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[Plasticware]

Global Game Jam was the best possible usage of my weekend, I think.


Scroll down near the bottom to find a link to our game.

The theme was extinction, so our game revolved around keeping the population of blue dudes from going extinct. Because they constantly split, as long as any one guy survives, the species can go on! Oh, and the game takes place during and after huge extinction events, I guess. That's a thing.

And here is a link to a slightly updated version. Mostly, we added checkpoints and fixed a few collision boxes.

Let us know what you think.

[increpare]

got stuck to something here and couldn't progress



I thought the game was really great.  Camera-focus seemed to be the main problem.  When moving left, say, it might be best to give prominent to the leftmost guy?  I'm not that sure, really.  Would have to try it out.

[Plasticware]

That enemy is a fan, so he sucks you in a little. I probably should have made some kind of sprite indicating wind movement to show that he's pulling you in.

Additionally, the camera was something that gave us a little trouble as we were making the game, but you can also use wasd to nudge the camera somewhat.

Also, that level was the last level, so I guess that's somewhat unfortunate.

[eddietree]

Really cool mechanics. The splitting animation and "multi-platformer" gameplay is really neat. I like it!

[increpare]

That enemy is a fan, so he sucks you in a little. I probably should have made some kind of sprite indicating wind movement to show that he's pulling you in.

the fan doesn't look like a fan - I can't remember if it was animated or not, and I wasn't able to get out.  How do I escape? (also, when stuck there for long enough I started having blue guys spawn in the walls, but I guess that's a special circumstance).

[Plasticware]

The fan should be animated, but yeah, a better indicator of his function is definitely needed. In a worst-case scenario, it is possible to escape by just holding down the left arrow key - eventually, enough guys might get out of the fan's pull and split enough to shift the camera's focus. I've been able to escape before.

Out of curiosity, how many people were able to reach the ending?

[William Broom]

I got to the ending, it was pretty cool.

I also had quite a bit of trouble with the camera. It's very frustrating to get your hydramen across a difficult jumping section only to find that they are not the 'focus group' and thus cannot proceed. The point in the last level where you have to use fan enemies to boost you across gaps was the worst for this. Strangely, you could actually make that section easier by putting spikes at the bottom of the pit!

I wouldn't really say I'm complaining about the difficulty though, it was still a pretty easy game. Overall I really liked it, had a very charming atmosphere. Have you played Heart of Darkness, by any chance? The graphical style seemed to remind me of that game...

[lasttea999]

Adorable! I like the pixel art. Are those orange things salamanders...??

[increpare]

The fan should be animated, but yeah, a better indicator of his function is definitely needed. In a worst-case scenario, it is possible to escape by just holding down the left arrow key - eventually, enough guys might get out of the fan's pull and split enough to shift the camera's focus. I've been able to escape before.

I tried that for some time and it didn't work.

Oh, it got really choppy around the sections with meteors for me (around 2 fps).

[Jonathan Whiting]

Enjoyed, but had the same camera and performance issues that increpare did.

What would really help the game is some sort of sytem to detect which of your aquamen are "doing best" (as in, are furthest along the path to the exit), and nudge the camera focus towards them.  There's a handful of ways this could be done (it's kinda like doing racing game position on course detection), but I will admit that none of them are *entirely* trivial.

[wilbefast]

Very interesting idea I like it. The implementation might not be perfect but it's a lot more novel than our entry (we just did a obstacle-course platform) And the theme of extinction, in all it's inescability, is very well conveyed (or maybe I just suck - only made it to the second level).

Good job!