TIGSource Forums

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Description You are Pilot 176.  You have been sent to the dense jungles of Neo-Indochina, where the Enemy, in order to provide cover for themselves, has seeded many invasive, dangerous plants.   You must spray large amounts of herbicides on the plants in order to halt their growth and ultimately eradicate them. ORANGE is a bit like an arena-shooter, though instead of shooting at isolated enemies, you face an ever-growing mass of plants, which evolve and become more dangerous as the game progresses.		Inspired by (http://famicase.com/09/softs/56.jpg) (http://famicase.com/09/softs/56.jpg)

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Download
Mirror I (Box.net) (http://www.box.net/shared/gyr2kj518a)
Mirror II (Mediafire) (http://www.mediafire.com/?vdm73qx2zvpltxu)
Mirror III (YoYoGames) (http://www.yoyogames.com/games/136631-orange)


How to play
WASD:  Move
IJKL / Arrow Keys / Mouse:  Spray Herbicides (in given direction)
Space:  Pause
F12:  Display FPS

If you want to shoot with the mouse, move the mouse or left-click to make the mouse-cursor appear.  You can readily switch back and forth between control types (IJKL, Arrow Keys, and Mouse) in-game.


Screenshot:
(http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/5898/orangescreen1pngsmall.png)


Playthrough Video (Spoiler Alert!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai_sYzjOI8o


Updates:

Final Version (v1.0):

 - Adjusted the sound effect volume levels.
 - Made sure the game does not change resolution.
 - Added README, etc.
 - Made other minor adjustments.

Demo V:

 - Attempted once again to fix the main music bug.  It should be fixed now.

Demo IV:

 - Attempted to fix a bug with the music that was sometimes occurring on different computers.
 - Adjusted the balance of sound effects
 - Made other minor adjustments

Demo III:

 - Added storyline screens and a title screen.
 - Added sound effects and music.
 - Added the option for mouse control, as well as the arrow keys (instead of IJKL).
 - Made four lives before game over.
 - Made the dark green plants grow at a slightly faster rate.
 - Adjusted the red, thorn-shooting plants so that when you damage them, it takes a bit longer for them to be able to shoot again.

Demo II:

 - Added a small, white circle on the ship to show its collision radius.
 - Made the plants spawn more on all sides of the screen (so they don't just grow in a corner).
 - When you die, a 20 second penalty is now added to your time.
 - Made it so that no more than one of the red, thorn-shooting plants can appear at a time until the very end of the game (~95%).  At this point, no more than two can appear.

Vines have been added:
(http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/7875/earlyscreenshot2.png)

Looks pretty interesting, I really don't know how it will play, but I'll keep an eye on it.

Haha, creative direction to take such a non-descript case.

Those green blobs are the plants.  During the game, they grow rather quickly, and also send out things to attack you, like vines and things that shoot.  Shooting them with the orange herbicides slows their growth, and ultimately kills them.  The game is about managing clusters of plants, and focusing on which will likely hurt you the most.

To beat the game (which will consist of one continuous level), you have to get to 100% without dying.  I will likely program a high-score system, in order to keep track of the fastest time beating the game.

Thanks.  This case really stood out to me, due to its simplicity and ambiguity.

Ah, this is about Agent Orange. :) Will there be any sociopoliticeconomicecological issues raised via the narrative?

My inspiration for this game was taken from the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, and there will be a short narrative, which should at least cause the player to think about such issues.  The game should be a broad metaphor, satirizing all attempts at warfare similar to Vietnam (i.e. war waged in order to prevent the "spread" of something).  Ecological issues will be raised as well.  I have lots of themes planned.  :)

Here is another screenshot of my progress:
(http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/928/earlyscreenshot3.png)

I have uploaded an early demo of this.  Please see first post.

FPS was 60 most of the time - 1.5 GHz Pentium M with Intel 915GM graphics (ie. not a particularly powerful machine).

As for difficulty: sometimes it was super easy because things kept spawning from one corner of the screen throughout the whole game so I never got surrounded. When there was a lot of bullets to dodge I felt it would be helpful to have a circle drawn over the player, or something like that, to indicate the collision radius.

Those were all great ideas, chris_b, and I tried to implement them in Demo II (which is now up - please see first post).  Now, there is a small, white circle on top of the ship, which shows its collision radius.  Plants should also now spawn on all sides more often, so that they don't just stay in the corner.

- 60 fps.

- It does get eventually pretty intense. I think it was good, though I would've died much sooner with just three lives. I actually only lost my first when I was at about 90%, but then I lost a good bunch in just a few of seconds.

Okay, this sounds good.  I want it to get pretty intense at the end, but I also don't want the beginning and middle sections to be boring, either.  I will, however, make some slight changes to ease up the difficulty in the end a bit - namely, when you shoot the red "berries" that shoot thorns, it will take longer for them to be able to shoot again.

