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A jam submission

Help Computer As ComputerView game page

You do it for once!
Submitted by psycotica0 — 4 hours, 52 minutes before the deadline
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Help Computer As Computer's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Creativity#22753.3203.833
Overall#41322.4782.861
Presentation#49082.1652.500
Enjoyment#50091.9492.250

Ranked from 12 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
The computer is asking you to do the computing for it

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Submitted

I love the concept of this. I got past the first two levels (after reading the helpful comments below), but my patience gave out at that point. It definitely needs clearer instructions and a simpler introduction. The UI is also a bit awkward. But I could imagine it being a fun progression, maybe if the numbers were reduced in value so that you could quickly do them in your head (though the fact that you use an irl computer to get the answers is pretty funny). Nice work.

Submitted

error - cannot compute sfvijhbasvriuhawef3q3888390v0%%//*#

Submitted

Cool idea, very unique and it's well implemented for the 48 hours, good job! :D

Submitted

I like the idea. It is very creative and fits the jam perfectly. It took a minute to figure out, but I thought it was incredibly fun once I did!

With a few bug fixes and a bit more explanation, I think you have a very solid and quite fun game!

Developer

HELLO PEOPLE!

Just so people know there's a few bugs with the jam-submitted versions due to the differences between Debug and Release builds. Level 05 computes the wrong thing, but works if you follow the instructions. Level 06 DOES NOT WORK. You can play it, but you'll be playing it for a while... Level 07 mostly works, but is missing the second to last instruction which would swap 0 and 1. Oh well!

The main takeaway is DO NOT PLAY 06, or play it for a bit until you get bored and then stop.


Thanks!

Submitted (1 edit)

A creative idea, you really did prove that humans are terrible computers.

Unfortunately this game may be hard to understand (knowledge of assembly / how CPUs work helps), but once you understand the idea it is quite simple.

As an example I will use the first instruction of the first level:

  • On the left side is a stack where it falls down
  • The instruction contains four numbers separated by spaces: 10  00  00  07
  • The first number tells us what we have to do, others are additional arguments V1, V2, V3
  • Open the handbook on the left side, see that instruction 10 = Add V3 to first register (reg 0)
  • On the bottom right are four registers (here labeled "Registors")
  • V3 is the last number of our instruction (07), so we add 7 to the value in reg 0 and write the result in reg 0
  • 0 + 7 = 7
  • Once we have written 7 in the register, we can press the lever - if you done it correctly, the next instruction falls down into the stack

The only confusion for me was about "Swap reg V2 with reg V3" (didn't immediately realize that register numbers were given as arguments V2 and V3).

71 00 01 03 - swap values of reg 1 and reg 3.

Jumping works by writing the appropriate number in the box labeled "Load", i.e. 45 00 01 15 means that if the condition is valid, write 15 in the "Load" box and then press the lever.

Level 06 - The powers that be - has a bug that leads to an endless loop (there should be one more instruction 71 00 00 01, otherwise the power counter also gets multiplied and never gets to 0). This is dangerous - I got stuck doing the same instructions over and over for 12 hours, fortunately I received an external IRQ from my family and got out.

Developer

Well shiiiiiit. There didn't used to be a bug. I did play through all the levels at one point, but it looks like maybe a line got deleted with me noticing... 

I'd put out a patch... but Jams! Whoops. 

Anyway, thanks for playing! In the hypothetical "full game" there was going to be different text at the beginning of each level explaining only the bits you need for that level. But I wanted it to be a bit puzzly, so as you went the notes would get more sketchy and diverge from the instructions and you'd have to intuit a few things and experiment.  But! With virtually no time on the clock I had to write the instructions that would work for all levels all at once, which didn't leave a lot of room. Oh well, I'm just happy I got something kinda like a game out! 

Submitted

I really like the concept, but it's... pretty difficult to understand. I was able to get to the fourth level I think, but I was very confused by what instruction 45 is supposed to mean and wasn't able to progress further... I also feel like they game could do with being a bit less math-y, with more abstraction perhaps. But I still really like the idea, I think it's very original and could have a lot of potential, it reminds me a bit of Papers Please. And the way the text is written reminds me of Cave Johnson from Portal 2 in a cool way.

(+1)

I want to play this and understand, but I need more instructions. Is there anyway you can teach me how to play this.