itch.io

Great! There won’t be any new builds for quite some time, because I’m deep in the trenches of the next phase of Jinks. Hugely exciting, I’ll keep you updated.

New builds coming in the next day or so, these will add persistent high score saving across all platforms (Dreamcast via VMU, etc). Plus! Even smaller distribution zips.

I also noticed this on Linux handheld. Will fix ASAP. Lesson learned to not rush a release out before going on holiday.

great to hear, have fun!

765940 my end score, think i died only two or three times. Sorry and/or let battle commence!

It revealed a bug in high score tracking LOL, the game quits before the final reward can be added to “HI”, but thankfully table does show the proper final score. Will push that fix in another build another day, I don’t have it in me after testing this release.

Latest 20260812 builds enable sound in the surprise, thanks for catching that. macOS and Linux now default to CRT off, with option to enable. And Dreamcast build is now 60fps!

Press F1, I should really add a menu item for that.

OK, I did some research.

I ran it through these tools:

• https://gptzero.me/share/s/76f49191-07b4-40da-bcb0-75e3e45ff6c2
  • “We are highly confident this text was AI generated”
• https://chatgpt.com/share/6a7a2c12-3820-83eb-bca4-5f8796e4a820
  • “Yes. It has quite a few stylistic patterns commonly associated with AI-generated or heavily AI-polished writing.”

There are many AI “tells”, and your text has them.

But, I don’t mind how you create your writing, whether prompted or AI-assisted editing/cleanup.

I enjoyed the topic you raised. Thanks for taking the time to put it out there.

Right, I’m doing both :)

The irony that this is an AI written post :)

I’m currently listing platforms in my game title:

BELTRUNNER (Web, Mac, Linux, Wii, DC)

All versions updated (no rule changes, just engine improvements)

My current high score is 486910 I’m looking forward to it being beaten so I can get back into the game. Get in touch with me on social media if you want any of the other versions. Cheers!

Theoretical max score is about 1.3M but I think human about 850K?

Thanks so much for your kind words! Are you playing on web or on Wii or handheld? My best score right now is about 425K. Still not managed to get to the end on my own steam. Have fun!

I know it is perhaps a niche request, but it would be great to get additional platform icons alongside Mac/Windows/Linux.

Examples:

• Dreamcast *
• Nintendo Wii *
• Playdate *
• PlayStation
• etc

* I’ve made games for this platform

The goal is for the platforms to show up as icons on my profile page.

If you don’t want hundreds of icons, it might be cool to have a sort of auto-complete system, so it behaves more like tags. But it’s better than tags because it adds a recognisable platform icon.

It might make sense to start with the most popular non-desktop platforms?

I added ASWD controls for you in today’s update

Oops. Will do!

Sadly I couldn’t seem to jump, but I liked what I saw and heard

I had the same though! I just got game engine ported to Wii and supporting Wiiremote! My engine is https://jinks.gg a totally new way of making games. Today I will make a bare bones port of your game (block graphics) and let you know how many lines of “code” for the first few levels. Will report back.

Thanks so much! I do think it suffers a little from “game developer makes their own game a bit too hard” 😅

I’d like a bit of aim assistance! Anyway, I really like the idea. I mentioned on Twitter that it gave me Wii vibes and you replied “Wii Tanks” and that made me feel good. Nice work!

If I can get some funding or income from it then I will definitely build a version of the IDE for non-macOS platforms. Games will be able to be built and run on Windows from day one.

Thanks! There is tutorial/toast text for each new element added to the game: rocks, gates, directional gates, and spinning gates. It’s minimal, but tells you all you need to know.

As mentioned in “How does your game fit the theme?”: multiple gameplay mechanics involve doing things in descending order, ie. counting down.

I’ll list some of them:

• gates need to be passed in descending order
• there is a special bonus for destroying rocks in descending order
• loose power ups are on a (invisible) countdown, the length is discoverable
• music/sfx use descending chord progression
• etc

And as you say the timer counts down.

If I had to summarise it, the game is a battle against the count down.

Thanks! One of my favourite things to do is to maximise the points by getting into the black hole as fast as possible, feels so good when you line it up on the last gate and can just boost right into the hole

Thank you! Comments like this make it all the effort worthwhile.

Thanks! The trick is to angle towards the opposite edge of the black hole and thrust, then you can go straight in. If you do this as soon as the black hole appears you can dash straight into it. Takes a bit of skill, but very satisfying when you can nail it every time.

Thanks! I’ll be sure add ASWD controls duplication on my todo list.

Great to hear! That’s exactly the feeling I was going for. Thanks for playing. Spread the word!

Thank you. It’s lonely on your own out there in space! So I picked some chords that can be melancholy at times.

But, there’s a way to add to the music and even play an uplifting jingle once per wave! Did you figure it out?

Thanks! It was tricky to balance the new stuff, but I’m finding it a lot of fun. Especially dashing for the last gate knowing you won’t collide with a rock as long as you get there first. And it’s fun doing a little spin or dance to get in the black hole a little faster. Did you find any secret stuff?

Played until level 18. Really great idea!

I feel the difficulty progression could be smoother, I didn’t feel there was any increase at all even with more numbers. Perhaps if you have a solver it can grade the puzzles?

And there could be a way to add a little something extra in there, like moving dots.

I’d also appreciate being able to go from 0 to 9, and do away with the reset altogether, would be much less annoying.

I have no idea what I am doing, but I like it.

Please add instructions to the page so people have an idea how to play.

I liked it. Would be cool to see the game become more involved other than just increasing the number of target people. Maybe obstacles, bonus for rebound shots or shots that get two players.

Thanks! The CRT shader really makes those vectors pop!

Cheers! There is actually a limit :) otherwise things go crazy

Thanks! It’s as much racing game as it is Asteroids, I tried to blend the two.

I couldn’t control this, but it looked cool.

Nice concept.

I think the input method needs work and the ball movement would be better if it used real physics.

Keep it up!

Really nice! I like the multi-shot. I cleared the first buzzsaw, played for about 10/15 mins.

Would be cool if getting the whole in less than the number of tees gave me something, like maybe a rewind to last shot position - a kind of undo or mulligan - so I can fix a mistake and don’t have to replay the hole.

More graphics could really take this up a notch. Worth building out to a full experience.

Nice work.

Really like the way this looks. And a very satisfying gameplay loop. I like the grace period after countdown reaches zero.

I think that WASD could be replaced with a second mouse/controller interaction, to keep things a bit purer and more focused.

Nice work team!