...and to Nothingness Return by philomory
...and to Nothingness Return
Playing the Game
...and to Nothingness Return is a small puzzle game about devouring the universe.
The objective of the game is to move the Maw of the Void through Existence, devouring it and returning it to nothingness.
However, the Maw must not leave Existence until Existence has been completely devoured - if the Maw is entirely surrounded by the Not, it too will return to nothingness, leaving some of the world intact.
To navigate the menu:
- Use the up and down arrow keys to select menu options
- Use Space or Enter to select a menu option
The default controls in the game are:
- WASD or Arrow Keys to move
- Escape to pause the game
- U or Z to undo a move
- R to restart the level
Keybindings can be changed from the settings menu; this includes support for most gamepads.
Running the Game from Source
To run the game from source, you'll need to have Ruby 2.3.x installed. You'll also need the gem bundler.
Once you have those, use bundle install to install the gem dependencies, and
ruby ld45.rb to run the game.
Known Issues:
- [MAC] Due to the the way MacOS handles untrusted downloads, this app will fail to launch by default it you try to run it from your downloads directory. You can drag it somewhere else (like the Desktop) and run it from there, launch it from the Itch app, run it from the Terminal; you just can't double-click it in Finder while it lives in the Downloads directory.
- [WIN] You can't run the game from inside the zip file, you need to fully extract the zip first because it needs access to its data files. Either that, or you can launch it from the Itch client which handles all that for you.
Post-jam Bug Fixes
The current downloads from itch.io include a few bug-fixes that were done after the Jam. The issued fixed were: * Game crashes after the title screen on some Windows machines * Game crashes if you try to use the in-game menu to adjust the SFX volume
No changes to gameplay, aesthetics, etc, have been made.
Tools
The following tools were used to create this game:
- Language: Ruby
- GameDev Library: Gosu
- Editor: Visual Studio Code
- Graphics: Pixen, Pyxel Edit, GIMP
- Map: Tiled
- SFX: bfxr and Audacity
Credits
- "Tiny World Map" tileset by Lanea Zimmerman and Paul Barden.
- "Tangible Darkness" music by Keplar
- Alagard and Romulus fonts by Pix3M
Ratings
| Overall | 266th | 3.754⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 295th | 3.6⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 384th | 3.43⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 354th | 3.615⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 234th | 3.769⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 70🗳️ | 107🗨️ |
/and-to-nothingness-return-win32/src/game_state/fade_transition.rb:45:in `draw_rect': bignum too big to convert into `unsigned long' (RangeError)
@noshiz 16 is the final level so far, and, yes, I made it much harder than the previous levels.
@cincerteri @nek I'll try to reproduce the issue when I get a chance to test on a Win10 machine, see if I can figure out what's up. I'll let you know if I figure anything out.
Good job !
See the stacktrace below:
Thanks!
This was btw from the version downloaded just a few minutes ago.
@cincerteri @nek @drjeebus @chaotikza The RangeError issue has been resolved, you should be able to play now.
Great little puzzle game! Loved the poem at the start and played all the way to level 16 (which seems to me to be unsolvable). Very addictive, I kept trying just one more time...
Very atmospheric and although your character sound is pretty bad, it wasn't so loud that I found it problematic... I did try to adjust the volume pro-actively and crashed it again :see_no_evil: - just shout if you want a stack trace.
In any case, I've uploaded a fixed build that allows changing the volume without crashing.
The mac version didn't start when trying to launch normally. No error message, no nothing. Gave it a go from the terminal and it actually started. So this is for fellow macists who might face the same issue:
```
cd And to Nothingness Return.app/Contents/MacOS
./And\ to\ Nothingness\ Return
```
The first 15 levels were maybe even too easy. Well of course it needs to start easy and introduce mechanics but it didn't really ramp up the difficulty at all before the 16th. It was always just figuring out the first move and everything after that just fell right into place. The mechanic was introduced perfectly, even showing the keys and all which is a rarity in jam games. And you had proper options too, nice!
