It's hard to define this game. It's a sort of side view platformer with RPG elements, as well as a nice 360 degree shooting engine which makes it REALLY hard to make enemies challenging. It was made by me in the space of 2 action packed weeks, for the Game Builder GAME MAKING Competition. Buy different melee and ranged weapons, including pistols, shotguns and flamethrowers. Hold two pistols at once and blast the enemies to Oblivion!
Play as a confused person who wakes up to find everybody horribly killed after you and your friends got hungry and decided to eat strange mushrooms. Which of your friends has carved a trail of destruction through the game? Who will stop him? Are YOU a zombie too?!?! be sure to play the game to find out, because you can't be too careful, what with all of these strange diseases around nowadays.
The Readme has all of the useful information you need to play the game, please give it a chance- don't bin it Smiling
The entire game was made by me, several people playtested it but they're mentioned in the Readme, the credits... and here. Be sure to listen to the music, all of which was made by me. My first 10 songs ever, crammed into one game. God help us all.
I have made a handy little FAQ thing for anybody stuck in this game or bored stiff and just needs something to read. Most of the top questions / statements are real.
* I can't move!!!!!
- Press Enter, it does say at the top right of the screen
* How do I move?!?!?!
- WASD. Spacebar to jump, F to activate the whispy things. R to reload, T and Y to open and close the STATS menus. Press the buttons 1, 2, 3 and 4 to change weapons, the mouse does everything else.
* I can't remember my objectives???!!!!
- Press ENTER to open / close the most recent objective
* I drown!!!!!
- Press Spacebar to float
* The game slows down!!!
- You can change the detail options on the very first screen
* I don't have a mouse!
- Get one
* The storyline is cliched
- I don't do cliched storylines. They always have some kind of sick, unexpected twist. Play on to find out what it is!
* The graphics is rubbish
- Higher detail levels activate swish grass, mountains and trees.
* The water... it MOVES!
- Yeah
* My melee weapon doesn't do any damage!!!
- Swing your mouse around faster, like you're at a Solitaire Wii party
* How do I get a gun?
- Save up at least 150 gold, then go to the whispy thing, press F and buy the gun you want
* I can't buy a crowbar!!!
- You have to sell your old melee weapon first
* I can't switch guns!!!
- Uh, well actually this is my fault. I added in a super complex system where you can fire two guns at once, but I couldn't iron out all the bugs. Press 1 to holster, then choose the gun you want and it'll work
* I can't FIRE!!!
- You need to reload first by pressing R. Make sure you've bought some ammo, available if you scroll to the left in the buy menu for the weapons
* Do I have to buy ammo for both guns?!?!?!
- You can buy three types of ammo, all available in both gun menus for your own convenience; Pistol ammo (For pistols), Heavy Ammo (For other types of bullets) and Special Ammo, for shotguns and flamethrowers.
* I can't be bothered to save up for a big weapon
- Unlucky. Fortunately for you, you MIGHT get a special unlock mode once you've completed the game...
* The turrets all disappear
- Another mistake with this game, I didn't have time to find a work around. Trust me- they're so annoying you'll be glad it happens.
* Did you playtest at all?!??!
- Yeah, for over a week I playtested the main code then I only had 4 days left to make the ENTIRE game. It was very, very busy and I'm very pleased I had some great playtesters.
* Who were they?
- Look below...
PLAYTESTERS
Firestorm
Matthew Swithinbank
Mr 13A
Richard Hale
RustyK
Tom Randall
Thanks for reading!
For those of you with older computers, download the 256 colour, graphics disabled version HERE! (Wow doesn't it sound great?!)
Enjoying this so far! I like the way you have to physically swing the mouse to swing the plank.
I set the graphics level to minimum on my first play and it's still slightly too slow for my computer (that's a criticism of my computer, not your game.) Even so, I want to check out the improved graphics. Is there a way to select a different graphic option once I've started the game?
I must be doing something wrong. I leveled up by killing the bat, then it told me to go to the whispy thing and upgrade my stats. But even when I'm standing on the whipy thing, clicking the arrows doesn't do anything. I can't spend my 4 ATT points.
Codemonkey- Yes, the water is indeed made up out of loads of thin slits, all of which follow a sin motion*amount of ripple needed (When you collide with the water you shoot out ripple generators to either side)
Nim - Would it help if I compiled it with HWA on? Although you can't change it in game, there are plenty of save points and if you press f2 to restart, you can choose a different graphics setting then load up back to where you were before
Shroomlock - Good question, you have to press F once standing in the whispy thing (so the buy menu comes up). Once there you can then upgrade your stats.
