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[cactus]

Welcome to Mondo Agency!

You are AGENT-65386. Your superiors believe that someone is plotting to kill the president, but they have no idea who or why. And for some reason, the president seems vital to the world's very existance. It's your task to find out who it is that seeks to destroy everyone so that you can save the world from it's pending doom. A task which involves climbing mountains and killing laser indians.

This is the sequel to another game called Mondo Medicals. They are only vaguely related though, and this one is more of a very weird adventure game with some puzzle and FPS elements, though. Mainly inspired by David Lynch and other interesting entertainers.

Controls
WASD + Mouse
+ and - to adjust mouse sensitivity

Mirror Download:
http://64digits.com/users/cactus/MondoAgencyFixed.zip (7.5 megs)

Gameplay Videos:

Submission 1 & 2





Submission 3 & 4





Submission 5 & 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XrOWp2CAPc

Submission 7 &8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwYDNsZQDzY

Final Submission and End

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deIv4R1vdbg

For those who played Mondo Medicals: This game is a lot easier and very different from it's younger sibling. Takes a while to beat, though, but mostly because of cutscenes.

Game by cactus
Graphics by Cow and cactus
Music by Aaron Kurtz

NOTE: The mountain level is skippable, just walk to the most distant pillar and read the message. Only do this if you find the level unbeatable, though

[Zaphos]

(note: I played this a while back; only played the new version up through level 4 so I hope it's not wildly changed beyond that.)

Overall, I'd say I like the overall atmosphere of the game, but gameplay of it doesn't have the same 'mess with your expectations' feel of Medicals.  I enjoy the levels which are gameplay-light and feel like an extended part of the cinematic experience (3, 4-ish, 6, 7 <- this one's great!, Final).  But for the levels which do take a bit of time to get through (1, 2, 4-ish, 5) the gameplay doesn't really do anything to match the crazy feel of the game.  It's just what I've seen in other games without much of a twist.  If they went by quicker, I'd notice less, but either way it feels like that gameplay's in the way of the aesthetic instead of helping it.
The exception to this would be level 8, which does have some gameplay 'meat' to it and does mess with the player in a good way.  I really like that level

Notes:
 * I got stuck between four towers in level 1, seems like a bug.
 * I know you've gotten a lot of feedback on this already, but I'll say as well that jumping puzzles with limited time to jump are just difficult for me, I get disoriented swinging the camera around and end up missing stuff.  The light-up towers of this new version help a bit, as would increasing the contrast between ground and lit-tower-top, but it's still first person jumping so pretty much no matter what you do people will be bad at it.
 * When I first played level 1, I think I actually made it to the top once but didn't realize that I had lit up the exit (or even that that was what I was trying to accomplish, since this is the first level where the goal is to do stuff until the exit lights up).  I wasn't entirely sure I had even made it to the top, since it falls quickly and I feel quite disoriented around that point.  So I didn't end up looking at the thing and just went back to try jumping again ...
 * The player floats up rather slowly, so level 5 gets boring.  It's also very disorienting after turning on the switch at the top, since there's no illumination showing you what you're walking on or where its edge is.
 * Is there a purpose to being able to raise or lower the gun?  Did you just not want it on screen at all times?
 * The game kind of starts off showing it's weakest material (for my tastes, anyway), and then gets really good by level 7 or so.  So it's rewarding to play through, but it doesn't pull the player in to the experience right from the start as well as it might.
 * Nice ending music

[cactus]

Thanks for the feedback. My intention was to not make this game have the same "mess with the player" attitude, since that seemed to be too much for most of the people who played the game (a lot of people quit playing the game before finishing the first level). This game is basically all about the atmosphere, and to some extent the story and settings. The level design was just supposed to be unpredictable and a bit weird.

Submission 5 with the floating is supposed to be slow and dissorienting when you have to go back to the bottom. It's meant to give an uncomfortable feeling of emptiness and vastness. Maybe it doesn't do that for everyone.

I didn't think Submission 1 would be that hard for people, but the fact that you can cheat your way past it should make it ok, right?

Raising and lowering the gun is pretty much there since the gun would be annoying if it was visible all the time, yeah. It was also to simulate that you actually had to hold it up when you were aiming.

About the slow start, I guess you're right. It was hard to do a good build-up, but I'm still happy with each and every level in the game. I'm glad you liked the ending though. I'll try to take your remarks into consideration if I decide to make a third installation.

