I’m looking forward to playing the games that people come up with, and it looks like there’s a few trading sims being worked on, so good luck to everyone.

It’s coded in C++ and SDL, and may not compile in it’s current state, or may not do anything when run, but this is what I’m going to work off of. It’s a pretty big mess and not worth looking at, but I’m posting it here cause the rules said so.

—IMPORTANT PART—

Controls: 1 and 2 will move you left and right, respectively, 3 will give you a speed boost (the bar on the right will decrease while boosting).  Your vertical movement is limited by your position on the screen.  The white specks give you an indication of what direction you’ll go in that general area.  Escape or 0 will quit the game.

Gameplay: You are the orange dot.  You must eat smaller dots to grow bigger.  When you reach a certain size, the game ends and you can play again.  Enemy positions are random (except for the first game, which has a constant seed).  Enemies are color coded by size, with small sized enemies being light blue, and large enemies being a darker blue.  Enemy movements are semi-random, but they will chase you or avoid you (depending on size) if you get too close.

Download the game here: http://barchok.com/p/miniLD16/miniLD16-thedaian.zip

Get the source code (only) here: http://barchok.com/p/miniLD16/miniLD16-source.rar

Game compiled/tested on Windows XP.  Could feasibly work on other operating systems.

Current version of the game is here: http://thedaian.dreamhosters.com/miniLD16-midway.rar

Controls are: 1 and 2 move you left and right, respectively, and 3 will give you a burst of speed in the up/down directions. Escape will close the game. Eat the smaller squares by getting on top of them (the collision code is a bit off right now, so you mostly have to get on top of the upper left corner of another square to eat it). The screen is divided into sections, and each section will either let you move up or down. You can generally tell the direction based on the movements of other squares.

A few things that need to be added
-a proper win condition. (once you get big enough, there’s some graphics problems)
-particle effects or something to indicate where the barriers between up/down are
-a limit to your boost, recharging with time (that’s the plan for the red bar on the side)

Game is written in C++/SDL, and is feasibly playable on everything, but was compiled on a Windows XP machine.

I decided with about 6 hours left to make a simple text adventure, using some of the base code from other projects I had done to make it online. To anyone who downloaded the source and wants to know what code is original to the competition, and what was reused code, well, the connect.php and Page.php were both reused from elsewhere, everything else was either modified code, or original.

Anyway, I spent about an hour getting the entire thing to work, including setting up the database that would store the game content, and the code for making a choice. Then I spent more time getting a editor set up, so I could make the game easily, by just clicking a link, filling in some text boxes, and hitting “save”. This made the game easy to make, and it only took about 2 hours to finish, polish, and put online. I still ran into a few bugs, such as the ‘reset game’ bit not working, and I added in a ‘start over’ option around the end of the competition time.

The two major problems I have with the game at this point are that it’s impossible to draw a map of level 3, due to the way some rooms loop backwards (it’d be possible if you looked at the page source for each part, and mapped things out that way, but it’d be time consuming, and might not help), and that I didn’t add in items. Adding in items would have made it possible to have puzzles that didn’t require having a maze, or going to the correct room first. Thus, it would have made branching paths and other complicated things that make a text adventure good, as opposed to just a choose your own adventure book about Schrödinger’s Cat.

As for level 3, I’m sorry if you got stuck on it. I realize that I should have put room numbers in the areas, so it’s at least possible to find your way out. The ‘good’ thing to know is that it’s still a pretty small area. There’s only 10 rooms in the entire game that consist of level 3 text, and the way out is located when you reach a room that you can go only straight, or left. Go straight.

Maybe I’ll expand on this little engine and add items, then I can make a much more complex text adventure that would actually be fun, and challenging. Who knows. Until the next LD, folks.

Final

Well, I finished with about 3 hours left, meaning I made the game in about 3 hours.  However, it’s not much of a game, and it’s somewhat unconventional for LD, since it’s a web based choose your own adventure.  A screenshot would be pointless because of this.  Sorry everyone who demands a screenshot.

The game itself can be found here.  I have included the source code, as well as the backend tool used to create the content here, so you too can make your own adventures.  An important note, though, is that you’ll have to have a webserver with MySQL, and PEAR::DB installed.  Additionally, the tool is NOT secure, and should NOT be used on a live server.  As always, use at your own risk.

In case anyone asks, not my workspace.

Here for the game and source.  Created in Windows with C++ and SDL.  Good chance of working on other systems.  Let me know.

There’s some simple sound effects created with sfxr. Basic controls are arrow keys to select a command, any other key will activate that command, escape exits the game. Advanced controls are listed in the readme (including save/load)

If there’s time, I’ll allow players to choose a bonus on leveling up, and add in a few more features.  Right now, I just want to make the game prettier.

Now to fix it so that you can’t gain health by fighting the monster once you’ve above a certain level.  Hopefully, I’ll find time to get some actual graphics going, and maybe fix up the formulas so the game is a challenge, as well as fun.

The icons represent your health, magic, strength/attack, and defense.  There’s minimal actual text (it’s just going to be numbers, and icons).  Hopefully, I can draw some basic looking monsters to fight, so it’s not just a funky text game.  Time for lunch.

Good luck to everyone.