The Daily Click

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From Primordial Egg

Author:

Fifth

Submitted:

1st December, 2008

Favourites:

Genre:

Platformer

Downloads:

975

Rated:

128th Place

(4.09 / 5)

My entry for TIGSource's Commonplace Book competition.

You play as a dinosaur who hatches from an ancient egg inside a sort of temple, fighting and eating archaeologists to grow and evolve.

It's pretty short, as it was made in a fairly restricted scale of time. But it should still be relatively challenging.

Enjoy!

Review This Download

http://www.l-ames.com/logan/from_primordial_egg.zip (1.95 mb )

This download contains more than 50 comments, so only the latest 50 have been shown, click here to view all comments (67)

Posted by Ski

2nd December, 2008

"is fairly faithful to the era of games the game seems to mirror."

The CS age?

Posted by Rob Rule

2nd December, 2008

Rated :

The iQue age, dear Adam.

Posted by Marko

2nd December, 2008

Rated :

Can't believe there's someone else who was unfortunate enough to play The Lost World, though i do blame EA - the advert looked amazing and it was at a time when i had too much money and no bills! lol

On a more serious note, this game gets many things right in alot of people's opinion, such as the 'feel' of the game engine and the charm it offers. Sure, the gameplay is a little simplified and rigid in its approach of offering difficulty. However, the little things like the egg at the beginning and the eating of corpses to heal and grow is sweet.

And considering there was an (unspecified) time constraint on the developer makes it even more remarkable. Please note though that the time-limit played no part in my 4 star score.

Posted by s-m-r

2nd December, 2008

Rated :

Since I could play as the creature typically considered the "bad guy," and I literally ATE people, this game immediately caught my attention. The graphics are superb; the evolving and growing into a stronger creature is a fine feature, and I EAT PEOPLE.

The level design, however, needs a lot of work. I can appreciate that the main goal is to simply escape the temple, but after being killed by a mob of tiny people time and time again, it wore thin on me. particularly when the vast majority of the levels comprised of a long, flat plane.

All that being said, it is quite engaging to play for short bursts, and I EAT PEOPLE! That's so fun. Nice work!

Posted by steve

2nd December, 2008

Rated :

I didnt like the collision/combat system used here - did not feel very fun to play at all to me.

But I like the way you can eat the bodies!

Posted by Lachie Dazdarian

2nd December, 2008

Rated :

I wasn't sure how to rate this. Many things I liked, some I didn't. I don't mind the difficult gameplay. I like challenge, and the simplicity of the gameplay is a plus. I really enjoyed kicking those men when surrounded with them. Felt like in a street fighting game. I also loved the graphics. I only wish there was more of it. I agree with critics on level design.

It just feels like a great concept that wasn't fleshed out enough.

Posted by Ski

2nd December, 2008

Mark Radon I just realised I had that game too

Posted by Fish20

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

EA seems to do stupid unwanted things like when they took off the servers for TimeSpltters FP then launched them up only on Xbox live even though they have most of the players with ps2 versions.

Posted by Dark Tard

3rd December, 2008

The graphics rocked, and it was pretty fun, if a bit hard. I'd love to see it lengthened, because it ended just as you started to realy get into it.

Posted by Marko

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Poor old -Adam-, you have my pity....

Posted by Ski

3rd December, 2008

why?

Posted by Tropik

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Nice game but it is boring...

Posted by Tropik

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

n/a

Posted by Fanotherpg

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Very good game, multiple enemies weapons, many possibilities to kill enemy (kick, bite, jump over, spikes, Molotov cocktails, dynamite).

Graphic simple but climatic, evolution idea awesome and well done only the thing with entering to low areas is buggy for me

Posted by Marko

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Why, -Adam-? Because The Lost World was a poor, poor platformer.

Posted by s-m-r

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Also, one little bug I encountered consistently...

Either at later levels in the game, or after playing the game in excess of 20 minutes or so, all the sounds were reduced to an annoying, over-loud buzz. Playing the game in compatibility mode didn't seem to change any of this, as well as altering the game resolution with the config application.

Has anyone else encountered this? Fifth, have you seen/heard this kind of behaviour at all?

Posted by Ski

3rd December, 2008

Mark I never played past the second level, I found jumping around on cliffs as a little green dinosaur boring

Posted by Marko

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Ditto, it was very lame. I got to the second dinosaur's levels (probably after level 7 or so) and gave up. It was a very hard game, not helped by the poor collision detection and jelly-like controls.

Posted by Fifth

3rd December, 2008

Hmm, s-m-r, I've never encountered a bug like that before, but I have heard of a different problem where some of the sounds make the music stop...

This is my first time using MMF2's volume and frequency changing functions on sounds, so I'm afraid I don't know what kind of problems to look out for, or how to avoid them.

...And sorry if the gameplay/levels seem a little dry, but I was really rushed towards the end of the deadline (Most of the levels were made on the very last day), and had to abandon a lot of my ideas for the game.

And thanks again to everyone who's enjoying it!

Posted by Marko

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

No need to apologise! Are you planning to expand upon what is here and make a full game out of it, with more diverse levels and a story? I think it'd be great

Posted by AndyUK

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Initially it looks pretty well made with some nice animations and well drawn graphics, although i don't like the dull palette.

