itch.io

update on the minified version: 496 bytes, with a longer/commented version here: https://gist.github.com/pancelor/5196243ebbb51ca97905b0df52f11d26

playable here – the scoring is pretty different (you can’t hold the mouse down in this version!)

I pasted the code from this page into my pico8 (0.2.6b, same one that your web export seems to be running) but it doesn’t work, it stop()s on the first frame. any idea what’s up with that?

edit: ah elseif y>5and s!=" "or y<5and s==" "then needs two more spaces; it’s different here than it is on the main itch page

I won! 5 points. fun:)

fantastic game! small question: is there a way to lock the game in landscape mode on mobile? it’s harder to play now that I need to turn on my phone’s rotation and hold it carefully to not accidentally rotate back to portrait mode. I’m on v3.0.15 on android

Ah, sorry! I can see how gamepad support would feel missing for the first hour(?) of the game, but later on I think you’ll agree that this is a keyboard-only game. I can’t imagine a way to add gamepad support that wouldn’t completely overturn one of the core parts of the game…

(But at the very least, I ought to edit the itch page so that this is clearer)

Let me know if you find any bugs! Here, or in a separate thread; either works. It would be helpful for me to know:

1. Which version you have Or, how you bought it – my itch page, indiepocalypse 49, or the indiepocalypse pledge drive? (I need to make the version number easier to find!)
2. What operating system you’re using
3. If it’s a crash, it would be extra helpful if you attach the logs/godot.log file from the userdata folder:

Windows: %APPDATA%\Godot\app_userdata\cerealman
macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Godot/app_userdata/cerealman
Linux: ~/.local/share/godot/app_userdata/cerealman

planning on it! It’s exclusive to the zine for a few months (and I encourage people to buy it there – I like the Indiepocalypse project) but yes, afterwards I’ll sell it on its own

I expect it should be the same – I’m a tester for the full release and I got it working with linux+wine by installing d3dcompiler_43 through winetricks (thanks to this thread!)

(for completeness: the game was crashing when I tried to launch it through wine, so I installed d3dx9_43 (only) through winetricks, but the game still crashed on launch. Then I found this thread and installed d3dcompiler_43 in addition, and the game runs now! So it’s possible that d3dx9_43 is also required (since I never uninstalled it), but I doubt it)

ᵇᵃⁿᵍᵉʳ

Here’s some detailed instructions on how to change the resolution (including the palette instructions already shared here)

https://gist.github.com/pancelor/322491bdc12d1f6fef5d08832a4a565e

ooooh exciting!! (if you’re looking for more testers let me know!)

hahahaha I did a spit take at that ending. great game!

wild how you were able to keep the discoveries flowing throughout the whole puzzle. loved it!

Yes, I wrote it – thank you :)

that division setup is really nice! I got 35 without it but couldn’t figure out how to shave that last cycle

hello bcat112a I have beaten your best cycles of ninety-three with my contraption: one-hundred-and-six cycles. I will try for higher later. https://imgur.com/a/5gkI07b

the leftover clues at the end were very intruiging; I calculated the result and called the number on my cellular phone, only to hear the game’s muisc playing both forward and backwards at the same time. I have yet to discover what this is meant to signify

I love the difficulty; it took me 5 or 10 tries to finally beat the boss. and then there was more! great game

Overwhelming at first, but really fun to figure out how to improve and make deductions! I wish I could draw on the screen; I stopped using the game and solved them in paint instead. And then eventually I went back to only using the game, to try to get my time down – here’s my fastest:

What does the daily do? it seems to be completely random puzzles, not a single puzzle per day.

thank you!

“how did you choose?” – the game was made for a jam with a constrained code-size (here’s the entire source code!) and I wanted consistent layouts, so I seeded the RNG with the current level number (srand(lvl)) and then placed some number of mountains/graves/heroes at completely random locations. I think level 1 was too easy (it wasn’t good enough preparation for level 2), so then I tried srand(lvl/7) (which makes different layouts but keeps the code-size small) and then landed on srand(lvl/3). I think those were the only three things I tried. I chose based on how level 1 felt – it needs to be not too hard (relatively speaking) but it needs to be hard enough that you learn the game enough to be prepared to take on level 2, when the game gets a lot harder (maybe I should have kept looking – the grave sitting out in the open near the town is maybe too hard!)

but why did I want consistent layouts in the first place? (after all, seeding the RNG added code!) Hard to say… I think it was something similar – level 1 needs to be a stepping stone into the rest of the game. If you can just reset until you get an easy level 1, you won’t be prepared for level 2, which will be frustrating. Maybe you could just reset until you get an easy level 2? Maybe it would work, but my gut said to make the levels consistent.

