Thank you for giving it a shot! (no pun intended)
David Thompson
Creator of
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That worked, thanks! Cute game! Liked the art and music. I had a hard time remembering which acids paired together, which slowed me down a lot. Something about the shape/color differences just wasn't clicking with me. I really liked the intro tutorial sequence, though I was initially confused why an acid was stopped in the reticle. For some reason I was expecting them to keep moving and I'd have to chain them together like a rhythm game. Once I understood what was happening I had fun!
Flappy Mech! Move over Neon Genesis Evangelion, because I caused more than three impacts here! Which is to say that I am not so great at flappy bird type games. I quickly learned that I need to feather the thrusters when going between the green columns. Remembering the high score between runs is a nice touch that motivated to try to go further each time. I found the collision detection a little unforgiving. Maybe shrinking the player hitbox just a bit would make it feel more fair.
I get the following error when I run the AppImage on Ubuntu 20.04:
debugger invoked on a CFFI:LOAD-FOREIGN-LIBRARY-ERROR in thread #<THREAD "main thread" RUNNING {1005F48103}>: Unable to load foreign library (LIBSKIA.CLAWED.SO-559). Error opening shared object "/tmp/.mount_notalo20M8zc/usr/lib/libskia.clawed.so": libOpenGL.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. Type HELP for debugger help, or (SB-EXT:EXIT) to exit from SBCL. restarts (invokable by number or by possibly-abbreviated name): 0: [RETRY ] Try loading the foreign library again. 1: [USE-VALUE] Use another library instead. 2: [ABORT ] Exit from the current thread. (CFFI::FL-ERROR "Unable to load foreign library (~A).~% ~A" #:LIBSKIA.CLAWED.SO-559 "Error opening shared object \"/tmp/.mount_notalo20M8zc/usr/lib/libskia.clawed.so\": libOpenGL.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.") error finding frame source: Bogus form-number: the source file has probably changed too much to cope with. source: NIL 0]
I'm having trouble running this game on Linux, unfortunately. I'm using Ubuntu 20.04. Here's what I tried:
$ sudo apt install openjdk-8-jre-headless
$ /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java -jar sequence-abstraction.jar
I got the following backtrace:
java.awt.AWTError: Assistive Technology not found: org.GNOME.Accessibility.AtkWrapper at java.awt.Toolkit.loadAssistiveTechnologies(Toolkit.java:807) at java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit(Toolkit.java:886) at processing.core.PApplet.runSketch(PApplet.java:10715) at quil.applet$applet_run.invokeStatic(applet.clj:82) at quil.applet$applet_run.invoke(applet.clj:79) at quil.applet$applet.invokeStatic(applet.clj:330) at quil.applet$applet.doInvoke(applet.clj:270) at clojure.lang.RestFn.applyTo(RestFn.java:137) at clojure.core$apply.invokeStatic(core.clj:665) at clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:660) at quil.core$sketch.invokeStatic(core.cljc:4831) at quil.core$sketch.doInvoke(core.cljc:4822) at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:3894) at quip.core$run.invokeStatic(core.clj:112) at quip.core$run.invoke(core.clj:107) at sequence_abstraction.core$_main.invokeStatic(core.clj:42) at sequence_abstraction.core$_main.doInvoke(core.clj:40) at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:397) at clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:152) at clojure.lang.RestFn.applyTo(RestFn.java:132) at sequence_abstraction.core.main(Unknown Source)Maybe there's some additional java package I need to install to make this work, but it's been ~10 years since I've worked with Java in any serious way so I just don't know.
Very chill! I know this is a stretch but listening to relaxing music while re-assembling a "network", if you will, gave me Death Stranding vibes. I think maybe a smaller game map with more puzzle elements would add to the replayability a lot. Sometimes I didn't quite understand why I couldn't build rails on a tile.
Very chill! I know this is a stretch but listening to relaxing music while re-assembling a "network", if you will, gave me Death Stranding vibes. I think maybe a smaller game map with more puzzle elements would add to the replayability a lot. Sometimes I didn't quite understand why I couldn't build rails on a tile.
Loved the graphics and sound, but like others I had a hard time understanding what was going on, even after reading some explanations. I was able to make it about half way up the tree, I think, before I'd get bumped back down to jesod. I also managed to get the player sprite misaligned on the hex grid for awhile, which added to my confusion. I think the concept is great, though.
I loved this game! Took me 3 tries to finally "get it", but then I was able to successfully navigate the politics of this world and retire successfully. It pained me to have to boost the oligarchs in order to keep myself alive at one point! The first time I lost I didn't understand why, so maybe an explanation at the end of who/what killed you would be good.
I struggled internally with this, but I decided to go with a more traditional shmup approach and not have a slow down feature, and the player speed was adjusted to allow for delicate-ish dodging without feeling too slow. This game is more Ikaruga than Tohou, I guess. If the screen was really filled with bullets like in Touhou games I would have went for it. Totally agreed about the intro being annoying upon replay. One of those quality of life improvements I just couldn't squeeze in. Thank you for playing!
I got this to run using Guix. First I extracted the tarball to a directory and entered it in the terminal. Then I ran:
guix environment -l guix.scm -- tsukundere -L $PWD -A $PWD -m dystopia
BTW, the tarball is a "tar bomb", as in the files aren't all contained in a directory, which caused me to pollute the directory I extracted it to.
As for the game, lots of anime tropes, fourth wall breaking, overtly anti-capitalist themes, and Genshin Impact references! The script is very funny! I wish there was more of a plot, but the presentation of everything is very slick. Tsukundere is coming along nicely!
If you love walking simulators, you'll love worm simulators! I flailed helplessly for awhile trying to figure out how to get my poor little worm onto the statue after the foot, but I couldn't do it. I can see how making the worm act sort of like a spring is the way to go, but I just can't get my hands to make it happen. I wish the game would automatically reset when I inevitably go into freefall after sliding off an ancient bust.
Hi all,
Just wanted to share a few libraries that Guile has for making games:
- Tsukundere: For making Visual Novels
- Chickadee: A general-purpose game library
- Guile-SDL2: Bindings for the SDL2 library (used by both Tsukundere and Chickadee)
I am the maintainer of both Guile-SDL2 and Chickadee.
I uploaded a new tarball with the correct libffi version to my personal site. Does it work for you? https://files.dthompson.us/the-test-subject.tar.gz
This is a very cute game! Loved the music and the simple storytelling without using any dialog. I am very bad at controlling the snake and missed a lot of mice but I was relieved to see that the other snake loved me anyway.
When you're bad at controlling the snake, like I am, it is possible to move the snake off of the screen and have no hope of getting it back.