Oh jeez.  There should have been some clue that restarting it was different than what you just played... (or maybe I'm just slow)

I don't know, guys.  None of the "art games" I can think of came off heavy-handed like that.  (ones I can think of for the record: Flower, Passage, Gravitation, The Marriage, Braid?, Today I Die, Judith) Satire isn't very cool if the only example of what it's satirizing is itself. (or I'm being slow again) 

[loved]

Now, you said the fighting was uninteresting.

Yeah, sorry I really shouldn't have left it at that.  I haven't played this updated version yet, so sorry if my complaints are outdated.  To keep going with the Zelda (2d versions) comparisons, it was much like fighting the little bats and things with just the sword -- it seemed like the best way to do it was to stand still and wait for it to get get near.  I loved the dashing and dropping-downward attacks, but they were very hard to use against the enemies I ran into.  The regular attacks which did work pretty well felt very stiff and clumsy in comparison.  Maybe if he took a step forward while swinging the sword or did some kind of 3-hit combo (or both)? 

And I'm really not so sure about the mouse thing I suggested...

There seemed to be some collision glitches that stopped you from being able to guide them effectively.  Sometimes they would do a 180 when they hit the wall instead of reflecting off.

It might also be less confusing if there were some indication of which way they would go when you let go of space, so that you don't have to memorize which way they were all facing before you pressed it.

It's definitely a weird game.  I like weird!

Changed a bunch of things around after playtesting, which made it much easier.  I also spend a lot of time tweaking the difficulty, but I think it might still be too easy.

http://gamejam.org/files/BodaciousTrilobite/DudeCollect.html

And hey I forgot to answer this:

Are you planning to work on this after the contest?

I don't have any specific plans to, no.  I don't think it's turning out quite that good.  But I could see myself making a weird platformer by combining this thing's grabbing and climbing with some other weird movement methods.

Thanks for the increasing-weight idea!  I think it helped a lot!

As a not-really-that-important aside:
Accepting money to influence the design of your games seems un-indie.  It would cost you some Indie Cred IMHO.

Nonetheless, I really hope someone tries that!  I imagine something like:

The entire staff of Two Dudes in a Basement Dot Com (both of us) are trying to decide which of these AWXOME features makes it into AWXOME FIGHTERS.  Try the demo here <LINK>, then click the buttons below to donate $$$ to whichever feature you'd like to see added for the final game.  Whichever one raises the most money by <END DATE> will be added to AWXOME FIGHTERS.  (the others will have to wait for AWXOME FIGHTERS II)

That's quite neat!  Actually made me think of Zelda dungeons more than anything, but with an obviously very different and cool art style. 

I do think this would work better with the more usual arrows, z, and x keys.  Or perhaps wasd, space to jump, and then the mouse button attacking (mouse position could then determine the direction instead of wasd).  Biggest complaint is just that the fighting was uninteresting.  I really loved the exploring and finding secret passages!

I really wanted to see more when I reached the end of the demo.

Very cool!

How exactly is it "just giving money away", though?

Yeah... I mean, intellectually I see how it is the same effect on my bank account, but there is little if any reason to feel bad about not donating.  It's hard to think of it as stealing or even rude, so I'm left thinking "Why NOT keep my money?  I have uses for that stuff!"

I guess all that simplifies to: I'm selfish .

Well, I never have donated in the past.  I happily pre-order and buy indie games, but to me it's weird to just give money away.

So... way back when, Radiohead let people who bought one of their albums set the price themselves.  Does anybody know how that worked out?  Or whether it's been tried since?

I hadn't heard of Gravity Key!  Looking for it now, but I'm only finding Gravity Hook, which I hope is close enough.  I was actually more inspired by Donkey Kong: King of Swing and a couple of Flash games like this one.  I almost went with the click-to-grab initially, but decided that mouseover would probably have a better feel to it?  I think I will go back and give that a try.

Hmm... so from the first two posts I'm getting the impression that I'm setting up the wrong expectations for the player (or the gameplay is just stupid ).  Launching yourself and being careful with the mouse were sort of the things I was going for.

Innerscope:  I'm definitely going to try that out!

Thanks so much, you guys!

Heh. That Jeff Beaudoin guy has posted negative comments on both of my Gamasutra blog entries.

Oh hey!  I actually made a few games with that guy back in college!  Small world, I guess.

I'm not sure I have much to add to the discussion, but I think it is a mistake to think of FPS as such a narrow category.  Modern FPSs aren't very good Doom clones, but they aren't even trying to be Doom clones.  They are very different games that are a different sort of fun.  We might as well be comparing Star Fox to Duck Hunt.

I get the impression it needs to be seen in motion, but it looks very pretty!

I do find it a little hard to tell what the characters are supposed to be... is that a really weird hat on the main character?

Eagerly awaiting the beefy demo. 

EDIT:  I'm calling it finished now.  Thanks for the feedback, guys!


Link:  http://gamejam.org/files/BodaciousTrilobite/DudeCollect.html

Hello, I'm Mike.  I've been sort of in awe of this community for a while now.

Way back in Jr. High I got interested in making games.  Somehow that turned into buying a book on Visual Basic 4 and learning that, which didn't suck as bad as you might think.  My games just consisted of lines and circles done through GDI calls.

Then in High School and early college I messed around with DarkBASIC and got into the 2003 IGF Student Showcase with the most-poorly-named game ever: 

Going to the GDC was (sadly?) possibly the most amazing experience in my life.  Since then I made some little games, then got a job making games for The Man, but I haven't let that stop me completely.





And when I dream, I dream of Going Indie.

That is super motivating... but my Going-Indie-O-Meter is only at 64.92921179...%

I hope I can be half as awesome when it is finally full.

poster...so....awesome...

Couldn't figure out what was being referred to in the lower right corner, though.