Timers

[purplehuman]

I'm making this game for texturelessjam. I think I have an insteresting idea here, but I can't seem to find how to make it more fun.

Alright, about the game: You are trying to move your little purple circle into the purple box by going over red, green and blue boxes. Every color has its own timer. So you can spend a limited amount of time on any one color. When one of your timers timeout you lose. This idea might lead to interesting stuff, I feel it, but I can't seem to use it to its potential. Any suggestions?

There are only three levels right now.

Update: Your circle has a fixed speed now, instead of going from tile to tile. And colors fade out to black with time. If it's black you die. You need to press space to start the levels now, after developing a strategy.

Update: Added three levels.

Update: Added fullscreen, music, title and finish screens. You have three lives now. Improved the ui a bit. Since it's a little bigger than 1MB, I'm linking to the love file on github.

Update: Ten levels, some of them are introductory. I think it's finished for now. I will try to work on it at a later time again.

Update: Changed the colors of the boxes a little.

Update: Replaced the music with something made in the jam period.

Update: If you like this game, you can vote for it here.

Here's a screenshot (It wouldn't get the best art awards, that's for sure):

timers-screenshot.png (11.45 KiB) Viewed 4241 times

Here's the updated game:

timers.love from github

Timers is also on gamejolt

[Germanunkol]

I think this really has potential.

Without giving this too much in-depth thought, the first things that come to mind:

• Color-changing tiles. Either because of some event (step on a trap?) or because player gets an upgrade which he/she can use. In the latter case, the player could "place a bomb", i.e. make all tiles around him/her change into a specific color, or change all "red" tiles into "blue" tiles and the like. In either case, thi
• Other upgrades:
  • "Lock" one timer - be able to spend as much time as you want to on one color.
  • Make timere run backwards for a limited time (i.e. while the upgrade is on, standing on "red" increases timer for red, standing on "green" increases timer for green etc.)
• Impenetrable walls
• Instead of losing the game when a timer runs out, you could lock all tiles of that color (i.e. make them impenetrable).

Of course all these things need very careful "placement" and communication - otherwise it might be difficult to grasp what is going on.

I realise this is only a simple prototype, but there's two other things I've noticed that I would like to change:
- Give the player time to plan the level. I dislike that the timers start instantly. This shouldn't be a "jump and run" kind of game, but rather more strategic, where you have as much time as you need to plan ahead, and then run in and do your thing. I would even try a "pause" button.
- While a key is down, the square should keep moving

[purplehuman]

I think this really has potential.

Without giving this too much in-depth thought, the first things that come to mind:

• Color-changing tiles. Either because of some event (step on a trap?) or because player gets an upgrade which he/she can use. In the latter case, the player could "place a bomb", i.e. make all tiles around him/her change into a specific color, or change all "red" tiles into "blue" tiles and the like. In either case, thi
• Other upgrades:
  • "Lock" one timer - be able to spend as much time as you want to on one color.
  • Make timere run backwards for a limited time (i.e. while the upgrade is on, standing on "red" increases timer for red, standing on "green" increases timer for green etc.)
• Impenetrable walls
• Instead of losing the game when a timer runs out, you could lock all tiles of that color (i.e. make them impenetrable).

Of course all these things need very careful "placement" and communication - otherwise it might be difficult to grasp what is going on.

Thank you! These are all good ideas. I'll look into them one by one, see what I can do. I especially like the impenetrable walls idea. This might make it more challenging. But I like all of your ideas.

I realise this is only a simple prototype, but there's two other things I've noticed that I would like to change:
- Give the player time to plan the level. I dislike that the timers start instantly. This shouldn't be a "jump and run" kind of game, but rather more strategic, where you have as much time as you need to plan ahead, and then run in and do your thing. I would even try a "pause" button.
- While a key is down, the square should keep moving

Yeah, I just made it in an hour, so it has A LOT of room for improvement. I agree about your both points though. Starting and pausing/resuming when space is pressed is a good idea.

The only problem is if I use love.keyboard.isDown() the circle might move too fast. I'll look into it too.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. It's much appreciated.

[s-ol]

About the circle speed: use deltatime and a fixed speed/time and it will work perfectly fine.

I didn't get around to playtesting it, but if you don't already, make the tiles change color as the time runs out (fade to white?)- feedback like that is really important for the player.

[purplehuman]

About the circle speed: use deltatime and a fixed speed/time and it will work perfectly fine.

I didn't get around to playtesting it, but if you don't already, make the tiles change color as the time runs out (fade to white?)- feedback like that is really important for the player.

Thanks. I know about dt, but I'm moving the player one tile at a time, so it wouldn't work here. But I will try love.keypressed() tonight (it's evening here)

I like the fading idea though. I can start from pure blue for example and slowly fade to black. It might work.

[purplehuman]

Updated the game file. Little improvements. See the update in the first post.

[purplehuman]

Update: Added three levels.

[s-ol]

Thanks. I know about dt, but I'm moving the player one tile at a time, so it wouldn't work here. But I will try love.keypressed() tonight (it's evening here)

Oh, in that case keypressed makes a lot more sense than isDown does.

[purplehuman]

Oh, in that case keypressed makes a lot more sense than isDown does.

Actually, I used dt in the end. Thanks.

[purplehuman]

Update: Ten levels. See the first post for download.