S.A.M. (LD26)

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bartbes
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S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by bartbes »

(stolen from the ld page
As S.A.M, the rescue drone, board a wrecked vessel in order to save the survivors deep inside the ship. As S.A.M ventures into the ship he inevitably takes damage and loses modules, become a minimal version of himself.

A sort of open platform/puzzle game, overcome obstacles by using different S.A.M modules. Score and time is tracked, the game was also partly designed for speed runs.

Game features two complete levels, a tutorial level - docking bay, and the engine.

Programming: Bart van Strien, Joe Mycock
Graphics: Dale James
Audio: Dale James
Level Design: Dale James

Image
Unfortunately we kind of ran out of time, so there's planned levels that haven't been implemented, and a couple of minor bugs, but you should be able to play and finish both levels. Also, we'd like any feedback, because we really liked this project, so hopefully you do too.

sam.love (too big to upload, about 26MB)
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Roland_Yonaba
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by Roland_Yonaba »

Awesome. Had a fun time playing it.
Well, it takes a lot of water to kill a fire... :D
Looking at the code, I just noticed you used your custom code to generate levels and render them.
Nice work on the overall, and good luck for you your entry.

PS: Is that idea/concept going to be expanded ?
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bartbes
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by bartbes »

If we get enough positive feedback we're definitely going to make this game proper. I mean, we're already thinking about it, a lot.
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Lafolie
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by Lafolie »

Roland_Yonaba wrote: Looking at the code, I just noticed you used your custom code to generate levels and render them.
Thanks to bartbes this is how I created the soul-destroying level data: http://cl.ly/image/2V471R2b0B17/.

We actually started calling one of the particular platforms a "Foog" because of the tile references, hehe.
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JesseH
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by JesseH »

Very cool guys. Continue this and make it more awesome. :-)
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easy82
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by easy82 »

I really liked tis one, but got stuck aftera while... I had no idea what to do next, there were no more consoles to open doors, or any exits... I guess it's due that it's unfinished. I'd like to see this one finished, so keep it up! :)
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bartbes
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by bartbes »

easy82 wrote:I had no idea what to do next, there were no more consoles to open doors
I'm pretty sure all levels can be finished in the uploaded version, you must have missed a console somewhere.
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easy82
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by easy82 »

You're right, I've just finished it!

I think the music has crashed, I mean it was looping the same tune after a while.
In my opinion, the levels could have less empty space, there could have been more obstacles.
I liked the little robot and it's skills, the retro music and also the graphics!
I liked that it was smooth and fun, nice entry! :)
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OmarShehata
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by OmarShehata »

Little SAM is fun to play with.

At first I didn't get what that guy on the Ludum page was complaining about the game having too many mechanics, but that was because I missed half of them at the beginning due to not reading the tutorial text fast enough.

I don't think you have too many mechanics, I just think throwing them at the player all at once is a bit overwhelming. Having little text popups come up to introduce the mechanics when you need them, as you play would be much better (and would give the player this sense of progression, "gaining" new abilities even though he had them already). I'm aware you guys had even less time than was allotted, so you probably didn't have too much to spend on tutorials.

I also ran into that music getting stuck glitch, which happens if you leave it for a bit.

The control scheme was a bit unintuitive (or at least, it was sometimes hard to remember which buttons were for what). Having one button be an "action button" and being able to scroll through mechanics could work (unless you have to switch often, in which case it might be annoying, on the other hand, it allows you to add more functions to SAM if you wish later on)

With that said, I can see this being an awesome exploration/adventure/puzzle game. Something that I think would be really awesome is if some fires actually spread, which would put even more pressure on you to put them out quickly.

An even awesomer tweak could be that when you destroy something with the laser, it creates a fire which spreads. So you'd try to be careful of using the laser, but you'd have to use it at some points, and you'd try to quickly contain the fire that comes out of using it. Could make for a really awesome kind of balance.

Just my 2 cents!
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bartbes
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Re: S.A.M. (LD26)

Post by bartbes »

OmarShehata wrote:and would give the player this sense of progression, "gaining" new abilities even though he had them already
The entire point of the game was to lose abilities!
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