Karoshi Factory, PUZZLE Options

[2Dcube]

Karoshi Factory

Description
Karoshi is back!
You get help from your co-workers this time,
and your goal every level is to kill each other.
This is an entry in the YoYoGames Co-operation Competition.

Features:
- exactly 25 levels
- a boss fight
- nice graphics
- great music by "dopepoo" (website)

Screenshot


Play!
YYG link

Hope you have fun and please rate fairly. Thanks!

[just one questio...]

Glad to see Karoshi is back.

Downloading now, but it's really slow.

Will edit when played.

Edit: Well, stuck on level 10. It's a great game though.

And about being agaisnt the rules, I was informing anyone in the post that the download was a bit slow, AND saying I was downloading it

This post has been edited by just one question: Aug 24 2008, 07:18 PM

[wormintheworks]

it's a good game, and its got better graphics, music and general gameplay than the other Karoshi games.

However, other than the basic goal of killing yourself, this game isn't much different to alot of the other games in the YoYo Co Operation competition.

I played for a while... then got kinda bored... i gave i a 4/6 though.

EDIT: also, the mario Bros 1 box sprite on the title might have to be changed if you want to win the competition, as it breaches copyright.

This post has been edited by wormintheworks: Aug 24 2008, 07:14 PM

[Andreas_oj]

Wow its really great!

I stopped at level 16, "hint: be very quick" or something like that.
I know how to beat the level, but I lost interest after 30 tries >.<

I cant believe how you can design so many great and different maps..

anyways 9/10!

[graydon77222]

I liked the game, and it does seem to be better than the original Karoshi games in graphics.

I hope you win.

9/10

This post has been edited by graydon77222: Aug 24 2008, 07:41 PM

[drazzke]

It was good, I beat the game (All 25 levels )

[coolist]

Ok heres my short review:

Graphics: Um... pretty much same as the others. 7.5/10
Programing: Didn't find any bugs, its pretty smooth too. 8.5/10
Game play: Probably the best thing in this game, I loved it just like the other Karoshi's. 9.5/10
Replay: 8/10

Overall score: 9/10

This post has been edited by coolist: Aug 24 2008, 08:29 PM

[Bill23]

EDIT: also, the mario Bros 1 box sprite on the title might have to be changed if you want to win the competition, as it breaches copyright.

I haven't played it much yet (althrough what I have played was a lot of fun), but in addition to wormintheworks point (above) the game also starts in fullscreen, which is against the rules.
Edit: I just noticed that it doesn't start fullscreen, but then it automaically switches without any imput from the user. I sill YYG might not let this win (unless you change that) though.

This post has been edited by Bill23: Aug 24 2008, 09:31 PM

[Erik Leppen]

- exactly 25 levels

You have an unusual definition of "exactly". (and of "25" )


I finished the game (at least, I got "thanks for play", I guess that's the end, but with Karoshi games, you'll never know ). The puzzles were very nice, especially some of the later ones were quite ingenious. I liked how you introduced certain "weird things" with a blue button instead of "just being there" (for example the reversed controls). However I thought the reverse controls level was kinda an anticlimax (I found it way too easy compared to other levels and would have liked to see a cool puzzle in its place). I thought the boss was a bit lame too (it was not a puzzle in fact).

Concept I think that the idea is not really original - I expected to see lots of multi-character platform games. I however did like the fact that you had to kill all characters (I have seen multi-character platformers where it sufficed to "reach the goal" for only one character).

Gameplay The gameplay is what I am used to from Karoshi 1: logic puzzles, instead of all kinds of hidden things like in Karoshi 2. You know what you have in a level and you know what your goal is, so actual reasoning is possible, unlike in Karoshi 2 where it was a lot of trial and error (which I also liked). Another thing the game really suffered from was bad controls. It made the quick levels much harder because I constantly pressed wrong buttons. Why not use Up arrow to jump? When a level restarts you seem to randomly shuffle the characters over their starting positions. Which I think is very unwise for two reasons. 1. communication. When I say "let the blue guy push the crate, then let the brown guy pick up the gun" (random example), this may be confising to others because they have other starting positions. 2. Switching characters. It looked quite random, I assume you always go from blue to brown to gray etc. but because their positions are different each time, the "guy who started at the top right" is not always followed by "the guy below", i.e. the player had to actually look at the colors, which I of course didn't do because the colors are not important for the strategy.

Graphics/sound/music The usual from Karoshi, with again a new tile set. The usual blood particles. Animation in the bullet reflectors was a good thing to add. I liked the music better than that from Karoshi 2, although I would have liked an option to disable it (without deleting the files) to hear the sound effects better (some sound effects could have been louder I think).

Documentation You relied on the fact that the player already knows the concept of Karoshi games. Karoshi 2 suffers from the same flaw, but I only noticed last week when I took it to a friend and he discovered the level 1 easter egg right away because nowhere the game said that its goal was to kill the guy (so the person who played thought it was just some platformer, hence tried walking to the right, out of the screen). This game, also does not explain the goal of the game.

Other I noticed a (very minor) glitch. In some level you can put a crate in a hole of one block width. If you have shot a bullet on the grade, its position is somehow not an integer anymore and it doesn't fit in the hole anymore, which looked a bit strange. I also didn't like that there was no level choice option. Also, "let's working" doesn't sound right, I think you meant "let's work".

Overall It's a good game, that's for sure, but I think there are a few things missing that make this great like Karoshi 2, controls being the biggest problem and lack of explanation the second. But for some reason I thought it was just total coolness to make those office workers work together on their suicidal master plan

This post has been edited by Erik Leppen: Aug 24 2008, 09:44 PM

[2Dcube]

EDIT: also, the mario Bros 1 box sprite on the title might have to be changed if you want to win the competition, as it breaches copyright.

Edit: I just noticed that it doesn't start fullscreen, but then it automaically switches without any imput from the user. I sill YYG might not let this win (unless you change that) though.

Questionblock: If YYG wants me to change it I will. Technically though, it's no problem (seriously, Nintendo's not going to sue me for this), and even if they will it probably falls under parody which means it does not breach copyright.

Full screen: Whatever you can change it anyway. (Sorry, I may sound rude but imo that's just nitpicking, and something that does not determine competition outcomes).

Graphics: Um... pretty much same as the others. 7.5/10

Please take a look at the others then, these are so much better...! Thanks for the generous score by the way

Gameplay The gameplay is what I am used to from Karoshi 1: logic puzzles, instead of all kinds of hidden things like in Karoshi 2. You know what you have in a level and you know what your goal is, so actual reasoning is possible, unlike in Karoshi 2 where it was a lot of trial and error (which I also liked). Another thing the game really suffered from was bad controls. It made the quick levels much harder because I constantly pressed wrong buttons. Why not use Up arrow to jump? When a level restarts you seem to randomly shuffle the characters over their starting positions. Which I think is very unwise for two reasons. 1. communication. When I say "let the blue guy push the crate, then let the brown guy pick up the gun" (random example), this may be confising to others because they have other starting positions. 2. Switching characters. It looked quite random, I assume you always go from blue to brown to gray etc. but because their positions are different each time, the "guy who started at the top right" is not always followed by "the guy below", i.e. the player had to actually look at the colors, which I of course didn't do because the colors are not important for the strategy.

Documentation You relied on the fact that the player already knows the concept of Karoshi games. Karoshi 2 suffers from the same flaw, but I only noticed last week when I took it to a friend and he discovered the level 1 easter egg right away because nowhere the game said that its goal was to kill the guy (so the person who played thought it was just some platformer, hence tried walking to the right, out of the screen). This game, also does not explain the goal of the game.

Gameplay: Some valid concerns, especially the randomness of characters which I didn't really realize myself.

Documentation: I guess it's a game for the fans, who know what it's about. Still, though, it's even better when someone who does not know what it's about plays the game. I deliberately do not explain that the goal is to kill yourself. You will find out. You'll notice in all Karoshi games the first level is the same, and the only thing you can do in it is die.

Also, "let's working" doesn't sound right, I think you meant "let's work".

It's a joke on how the Japanese often misspell english. "Engrish". Same with "Thanks for play" at the end. I don 't expect everybody to get that though, and that's ok.

Thanks for your extensive review, and thanks everybody for the replies.

A final word: The game is not meant to be a successor to Karoshi 2.0, but rather a side story, hence it's not called Karoshi 3.

[Bill23]

Full screen: Whatever you can change it anyway. (Sorry, I may sound rude but imo that's just nitpicking, and something that does not determine competition outcomes).

Normally, I'd agree with you, but in this case the rulesactually say

The game should not change the screen resolution and should run in a window (rather than full screen).

Technically it says "should", not must, so you could argue that it isn't required, but they did disqualify a game for using copyrighted resources (which it also says "should about).

