SuperBiasedMan

Howdy thumbs. This is a bit of late post as I've already released the game, but i figured I still should. https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam-5/rate/152167 I made a game in Pico8 inspired by Disable Enemies to Reveal Enemies. It's a very simple roguelite in which you have a level with enemies spawned in. You can see only one of them, and must disable that enemy in order to see the next one, who you disable to see the next etc. until all enemies are disabled and you can descend to the next floor. All you can do in the game is move around, and if you move into a visible enemy's square, you disable them. But you cannot disable the invisible enemies, though they can disable you. This made for a weird dynamic where I had to figure out a way to signal that the player was in danger, rather than just having undetectable enemies. So I used audio cues. I initially just set it up so there'd be one sound effect every time the enemy saw the player and another when the enemy took a step towards the player. However due to a bug, both sounds were combining. Whenever the player was visible the enemy would always move towards them, meaning both sounds played together. Once the player slipped around the corner, the enemy would keep following to the last place they spotted the player, but now only playing one sound effect. I actually liked how that came out a lot, it ended up making a very clear distinction between those two modes, and (I think) the combo sound is more threatening and perilous than just the enemy taking steps, so even if it's not 100% clear, there is a way to intuit where the enemy might be and what they're doing. I liked how this game forced me to consider sound design integral to the system and not just additive, which is how I always approached it before. It helped a lot that Pico8 has a built in sound creator. I only made this in the last 3/4 days, but given more time I'd like to expand on what the player can do. As it is, you don't have many options in dealing with enemies, and sometimes you can get caught when stepping around a corner, with no way to avoid or expect it. I'd like to add something like whistling, where you can detect and attract guards in a small radius. As well as some gadgets, like being able to cut through walls. Things that give the player more verbs and make them less of a sitting duck. I'm quite happy with it, so I hope other folks enjoy it! EDIT: I later added the ability to whistle, to locate where the invisible enemies are. This reveals their location and your location to them, so you need to be careful about giving yourself away too much. It gives a player more visibility at a risk, but it prevents the crapshoot of turning a corner just to get slammed by an entirely undetectable enemy. (also sorry if this post is a bit of a mess, I wrote it on my phone)

Right, I should've said but I assumed that if it was the DoppelArm then it was trying to take advantage of DougieCoop's state and incite some violence. To what end I'm not sure, but equally why would the regular Arm need to make Coop squeeze Ike's hand off? The advice to me makes more sense as the DoppelArm trying to get DougieCoop to do something that will lead to trouble.

@Lama Himself Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! The enemy movement is pretty dense, and the number 1 area for improvement but I'll lay out how it works. I'll stick it in spoilers cause it's pretty long: That was long, but hopefully clarifies things! Like many jam games for me, it got denser and the weight of everything just kept piling on. If I was starting from scratch I could try be much cleaner, but the organically grown spaghetti code is fun to work out. @ryanfb You spawned right by an enemy? Hm, that shouldn't happen because I specifically block enemies from spawning in the top left corner of the map. Was that after being hit once elsewhere? It doesn't reset enemy positions after you die, which is maybe a mistake for this reason. Also wow, I played Gauntlet and I can totally see what you mean. That'd definitely be the approach to take if I was trying to develop this into a full game.

One thing that I'm not clear in is, was it the Arm that told DougieCoop to squeeze Ike's hand off? To me it seemed more like the Arm's doppelganger, but it was such a brief shot I wasn't sure. Everyone seems to have accepted that it was the Arm itself, but they look so similar I'm not sure. And really, that violent solution seems outside the Arm's wheelhouse, I'd be more inclined to believe the DoppelArm said it.

Had a bit more time, so I've now made some updates. Added 2 more sets of sprites that swap out after doing a few levels. Also added a "whistling" option for the player. It allows you to locate enemies by their reaction, but also means they start actively searching for the source of that sound, putting you in potential danger. Adding this layer got pretty heavy and involved some (VERY) rudimentary pathfinding, so for my next Pico8 I'd like to look into how people made more intricate games under the constraints it introduces. Trying to do anything with what I have here is getting immensely cumbersome.