I like how the game's coming out so far, but my keyboard REALLY doesn't like all the simultaneous button pressing you're forcing me to do. :P I kept getting keys not responding just before that 'bleep' sound, and I heard that a lot more than usual (they should really start making keyboards that can handle heavy simultaneous pressing. I don't understand what would be so hard about it).

I suggest you add an option to use the mouse to aim and fire the weapon. You can still limit the firing to 8 cardinal directions, just have it fire to the direction closest to the mouse cursor. That would make sure people with non-super keyboards can play the game properly.

Actually, I'm fairly sure that just leaving the cursor keys available as an option to the IJKL keys would solve that for most people.

Adding mouse capability would be highly recommended.

As it is right now, the game isn't too much of a challenge. Beat it without taking a single hit.

However, this might be because I was playing it at 25 fps, which made it a hell of a lot easier to dodge things. But 25 fps isn't your fault; I'm just playing it on an old ass computer.

Sorry for the late replies; I was away for a week.  These are all excellent suggestions.  I will add the cursor keys as an alternative to JKLI, and I will most likely add mouse-controlled shooting.  I will see if constraining the mouse-shooting to eight directions makes it awkward; if it is, then I will make the mouse shooting be full-360.

@John Sandoval:  I think a lot of that might have been the low-fps.  In general, though, I don't want the game to be too hard - I want people to be able to finish it.

I have uploaded Demo III, which includes many additions, including the option for mouse-controlled shooting (though it is still constrained to the eight cardinal directions, as per Melly's suggestion), along with the option for using the arrow keys instead of IJKL.  Please see first post.

Playing the latest version, got this once the story screen faded out:


Game played fine, if silently, after that. Mouse aiming took some getting used to, since the constrained firing directions are not usual for mouse control (not saying they're bad, I suggested them myself. :P), But they're important to balance the control schemes and they didn't take too long before becoming second nature.

Otherwise the game's fun. Some sound effects would be nice, and perhaps you should let the player fire during the invincibility time after it respawns. Decrease the invincibility time slightly if necessary.

Then I go to the second story screen where I was conngratulated for destroying a whole natural habitat. Then when the screen faded out again I got this:



After which it let me go back to the title screen (I pressed "Ignore" on all of these).

I agree, the constrained mouse-aiming does take a little getting used to.  I think it is actually more fun to play with, though, than the full-360-degree shooting (in addition to it being more balanced).

Actually, there are sound effects.  :)  However, I kept them low and subdued, so that they would not overpower the music.  I may increase their volume a bit, however.  I will also most likely give the player the ability to shoot during the invincibility time.

About the errors, did you get any music at all?  All of the music worked fine for me.

I think I know what might be causing the problem, though I don't know why (since it works for me).

~ Theta

Perhaps there's an external file you didn't include? Are you using supersound.dll or another external library?

No, I don't think I got any music during gameplay.

I am using 'bass.dll' and 'bgm.dll' (Bass for GameMaker).  They were definitely included with the executable in the download '.zip' directory (Otherwise, there would be way more errors).

Okay, I was able to reproduce your exact problem on my old XP.  There was no problem in playing the storyline piece ("Hay Meadow"), but when the main piece ("This Isn't Chess") was supposed to play, it gave those errors.  Thus, I think the OGG file could have possibly been corrupted somehow (though why it worked on my main computer is beyond me).

Using the original WAV, I recompressed the piece into another OGG file, and created a new version of the game.  It worked fine on my XP, so hopefully it will work for you (and anyone else who might be having this problem).  Could you please give it a try?  The new version is Demo V (http://www.mediafire.com/?l7t4hgk8t6f0xyv).

Ah, yes, game works perfectly now. A pretty nice song you got there, gives the game a strange but pleasant atmosphere. Though I found the initial parts of the songs a little grating on my ears.

Nice, it's very smooth. I felt that the ending was rather anticlimactic, though. I expected... something. Unless there's different endings.

It was very smooth, I didn't check in-game though, but it was running perfect.

Beat the game with exactly one life on my first try. I was actually satisfied with the difficulty though.

Wasn't crazy about it but I did get used to it, it was no problem. Didn't affect my performance at all.

This is all good to hear!  I think I will be releasing a final version of this soon.

@Melly:
I'm glad everything is working.  The storyline piece is supposed to be a bit jarring; I was playing on a piano from the 1700's that barely worked.  As for the main piece, I must say I like the atmosphere that it gives as well.  I didn't want to go for the typical "SHMUP soundtrack."  Although, I could see how the sound wave sounds in the very beginning of the piece might be a little grating (sine waves are almost never pleasant-sounding).