It also helps to give the game a sense of place, rather than procgen oatmeal. I like the feeling of losing and then trying the same level again, to do it better (or winning, and then trying to get your move-count down). And I think if I were playing the first level for the first time, I would care more about protecting the town that lives in this one particular valley than I would about Random Oatmeal Town #37. making every level random (er, randomly random, rather than consistently random) would emphasize the fakeness of the game too much for me. I think it would also “use up” the interesting parts of the game too quickly – I like having the player sit in one valley for a while and explore what makes that particular one interesting. (The move counter points in that direction too)

(one final note: “chaotic or unbeatable?” – chaotic yes, but not unbeatable! I knew the generator would be consistent + simple procgen from the start, so I designed the rest of the mechanics to work with any level. In theory, the generator can certainly spit out unbeatable levels, but in practice I haven’t found any yet in the hundred or so levels that I’ve played.)

great questions, thank you! I didn’t realize I had this much to say about it :) I should clean this up a bit and post it as a devlog

😁

alright, I beat it! I mayyy have cheated by using a well-placed stop() to look at the map (I was stuck in the dungeon – funny solution in retrospect! should have found it)

ahh the softlock makes sense now – cool to see the raw code peeking through like that! but fixing it seems good, much nicer now

really cool! the map tech is wild. and the trick to display the HUD hearts it clever – I’ll have to remember that.

rot13: V sbhaq 6 be 7 urnegf, sbhaq n qhatrba, naq tbg fbsgybpxrq va gur jngre pnir – vg frrzf gb unccra pbafvfgragyl jura V uvg gur gbc-yrsg pbeare bs gur oynpx erpgnatyr vafvqr gur jngre. obggbz-evtug gbb. nz V snyyvat va n cvg..?

fantastic game! cute, fun to control, fun puzzles, and the post-game is excellent

all the stars that I decided to skip….. letting my early years slip away before realizing how precious they are

Sounds good, thanks!

Does this jam accept tools e.g. map editors? (made in PICO8 of course)

Related question: are there judging categories? or are all submissions judged on a single scale of “good” or “fun” or something?

Category suggestions:

• Fun
• Innovative
• Artwork
• Tools

(I’m sure there are better names for these, and looking at other jams for category inspiration might be a good idea if you decide you like this idea)

lovely! simple yet impressively whole

nice puzzles! I particularly liked 10 11 and 12. It feels a lot like the original, well done. the music is great too

the mechanics were new and weird but ultimately pretty intuitive, which is an exciting combo. and wow, those last three puzzles were fantastic! “Evolution” in particular tasted similar to the puzzles in The Golem – I enjoyed it a lot

absolutely horrifying; incredible work

really fun! I was a bit annoyed at the first level where I just sit in a room and wait for the hero to come to me… until about 3 seconds later when I realized that’s exactly what mimics do and the realization made me laugh. great stuff :)

hahahaha that ending was great! and pulling actual games is really cool – I’m going to go play two of the ones I “edited” that look particularly interesting to me :)

oh, fun combo of mechanics! in some levels (e.g. 4) I had no idea what to do or how to make progress. but other levels were really nice – I liked 5 in particular.

nice! level 3 was pretty hard; when my character is to the left of a cursor and I pressed “right” I wish we both moved right, instead of just the cursor. level 9 was great. love the visuals and music. thanks for the game!

really fun! the difficulty curve was great for me; it ramps up fast enough to want to play again and get a better score

thanks! I updated the “How does your game fit the theme?” at the top of this page; it should hopefully be clearer

this was fantastic! so many surprises

fun! this could easily have been too hard/arbitrary but it felt just about perfect to me. fun to poke around and discover new recipes; reminds me of Doodle God

oh yeah, I’ve seen it! thanks for the video, it was a fun watch :)

fun game! I think its very funny how the line piece is still good, but here you usually want to place it sideways instead of vertical haha

my highscore is 775K/301 lines (on marathon/1/1) without thinking too much about the combos. (but its very fun to pull them off!) I’d be interested to try a version of this with 5 colors

I love the lives system, and the way that every player plays the same finite set of levels, rather than framing it as an infinite procedural generator – makes it much more compelling to me. I died on level 18 but I might try again later…

the spike at the start of level 15 is nasty! can you push it to the right a few pixels please? ;)

that “feature list” is really funny to me, because they seem small but they are genuine features; I wish I’d been able to fit them into my entry!

finally, here’s a puzzle(?) for you: