Ludum Dare 18
August 20th-23rd, 2010
Theme: Enemies as Weapons
Metagun - Notch - Competition Entry
Play online | Timelapse | Source
Java 1.5 is required, the game is played as an applet in a webpage.
View Notch's journal. | View all entries by Notch
Ratings
![]() | Theme | 4.31 |
![]() | Overall | 3.91 |
| #4 | Innovation | 4.14 |
| #8 | Community | 4.00 |
| #9 | Fun | 3.66 |
| #16 | Humor | 3.17 |
| #36 | Coolness | 17% |
| #42 | Audio | 2.82 |
| #51 | Graphics | 3.37 |
Comments
Oops, the version up there had the debug spawn position set!
I've fixed it (within the time limit, note!)
Megan is quite difficult to beat! All round a very good game, a great concept, and perfectly implemented. Happy to have played it!
Some of the glass tile based kickback puzzles were infuriating, but other than that a solid platformer with a neat twist.
I like how you can run it as a standalone (I built from source).
I wonder if the focus on hats is a sign that he's selling Minecraft to Valve... and then the only new content will be hats.
Simon, he is making too much money to sell it to Valve. I recall Notch saying that Valve couldn't afford him. Anyway, the focus on hats (specifically fedoras) is because Notch really loves fedoras.
Awesome game, I love the use of the theme. Some hard levels, but I like the challenge. I hope you win Notch!
This game is so bizarre and unfriendly it is great. Almost every late-game challenge feels like you only won by abusing the system, by coercing unwilling game elements to unintentionally do your bidding. After using a minigun that shoots midgets to rocket-jump upward, then absorb dozens of bullets by grabbing your hat several times in a row, you will forget what 'enemies' and 'weapons' and 'hit points' in videogames should and should not be.
I have to mark it down a bit, though, because the end boss made the controls become erratic and unreliable, then, after several minutes, caused my browser to crash. Tsk, tsk.
This game was incredibly hard, but also incredibly fun. L summed it up fantastically.
Really cool take on the theme and a really fun and addictive game. Hard, but in a very good way.
Great game, it's orginal, fun and challenging, I hope you win.
OK, in before dock telling everyone that apparently i'm a troll (the word is critic, dammit), and no this isn't my complete commentary thing so, uh:
Here's what I struggle with: The glass shooter parts are a pain in the butt, and the final boss appears to make its difficulty from making you lag enough that it doesn't realise you've pressed the X key. Got that out of the way.
I like the concept of shooting enemies out of your gun, and the recoil you get from the machine-gun-gun is quite nifty, although the gameplay appears to shift once you do that.
I also like the interaction with the hats, and that you can be countably awesome by wearing more than one at the same time.
LOL TNT
From what I gather, this was an experiment which was done quite extensively, although some of it is a bit weird.
Also, L's comment (I haven't voted on this yet).
The graphics are wonderful. The game play and mechanics are so-so. The level design is not that great. The level with conveyer belts all by themselves? Unnecessary. Everyone's seen a conveyer belt before and knows how it works, we don't need to be spoon fed what they are.
Ultimately there are a lot of "hey look what I can make the game do" levels, and not many with clever or interesting puzzles. There were some decent ones, such as the one where you use the companion block to get to the top, but most levels were just keep spamming run/jump/shoot until you somehow survive by chance.
The level transitions are also quite buggy, I found it incredibly difficult to jump up through a level and then boost as the controls seize up momentarily.
Very Good Game, I hope you will win Notch ! Just one thing : the title graphique is ... bad. It don't make us want to play. But the game is good :p
Unbelievable that you pulled this off in 48h! The level deign i evil, some levels were extremely frustrating. Took me almost an hour to finish. ;D
Took me 30mins to complete and some area's are frustrating. Controls seemed a bit iffy in some areas such as trying to fly but gameplay was very unique and interesting. If people were able to create their own maps it could become quite interesting.
Whilst there was an impressive amount of features for the timeframe I'm left feeling that a smaller but more polished set of mechanics would have felt significantly better.
I may simply be biased slightly for having ended my (previously only mildly frustrating) playthrough early by getting irrevocably and unfairly stuck in a wall.
Wow! You built an awesome amount of stuff in the allotted time and it was enough fun to keep me coming back even after I nearly quite in frustration (finished eventually)!
Well done!
Managed to get stuck inside a wall just before the section with three shooting gremlins. Great game though.
Very cool game. The controls are a bit unintuitive (up for reading but z for jump) and jumping feels slightly unresponsive.
I loved the dying part and the fedora thing but still gave up when it became frustrating at the glass blocks level. Lots of good gameplay concepts before that though.
Gave up in the room with the cubes that need to be moved higher to get you to the exit: too frustrating.
Up until that the game was fun.
I think I know who's taking this compo. ;) Some really evil levels in there, though.
I wish I had better finger skills to get past Megan and play all the way through.
Super impressed you wrote all this code during the contest without using a framework!!! Definitely interesting how you did the level data.
After patching the Linux kernel I could actually play the game (the default kernel gives me huge input lag on games that use 100% cpu time), and so I was now able to have fun playing it. Good idea and impressive amount of (good) level design for the short timeframe! I got stuck in the room with the cubes above the spikes too.
Very cool concept. Was really hard in parts. The camaraderie box stuff was also a bit frustrating. There may be more potential to this concept than what was explored here.
My final score was 7271.
I had fun with this but I eventually had to give up at the room full of TNT where it tries to get you to hover up using the gun. That was just no fun at all and all I could figure out how to do was die again and again. Great effort for 48hrs on creating so many levels. The game is enjoyable and has some fun humor moments. Definitely one of the top ten of this contest.
No. I can't force my way through the glass room firing squad. I thought I'd quit several times before that, but I somehow managed to keep going. It's right on the edge of frustration vs challenge. Pretty neat idea and execution. Liero meets Doukutsu meets Portal. There are some cool discovery moments where you realize how some things work or can be used. Way grand for 48 hours. Congratulations on the virality. I found mentions of this where I really didn't expect it.
great game, had a good time with it, this could get really popular if someone kept on develloping it, maybe even added multiplayer and ability to be modified by the players, its like if every room is a new stage.
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Epic game, I hope you win this Notch!