@agj:
[spoiler]
I wanted the ending to be subtle.  I realize that Agent Orange caused way more damage than ecological destruction; it also caused innumerable birth defects, health problems, and deaths.  The photos of its effects are absolutely horrific, and I briefly considered making the ending more jarring (i.e. alluding to Agent Orange's effects on humans in some way).  However, in my opinion, this would be tasteless (also, this game is not specifically about Agent Orange in Vietnam, but about something broader - it is about the ideas and methods behind war in Vietnam, Iraq, etc).  I hope seeing the utter ecological destruction at the end is enough to make some sort of impact.  There is meant to be a paradox at the end, with the superposition of the General's congratulations with the desolate background image.  The player is meant to question - did he/she really win?
[/spoiler]

@allen:
Good to hear everything ran smoothly.  I personally prefer full keyboard-control, but for those who prefer mouse-controlled shooting, I'm glad it is pretty easy to get used to.

Great game. I love the simple yet addictive concept. I've managed to get a 50% completion rate. I also love the menu. Something about scrolling over that jungle feels perfect. Nice game looking forward to seeing it finished.

It's finished!  Please see first post.

Glad you liked it!  Originally, I had just a stationary image of the jungle, but I agree, the "scrolling" really adds something.

Forgot to mention earlier that the music is great.



I get that, but rather than subtle it felt a bit weak. The contrast wasn't strong enough; the result was too obvious to create much of an effect at the end. That is how I felt.

@agj:
Glad you liked the music!  It was fun to record.  :)

Also, I can see what you mean about the ending.  This is the approach that I wanted to take, though - hopefully it will leave some impression on people.

There was an error when I started the game. It said there was a missing external function and the music refused to play. A similar error occurred whenever I changed rooms.

I was still able to play it, though, and I enjoyed the experience. At times it got really desperate, like there was no way to push back the tide of plants quickly enough. Which turned out to be really fun.

I agree that the ending was a little obvious, at least to anyone who recognizes the Orange reference. Still, it's hard to think of any other way to end it.

Agent Orange, from the Vietnam War, is the reference, I think. Thank you AP world history.

Thanks a lot!  This music error baffles me, since it has worked for me and other people.  I would suggest re-extracting, and trying to run the game again.  Other people have occasionally had this problem running my games that use 'bgm.dll,' and it usually eventually runs properly.

This is indeed the reference.

Maybe this sounds a little strange but I got a real feeling of loneliness from this game.
Didn't realize there was an ending - perhaps I'll try to get it.

Motherfucker, 93%.

Edit: 99%. Do I just operate terribly under pressure or what?

Fake edit: I notice this 99% phase seems to last an awfully long time. Theta are you trolling us?!

Real edit: Finally beat it! I suck.

The way the game is designed, you cannot clear all of the plants unless it is at 99% (once you completely clear the screen, it goes to 100%).  At 99%, the plants will still spawn other plants in the vicinity, but will not produce more plants randomly on the other sides.  It can still take awhile to clear them completely, though.  I personally like this sort of frantic "you have to clear it all" feeling at the end, even if it makes the percentage somewhat inaccurate (I did make it blink at 99%, to indicate to the player that it is somehow different at this point).

I thought it was pretty clear what you had to do. Though that last 1% is incredibly tough to remove. I think it works pretty well.

Oh no, I got the idea too and I don't have a problem with it. I was just amused by my incompetence.


As a side note, I loved Ceramic Shooter.

I'm glad the last 1% didn't confuse people.  It sometimes takes me a bit to clear it, though - you have to go for the dark-green "blobby" plants - those are the only plants that can spawn other plants.

[spoiler]I can see where this is coming from - there are very few human elements in the game.  You converse only with the General, who appears extremely detached as he orders you to devastate an ecosystem (and likely do worse, as Agent Orange did).  The Enemy (which is mentioned in the beginning) isn't even visible in the game (they are supposed to be hiding deep in the jungle, using the plants as cover).[/spoiler]

Thanks!

The atmosphere on this game is very good. It makes it stand out in the crowded sea of arena shooters.

Seconded, the music is great! I also like how the sound effects are very subtle so it's a pretty quiet, organic and relaxing game.

I'm not a big arena shooter fan (didn't like geometry wars, for example) but I really enjoyed this (as it isn't noisy and full of explosions and flashy lights). A bit short and easy though, but very nice! congrats!  :)

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of that type of arena shooter either, which is why I wanted to make something different.

About the game's length - I wanted to keep it relatively short so that more people could get the game's message.

Thanks for your comments!

I have uploaded a playthrough video (spoilers!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai_sYzjOI8o

Great work. Nicely done

Thanks a lot!

Yay, it got mentioned here (http://www.diygamer.com/2010/07/theta-games-paints-world-orange/)!  :)

I really liked this. ;D

Gameplay felt oppressive but not overly difficult as plants were crowding the ship from all sides, and the sheer unnatural willpower it takes to destroy an ecosystem is loud and clear as the plants desperately cling to life during the final 1%.

Thank you!  I'm glad you got this message from this.