Show HN: A game I made in 48 hours

https://joemanaco.itch.io/timezone

by joemanaco • 7 years ago

85 61 7 years ago

joemanaco.itch.io

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Author here: Last weekend I participated in the Ludum Dare Game Jam (#44, Theme was "Life is your currency") and did a game from scratch in 48 hours:

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.

swaggyBoatswain• 7 years ago

Really cool animations and sound

Have you ever tried using phaserJS?

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

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).

airstrike5• 7 years ago

why not support WASD? we've been using our left hand for directional controls since at least 1981

http://www.sextonsmusicandgames.com/80s-classic-arcade-games...

probably want to make jump / shoot right-hand actions as well, like in most games

I really like the concept and wanted to play the game, but as it stands the controls are too annoying for me

Jyaif• 7 years ago

why not support WASD?

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.

doodpants2• 7 years ago

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?)

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

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!

tonetheman2• 7 years ago

Any links on monkey? All the ones I have found so far were spam and the term is close enough to spider monkey ... Not a language I have seen before.

linuxftw3• 7 years ago

google: monkey lang

https://github.com/prologic/monkey-lang

EDIT: NVM, that's not it either.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

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).

linuxftw3• 7 years ago

Source code is missing a license as well, FYI.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Yes, will add it. I will put it into public domain.

tomcam• 7 years ago

Lots of fun and great sound, too

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thanks!

cyborgx73• 7 years ago

Great animation. And the movement feels really good too. I like the premise, but the one hit death on the enemies is very frustrating.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thanks for you Feedback.

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.

cyborgx73• 7 years ago

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.

DanBC• 7 years ago

I love this! I am terrible at it.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thank you. Yes, it's intentional a quite hard game. :)

wqweto• 7 years ago

It's even harder playing it under Remote Desktop over slow connection!

emilfihlman• 7 years ago

Way too hard, you should also continue jumping as long as up is pressed.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Yes, it's very hard :)

You should be able to adjust the jump height by pressing/holding the up key. Didn't that work for you? Which browser/os?

donald544• 7 years ago

yes, feel like it is more intuitive to continue jumping, but I thought it might be a feature to making the game harder.

felipellrocha• 7 years ago

Maybe practice more? I thought it was challenging, but fun

LandR• 7 years ago

This is great!

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thanks :)

sonofgod• 7 years ago

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. :)

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thanks for your feedback.

Yes, I wanted to implement a separate crystal for the enemy loot to make it more obvious, but I ran out of time.

apexkid• 7 years ago

This game is incredibly difficult in the first level itself.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Yes, I made a playthrough on YouTube if you prefer watching it ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSW4QmNz1JY

tronko• 7 years ago

Greate game. As a backend developer, is amazing that you did that in 24 hours.

PD: the music is the best part of the game, perfect for coding :)

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thank you. Hey, I'm also a backend developer by day ;-)

linuxftw3• 7 years ago

Great game. Hard, but not impossible.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thanks

ahallock• 7 years ago

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.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Thanks.

terrycody• 7 years ago

awesome game, may I ask what the knowledge u need to build such a game? More details are appreciated!

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

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.

Zecc• 7 years ago

Took me some time (heh), but I've finally "compelted" the game.

I really did enjoy the music.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the feedback.

heed• 7 years ago

The character sprite and animations look very similar to downwell: https://youtu.be/kY83H8BdxhI

Not a criticism, just an observation.

joemanaco21• 7 years ago

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".

I replaced the sprite now with something more unique. You can play the updated version here: https://joemanaco.itch.io/timezone

mpfundstein• 7 years ago

I think it would be great if you could remove the 3,2,1 countdown in the beginning. Just let me restart ASAP!

Show HN: A game I made in 48 hours

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