next »

[Theta]

The Great Firewall


Overview

You play as Shii-Huan (喜欢 - Pinyin:  Xi-Huan, which means "to like"), who has set out in search of the Dragon that lives at the top of the Great Firewall.  Armed with a Golden Shield that reflects projectiles, he must face obstacles, challenges, and enemies as he climbs the side of the Firewall.

This game features some tough platforming, but there are plenty of checkpoints.


Controls

Arrow Keys, WASD, or IJKL:  Move
<UP>, <W>, <I>, or <Z>:  Jump
<SPACE> or <X>:  Use Golden Shield


Download (6.74 MB, '.zip')

Download from MediaFire
YoYoGames


Screenshots

[Theta]

Happy Chinese New Year!  Has anyone tried this?

[ortoslon]

me, the day you posted it first

[PleasingFungus]

me, the day you posted it first

solid feedback

[ortoslon]

usually i don't give feedback on games that i dislike

i played through it. because i can't read chinese, the level seemed bland to me. i "got" the ending but didn't find it interesting

[Noyb]

I get a GML error upon starting the game:

Code:

___________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of Create Event
for object shiihuan:

Error defining an external function.

Ignoring the error just makes it pop up again, leaving me no choice but to close the program.

I'm running Vista, if it makes a difference. I also extracted it before playing, as you recommended.

[Ichigo Jam]

I get a GML error upon starting the game:

Same error here, running Win7.

[Theta]

@ortoslon:  This is fair - thanks for playing, anyway.

@Noyb and Ichigo Jam:  I have heard of people getting this error for some of my other games that use the BASS and BGM DLLs, and it mystifies me.  It doesn't always happen, though - in fact, I have only seen it happen once on my computer.  I restarted, and it worked fine.

I wish I could figure out what is causing this.  I suspect it has to do with the DLLs themselves.  I did receive one post on YoYoGames for an older game which used these DLLs, saying to

"Disable Data execution prevention for this game. Im using windows 7"

(here is the link to this post)

I don't know what this is, nor do I know how to disable it.  Thus, I don't even know if this post is credible.  Maybe it helps, though.

[Noyb]

I was able to play the game by running the exe in administrator mode. I probably would not have done that had I not played and enjoyed some of your earlier games. I guess either Game Maker or the DLL programmers used some very suspect coding practices?

I liked the contrast between the mythic storytelling and the gaming theme, where the act of bypassing the firewall to play a game is a game in itself, informed by gaming canon. Like Ortoslon, the gameplay and level design didn't really grab me, and it felt like I was missing out on an important layer of symbolism and humor by not knowing how to read Chinese.

[Theta]

I was able to play the game by running the exe in administrator mode. I probably would not have done that had I not played and enjoyed some of your earlier games. I guess either Game Maker or the DLL programmers used some very suspect coding practices?

I'm guessing it's probably Windows freaking out about the DLL, then.  I don't think there is anything to suspect - these DLLs are fairly commonly used in GM games.

I liked the contrast between the mythic storytelling and the gaming theme, where the act of bypassing the firewall to play a game is a game in itself, informed by gaming canon. Like Ortoslon, the gameplay and level design didn't really grab me, and it felt like I was missing out on an important layer of symbolism and humor by not knowing how to read Chinese.

I don't think an explanation of the characters would detract from the game at all:

喜欢 (Shii-Huan, the main character):  Means "to like"
喜歡:  Same as the above, but written in traditional characters
人 (ren):  Means "person"
人人 (renren):  Means "everybody" -  also, the brand name of the Chinese version of Facebook.
老师 (laoshy, the characters that explain you stuff in the game):  Means "(older) teacher"
不 (bu, an enemy):  A negation word
狗 (goou, another enemy):  Means "dog"
並不 (binq bu, another enemy - written in traditional characters):  A stronger negation word

Spoilers:
毛泽东:  Mao Zedong
龍 (long, written in traditional characters):  Means "dragon"

And yes, from what I understand, getting through the Great Firewall is pretty much like a game - using VPNs and stuff.

[Ichigo Jam]

OK, it ran fine for me after I reset my computer.

The level design is mostly OK, if a little bland. Which would be fine if the combat was interesting, but you generally just stand still, reflect one bullet and you're done. (Or alternatively the simple combat wouldn't be a problem if the platforming was more interesting.)

I didn't like the full-screen flashing when you die.

It seemed a bit odd that some elements (e.g. the black square, the red thing and the sprite people) didn't use Chinese characters.

I got as far as the point where you have to play pong, and gave up (I just don't enjoy pong)

[Theta]

These are all fair criticisms - about the fact that not all game elements use Chinese characters:  I didn't want to make it a sort of "gimmick," where everything in the game was represented with a character.