🔒 Locked

Electromagnetic Adventures: 24-Hour Game

Started by HopeDagger Dec 14, 2009 at 8:03 PM 5 replies 3.4k views

Original Post

Dec 14, 2009 at 8:03 PM

Electromagnetic Adventures -- phew, that's tiring, how about 'EMA'? -- is a physics-based coffee-break calibre puzzle game, including nine levels of increasing difficulty. It was written in C++, using SDL and the very nifty Chipmunk physics library. EMA was written for a 24-hour gamedev competition over the course of twenty-four consecutive hours, developed alongside several other student entrants. It represents the ardour and frustration of trying to debug and reason about code after being awake for 35 hours. =)

Instructions on play are included in the form of an incremental in-game 'tutorial', and are simple enough to pick up on for the beginner. Additionally, you'll be able to tell when you've beaten all of the levels when the game unceremoniously segfaults. *grin* The current binary is Windows-only, but a Linux-flavoured one can be produced if there is any demand. (It runs fine under Wine, too!)

Embark on an Electromagnetic Adventure!

szecs

Dec 16, 2009 at 1:53 PM

Cool but hard. (Got fed up quickly).
Congrats!

HopeDagger

Dec 16, 2009 at 3:16 PM

It's very likely worth noting that the debug feature of skipping levels is still available, with the 'T' key.

becoolnike

Dec 18, 2009 at 11:39 AM

Good physics. I am wonder how many students made this 24 hour project.

HopeDagger

Dec 19, 2009 at 1:35 PM

Quote:
Original post by becoolnike
Good physics. I am wonder how many students made this 24 hour project.

I wrote this particular one, but there were other excellent entries as well. Pop on over to UW GDC to see the entrants from our most recent compo.

Shadownami92

Dec 19, 2009 at 3:49 PM

It is an interesting concept, but it really is an easy game to get fed up at. You lose if your minerals run off the sides, you lose if the wrong colors touch each-other. You can only lift up a mineral so high for a certain amount of time. And if you try to push it too hard it sometimes flies out of bounds and you have to start over. There is just too many ways to lose in such a small level for such a small reward I think.

HopeDagger

Dec 19, 2009 at 4:08 PM

Quote:
Original post by Shadownami92
It is an interesting concept, but it really is an easy game to get fed up at. You lose if your minerals run off the sides, you lose if the wrong colors touch each-other. You can only lift up a mineral so high for a certain amount of time. And if you try to push it too hard it sometimes flies out of bounds and you have to start over. There is just too many ways to lose in such a small level for such a small reward I think.

You are very correct, and I appreciate that you took the time to play it long enough to consciously note these things. Looking back, there are a number of things that I wanted to do during the competition that I just didn't have time for, like adding borders around the levels, supplying the player with extra 'fail-safe' minerals, and having the gold->iron or iron->burn transitions take longer than being instantaneous. Still, I remain pleased with the core gameplay, and will contemplate updating the game with some of these changes. Thanks again!

Topic Locked

This topic has been locked by a moderator. New replies are not allowed.