It's good to see another GZDoom user in this gamejam!
This was absolutely incredible. The puzzles immediately clicked and were easy to figure out, and then the game immediately threw some twists at you for it. If this was expanded on and fleshed out, I could very easily see this being something lauded.
A few problems that I had: One, the lack of music really made things feel kind of barren. But as soon as I put on some Necros (Point of Departure for the main levels, Energia for Machinehead), it felt perfectly right. Two, the autoaim being set at 35 by default really really hurts the level where you have to fire over the fence. I had to disable autoaim, and for folks not familiar with GZDoom that could probably trip them up. Three, the final level made it slightly difficult to figure out what to do at first. First time I went through it, I tripped and fell on the floor and there wasn't really a way back up and I wasn't being hurt. I ended up needing to ~kill and then restarting the level. As it stands, you might want to either make that a kill sector or to put a teleporter leading to the start.
Aside from those three problems, though, this is easily one of the best games I've played in this gamejam. I would love to see more, if feasible!
Shoot, the autoaim! I completely forgot to change that from the default. There's another item for the post-jam version...
And yeah, I really should've added a teleport trigger to the floor in Machinehead. I went out of my way to not use killfloors in this--it's a puzzle game first and foremost. I actually considered having enemies at one point, and decided that it was too low-priority (and even if I added them, they'd just push you around).
The lack of music is 90% bad planning on my part and 10% not knowing what I'd do for music. I'd love to say it's supposed to be an atmospheric thing, but the reality is that halfway through the week I woke up at an awkward hour to help a housemate with our new fridge and that left my brain just kind of not working for a couple days. I ended up having to rush the last four or five levels. I'm really glad that people like the level design, because I was definitely nervous about that.
(Edit: Listening to Point of Departure right now. Yeah, this would've worked real well. The only thing I really had in mind for the music was either "chill atmospheric stuff" or "something with breakbeat".)
haha, i beat it! really cool puzzle design going on here :)
and it's neat how the game teaches you all the mechanics without much hand-holding; the "tutorial" part actually triggers that bit in your brain that goes "a-ha!" and makes you feel good
i have a sneaking suspicion that i kind of cheesed the last level - after a couple of attempts getting nowhere, i just kind of awkwardly shimmied into the large tower from the lowest level via the "green"-style, uh, shooty thingy, and then everything exploded. don't know if that's the intended method lol
Thanks! It makes me really happy that I was able to pull off show-don't-tell tutorials. I've always loved games that do that. I hope I'll get better at it as I keep making stuff.
(Of course, not writing down the names of anything has some drawbacks. Internally, the green shot is called the Heavy Bolt and the orange shot is called the Sticky Bolt--of course, you never really get a chance to see the projectile in flight, but it *is* shaped like a big chunky rivet.)
Re: the final level--the intended solution involves getting the orange sticky bolt and using it to grapple into the tower's mouth. I'm not surprised that there's a way to skip getting the sticky bolt. I'm not going to 'fix' it; I love that there's technically speedrun tech in this little thing.
I also love working in GZDoom. It's a little clunky for certain things, but it's just so good for prototyping an FPS in, and building levels is just so simple.
I liked the style, player movement, and sound design! I was unfortunate to be stuck on level 3, the green symbol. Try as I might, I could not shoot down the fence, nor find an 'ElectroMagnum' portal on the other side.
The green symbol makes your bolt affected by gravity. Try shooting over the fence. (Honestly, I should have adjusted the height of the fence, but I ran a bit late doing the levels and didn't do as much polishing as I'd like.)
Comments
It's good to see another GZDoom user in this gamejam!
This was absolutely incredible. The puzzles immediately clicked and were easy to figure out, and then the game immediately threw some twists at you for it. If this was expanded on and fleshed out, I could very easily see this being something lauded.
A few problems that I had:
One, the lack of music really made things feel kind of barren. But as soon as I put on some Necros (Point of Departure for the main levels, Energia for Machinehead), it felt perfectly right.
Two, the autoaim being set at 35 by default really really hurts the level where you have to fire over the fence. I had to disable autoaim, and for folks not familiar with GZDoom that could probably trip them up.
Three, the final level made it slightly difficult to figure out what to do at first. First time I went through it, I tripped and fell on the floor and there wasn't really a way back up and I wasn't being hurt. I ended up needing to ~kill and then restarting the level. As it stands, you might want to either make that a kill sector or to put a teleporter leading to the start.
Aside from those three problems, though, this is easily one of the best games I've played in this gamejam. I would love to see more, if feasible!
Shoot, the autoaim! I completely forgot to change that from the default. There's another item for the post-jam version...
And yeah, I really should've added a teleport trigger to the floor in Machinehead. I went out of my way to not use killfloors in this--it's a puzzle game first and foremost. I actually considered having enemies at one point, and decided that it was too low-priority (and even if I added them, they'd just push you around).
The lack of music is 90% bad planning on my part and 10% not knowing what I'd do for music. I'd love to say it's supposed to be an atmospheric thing, but the reality is that halfway through the week I woke up at an awkward hour to help a housemate with our new fridge and that left my brain just kind of not working for a couple days. I ended up having to rush the last four or five levels. I'm really glad that people like the level design, because I was definitely nervous about that.
(Edit: Listening to Point of Departure right now. Yeah, this would've worked real well. The only thing I really had in mind for the music was either "chill atmospheric stuff" or "something with breakbeat".)
haha, i beat it! really cool puzzle design going on here :)
and it's neat how the game teaches you all the mechanics without much hand-holding; the "tutorial" part actually triggers that bit in your brain that goes "a-ha!" and makes you feel good
i have a sneaking suspicion that i kind of cheesed the last level - after a couple of attempts getting nowhere, i just kind of awkwardly shimmied into the large tower from the lowest level via the "green"-style, uh, shooty thingy, and then everything exploded. don't know if that's the intended method lol
also, cool engine choice! ;D
Thanks! It makes me really happy that I was able to pull off show-don't-tell tutorials. I've always loved games that do that. I hope I'll get better at it as I keep making stuff.
(Of course, not writing down the names of anything has some drawbacks. Internally, the green shot is called the Heavy Bolt and the orange shot is called the Sticky Bolt--of course, you never really get a chance to see the projectile in flight, but it *is* shaped like a big chunky rivet.)
Re: the final level--the intended solution involves getting the orange sticky bolt and using it to grapple into the tower's mouth. I'm not surprised that there's a way to skip getting the sticky bolt. I'm not going to 'fix' it; I love that there's technically speedrun tech in this little thing.
I also love working in GZDoom. It's a little clunky for certain things, but it's just so good for prototyping an FPS in, and building levels is just so simple.
I liked the style, player movement, and sound design! I was unfortunate to be stuck on level 3, the green symbol. Try as I might, I could not shoot down the fence, nor find an 'ElectroMagnum' portal on the other side.
The green symbol makes your bolt affected by gravity. Try shooting over the fence.
(Honestly, I should have adjusted the height of the fence, but I ran a bit late doing the levels and didn't do as much polishing as I'd like.)