{"assets":[{"original":"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/ComboTraderScreenshot.PNG","local":"\/data\/posts\/2010\/02\/8cb81e1c1bb7b76e10c1f3d7c350f6e2.png"}],"author_link":"author\/31eee384\/","author_name":"31eee384","cat":"MiniLD #16","categories":["MiniLD #16"],"comments":[],"epoch":1267307400,"event":"LD16","likes":0,"metadata":{"p_key":"76436","p_author":"31eee384","p_authorkey":"0","p_urlkey":"284199","p_title":"MiniLD 16: Combo Trader","p_cat":"MiniLD #16","p_event":"LD16","p_time":"1267307400","p_likes":"0","p_comments":"0","p_status":"WAYBACK","us_key":null,"us_name":null,"us_username":null,"event_start":"1260489600","event_key":"2","event_name":"LD16"},"source_url":"2010\/02\/27\/minild-16-combo-trader\/","text":"<p>Here\u2019s my game. Late on my goal of about two hours ago, but a lot of that time was spent finalizing stuff (embedding fonts, testing on other computers, uploading the right version\u2026) and it\u2019s ready now, I think, to share.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"ComboTraderScreenshot\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15242\" height=\"431\" src=\"\/data\/posts\/2010\/02\/8cb81e1c1bb7b76e10c1f3d7c350f6e2.png\" width=\"609\"\/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/galacticgaming.net\/hosting\/ludum\/ComboBuilder.html\">Here\u2019s a link to the webpage to play it.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-15241\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The goal of the game is to speedily progress through a stage, without dying on the way. Additionally, after each stage you can buy commodities to make money when you finish the next stage. (You are a freelance trader.)<\/p>\n<p>Controls and combinations:<\/p>\n<p>Basically, to finish a stage you have to use combinations of ingredients accelerate your ship and destroy enemies so they don\u2019t destroy you.<\/p>\n<p>That said, note that the boxes that hold your ingredients are arranged so that they can be easily used with the number keys (1-4, 7-0). You have to combine three ingredients to perform an action in Combo Trader, and the order doesn\u2019t matter. When you combine three ingredients, it does something depending on the combination it matches, and the boxes that you took the ingredients from are refilled with random ones.<\/p>\n<p>Here are all the combinations so far:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Two fuel, one oxygen: Gives your ship a speed boost.<\/li>\n<li>One fuel, one oxygen, one bullet: Fire four lasers at enemy ships.<\/li>\n<li>Two bullets, one oxygen: Destroy a bunch of ships, as long as they\u2019re behind you. (Reasoning to this: you are firing bullets without the power of the fuel, so you can only hit things behind you. Not physically accurate, but it works well enough for the game.) This combination is overpowered.<\/li>\n<li>Any three of a single type: Has no effect on your ship. This is useful if you have too many of a certain ingredient.<\/li>\n<li>Any combination not listed: Slows down your ship. The ingredients are still thrown away (so you can get better ones) but your ship is slowed about the same amount that three boosts (fuel+fuel+oxygen) would accelerate it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On to the interface.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the lower-right corner, there\u2019s a speedometer, which displays your current speed, with arbitrary units. Your ship goes at speed \u201c5\u2033 if you don\u2019t boost, and will gradually return to this speed over time, so you need to keep boosting to stay fast.<\/li>\n<li>The big bar along the bottom is a progress bar. Once it is filled, you progress to the next stage. (More on stages later.)<\/li>\n<li>On the top is the bar of ingredients. The three boxes in a row below it are the combo bar, which will hold the ingredients as you press their corresponding keys. When this fills up with three ingredients, the ingredients are combined and the bar empties.<\/li>\n<li>In between these two bars are two solid bars: the top shielding and the bottom armor. If armor runs out, you\u2019re dead, but your shield slowly recharges. It is best to destroy enemies using the combat combinations before they can damage your armor, as your armor only regenerates after a full stage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The stage system I put in for now is a bit weird. When you complete a stage, there\u2019s a Trade screen, where you see how much you earned from selling boxes and buy them for the next round.<br\/>\nHow the system works:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You start out with no packages, and do a dry run. When you press \u20191\u2032 on the main menu and see the interface described earlier, you are in the dry run.<\/li>\n<li>After completing your first stage, you see the trade screen. Press the number keys to indicate which slots you want to use to carry boxes to the next trade screen. Slots that are carrying boxes are covered with red symbols that look like an X and a + combined. In the next stage, you can still use the ingredient you see under the symbol, but in doing so you drop the cargo, and cannot sell it to make money at the next trade screen. (1 unit of money buys a box, and they sell for 5.)<\/li>\n<li>After ten seconds (indicated by the countdown in the upper-right), the next stage begins. After completing this stage, you see another trade screen. The stage, trade screen, stage, trade screen sequence repeats until you\u2019re bored or flash player succumbs to a memory leak I didn\u2019t plug.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So there it is, my game of quick reflexes, tactical thought, and lame pixel-art graphics! Maybe I\u2019ll clean up the source code and continue it later.<\/p>\n<p>Comment with any question and I\u2019ll clarify, this post was kind of rushed and I might have missed some things. <img alt=\":)\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/wp-includes\/images\/smilies\/icon_smile.gif?9d7bd4\"\/> <\/p>\n<div style=\"float: right;border: 1px solid #eee;padding: 2px;background: #fff;\"><div class=\"iLikeThis\" id=\"iLikeThis-15241\"><span class=\"counter-none\"><a class=\"image\" onclick=\"likeThis(15241);\">0<\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<p class=\"postmetadata alt\">\n<small>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tThis entry was posted\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ton Saturday, February 27th, 2010 at 9:50 pm\t\t\t\t\t\tand is filed under <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/category\/minild\/minild-16\/\" rel=\"category tag\" title=\"View all posts in MiniLD #16\">MiniLD #16<\/a>.\n\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can follow any responses to this entry through the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2010\/02\/27\/minild-16-combo-trader\/feed\/\">RSS 2.0<\/a> feed.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYou can <a href=\"#respond\">leave a response<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ludumdare.com\/compo\/2010\/02\/27\/minild-16-combo-trader\/trackback\/\" rel=\"trackback\">trackback<\/a> from your own site.\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/small>\n<\/p>","time":"February 27th, 2010 9:50 pm","title":"MiniLD 16: Combo Trader"}