Instructions:
Try to reach the exit before your life counter reaches zero. You can earn valuable time by collecting Life Capsules. When you destroy an enemy they will drop Life Capsules. But be careful: Each shoot costs you time.
I did everything from scratch (Code, GFX, Audio, Level Design). I've used Monkey (which transpiles to Javascript) to code it, Photoshop for the pixels (Artwise I was inspired by Downwell, which I tried to mimic, but I suck at art) and Logic and Renoise for the Music and Sound FX.
I really prefer movement controls for arcade-ish games on the right hand, but I guess it's a matter of taste. Haven't decided yet if I want to go further with this project, but will definitely added support for a custom scheme if I continue with it. Thanks for your input!
because of the AZERTY keyboards.
You can't detect AZERTY keyboards in a browser, so he would have had to create menus to allow players to choose the keys.
Why WASD and not ESDF? People have been touch-typing with their left hand in that home position since the late 1800s. (Or do you actually operate WASD with your pinky, ring, and middle fingers when gaming?)
Don't be dense. WASD is the most common layout, but sure, if you're that opinionated make it ESDF then. My point still stands. Left and right hand controls should follow a common sense approach
Maybe I'm weird, but being right-handed (like most people), I prefer directional controls on the right hand and action buttons on the left. Your characterization of the former as "left-handed" and the latter as "right-handed" controls seem backwards to me. So, to be honest, I don't even use WASD (or ESDF).
WASD is an incredibly common movement control scheme for video games. I'd go so far as to say it is the predominant four-directional control scheme for video games made in the past 20 years that were made to be played with a QUERTY keyboard.
> being right-handed (like most people), I prefer directional controls on the right hand and action buttons on the left.
It is right-handedness that led to this because it was used in conjunction with a mouse, so all those right handed players had a mouse in their right hand, meaning their left hand was on the keyboard.
If you, as a right-handed person, use a mouse in your right hand and the arrow keys in your left hand, you are very much in the minority. Even for games that don't use a mouse, this convention (and muscle memory) is so established that it makes sense to use WASD, even for right-handed players. However making it configurable is always desirable to accommodate the minority of players who might not want to use WASD for any reason.
If you're not an avid gamer or primarily gamed before keyboard + mouse was common, this might indeed seem strange. But for anyone who's gamed consistently in the past 20 years it is very normal.
Why not ESDF? I don't know why initially but today WASD is established convention.
> Even for games that don't use a mouse, this convention (and muscle memory) is so established that it makes sense to use WASD, even for right-handed players.
A further argument for movement from the left hand comes from consoles, which starting with the NES if not earlier have consistently (always?) had the d-pad on the left. I remember having some trouble reversing that learning for the PC platforming games that used the arrow keys for movement.
You’d think by now PC keyboards would have standardized dedicated gaming keys on the left side.
Retrofitting alphanumerics for game controls is such an ugly, kludgy hack, even if it’s very convenient (especially in games where you can text chat with other players.)
Feels like a carry-over of the PC’s “wannabe”ness as a gaming machine since the 1980s/90s.
He was commenting on esdf instead of wasd to keep the fingers on the home row. IMO, it's the same issue as vi choosing hjkl for movement instead of jkl;.
Monkey is a language by Mark Sibly. Unfortunately the original language is abandoned since Mark started to work on Monkey-2 (But Monkey-1 still available at: https://github.com/blitz-research/monkey).
Yes, I know phaser. But I don't like Javascript and also prefer to use my own custom stuff (especially for simple things) instead of Frameworks. (No offense, just my personal preference).
Took me a while to work out you could actually make time from killing enemies -- I saw they only created one time crystal, and that it took about three to kill them, then died due to being out of time, so didn't realise that the monster's ones are significantly more valuable. :)
I think I have to tweak the hit boxes a little bit, so it's more forgiving. And probably also change from insta death so you only loose time/life when you hit an enemy.
A little more forgiving hitboxes would already help a lot. There is a lot of "I barely touched him" in there. But playing it some more, and getting it bit farther in the game, I'm already really enjoying what there is.
Edit: Finished level 3 with almost 2 minutes to spare. Would definitely play more of this. Specially levels that focus on forward momentum, like level 1.
Yes, I think for a more complex post-compo version a lot of thought has to be put into the level design to consistently push the player and give him this feeling of "Shit, I'm almost out of time" - but also with the possibility that he saves himself in the last seconds.
My mind instantly goes to a random, infinite level, turning it into a runner. But I don't want to backseat design your game. I actually really appreciated when I reached the end of level 1 and learned I don't have to keep restarting from the beginning. That was a nice surprise.
Impressive game for only 48 hours of dev--need more levels! Was able to get a pretty speedy deathless run after learning the patterns. Actually skipping most enemies seemed to be a good strategy. Also enjoyed the mechanic of bouncing enemies into position to progress faster.
Yes, a lot of people mentioned that. Indeed I had the mobile version opened next to me while I pixeld it and tried to recreate this minimalistic style. The idea was that because I suck at pixelart I would probably be able to create a consistent and nice looking game in this simple style.
And I think especially in the sprite I took a little bit too much "inspiration".
Coding wise the game is pretty simple. It has no real physics or anything involved and basically simple "Rectangle-Collisions". You can have a look at the source code (although it's pretty dirty with lots copy/paste involved during the hard time constraints).
As mentioned I did it in Monkey, but it should be also easy to recreate it in vanilla javascript, because all you need is a basic canvas you can render to, and there you go.
The real hard part was to get all the differents parts involved ready in time. For example the art took me alone around 10-12 hours because I'm really bad at graphics and I put a lot of effort and lots of trial and error in the animations.
The music I did in Logic Pro and Renoise, and it took only around 2 hours because I'm quite experienced in doing music (doing it since my childhood). But if you listen carefully you will find out that the arrangement is very simple, and it's also not mastered. Turning this in a full-blown-not-so-repeatedly track would take several days I think for me (I sticked to the 80:20 rule here ;).
The level design I did in Tiled, and I had the Tiled loader ready before the Compo started.
TIME ZONE
How to play?
Arrow Keys Left/Right: Move left/right Arrow Keys: Up: Jump X: Shoot
Instructions: Try to reach the exit before your life counter reaches zero. You can earn valuable time by collecting Life Capsules. When you destroy an enemy they will drop Life Capsules. But be careful: Each shoot costs you time.
Play at itch.io: https://joemanaco.itch.io/timezone
Source code: https://github.com/JochenHeizmann/timezone-ld44 (will add Readme/Build Instructions later on when I got some more hours of Sleep)
Soundtrack: https://soundcloud.com/jochenheizmann/timezone-ludum-dare-44
Ludum Dare Game Page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/timezone
I did everything from scratch (Code, GFX, Audio, Level Design). I've used Monkey (which transpiles to Javascript) to code it, Photoshop for the pixels (Artwise I was inspired by Downwell, which I tried to mimic, but I suck at art) and Logic and Renoise for the Music and Sound FX.