Snake Runner by SketchyGalore

[raw]
made by SketchyGalore for LD34 (COMPO)
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IMPORTANT NOTE: The web version of this game has been tested for Chrome! Other browsers may work, but there may be visual glitches. Please use Chrome, or download the Windows binary for the smoothest experience!
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Snake Runner, a Snake's Endless Journey for Apples!

Snake Runner is a 2D "endless runner". Avoid obstacles and collect apples by jumping into the air and burrowing into the ground. The larger you grow, the faster you go! More points are awarded the longer you can survive without hitting an obstacle.

Controls:
Up - Jump
Down - Dig

Features:
- A remarkably acrobatic snake!
- Over 8 silly hats to unlock for some reason!
- Digging holes!
- 9 silly hats to unlock for some reason!

Snake Runner was made by Evan Good for the double-themed LD 34: "Two button controls" and "Growing". This is my forth LD entry, and my first after a year long break. The theme of "growing" made me think of the classic game "Snake", where a snake grows longer and longer while moving around a playing area, eating randomly spawning apples. Of course, Snake is a game with four-directions (and therefore four buttons), so my idea was to make a game with only two. This was the result!

Snake Runner was developed using the following tools/resources:
GameMaker Studio Pro 1.4 (with HTML5 export)
BFXR sound generator
Audacity audio editor (fun fact: most sound effects came from heavily edited recordings of a box of cereal! Crunchy!)
ColorZilla Gradient Editor

No pre-existing code, art, or sound assets were used.

- TIPS -
- Gold Apples and Bomb Apples will allow you to hit one obstacle without losing part of your snake. Additionally, Gold Apples make jumping high a little easier while you're holding one, and Bomb Apples make it easier to dig deep. You can combine their effects if you have both.
- Jumping extra high or digging low awards lots of points, but you'll have to get in a rhythm of jumping diving to go fast enough to reach them. Try to gather as many apples as you can before focusing on jumps and you'll really rake in the points!
- You gain new hats for reaching certain point levels. The final one requires 200,000 points! Don't want to wait or want to try a specific hat? Check the cheat section below!
- "Dig Jumping" (pressing up while underground) is not only good for higher jumps: do it under a box for extra smashing points!
- You bounce off of the top of boxes and pillars normally, but if you hold the up key you can use them for a small jump boost!

- CHEATS! -
For those looking to mess around with things a little, I added the following cheat keys:
B - Become bomb snake (as if you just picked up a Bomb Apple)
P - Become gold snake (as if you just picked up a Golden Apple)
L - Add a segment/speed to your snake
H - Cycle through the strange hats that I inexplicably took the time to put into this game

Thanks for playing and good luck to all the other Darers! Also a shout-out to Quill18, who encouraged watchers (including me!) to participate a week ago during a livestream. I probably would have skipped it otherwise!

Ratings

Coolness 51% 3
Overall 3.90 74
Audio 2.67 461
Fun 4.15 13
Graphics 3.15 451
Humor 3.59 76
Innovation 3.24 422
Mood 3.49 168
Theme 4.12 143

Feedback

greenscreen
13. Dec 2015 · 22:12 UTC
Great, entertaining game.
Thanks for cheats :D
SayRafon
13. Dec 2015 · 22:14 UTC
This is a really really good game, I love it ! Good work ! (maybe a music could have been ^perfect to add) :D
Cluster Parable
13. Dec 2015 · 23:30 UTC
I love it too really comical!! good job
Cluster Parable
14. Dec 2015 · 03:17 UTC
Good job, love the cheats!
OccamsRazor
14. Dec 2015 · 03:22 UTC
Very fun! Enjoyed this one a lot!

Also, providing hats without charging us $1.99 each, you spoil us :P
illblew
14. Dec 2015 · 03:22 UTC
Fun!
Dooskington
14. Dec 2015 · 03:24 UTC
I quite enjoyed this one, played it for a while. Nice job!
xWarZonex
14. Dec 2015 · 03:25 UTC
This game is great! I love the gameplay an the hats are a awesome touch!
jerry111zhang
14. Dec 2015 · 03:26 UTC
Great handling for jumping and digging! It would be great if difficulty increases with time faster.
brandloose
14. Dec 2015 · 03:29 UTC
Seemed very familiar to other games I've played. But otherwise, pretty fun and addicting. (Also comparing the snake's sprite to the boxes and tubes, there was quite a difference in quality)
mukult
14. Dec 2015 · 03:29 UTC
Nice game! Had a nice time playing it! :) The mechanics are pretty smooth... the art style could improve i guess!
sharpfrog4
14. Dec 2015 · 03:32 UTC
I could play this for hours. You just beat out TF2 for best hat simulator :')
rockybdubs
14. Dec 2015 · 03:32 UTC
Super fun game play! Unicorn hat! Web version was reallllly slow though.
Kakureta
14. Dec 2015 · 04:19 UTC
Very fun game! The huge score is oddly satisfying and I love the completely unnecessary hats. graphics could have been better and a some sound would have been cool. good work!
graceavery
14. Dec 2015 · 06:43 UTC
I found this oddly fun, the physics were pretty enjoyable and the hats made me happy. :D
TheFumelgo
14. Dec 2015 · 08:14 UTC
Can't finish. No end. Intended ?
sanojian
14. Dec 2015 · 11:28 UTC
Loved this game. It is just about perfect. The only thing I would change is don't slow down when you lose snake pieces. Gets a bit boring and slow.
dekart
14. Dec 2015 · 12:06 UTC
Very well done!
Catblocker
14. Dec 2015 · 20:35 UTC
Really good and entertaining game.
danidre14
15. Dec 2015 · 01:22 UTC
Really great game, had me playing for minutes. Took a while to realise you cant actually die. xD
Jan Peter (jpdev)
15. Dec 2015 · 21:26 UTC
Cool sound effects, and as of yet absolutly the best hats.
Plane on a snake. NICE :)

What I didn't like is that you don't die even if you are only the head and bump into things. That made it too easy I think.

Otherwhise great game!
danielsann7
16. Dec 2015 · 16:48 UTC
excellent game, simple and fun, the physics are very comfortable and the humor is on shape, good job!
suppi
16. Dec 2015 · 20:44 UTC
pretty fun. nice work!
BoltKey
17. Dec 2015 · 00:52 UTC
It is smooth and just works. Also look quite good.
bazkur98
17. Dec 2015 · 18:07 UTC
I really liked this one! Quill18 also got influenced my decision to give it a shot.
thebrickanator
20. Dec 2015 · 03:29 UTC
awesome game for an LD compo entry! awesome work
fishbrain
20. Dec 2015 · 05:44 UTC
Simple & fun!
aemiliu5
20. Dec 2015 · 13:34 UTC
really nice!
i would appreciate if you could somehow lose when you hit too many objects... :P
but the animations of the movement of the snakes are perfect! :D
i enjoyed it!
knason
20. Dec 2015 · 20:07 UTC
Terrific game! I played it for quite a while. Thanks!
Evergreen Games
20. Dec 2015 · 21:34 UTC
Most fun I've ever had with 2 buttons. The more I play the more I see lot of care was taken to make this game engaging. Like hazard warnings, entertaining accomplishments, and those big rainbow jumps.
sP0CkEr2
21. Dec 2015 · 05:51 UTC
that was a very well done game - although it would be nice to have it end at some point - good work
hpearson2
22. Dec 2015 · 03:28 UTC
Death worm?
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/72097-death-worm

Very close game to death worm enough for me to be suspicious and cynical. Besides that I want to give a fair balanced review of what I see. Lets give this game a go

Nice tie in with two button controls. I like the humor with the hats and gives the game some sensitive to play. I was wrong and the game-play is closer to flappy bird then death-worm. Sound is nice.
🎤 SketchyGalore
23. Dec 2015 · 18:45 UTC
@hpearson2 Never heard of Death Worm before, for the record, but thank you for not judging a book by its cover! To be fair, worm-like things digging through the earth isn't exactly something nobody's thought of before :)

Thank you to everyone else for the kind words, as well! I'm pretty satisfied with how this one turned out. I do regret not putting a failure state in the game, as that does seem to be the biggest complaint. Unfortunately it would have been quite easy to at least do a time trial or something. Still! I'm glad people are having some fun.

Thanks!
CMLSC
28. Mar 2016 · 21:30 UTC
Got to 1,000,000 then got bored. .-. Other than that, good. :P