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[shushgame]

HUBRIS

3.7 Mb, made in Game Maker for Windows, 10.5 Mb in GM4mac


This is finished as a game (I made it in a week for a YoYo Games competition, hence the 480x272 screen size), but I am much more interested in feedback on the central idea behind it, and particularly asking the community if this has already been done to death by others.

Basically, if you aren’t moving there is no level – it only comes into focus as you move. It is a sort of effect like parallax, and something close to the technique of Lost in Static, and if it is unoriginal I'd love to know. I also guess this might cause a few headaches, as LiS did, so this is definitely not a candidate for commercial success. I think it is an interesting effect, though, and hope it is of interest to others.

There is a backstory, such as it is:

Banished to Limbo by the gods for the crime of hubris, our platforming hero must negotiate 30+ levels that twist the mind and senses in his quest to discover how to return to a world of sense and order.



Features

30+ Levels

Skip any level you want to while still saving progress (press X when dead)

The Usual

Patrolling Bad Guys
Falling Blocks
Spikes
Mushrooms


The Unusual: Devices to twist your mind

Angled Levels
Swinging Levels
Flak
Lava bombs
Rubber Stamps
Footprints
Coins that fade in or out depending on your movement
Cupcakes
Tightropes
White-out blocks
Micro-vision
Multi-vision
Swinging-micro-multi-vision


Oh, and the levels are invisible unless you move.


When you do move you produce a crisp visual experience something like a 3D magic picture (although resolutely 2D) this simply cannot be conveyed in screenshots. Nevertheless:







Windows links
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/hubris/3363/
http://www.yoyogames.com/games/142356-hubris
http://www.64digits.com/games/index.php?cmd=view_game&id=5380&download=1
Mac link
http://www.box.net/shared/j24b7m9bz8


I really would appreciate some feedback. I couldn’t find another game that played with this central idea. I am hoping someone might point me to other examples. All comments (including if any of you simply can’t see what is going on here) appreciated.

[increpare]

o wo ow ow my eyes

I like the idea, but if these games were presented in linear order I would have precisely no desire to complete them all after trying the first few.

I don't think the idea has been done before.

[FARTRON]

Eyestrain has been done before,

for example, but never like this that I know of.

[shushgame]

Sorry about the eye-hurt increpare. I tried to mix things up with changes every two levels or so to try and ensure that it didn't bore quite so quickly. Maybe it would work better in very small doses inside something else.

fartron -- wow, Hoi is a find. Thank you. I don't feel quite so aggressive in defocusing player eyes after that.

I guess I thought some of the levels (the fading blocks, particularly in the level with coins that fade to white) were actually quite restful. But I spent some very long days and nights staring at this thing.

Thanks both for the feedback.

[Sean A.]

Cool idea but I did see it on this site a while ago, wondering if that's what you got your inspiration from? http://www.squidi.net/three/entry.php?id=56

[sereneworx]

o wo ow ow my eyes

I like the idea, but if these games were presented in linear order I would have precisely no desire to complete them all after trying the first few.

Basically this. While the whole thing is pretty novel the first few times, it doesn't do much to grab me.

[ortoslon]

playthrough

[shushgame]

sereneworx -- I can understand not being grabbed.

Sean A. -- not really, but (as I cited at the top) I had played Lost in Static which owes a pretty big and acknowledged debt to squidi's idea. Who knows about lines of influence, but I know I have wanted to try and make a flea circus game for years, and happened across the core effect I used when playing around with something in my office one day. I guess the reason there seems to be nothing closer to it that I have found so far would be that it does (like Lost in Static) hurt the eyeballs a little.

Btw: http://silverspaceship.com/static/

And Ortoslon -- wow. thank you. You certainly played it better than I did.