quits to the title screen.
Move with arrow keys
X (or V) to start game/restart level/continue
Z + X to quit to title screen
Made in Pico-8, which I just bought last week and is a lot of fun (made a nice change from trying to force Unity to do 2D). I managed to keep the scope nice and small, and was actually able to finish basically what I wanted to do within the 48 hours. Never mind niceties like animation, eh? :) This is my second real attempt at Ludum Dare, the last time my game was unfinished due to too much time failing to fix a bug - that almost happened again this time but I eventually scrapped and rewrote an enormous chunk of code which got me back on the road. Good times, now I sleep.
| HTML5 (web) | https://itch.io/embed-upload/548700?color=333333 |
| HTML5 (web) | https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=29736 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/cellephant |
Ratings
| Overall | 22th | 4.083⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 25th | 3.958⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 167th | 3.48⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 69th | 4⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 258th | 3.458⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 70th | 3.667⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 212th | 2.722⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 172th | 3.364⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 9🗳️ | 10🗨️ |
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwBdbZOl9zM2LWlMOExwcUdzVWM/view
Excellent work on the level design. The first 30 levels were a breeze (for the most part there was only one battery you could reach from every other battery) but the difficulty got pleasantly headsrachy from that point on. I made it to level 42 before looking at my clock and calling it quits.
It wasn't immediately obvious that I had to step on every battery, nor was it immediately obvious that I could only collect batteries on my last possible move. But the level design introduced the mechanics well enough that I didn't have trouble learning the game.
My one gripe with this title is that whenever you collect a battery, you lose control of your elephant for a second. After resetting a level enough times I start to build up muscle memory for the path I need to take through it. When I hit a battery and lose control for a second, I instinctively put in the next few inputs, which get ignored, and then the game shoots me off in a random direction, forcing me to start over.
I love the black and white grid; around the late 30s I realized that you could only go on same-colored tiles from even batteries and opposite-colored from odd batteries. Mapping out the potential connections this way, both in my head and on paper, helped me get through some of the tougher challenges.
The music and aesthetic feel very similar to John Cooney's This Is The Only Level. I don't know if you were thinking of that when making the game, but there seems to be a resemblance. And you managed to pull off the same feat of making fairground music bearable to listen to for long periods.
Keep up the good work.
I think you're right about the control delay when you pick up a battery and your charge increases, it's more noticeable with higher-numbered batteries and it's started to bug me. If I work on the game any more that will be the first thing I fix.
Good tip about the same/different coloured tiles, I hadn't even thought of it! Glad that visual element turned out to be helpful!
No I hadn't seen This Is The Only Level before, I just fired it up now and got stuck sooner than I'd like... Gotta love elephant games tho! I'm glad you found the music bearable, I had very little time to spend on it but it seems to have come out ok. Thanks again for the kind words!
Link again: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=29736
The difficulty increases too slowly, though, it's becoming boring before it's becoming difficult.
Ok I've reached the target I set myself of getting to level 50 before I sleep, anyone else get any further yet? :)
Fantastic game. The music already caught me, and the challenge was pretty fun too. I got stuck at level 25 before calling it quits. I think the first 10 levels might have been a bit too easy, but other than that I really liked this game :-)
Thanks guys!
Too bad I accidently clicked z+x on level 33.
How many levels are there?
I love puzzle-games, I love pixel-art and I love 8-bit music and sound so this is definitely a game for me!
If I have to complain about something it would be quitting the game with *z + x*.
**Overall** this is one of my favorite games so far, it’s so addicting!
The win sound effect really got to me, I want to hear it over and over again hehe
Thank you so much for this experience and good luck in the future!
Have an awesome day, and I hope to see you in the next jam!
// Isak (one half of [LiquidBrain](https://ldjam.com/users/liquidbrain/))
Just a little note, you should probably get rid of the "humor" and "mood" voting categories, and you should also remove that second link to the web version.
I'm impressed that the levels are all procedurally generated, especially since there's a definite progression in difficulty. Some of the later levels can be quite tricky!
The music gave me Zoo Keeper vibes (pretty relevant considering the title character), I loved it.
Very good entry, keep it up!
I loved the retro style of your game, maybe there are too many "filler" easy levels at the start, but from level 20 the things starts to be harder!
Keep up the good work! :)
Yes Pico-8 is brilliant, I'm gonna be using it a lot more!
I really like puzzle game, so I naturally played similar ones before, but the levels are getting steadily harder and the game is very enjoyable. Way to go!