Robo X - Rux's first puzzle game

[Rux]

Hello everybody! I've been busy working on a new game. I call it Robo X
Your goal is to program this little robot to travel through 10 levels, with tons of traps, visual tricks and more. While on the way, collect treasures to gain more points. To program it, you have to place a limited number of arrow pads to guide it to the blue portal. Get it there to advance to the next level. Be careful though, you can only use an arrow pad once, though you might have more than one of the same kind of arrow pad. Left click and drag to move one around, right click it to put it back in your inventory. When you're done placing arrow pads click go. If you blow up, then click stop, and edit your programming. Your robot will restart at the beginning. To move the view, use the arrow keys, and press right CTRL to go back to default view. Sometimes you may need to blow up on purpose, to get pass the level or to get certain treasures. Don't just keep blowing yourself up, each level has it's own secret "par". If you go more than par, you'll lose 10 points every time.
Every object in your way will make you blow up, and if you go off into black space (hint: most of the time).
However if you see a door(a wall with a key silhouette) then go grab a key and go through the door. Keys don't have a specific door they go to, just grab a key and go through any door. (You can only use a key once and you'll never have 2 or more keys at the same time.) In the bottom left corner there are 3 buttons. RESET will reset the level, this will cause your points to start at zero. Press and hold MENU or EXIT for five seconds to go where you want to go.
Each level has it's own level code. Use it to jump to any level.
This is all I can tell you good luck!

Took me about 3-4 days to make, but still It can get pretty addicting. I think it's easy (well obviously ) but I want to know really how hard it is. Try it out, especially if you like puzzles.

29.91 MB - Download Below V

P.S. Can anybody tell me how to compress the data file in this zip to a .dat file? I'd really appreciate it.

[DST]

Usually i don't like it when people post bug reviews of my games. But I feel compelled to do it to you.

This game is excellent! One of the best made with ge so far!

One thing i like is how often turning around becomes important: those of use who learned directional games from the old dos 'snake' game (or tron) kinda got hooked on all 90degree turns, i like the 180.

Bugs: The arrows appear in the same spot, regardless of where my screen is at, so i sometimes have to backscroll to get to them.
The exit/menu does not work. I had to alt+tab out and then ctrl alt del the game.

The exploding bricks are not apparent at the start. Since the arrows cannot be placed on the fly, you can't compensate - you either have to guess right the first time or lose the round. Of course, this is your personal choice of game mechanics. But i'd like to be able to place arrows fast - like shooting them into the maze. Might make it a little more hair raising action.

Good work with the shattered glass too - its always important to use graphic fx to signal that something has just happened. Full screen flashes etc. make completing a level seem like something big.

point.

P.S. You have to export them as .dat files from ge - choose 'export game data only'. Remember that the loadgame is verbatim, so you have to make sure to change those to .dat too. LoadGame("this.dat");

[Rux]

The exit/menu does not work. I had to alt+tab out and then ctrl alt del the game.

In the bottom left corner there are 3 buttons. RESET will reset the level, this will cause your points to start at zero. Press and hold MENU or EXIT for five seconds to go where you want to go.

You missed this part in the instructions. I made it like this to prevent accidental exits.
Also, I did mention that it may take more than one try to complete a level. It was programmed this way.
About the arrows, I made right ctrl take you back to where they are made, though I should change this.

Im going to get working on a fixed version, thanks for the feedback!

[DST]

I think this is a good learning opportunity for everyone - Rux had build in all of the features i thought were missing. But they weren't intuitive to me.

Intuitive - when you play grand theft auto, and you walk across the street, you don't have to hit a button to make the guy lift his foot so he doesn't trip over the curb. He does it automatically.

I've gotten so used to playing online flash/java games where you can just start playing and don't really need instructions (or instructions are included as an onscreen tutorial in the first level).


But i think its very important. The lifespan of most games is much shorter than what it used to be, mostly because there are 60 million other games just a click away. So it's a good idea to make a game as friendly as possible - and that means different strokes for different folks - try to include them all.

Things that are triggered by keyboard keys should also have a visual mouse/menu counterpart. Movement that's controlled with asdf should also be controlled with arrow keys - different styles for different players.


Think about why windows is so successful - you can open a dos prompt and type your command. You can go thru the menus and look for the menu item and click on it; you can click on a desktop icon, or you can set up hotkeys. You can even set up computers with voice software. No matter how you like to do things, you can setup windows in that way.

I once had lunch with a very smart guy who owned a factory, and programmed on Unix. He said something that i never forgot:

"There are three basic types of people: Visual, Verbal, and Spatial. Any type is far more effective if they can work with the way that they are best at."

Me, i'm visual. I like to see it before i click on it. I hate hotkeys and i don't much care for text. Gimme some icons! That's what i like. That's what i feel comfortable with.


This is not a demand; you can make your games however you want. But just consider these two things:

1. the more people can get into your game, the more players/fans you will have.
2. computers are pretty powerful nowdays. Mirroring interfaces doesn't take much resources or time to program. So why not?

[Rux]

FIXED VERSION 1.1 -> http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ydwlmgtl4nw\

In this one I just made the exe files unaccessable.

[BlarghNRawr]

I think this is a good learning opportunity for everyone - Rux had build in all of the features.....

VERY nice explanation. and i agree completely
games are much better when their is more then one play method or more than one way to go.
everyone plays differently and you have to appeal to all audiences to be successful

i think the best way to make it user friendly is by getting all the people you know to play it, then actually write down all their suggestions or complaints (there will be some no matter what) [and obviously not right there... don't wanna freak them out by writing down everything that comes out of their mouth] but after they finish playing. then once you have a bunch of suggestions, try to combine them together to make the best way to satisfy everyone. You may have to make some sacrifices on a few ends but thats obvious now isn't it?