I lowered the detail and it still lags, and because of this the game is impossible for me.>_>
The reason why it is impossible for me is because whilst i try to get to places that require you to go through water the game lags, i slow down but the drowning bar doesn't and everything just screws up which is now becomin increasingly frustrating.
And no its not my laptop because i am using a Gaming Laptop.
Neither I or any of my playtesters had any trouble. Your computer is probably quite slow. Here's a 256 colour version for you, with all the graphics disabled. This should help.
Umm... what exactly am I missing here? Not that there's anything wrong with Jeff Pwns, but it consists of one weapon, 32 direction shooting, 1 song and 1 level. My game has 15 weapons, 360 direction shooting, various different enemies, a storyline, different environments, 10 levels and people just ignore it. It it because I'm not as well known as other people on this site? Is it because people can't be bothered to play through my game? I just don't get it... please tell me what I'm doing wrong because I devote months of my life making games which are then ignored in favour of a 5 minute click fest.
I don't know how most people vote on this website. Do most people not bother completing games, but instead just play them for 3-4 minutes, think 'yeah this looks good' and rate it? Do people not bother getting into more complex games? If so then I could easily make some mindless blasters for people to play. Comment edited by 3kliksphilip on 11/10/2008
its obviously cos people only pay attention to games made by people they already know (or think) make good games so no matter what that person does, people like it. If you're a new person and make a similar game they'll actually criticise it.. Like for example James Lukes games which are at least as good, if not better, than Jeff Pwns (which isnt hard) but here we see Jeff Pwns getting GOTW and James's games getting 1 star ratings.
Even if you make a really good game like this, it doesn't matter, Jeff Pwns is STILL better... somehow
I was really looking forward playing this one. It looks like a nice little game. I like the idea of getting money and exp to run around faster and getting better weapons. And it has some really nice graphic effects. But there are some things that really bother me.
Forcing the player to play certain areas over and over just to get money - to get a gun... I didn't like that. Why do I have to press Z, F and T just to view some stats? Make it one button. Swinging the bat gets tedious after a while and the giant bats are impossible to kill with the gun.
Overall not bad, but too many annoying flaws made me delete it
Next time you should estimate how much time you need to make a decent game. I'm sick of hearing excuses like 'I just had one week'. Bullshit. Don't try to rush huge, complex games like that. Always remember: size doesn't matter. Comment edited by Blue66 on 11/14/2008
If you hadn't noticed most RPGs force players to play the same area over and over again. I only used the 2 week deadline as an excuse for the game to be as short as it was. Playtesters complained when one button opened up all of the menus, because they quite liked having only one open when they're levelling up (as opposed to neither or both).
you don't exactly have to grind on the same area for AGES AND AGES to progress, i think for a game made in 2 weeks the pace is actually quite good. Plus there is a variety of play, like the rising lava and then turrets (which are actually quite annoying).. and as for melee... you just need to get the right technique, don't vibrate your hand violently, just one nice big swing in the bats face and you'll do much better.
Seems that people on this site don't want innovation, they want standard platformers they can learn in about 5 seconds and discard after 30. Don't you find it strange how the best games are those which are simplest? Now, I'm sure there are some very good, simple ideas, but the ones which are encouraged are ones with out any sort of redeeming or interesting features. 'Oh this game's good because it doesn't have a JUMP button!' 'I like the way you can't jump off walls!' 'I like enemies who bounce about!' etc.
You'll find the click community will shrink as others move to places where innovation is rewarded. All you'll be left with are loads of standard platformers on this site. Can you imagine that?!
Well, okay maybe that's being harsh. But I think that people rely on others reputation too much. Oh somebody famous has released a game?! It must be good! Oh this game has been made over several months and has been hyped up for ages! It MUST be good! *downloads* hmm I don't like it but I can see a lot of work has gone into it so 5 stars!
As opposed to simply releasing a game with out any advertising. People seem to think that my game is a simplistic shoot the zombies to gain points- I'd rather they thought of it as an RPG which takes a bit of time to get into and pays off dividends if people stick to it. Sigh, who am I kidding... people want 5 seconds wonders. Comment edited by 3kliksphilip on 11/14/2008
I have a thought about something. I've noticed that the second area of the game slows down to a crawl for me for no apparent reason, and it seems that other people are having some lag issues as well. I think I see something that might be causing some of the trouble-
The particle emitters, like the ones over the save portals, emits semi-transparent particles that die over time, BUT if that area lags (even just a little bit) those particles accumulate over time and it causes a snowball effect. Eventually, my whole screen it full of save-portal particles and the game is unplayable.
If you limit the number of on-screen particles, then the particles won't accumulate on slower computers.
Strange, I make sure they're not deactivated at all and destroy themselves when you're far enough away. They only spawn the particles when you're nearby them.
