Acer Aspire One 600
Windows XP (SP3)
Intel Atom CPU
1.6 GHz processor
7.9 MHz
1 GB RAM

Runs smoothly. Is there a hotkey for framerate display? Seems smooth, although on occasion I get a control issue where even lightly tapping leads me to move two squares in a direction, instead of just one.

The LttP is strong in this one.

Well, you could make the doorway exploration optional. So there's your main corridor that you go down and a static amount of enemies you encounter along the way... and then you can decide whether or not to open the other chambers and see what's inside or not.

Perhaps have a clue generated here or there for a key treasure or the exit from that sector either guarded by an enemy, or hidden behind a different door. There you go!

You have corridors you can go left and right through; and a set of doorways that you can tap to open. The doors can contain traps (reflex test traps, never outright damage), additional enemies, goodies and power-ups, or the escape route for that hallway; which you can then take whenever you want.

Seasons was designed for fans of LttP and the original more (hence why it's the funner one to play); where Ages was designed more around the Oracle-and-beyond, so it has a stronger focus on plot but far more simplistic and linear gameplay.

I loved Seasons, probably even more than Awakening; because it kinda did tap into that classic LoZ feel a bit more. I liked what they did with the Gacha Nuts/Trees and fertile soil stashes, they were like secrets you could rediscover with new surprises!

And animal buddies you could ride around on? EFFING WIN.

  Level 5.5...

EDIT: But apparently I've skipped a few steps and have some piece of "Level 8" in there, too.

Wow, has this come a long way since I saw it last!

b o.o Agreed.

In fact, it's that vision that one to three people can come together and make something fantastic that really sticks out, here. Then commercial success is like icing on the cake.

$80. If nothing else, for nostalgia buffs.

They aren't supposed to be a hommage to anything.

Your protagonist bearing a strong resemblance to "Cool Pac-Man" and your thieves looking like the ghosts from that game kinda suggest otherwise. Even if it's only subconsciously, the impression is there.

I'm slowly but surely tackling situations. It's certainly not a sit-down-and-beat-it-within-an-hour kind of game. I'd say you have the longevity down; and the way you categorize your caves is very brilliant. Tired of brickwalling one type of scenario? Just go tackle a totally different type instead.

That's not true. I know of someone doing a Z2 reinvisioning too, or something at least along those lines. And I'm liking the looks of this, too.

Depends on what you're trying to convey; wallowing in it, overcoming it, giving the player the choice somehow to do either one (although admittedly, that in itself is highly tricky - most non-acute depression I know of comes from a sensation of powerlessness and helplessness, inferring that they have no choice, or at least no correct one).

I can see why. It's surprisingly solid all around, simple but divine. If Castlevania should ever have a tutorial, it's your game right here. When I get to that part you're talking about, I might be able to suggest some add-ins; but sometimes when you run out of material, it's just time to make a graceful ending. Perhaps it doesn't even need any more fleshing out; just remove the empty parts, refinalize the last boss position, and call it a wrap. Well done.

OST is totally spot-on. Great work, Zoe. You might loop the OST tracks to about 2-3 mins for optimal listening pleasure, even if it's not the files that the game utilizes.

The game itself is delightfully perplexing, and I found myself even taking as many as 10-15 attempts at getting the elements right. It's not just about solving the scenarios, it's also about surgically-precise execution thereof.

The levels and mechanics are outright brilliantly balanced and designed; but I did notice a difficulty wall right when the tutorial part was over, and the main game began; like it went from 3/10 difficulty STRAIGHT to 7/10 difficulty, some section's initial levels even having almost zero margin of error. Perhaps more than one way to solve them, but really no room for player error in any of them. I spent one of my patience points on the "mixed" section's first level, and then proceeded to clear the next 6 levels without half the trouble that the first one gave me (NOTE: in terms of execution, not solving).

If "masocore action-puzzle game" is what you're going for, you've hit it spot on. A funner, more commercially approachable experience might wave more laxed level layouts in between these (like spreading tutorial-like levels throughout them); which creates kind of a risk/reward cycle, a break from the natural intensity. As it stand though? TrapThem is like the Dark Souls of high-tension action-puzzle games.

The graphics/stylization works when you "get" what you're going for with them (a nod to 80s arcade games); but I can see why some people would be thrown off by them.

