Unrequited

[GloryFish]

This was my Reddit Game Jam 05 submission: "Unrequited"

Reddit Link .love | Mac | Windows | Source


It's my second jam and the first one I ever finished. I learned a lot (finally wrapped my head around A*) and had a great time. If you set debug = true you can see the paths the AI is finding and also click on the map to test other paths.

4rOpV.png (19.11 KiB) Viewed 611 times

[Lap]

Looks like a great way to teach other people A Star from a quick look at the code. Looks clean.

[GloryFish]

I'm working on breaking out the A* implementation for exactly that purpose. It's not functioning right now because of a problem I'm having with lua classes but the code is on GitHub.

[tentus]

Neat game, I loved the music! You may want to explain in your How To Play that the player can't use ladders, it took me a little while to figure that out. You may also want to rebind up/w to jump, I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to do.

[Robin]

You may want to explain in your How To Play that the player can't use ladders, it took me a little while to figure that out.

This.

[Jasoco]

Uh.... if you jump from the very top to the very bottom you go right through the floor. That's not supposed to happen. Your fall speed should be limited to less than 32 pixels per frame so that there's no way to fall more than one tile per frame.

Also, why can't we use ladders? Is there a reason, or was it just not programmed in in time?

[ZenX2]

That game is awesome, I was fearing for my life when she started moving really fast

[GloryFish]

Also, why can't we use ladders? Is there a reason, or was it just not programmed in in time?

This is the most widely mentioned issue by far. It is by design for two reasons. The first is technical: being my first time, and only having 48hrs, it seemed much easier to have the AI character pathfind and move on a simple grid. Using ladders meant the AI character didn't have to jump. The second reason was for gameplay: having the player and the AI character have different movemnt ability meant that some routes on the map are fast for the player and some routes are fast for the AI. This allows for a measure of strategy where the player must plan his or her path carefully, and choose a route based on the AI character's strengths and limitations.

Because the movement restrictions are not obvious it's confusing to players. I can certainly add info the the instruction screen to highlight this, but I also wonder if theres an in-game way to signal this as well. The other two gameplay mechanics: picking up coins and avoiding the girl bird have feedback mechanisms (+10 text and exploding hearts respectively). Any thoughts on how you would do this? Something other than ladders?

Uh.... if you jump from the very top to the very bottom you go right through the floor. That's not supposed to happen. Your fall speed should be limited to less than 32 pixels per frame so that there's no way to fall more than one tile per frame.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

That game is awesome, I was fearing for my life when she started moving really fast

Thanks for the compliment!

The game also has joystick support but I've only tested it with a 360 controller. I'm curious to know how it works for other people and other gamepads. I personally think it plays best with a controller as you get better control. Also, the walk cycle speed changes based on movement amount which I thought was a nice touch but most people never get to see using the keyboard.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Its exciting for me to have created a game that other people found to be fun. Kinda been a dream of mine since I was a kid.

[GloryFish]

You may also want to rebind up/w to jump, I couldn't figure out what they were supposed to do.

That seems like a common request as well. I'll definitely be making that change and remembering it for future games.

[thelinx]

The game also has joystick support but I've only tested it with a 360 controller. I'm curious to know how it works for other people and other gamepads.

Tried it with my PS3 controller and it works quite well, it's just that it uses R1 for jumping and selecting in the menus.

The button id for X is 14, if you wish to change it.