good
Author Comments
***READ INSTRUCTIONS BELOW PLEASE***
UPDATE: The missing level tracks have been included! Still a lot of glitches, though.
UPDATE 2: The negative lives glitch should be fixed, and a solution for the screen jamming has been found for now. Still fixes to be made!
UPDATE 3: Made another crack at fixing the negative lives glitch, as well as the double-respawn glitch where two Egons would appear. Also fixed the Game Jam link, and FINALLY fixed the game-breaking problems with level boundaries!
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Bear with us; we didn't have time to put instructions in the game, so here they are.
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INSTRUCTIONS:
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Arrow keys: move Egon / move screen
Space bar: self-destruct
When in Ghost form, enemies don't hurt you. Press Space to self-destruct, and cause chain explosions.
After self-destructing, aim the crosshairs on the explosion of a downed enemy ship to possess it and control it. Only in Ship mode can you advance through the stage, but you are vulnerable to damage by crashing into an enemy ship. You also have *LIMITED TIME* before you lose control over your ship and you explode, so self-destruct beforehand to cause chain explosions again!
Reach the goal at the end of all 4 ACTION-PACKED levels.
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Now that that's out of the way, WOO!!! We made it on time guys!
This here is a submission for Game Jam 7, where teams of a programmer, artist, musician & wildcard had to make a game in a weekend, that followed the theme of "Designing around a Core Mechanic." Each team two unique mechanics to choose from; our team's were "Package" and "Initiate." We chose Initiate, and the rest is history.
The game is a lot less developed than we had in mind, but we ended up just making the midnight deadline...so in the end it's all good! Hopefully nothing bugs out too badly. And hopefully sometime in the future, we'll update this to a more finished product.
This is the link to the Game Jam 7 Collection:
http://www.newgrounds.com /collection/nggamejam7
Now go to sleep :P
Firstly, I really like the concept behind this game! If games have ever used this idea before, I've sure as hell never seen it, and really enjoyed playing it, for the short time it lasted. However, with a great new concept needs to come clear instruction, to show the player just how to play and win the game. While it's not difficult to simply scroll down and read the instructions to figure out the aim, the player shouldn't have to do this - there should have been an ingame tutorial, for sure.
The graphics were fine; nothing more, nothing less. They didn't look particularly polished or fresh, but they weren't horrible. They didn't amaze, but they also didn't offend the eyes.
The music was pretty nice, with a techno beat going on in the background, immediately bringing to mind space and explosive action, which are two things the game indefinitely provided.
The controls worked well, allowing you to move around with ease, and the space bar serving as more than responsive as a means of exploding and re-incarnating as one of the previously exploded green spaceships.
I also really like the idea of a little story. While it wasn't presented in the best way imaginable, it was nice to have some form of context as to what you were doing and why, though the lack of a conclusive cutscene was a tad disappointing. Also, the hit detection on your character was unbelievably off! At times, I would narrowly escape a collision with a ship, only to explode regardless of the fact I had clearly dodged the spaceship!
In conclusion, the game was okay. The story was nice and the controls really helped to make it an enjoyable experience overall, though there was very little in the way of polish, and the lack of any REAL story was quite disappointing. Also, the biggest crime was the length! Four incredibly short levels? I recently appraised 'Yeah Jam Fury' for having a whopping 46 levels, with this game falling a whole 42 levels behind! So, if you make the game a whole lot longer, with better attention to detail, this fantastic idea could well be executed to its full potential. As it stands, though, this is a great idea, let down by a poor technical effort.
2/5
4/10
40%
mr-johnson22 responds:
Thanks for the insightful review! I agree with the gripes you have with this game, especially the lack of in-game instructions. We left putting them in to the last minute, and didn't end up with any time to put them in. I also refuse to put them in the game now because that would give the false impression that we gave ourselves the time to do so within the deadline. :P (Game-breaking bugs were fixed after the fact, though; I have to draw the line somewhere.)
The game was originally supposed to be a lot longer and in depth, but many ideas of how to implement such features were still up in the air by the last day of development, so we had to opt for what you see here. Even level progression was left to the very end, and the blue goal circles were a last-ditch attempt at making levels completable...looking back, I planned things out very poorly, and the game suffered as a result. But I'm glad the core idea of it was able to be conveyed to you.
this game is horrible. it starts out promising enough, but then everything goes wrong, you cant die you cant leave the area its like asteroids without guns!
itd bee good, but somehow the green ships keep blowing me up even though im not touching them..balloney
good but to easy and short 3 stars
Credits & Info
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Frontpaged July 9, 2012