I bought Tumbleseed and have been enjoying it a lot, in spite of the difficulty. It's a shame to hear it didn't do so well, but I can see the signs of that in the daily leaderboards that show just a handful of players in there. It's interesting that they're suggesting you go slower and collect the offensive powers instead of just trying to move fast and survive. I exactly did the moving fast approach, because controlling the other powers seemed too perilous to really pay off but I could easily make a ton of progress just expanding my lifebar. I'll be interested to try out their changes and see if I adjust my behaviour.

On the podcast you guys mentioned the weird difference between the original rewatch and now recording along with the current series. Would you have any interest in doing a rewatch of the return, a couple years down the line? If you feel good about the return after it ends, it could be interesting to get that rewatch approach for this series too. Especially with how spread out but connected this whole series is shaping up to be. I know it's 18 more episodes for you to record, but if you'd entertain the idea at all, I'd be 100% on board.

Er I forget exact words used, but just that you were positive on it in spite of the terrible aspects.

Ah, I had the Pico8 cart as the link but realise now that's not very obvious. I edited in a plain link above it! https://itch.io/jam/wizard-jam-5/rate/152167

This episode was great, it ploughed through so much satisfying stuff. It also changed my tune on Diane. I wasn't keen on giving her a presence, but she's fantastic.

My buying it was contingent on being able to mod away her bad outfit. I then never really used her as a buddy, so I missed a few of your gripes. I know Twig says her story is good, but I found myself more comfortable mostly excising her from the game.

Fair point, I also don't know what stage this is supposed to be at. I assumed it was decently underway to talk about inviting the public in but it's hardly a typical development.

I was baffled by your dilemma until I saw this and realised it's whole heads of garlic they're sending, not individual cloves. I have also had my fair share of apartment viewings where I linger on out of politeness. I'd appreciate finding a toilet surprise that I could use as a convenient out to immediately leave.

Listening to Waypoint discussing Beyond Good and Evil 2 definitely makes it sound more ambitious and less plausible. They're talking about it being a game where it's on a huge scale, where you can go from being just inside a building doing a mission, so escaping thought the city streets, to interplanetary travel. It may work out but it's a whole different beast to take on that size of game with a small team of people.

I'm sceptical because all of the Treehouse announcements have been 3DS stuff so far. Good seeming stuff, but no heavy hitters for the Switch.

Nintendo could make a LOT of money if they allowed amiibos to unlock other characters that people could swap out the Rabbids for.

I think I mostly only went to motherbase to do the side ops that were there, but otherwise I'd just stay out in the field constantly. (My Snake was a smelly boy)

Oh that'd explain it, I never really returned to Mother Base that often.

Unlike every other fantasy fictional thing I've tried, I suspect Dark Souls wants you to not remember specific names and just let it all wash over you, at least at first.

So... is it possible to play the game without Paz appearing? She comes up a lot but I swear she wasn't in my game at all.

I enjoyed right to the end personally in spite of the repetitive missions. I played through almost every mission and side op because it became my prime podcast game.

It's very good. Have you picked a custom helicopter theme?

This is a fairly baseless thought, but I wonder if Dougy was a real person that DoppelCoop basically reformed into CloneCoop. Dougy seems to have a life that lasts quite a while, but if the murder is involved in creating DougyCoop, maybe that means that Dougy was just transformed/replaced relatively recently?

This scene in the bar was so distressing because of how the women were shocked and taken aback, but they neither called for help nor tried to fully break out of the dude's grip. It seemed like they were resigned to the idea that he can get away with this so they just let it happen.

Not in VR but I had a similar experience in Dark Souls 2 co-op. I was just chatting to my girlfriend when I played, but also verbalising my thoughts about what I or the player who'd summoned me was doing. I noticed that a strange icon kept showing up in the corner but I didn't really know what it meant, until I checked my settings and discovered I had turned on voice chat and forgotten, so they'd heard me muttering to myself "What are you doing?" as well as random conversation with my girlfriend unrelated to Dark Souls. Unlike Nick, no-one told me about it, so I went a long while before realising how I'd been hoisted.