Jenn Dolari, Marcus Fenix, and James Sorge got me into SFR way back when, which showed me that developing isn't some unreachable holy grail. The small teams that developed "Dance With Intensity" and "Stepmania." More recently, Derek, Paul Eres, Paul Hubans, JWK5, C.A. Sinclair, Terry Cavanaugh, Red, Ed McMillen/Team Meat, Chevy Ray, Matt Thorson, SoulEye, Josh Whelchel/HyperDuck Studios, Big Giant Circles, PixelJunk and High Frequency Bandwidth, J-Snake, Graham., FinalSin, phr00t, KOBAMI/PLAYISM/NIGORO, Harmonix (if you knew their humble roots). I could go on all day, really.

Sometimes I dream of what it would be like to physically live in TIGSource, for whatever that's supposed to mean.

Did you mean to link your DevLog thread... in your DevLog thread?

I'm sure it's so we can browse your DevLog while we're browsing your DevLog!

I fully agree on the PokeMon example... which doesn't really disagree with the VVVVVV or SNES platformer examples where you can win (beat all of the levels), or just "be" (replay whatever levels you feel like at the time, that you already have access to).

That fine balance between the being/compulsion loop and resource management and logical progression (gain abilities, implicit growth over implicit change and in something more noticable than numbers) is really what we're working on.

As a musical gaming enthusiast, I can fully appreciate an everlasting experience - like how Rock Band and DDR have an ongoing, infinitesque songs database to master and enjoy.

But I'm also aware of how games like that can be destructive/distractive to real-world time management if made overly compulsive  and inconclusive. It helps a lot to have a natural open/close to the compulsion cycle; an opportunity to continue, restart fresh (without feeling overly penalized), or quit. And personally, not having that "winning" point (and the ensuing sense of accomplishment) kind of hollows the experience for me a bit.

The state of "being" and resource management isn't something I need a video game to do.

Well, I suppose you could look at it that way, but most "goal being" games are just a sequence of "goal doing" sessions (IE: quests, missions, etc.), but without the overarching sense of winning, and a way of discouraging players from restarting, by allowing them to never have to.

There's definitely good potential in combining the two somehow; and I do agree, in any "goal being" game there needs to ultimately be consumability of just about everything in said game, to provide incentive to continue playing.

The important difference, at least to me, is that "goal doing" games has a completion cycle, rather than a compulsion loop. And with the right design, you can even take a "goal doing" game like later Mario titles or VVVVVV, and still allow the player to compusively "be" for as long as they desire, regardless of whether or not they choose to win.

I know I started tweaking with Street Fighter Remake around '94, '95; because people who could rip SNES graphics were the main source of spriters back then. It was all Super Street Fighter II, Fatal Fury 2, SNES Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon; stuff like that back then.

I just... thought I was one of 20 people on the internet working on stuff like that. Not one in twenty thousand!! TIGS has been a tremendous eye-opener to me.


Games that are influencial immediately make their creators influencial, for having created such influencial games. Easy as that.


Also, I second Monster King. FROM SOFTWARE is certainly putting a lot of balance and mechanics in plenty of our minds, here. Same could be said for every really good AAA producer, really. Without them and their masterpieces, would any of us have ever really cared about videogaming at all?

Well, a tangible endgoal is kind of relevant to playability; it determines whether a game has a natural beginning-end cycle (and a self-obvious cycle of restart), or is just perpetual.

I'd argue that games that can be won/lost have a greater playability, specifically because of the restarting involved in them, and the uncertainty of victory or failure or method thereof. The game itself has a method of time management - a win will take you some approximate amount of time, depending on your methodology (like SMB with or without certain Warp Zones).

If you have a PGC game that doesn't have win/loss conditions and a decent scale, it can eventually degenerate to a player-induced state of staleness; with very few minor exceptions (the method of which Malevolence generates it's "infinite world" or how Terraria allows creation of new maps where you can cross items over.

At the very least, in a game that has persistence; I would have some kind of in-game reset switch that doesn't "relock" unlockable content (like GTA Pay&Sprays), but otherwise resets the world to a point where you can replay whatever parts of it you want (past the boring tutorials, which I would also put a "skip" button for anyhow).

Jables would make a great background influence though. Especially with that catchy BGM going on in the game.