get me the spell outta here!!

by thinknervous

Cart #witchescape3-5 | 2021-09-26 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | No License

27

This game is finally done--enjoy!! I have a long list of ideas, including some good ones from player feedback, which I decided to discard. The game works, and the significant bugs are relatively rare. I decided to resist my addiction to refactoring code in the interest of, you know--actually finishing a project for once!

Here's some stuff I did NOT get to:

• fixing a game-breaking bug where you will occasionally get stuck in the air after jumping on a pig. I couldn't consistently replicate the error or find the cause.
• not a game-breaking bug, but it doesn't really make sense for the guards to whip you through doors or while you are standing behind them. oh well--it turned out to be too difficult to refactor this code.
• additional spells, like flying horizontally on a broom or turning yourself into something.
• various performance and code-cleaning optimizations

Thank you to everyone who played this game while it was in development and gave me feedback and encouragement!!

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Revision 4 (final) released 9/26/21

• added victory screen!!

Revision 3 released 9/12/21

• swapped order of frog and pig spells
• adjusted jump height of frog and pig spells; it should now be impossible to skip either spell
• revised the map to accommodate these changes
• minor bug fixes

Revision 2 released 8/1/20

• Added title screen
• Lots of refactoring that mostly doesn't affect gameplay
• Gave it an actual name!

Revision 1 released 6/19/20

• Added music and sound

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Edit: Because people seemed to enjoy this game, I'm moving it to "work in progress" and now plan to actually finish it! I'm also adding some references to the end of this post for where I got some of the programming ideas from. (Unfortunately I haven't kept good records of everything, but I will update as I find sources.)

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Hi everyone!

This is my first game. I made it a couple summers ago while I was funemployed. I had plans to make it more polished, but, well... I got a (non-programming) job lol. I finally decided to upload it as-is.

A couple programming highlights (which may actually be terrible; I'm not exactly a programmer):

• pixel-by-pixel collisions checks (starting at line 847)
• class inheritance system (starting at line 145)
• algorithmically generated whip graphics, which tbh are a mess but were interesting to try and figure out (starting at line 1114)
• map initiation: maps are drawn with a single brick tile, which is then replaced with the proper side and corner sprites as appropriate (starting at line 1221)

Let me know what you think!

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Particle systems
Automatic tile generation (there used to be a blog post explaining this but the link is broken)

Super neat! It obviously is unfinished, but the idea is really great! Nice art as well. Would be awesome to see this one get fully developed :)

Thanks! Yeah, visual art is what I have actual talent in, so I feel like it probably looks better than it plays

Great! Is in desperate need of sound

Fun game, never have seen pigs as trampolines before

kajfkdjafklj yeah sound and music is one of the things I never got around to

omg your pigs are so cute!!

ahem...with that out of the way, yes, your game has a wonderful aesthetic. i really like how you animated each sprite especially the spells. also changing the color of the witch's palette to indicate spells was a great choice! i couldn't help but start saying 'you go pig now!' while rocking my pink duds as i made the guards into the cutest porkers around.

what a treat of a game! as others mentioned, sound and music would put this over the top. regardless, i'm really glad you shared this for us all to enjoy. thank you!

omg thank you all for the feedback!! maybe now someday i actually will finish it after all owo

This game is charming and a lot of fun.
I love the way you've used different spells and npcs to create different puzzles to solve.

Looks really good. I second the requests for sound :) The gameplay mechanics feel good too.

Extremely well designed game with epic animation!
I hope you can find time some day to add sound and a victory screen, maybe even some more puzzles for the frog-spell :)
Also, by my definition, I think you are exactly a programmer too :D

Thanks! Yeah the frog spell ended up being completely optional and that was not what I intended. haha

Very fun, cute concept, spells are great, and I'm going to jump on the bandwagon (pig-wagon?) that piggy trampolines are just the freakin' best. ;-)

I think I missed something though, because I ended up with an extra key and wasn't able to reach the exit door. Will try again when I have more time. Thanks for sharing!

the piggies are so cute!

Really great game! Pig was unexpected and amazing

I found it difficult to gauge when a frog was about to jump & thus got stuck after obtaining the frog spell (I couldn't time my jump with the frog jump correctly in order to suspend the frog in mid-air)

Otherwise, really nice work -- digging the minimal music as well :D

@professir sorry if this wasn't super clear in the UI--you can aim upward by pressing up! i never jump with the frogs and try to aim horizontally. although now i can now see that this was a blind spot for me. you're right that a better indication that the frog is ABOUT to jump would provide a much better user experience. maybe i should have made them croak just before jumping...