Well ok, if they auto-destroy when you leave the area then that must not be it. I just noticed that they start to accumulate faster than they can be destroyed if the level has any kind of slowdown.
I have a decent machine 2GHz, 1 gig ram. It plays just fine on maximum settings in the first area, but something in the second area causes it to start lagging pretty bad (the second cave area, when the music changes). The particles accumulating was just a guess as to why.
I have a faster machine that I can try it on. I'll try this evening and let you know if it still has that problem.
Well then I'll test it on my other computer tonight and see if it has problems with that same area. Maybe an effect in there isn't working well with that particular video card. Who knows.
EDIT: I played it on a 3GHz machine and it runs perfectly. It's that lava flow that bogs down other machines I'm sure. Nice effect though. Comment edited by Shroomlock on 11/15/2008
Thanks for the pm. I'm not offended, neither did I try to offend you with my critique.
We are all interested in making games for other people just to give them a good time. For me, the game does not need to have fancy graphics or weird, never seen before gameplay.
The game is not bad. But for me, the gameplay suffers from a lot little flaws, which, put together, drag the value of the overall gameplay down. For example, why do I have to buy one bullet at a time for the pistol? Give me 10 bullets for 10 bucks and I'm ready to go in 5 seconds, instead of clicking 50 times the same button.
Why do you not save the ammo for the player when you load a save game? So I have to click on the ammo button again and again all over? Why do giant bats instant kill you, if you try using the pistol? I've played to the point where you can swim down that deep hole (where you have to die) and have another path leading up to a giant bat that instant kills you if you don't have the plank selected. Come on, this is mean. You could at least give a hint, that swimming down that hole is a bad idea. Make a sign with a skull and crossed bones on it or whatever. A dumb player like me will die at situations like this. Dying is ok if it's my own fault. But I really couldn't do anything about it.
Maybe some day you look back at this game and agree with something I've said. But maybe I'm just a crazy idiot sitting in my basement all day giggling and rating games down. Comment edited by Blue66 on 11/15/2008
You're the first person to have mentioned the pit of death. I included it for the same reason that game developers add almost reachable platforms and half open doors. It adds a bit of mystery into the game. What's at the bottom? Can you get there?!?!
There is a save point JUST before that point for a reason.
Would you say this game would be better with out any RPG elements or storyline, and instead you just had to fend off hoardes of bats?
see thats one problem, if you make a game with more than a few controls people make false criticisms because they didnt play it long enough to realise that the problem didnt exist. Comment edited by Mr_Tom on 11/15/2008
It's still a legitimate complaint if those features aren't explained. I've been buying bullets one at a time as well.
Features are great, but they need to be implemented in a way that makes sense. This game is full of features (which is good), but the features are implemented in strange ways. I had to ask how to upgrade my stats because an important (and odd) step was left out of the stat-upgrade instructions: opening the "purchase" menu. I wouldn't have figured that out on my own because it doesn't really make sense.
Most people give up on a game if it doesn't "feel" right within the first minute or so. Sure, people SHOULD give all games a better chance. But it's also important to use controls and an interface that will feel natural, so players don't have to reinvent the wheel.
This game is really no more complex than Ainevoltas 2, but that game feels more natural, so people can focus on gameplay instead of struggling with basic tasks. For instance, when you level up in Ainevoltas, you can open the stat window and upgrade the stats on the spot. It's the same as this game, but more streamlined and without as many steps. The only really unique gimmick that this game had was the swinging feature, but having to constantly reequip weapons and reload ammo manually takes some of the fun out of that too. It's just all these extra steps that bog the game down.
I'm only saying this because this game has SO much potential with so many great features. It just needs a little more polish and streamlining. Innovation is great, but don't confuse that with just adding extra steps to simple features.
yeah i know what you mean, but I think you have to take into account that it was made in a couple of weeks for a competition, i think this is the reason for some of the peculiar menu controls, simply cos he didnt have time to do a more user friendly one. And in those 2 weeks hes produced a game you could easily have thought took months to make, that surely is reason enoguh for a good rating (which i see you have given Shroomlock ) but i think Blue66's rating is a little harsh.
That's true. Well that's all the more reason to spend more time on this now that the competition is over! Or at least use the engine as the ground work for a sequel!
Downloaded the game on your channel. Played it the game had got me really interested and had a solid 20+ minutes of gameplay (other than figuring out the engine). Although there were a few bugs. Also add more to the game it was amazing it needs more!
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I leveled up by killing the bat, then it told me to go to the whispy thing and upgrade my stats. But even when I'm standing on the whipy thing, clicking the arrows doesn't do anything. I can't spend my 4 ATT points.
) but i think Blue66's rating is a little harsh.
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