Hilbert's Hotel by iapc

[raw]
made by iapc for LD34 (JAM)
The famous Hilbert's Hotel has a second building. It now grows with demand, instead of always having an infinite size.

This game is a 2D sidescroller with a twist, it's a platformer with a puzzling game metagame. We took inspiration from the boardgame Labyrinth and created a platformer in which you can move rows and columns of rooms on the map.

So where most puzzle/platformer games are platformers with puzzle elements within the rooms, here the puzzle spans multiple rooms, and the orientation of the rooms is the puzzle.

Hints:
1. use the minimap, it's vital. You are the square, the X is the goal and the arrows are known switches
2. Switches are shown on the map, but only after you used them once, not before.
3. Doors are only shown on the map if a door exists on the other side. So, if there is no doorway between two rooms next to one another, it could mean one of them has a door in the corresponding direction, but it wouldn't be shown.
4. Doors are closed if there is no door in the room next to it. So you can always go back.
5. Don't be too afraid of dieing, the punishment isn't that high; it only resets the current room

The windows version is a zip file with an EXE in it, the linux / mac / windows (love) file needs to be run with love2d version 0.9.2, which can be installed from http://love2d.org.

Ratings

Coolness 52% 3
Overall(Jam) 2.46 1080
Fun(Jam) 2.36 1012
Graphics(Jam) 2.60 884
Humor(Jam) 2.68 488
Innovation(Jam) 3.08 562
Mood(Jam) 2.50 918
Theme(Jam) 2.56 1034

Feedback

Boonearth
15. Dec 2015 路 16:16 UTC
The windows led me to error then linux/max/windows(love file) couldnt play it source nothing on the page sorry i wouldve liked to played it :/
馃帳 iapc
15. Dec 2015 路 16:22 UTC
Windows download link should work now. Sorry for the inconvenience
ashdnazg
15. Dec 2015 路 17:17 UTC
It was hard figuring out how this game works but after a while I think I did (well, I hit someone in the face with a suitcase).
I'd say the puzzle succeeds in being challenging.

Spending even an hour on sound could do this game wonders (while the cat pictures etc. are great, I'd argue sound is more important)
architect404
16. Dec 2015 路 13:58 UTC
pretty confusing and lack of sound is a shame, but an interesting concept. good effort!
AM_Games
16. Dec 2015 路 14:03 UTC
Clever puzzle mechanic, took me too long to figure it out though :P
Paul Sinnett
16. Dec 2015 路 14:10 UTC
I love the concept here!
EthanWebster
16. Dec 2015 路 15:39 UTC
Nice concept, but it is fairly buggy which made it hard to play. Good game though ;)
fakefrogsonly
16. Dec 2015 路 15:41 UTC
Really liked the setting, would have been improved with better collision detection and some sound.
josefnpat
16. Dec 2015 路 20:33 UTC
I think I missed the point. I ended up doing a bunch of wall jumping.
markoburzan27
18. Dec 2015 路 00:09 UTC
its shit
PieChronicles
18. Dec 2015 路 23:13 UTC
moving rooms around was interesting but we couldn't get downstairs.
g12345
20. Dec 2015 路 01:46 UTC
TL;DR The game in its current state is unfinishable due to some bugs.

------------

Where should I begin...

It's an interesting game. I understand you want to combine something like Continuity with an Action Platformer and some Growing. It's a good idea, and I've seen some good examples of this before (not all 3 combined though.) It's a very ambitious idea to do this in 72 hours.

The graphics are okay. I understand your artist was having health problems but you can still need to mark the places where you can die yourself.

The design has some weird ideas. The biggest issue there is that you don't show the whole tile with all the exits (even if incomplete) at all times in your minimap. This means that instead of solving a puzzle, all you can do now is guesswork.

The biggest problem with this game is the coding.

Enemies are moving strangely. Sometimes the enemies can block a path, sometimes they float in midair, sometimes they drop down stairs too.

If you stop walking upwards on the stairs you automatically walks down again (which means you basically can't attack people coming from upstairs.)

And I've tried to play this game 5 times now, and the only reason I can't seem to finish this game is that it has some game-stopping bugs. Sometimes when I revisit some of the older rooms, some of the arrows will disappear from the minimap and the x went back to its original place. And sometimes the switches swap every room in the column but not itself. Sometimes those "wheel monsters" can stuck in midair and block your exits and you can do nothing about it.

To recap: Great idea, poor execution. I'm disappointed to see so many bugs in here as I've talked to some of your during that last text adventure game. If you need help or explanations or just a friendly chat, just drop me a line on the LD IRC chat.