The look is nice. Love the trippy level intro but it gets kinda old when you need to constantly keep restarting and watching it over and over again. The sprite work is crisp and clean, wished there was more animation though. The music was great. Definitely would have needed more sound effects. Some munchy and crunchy omnom sounds for eating the world and obviously a nice fanfare for finishing a level.
Okay, I'll go back to bashing my head against that 16th level again... :triumph:
Slowly getting there, thank god for the undo mechanic cause I can't remember how I did the castle part. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omoNXtnVt1g
Psh, easy! :blush:
And I even did it again and was ready for a screenshot on the second time. And now I notice too that you didn't do the art or the music so I guess commenting about those is moot. But they fit together well anyway.
Anyways, dunno what else to say. Nice puzzler and brain melding last level. Good job! :thumbsup:
* ~~The Mac version works flawlessly on Macs running older version of macOS, which is what I have, but for some reason can only be run by directly starting the binary from the command line on newer Macs. I suspect there's something wrong with the other bundle contents like Info.plist, but I don't have access to an updated Mac at the moment so I haven't been able to figure out the details. I have a few ideas for workarounds if I can't figure it out, though~~ I believe I've figured out the Mac launch issue, see "Known Issues" above for details.
* The 16th level is, indeed, way harder than all the previous levels. It's hard to judge difficulty without extensive play-testing; as you said, you found the prior 15 levels quite easy, but I know some other people had trouble with e.g. level 14, and to a lesser extent level 7. I wanted to make the last level one where I _knew_ it was _definitely_ quite difficult, so I could have something challenging at the end even for people who found the rest of the game pretty easy (like yourself). Obviously, it would have been even better if I had been able to create a smoother ramp-up, but I didn't have time to create any additional levels. It's certainly something I'll be focusing on if/when I resume work on the game; your point about harder levels requiring more than just following necessity after figuring out the first move, is particularly salient.
* As for the level intro animation, that is actually one of the graphical elements I made myself; the tiles are CC-BY licensed, but the player avatar and its intro animation were done by me (as was the background). On the topic of having to watch it over and over again each time you restart, you actually don't have to! Because the game is strictly turn-based with no timing elements whatsoever, it's coded so that if you provide input while an animation such as the level intro or movement-slide is playing, it'll just jump to the end of the animation and process your input immediately - you can beat each level in as little as 1 frame per tlle, assuming you're able to press and release keys that quickly. I didn't explicitly document it because it's not really an important part of the gameplay, but it's there.
* Yes, I absolutely needed more sound effects; but after spending 45 minutes trying to find a sound effect I liked from CC sources, and then another 45 minutes trying to make the level intro effect myself and ending up with something that was merely 'ok', I decided it wasn't something I was going to be able to achieve this time around within the timeframe of the jam.
In any case, glad you liked it, and thanks again for playing!
the only thing is that, up to the level I got looks like that all terrains are the same, I got some obstacles but they are not really related to the terrains.
I liked it.
Overall amazing job!!!
"Not" seems like a dark hairy were-pac-man :') Loved it and want a plushie of it
The visual style was great as well, loved the art!
didn't personally run into any bugs, so points for that too!
Great job and keep up the good work!
@sharbelfs Thanks for playing! The terrain itself is just a aesthetic; I had some ideas for doing different things with different-looking terrain, but I ended up deciding against them.
@ryusui I'm glad you liked it! I have a few ideas for how I could implement a hint system, but it'll have to wait until all the judging is over and I have a chance to go back and add new levels and stuff, first.
@virimine You're right that balancing level difficulty is very difficult in these circumstances. I'm glad you liked the game! If there are ever plushies of the Maw of the Void, I'll let you know :stuck_out_tongue:
@rodrigo-robles Thanks for giving it a go! And yes, you can toggle full-screen mode from the Options menu, accessible from either the main menu or the pause screen.