Hi all!

I know I'm super late to the party, but thought I'd throw my hat into the ring even now. 

My verse: 1 Peter 2:21 

To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

I've always loved 1 Peter and eventually settled upon the theme of suffering, particularly that of suffering for others and suffering for doing good. While I came up with a variety of narrative approaches to that concept, I really wanted to try to work with something more driven by the game mechanics and turned to my gaming experiences with things like Dark Souls and even Super Mario World levels. Particularly Dark Souls gets the portrayal as a challenge, and some locations really do feel like you're just suffering through them. But in both cases, you're suffering through them so that you can experience the sweet triumph of victory, there's nothing like the self-sacrificial love of Christ there. So that was one thing I wanted to rectify.

The other portion from the verse that I initially was working with, was the example set by Christ detailed in the following verses: "He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (22-23). I really wanted to work that idea into my entry as well, so I decided to deviate a bit from my Dark Souls example and removed the ability to retaliate. 

If you want to take a look at what I have so far, I threw a build up. Any feedback is appreciated.

http://students.cs.calvin.edu/~mjm87/CDN_Speedgame/

At the moment, it's definitely a bit of a struggle to gather all the triangles without dying (which I suppose lends itself towards the suffering theme). However, I'm definitely not satisfied with the notion of suffering for someone else rather than just grinding through to victory. I'm also not certain how fun it is, but we'll see. I have a couple of ideas left, but we'll see what all can be implemented in time. (Procrastination for the win)

I can't wait to see what everyone else has come up with!

Better late than never I guess! lol

Nice game by the way!

Commenting same as to one other one, that if i correctly remember, then about year 2007 the winner game was made in three days only. Maybe you can break that record? (didint test your game yet, cant use these last precious times for testing other peoples games when own is not complete yet)

Tried it out a few times, but couldn't win. Maybe some kind of hint as to what "Jesus' footsteps" are would be nice.

Well here are my thoughts about it. First of all, it was very good game for such a short time. Of course, when compared as competition entry it doesnt hold well because of all the shortcomings it still have due to time.

I liked very much from the tutorial, although, for a tutorial it was too hard, for it took couple of ries just to get through it.

Also naturally that the tutorial level continued further was bad thing too, but i guess it was due to time.

I liked the games idea itself that you would move with arrows and defend with mouse at same time. That was very fun system although would need more getting used, hence one full level game doesnt work very well as ou would first need couple of easy levels for player to get used to the new playing system he havent got used to before.

The level was quite okay, not too hard, not too easy, difficulty was to me quite suitable, and it was also good that you could choose different approaches to the level.

I also very much like when someone tries to implement passages into mechanics. While this wasnt maybe a perfect hit, it was still a good try and i enjoyed the amount of passage in the mechanics itself. Like you were showing the way to the other guy to follow.

Also one thing that made the game slightly too easy after you realised it was that computers didnt aim at that other guy at all. However, one interesting thing passage mechanic wise, although bit wrong way around was that you could actually use the other guy as a shield for a while. So he was suffering for you.

I forgot the music and sounds, except that the guy was having very painful sounding sounds when he was being hit, so that was very well chosen sample as i could almost feel the pain he had from being hit.

I will possibly make another writing about those sounds and music (if there were any others) after i re-check your game before doing the actual voting.

All in all, very good product in such a short time, although in its current situation wont stand against the other ones that were made with more time. Had there been more time, this game could have performed very well in this competition, since the idea was very clear, fun, and working. I really liked the little there was, despite all the multiple shortcomings.

Belisarius87, you won the funnest game category which is a $25 discount to CGDC this year. Please contact me over facebook so I can give you your prize.