really, really interesting concept. I genuinely love games that try to mimic the feel of interacting with a console, and this nailed it. The only issue I saw was that at a certain point, all my weapons were destroyed and I literally just had to wait until I was killed. If you do any more work on this, it might be good to add a way to recover lost parts, or maybe just force a game over if you lose the ability to fight back so you're not just waiting around for an end state. It also might be cool to add some way to move around the battlefield - maybe a basic top down map where you could see your surroundings with some terrain as cover, where you can move from grid cell to grid cell. The combat felt like it leaned really heavily into RNG, and a map might give the player a little more agency. Either way, this was cool!
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mainFrame's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #1 | 4.833 | 4.833 |
| Audio | #10 | 3.875 | 3.875 |
| Overall | #12 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Visuals | #15 | 4.208 | 4.208 |
| Fun Factor | #17 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Is your entry a video game or a physical game?
Videogame
Was your game made solo or in a team?
Solo
Did you use any third party assets, if yes what assets did you use?
3rd party SFX, CRT Shadder, and Music. See credits in-game
Did you choose from one (or more) of the optional secondary themes?
Honestly, I didn't vibe with the optional themes.
Does your game contain any 18+ content?
No
Comments
Tough game but these ascii visuals are amazing, would be exciting to see a fully featured mech game with customization in a similar style or something in this vein. Really hard, couldnt get far or figure much out but this ui is so good and i really just felt like i was a struggling mech pilot for a sec as the ui shook and cracked haha.
super dope fr.
Very cool concept - though it was hard for me to keep track of what was actually happening. I liked the idea of typing in commands - I think I managed to kill a few mechs - but staying alive was a little confusing and digging through commands to know what my options were wasn't really a great way to segway me into the game. Would be cool to see a game like this fleshed out further. Great work!
What a sick concept. I think this with some serious high budget sound design would go so hard (not that your sound design was bad, it was excellent!! I'm just picturing the ability to actually hear the battle etc). The vibe/visual design of the game is super unique and the thing is just loaded with information and possibilities. It really gets the imagination going!! Great job, one of the coolest games I've played for sure.
Wow that was cool as hell.
It took me like 5 tries but I finally managed to win. I like how impactful every decision felt and also how much freedom you gave the player to approach each encounter. By the time I got the hang of it, I was so immersed that I could visualize each action.
The only issues I had are that it’s not really fair to have each key stroke advance time without giving players a list of commands before hand. It’s basically guaranteed to kill players before they learn what commands are available.
I think a separate manual for this would be really cool, similar to that insane ps2 mech game Steel Battalion that came with an enormous gamepad and instruction manual for controlling the mech. Imagine a sort of mech owners manual with cool diagrams and lore among the descriptions of all the mech functions.
I would play the shit out of that.
great job on this!
This is super cool, enjoyed playing around with the commands, even as my doom approached. I think every mech fan loves mech games with heaps of overwhelming controls, this scratches that itch right off the bat. And the murky visuals you have of the enemies are really nice too, great sound and visuals all round.
Very cool idea and well-polished retro vibe. It took some time to figure out how everything works, but it was part of the fun, too. Killed a few mechs and got killed soon after I figured out about shields/battery management.
Very cool simulator.
Felt like a deployed soldier that has never used the mech at all. That comes with pros and cons. Allows for exploration, but then you are guessing too much about the systems. I wonder if a small tutorial would be worth it.
Liked how simple the interface is, while hiding how really complex it is.
Overall was a great experience! I really enjoy text-based game adventures, so this was really down my alley! Great execution of the systems and effective use of sound and atmosphere!
This was a really interesting experience, I honestly loved it. I loved that it felt like some strange futuristic console that you have to figure out. I suppose a tutorial would've been nice, but I also kinda enjoyed just figuring it out. I was like "OMG" when I realized every keystroke was a turn! This was so creative and honestly if you kept building this out you'd really have something really special. Amazing work!
Thanks for playing it!
I was really trying to go for 3 very specific player experience moments
- The player being brave, and just trying something even if they don't understand anything. (I probably gave too much time to poke around, and the one-button mode makes this one kind of weird at the start now... )
- The player having a perspective shift from being in the game's program to being in some isolated location interacting with a computer that is interacting with the program (to promote immersion).
- The feeling of dread when you know you advance time by typing, and aren't sure if you have enough characters left before you trigger your own death or edge on by, but continuing to type anyway.
Such a awesome idea! Reminds me of those old text games where you was stuck in a forest or something. The audio feedback is really good and it feels very polished. A bit hard to get used to the systems at the start but that is teh case with most games. I really like that i have to type in what commands i want to use. Despite it being a rather simple game it feels very immersive.
Very nice job!
I'm glad you liked it!
So, I went to an antique store, and they had this old adding machine. I love the sounds it made, so I set my phone on it and recorded each key. Those unedited sounds became the typewriter sounds. (for button push and release) I didn't have time to map them each to a specific key, but that was going to be a stretch goal.
Yeah, I didn't really do much in the way of tutorials. I really didn't want to mess up the player moment of just trying stuff and find out what happens. But in general, shields are very important when about to be hit. The Heavy uses a gun, the Recon uses a missile, and the Assault uses a sword, and their ranges are similar to yours.
Have you ever seen a movie called Source Code? It has similar kind of "Main character trapped in a thing" vibe. I was thinking about it a little as I was making this.
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