[___]

This game has left me in some sort of bizarre totally fucked up state.


Awesome.

[Inane]

Can't... beat... level with natives... without mouse .
Fuckkkk I hate laptop mice.
Good so far, though, Cactus! The dialogue lives up to Mondo Medicals (Meaning it's super awesome).

[cactus]

Can't... beat... level with natives... without mouse .
Fuckkkk I hate laptop mice.
Good so far, though, Cactus! The dialogue lives up to Mondo Medicals (Meaning it's super awesome).

You can cheat on those levels too. Just jump ontop of a pillar. Kinda ruins the experience though 

[Zaphos]

Thanks for the feedback. My intention was to not make this game have the same "mess with the player" attitude, since that seemed to be too much for most of the people who played the game (a lot of people quit playing the game before finishing the first level). This game is basically all about the atmosphere, and to some extent the story and settings. The level design was just supposed to be unpredictable and a bit weird.

Ah, haha, can't please everyone, right
I do think it is possible to have gameplay which doesn't have quite the same "mess with the player" attitude as Medicals, but which still does mess with the player a bit and thus fits better with the atmosphere; level 8 is actually a good example of this, because it doesn't work as expected and it does 'trick' the player to probably jumping to their death, but at the same time the way it's working is directly observable and clear so it shouldn't be frustrating in the same way as I guess Medicals was for some.

Submission 5 with the floating is supposed to be slow and dissorienting when you have to go back to the bottom. It's meant to give an uncomfortable feeling of emptiness and vastness. Maybe it doesn't do that for everyone.

It does give an uncomfortable feeling of emptiness and vastness on the top!  I guess the only issue I had with it was that it was mixed with a worry/annoyance ... because I was worried I'd walk off the wrong way and have to replay the level, and it would just be boring a second time through.  But overall the experience on the top was well done, I think.

I do think you could get a similar feeling of emptiness and vastness without such a slow ride up.  Also it would help a lot if the mechanic were more dissimilar from what's been done in other games; it seems like the game design equivalent of a cliche, where I don't get the intended experience because it just makes me think about the games where I've seen it before.  I end up just comparing the level to memories of Rayman's 3D games, etc.

I didn't think Submission 1 would be that hard for people, but the fact that you can cheat your way past it should make it ok, right?

Yeah ... it's kind of a heavy-handed solution, but it works.

[Guert]

Alright, I tried the game out...

My main complaint is that the player is left with no sense of direction within the game world. Basicaly, I found myslef lost numerous times because I didn't know where I was since everything is always the same. The game is moody and has an interesting ambiance but I didn't care one bit because I didn't have any key elements telling me where I've been before. All the walls are of the same colors and I didn't know if I was moving forward or not many times. I also got stuck in walls without ever knowing it and realizing it after 30-45 seconds.

I stopped playing after the mountain rambling cinematics. Why? Because I couldn't see where I was landing or didn't have any key elemnts to prepare myself to jump to the next plateform. The fact that there are some semi-transparent columns/blocks made it worst.

I think the game should try to refocus on what it wants us to feel. Right now, it's like you want to make us feel weird and unstable with the atosphere but instead you leave us frustrated because of the poor mechanims clarity. I think you should focus on the motivational factor behind the player's actions rather than the precision of his actions. In other words, make jumping and exploring easy and focus on the motivational factors that pushes the player to jump and explore.

Well, that's my thoughts for now. Later!

[cactus]

Sorry for the lame cliché, but I think this is a matter of you not getting the game. Not so much as that you're simply not even able to play it past the first real level, but rather that you might not appreciate what I was trying to make with this project. Questioning the very core of the game is unfortunately not something I can work with. The game's constructed to be confusing, disorienting and the player is not supposed to be given any obvious hints to what you're supposed to do in each level. Finding that out and being able to get past the wall you're put in front of is what's supposed to make the game enjoyable (for a selected few, I guess). I appreciate your effort, though. Maybe one of my next games will hit the spot better for you 

PS. The particular level you quit at can be beaten without jumping, although the jumps are more of a challenge if you're able to do that.

[Guert]

Well, I understand where you stand with this game. I think it's a good concept but I simply think that here the game focuses alot more on the player wondering on "How the hell am I suppose to do what I want to do" then "I know how to do what I want to do, I just don't know what it means or what is my next goal"

Later!