Its a bit of a pain trying to jump onto platforms because it seems like the dinosaur sprite is much bigger than the collision mask.
Trying to kill people is a bit annoying too because you only stun them for a millionth of a second, meaning you really have to mash the button to avoid getting hit, and when there are more people throwing things at you you can't avoid getting or get away quickly enough (since the attacking animation freezes your movement).

It's well made though, I like the animation on the dinosaur . I guess it uses various parts?
Comment edited by AndyUK on 12/3/2008

Posted by danjo

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

ROFL - adam's jealous.

Posted by AndyUK

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

n/a

Posted by Dr. James MD

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Adam's jealous? Hmm?

Posted by Marko

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Though i think the game is better than what -Adam- does, i don't think he's jealous and he has made very valid points. As has Dr. James, Lachie Dazdarian and AndyUK - very constructive feedback!

Posted by AndyUK

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

I just changed my comment a bit.

Actually the graphics look more like Bonesaw than Cave story.

Posted by -Liam-

3rd December, 2008

Looks really great

I found running/jumping long gaps to be too difficult ;_;

Posted by Ski

3rd December, 2008

I wonder if Danjo is clever enough to realize I was talking about a PS1 game?

And if anyone here's gonna be jealous it's Danjo. I mean, I'm quite flattered that he was using some of my library graphics in a project of his

Posted by Marko

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Yeah, it does kinda look like the style of Bonesaw

Posted by -Nick-

3rd December, 2008

Rated :

Nicely made, the graphics of the dinosaur i thought were great but the rest of the graphics could use a bit of work. Seemed to hold together quite nicely except the collision mask seemed off.

Posted by -Nick-

4th December, 2008

Rated :

Completed it!

Was the final stage of the dinosaur the one with red skin and the sort of tricerotops head?

Posted by Chris Vermilya

4th December, 2008

n/a

Posted by Fifth

4th December, 2008

The triceratops crest is the highest level crest that there is, which means the highest level of head defense. Light red is the second skin color (skin color is overall defense), and dark red is the highest (which I'm guessing you had?)

...But the different attributes evolve independently based on how you play the game, so it's hard to say what the final stage is.

Posted by Ski

4th December, 2008

I was a brachiosaur in the end

Posted by Fifth

4th December, 2008

Oh, you were not.

Posted by Ski

4th December, 2008

Posted by Marko

4th December, 2008

Rated :

very good

Posted by Fifth

4th December, 2008

Eheheh!
Now that's just ridicul-awesome.

Posted by Torava

6th December, 2008

Rated :

Are you going to improve this game? Because this truly is worth of it.
Comment edited by Torava on 12/6/2008

Posted by AndyUK

7th December, 2008

Rated :

I think killing people in one bite would improve it quite a lot. Also making movement a priority over attacking. So if you want to run away from something you're not forced to wait for the current animation to finish.

Posted by Marko

8th December, 2008

Rated :

Good idea about the movement taking priority over attacking, however would the "1-bite = kill" gameplay prove too easy and thus too un-rewarding?

Posted by AndyUK

9th December, 2008

Rated :

by itself it might be, but tweaking other aspects, like giving mr dinosaur less life, might help.

Posted by Fifth

9th December, 2008

You end up killing people in one bite if you use the bite attack a lot. The bite attack's pretty powerful to start, anyway.

...But currently, you're allowed to move, jump, and kick while in the middle of the biting animation, just not turn around or run. You're only not allowed to act while kicking (as your foot is in the air) or eating. Still, you should have enough freedom to get away.
If you're having trouble, though, I'd suggest getting used to holding up while fighting an enemy so that you can back away while biting and avoid attacks. It's a really useful technique.

...And like all of my small-scale projects, I would be interested in improving this game, even reworking it into something larger and more cohesive, but I tend to lose focus after they've reached this state... it's a lot more work to flesh out an idea into such a state than it is to create the basis for the idea in the first place, and I always end up running into various hurdles.

So no, I guess I don't plan on improving this much further. Thanks, though.

Posted by AndyUK

15th December, 2008

Rated :

How come this got away with such a small description?

Posted by erghhhhx

15th December, 2008

Rated :

Because the description was fine.

Congratz to the gotw, you deserved it.

Posted by ~Zigzag~

16th December, 2008

Rated :

Awesome game, a bit hard though, if you're improving it maybe increase the health restored from eating. Really deserves 4.5 IMO but in no way a four...

Posted by Assault Andy

17th December, 2008

Rated :

I'm with ZigZag, I'd give it a 4.5

The engine is amazing and solid. I absolutely love the whole way the dinosaur moves and how its parts all work together perfectly. In terms of gameplay it's a bit hard and repetitive sometimes (or maybe I'm just bad

).

I hope you do a full game with this kind of movement some time soon!

Posted by Daniel [JaDGames]

17th December, 2008

Rated :

I really liked this game.
Good graphics, perfect game engine(a little slow and sluggish, but after all you play as a dinosaur), Good music and fun as hell.
5/5

Posted by MasterM

21st December, 2008