If you want to make the game start out full screen, that's your choice, I just thought I'd point it out.
Edit: I want to make it really clear that I am not trying to "nitpick" and/or be rude. I just think it might be a bit annoying to lose a competiton just because of a rule that doesn't really make sense (or at least I don't think it makes sense.)

Anyway, I've been playing it some more, and I like it a lot. I think I prefered 2, but this is still really fun. The only real dissapointment is that Level 12 isn't the "K" level.

This post has been edited by Bill23: Aug 24 2008, 10:55 PM

[Dmaster270]

It was fun. I love how you enter at the exact last second.

[NAL]

Fun game with improved graphics, implementation of the theme and puzzles that are definitely Karoshi-esque. If I was going to nitpick, I would target two things - the controls for jumping and character switching (I think either Z-jump and X-switch, up-jump and Space-switch, or both, would be best), as (to me) they felt a little uncomfortable and I often found myself doing the wrong action. The other point would have to be that the implementation of the competition theme is pretty much identical to that of 95% of other entries - two (or more) guys stuck in a room, jumping on each others' heads to reach high platforms. Otherwise, nice effort. I'm yet to complete the game so I won't rate it yet (especially as your Karoshi games tend to be unpredictable after the number of levels you've said they have).

[orange08]

Wow! This game is good. and unexpected... I didnt think you were going to participate in the yyg competition...
Well, anyway I got to level 17 and decided to comment..
The graphics look better... and... prettier?
There was one bug (glitch) though... I would have a block, just sitting there.. and then I would put a guy on top of it, then I would have another guy push the block out from under the other guy. The guy that pushed the block out from under the other guy appeared to be on the top instead of staying on the bottom were he belonged...

So, good game I rate it 9.5/10

-orange08

Keep up the good games! I love em'.

[Ampersand]

I knew it! I knew it! I told GMREC1111 and LoopStan that 2Dcube would release something and own the comp, as always... but then I saw you release something else just the other day, and I guessed you weren't going to enter. But I guess so!

Good luck in the comp!

Cheers,
---Ampersand

[PetzI]

This isn't any better than the other games, but it's still very good. The bad thing about making a great game is that when it's great you've probably perfected it completely and can't make it any better. I don't think you could reuse to enhance the "think out of the game" part about karoshi, or enhance it. That part was one of the best things about karoshi (especially 2.0). That being said, I was pretty sure that we wouldn't be seeing karoshi again for quite a while (you couldn't make it any better).

I don't understand why you sometimes decide to leave games unpolished, even if a previous game in the series was. There's no level selection, no level editor/custom levels, no extras and stuff like that. The first game had level selection, and the second had level selection and a level editor, so I don't understand why you'd leave both of those aside. I mean, when you make a sequel you're supposed to try to make everything better, and since it's nearly impossible to make to betterize it after karoshi 2's success, you could atleast try to polish it, and add a few extras to try to make up for it. I'm guessing you didn't have time for those things, since your signature says it's a contest entry (deadlines and stuff), so maybe you could make a new version of the game with those things included, just for the fans rather than the contest?

The graphics weren't better, but they weren't worse either. There's really no way to improve the graphics, so I'll just be gratefull that you changed them, rather than effortly copy-paste.

I didn't really like the music, the previous ones were much better (again, there's no polishing, so I can't change it in the menu like I could in karoshi 2 -.- ) and it can get slightly annoying at times. It's not horrible, but it doesn't quite fit the theme.

The gameplay makes up for the flaws of course, although the flaws should never even exist since they're nothing new and strange to you. The gameplay is just karoshi 1 without the "thinking out of the box" part (like I said, it couldn't be recycled along with the rest of the gameplay) but it now brings us a brand new element out of the deep box of innovation, fun and cleverness that are the karoshi series. Without the "think out of the box" part, the game now relies on puzzles, which obviously didn't let us down. Thing is, instead of 25 levels, you could have gotten 35 or 40 with a level editor. Shame on you! The problem with the karoshi 2 levels was that they couldn't recreate the game experience because they didn't allow cows falling off the sky, certain keys being pressed, or using the mouse (this would never work in custom stand-alone levels anyway). With this game, you don't have that problem, and it allows a lot of new puzzles which you didn't come up with.

So overall, it's a good game but not better than karoshi 2 (could never have been). But you diserve some beating for leaving it unpolished and short. It needed some more attention, and the boss part is new but is missing the charm that the others had. You should go see a shrink and cure that paranoia you have over karoshi, and stop being lazy. I know making these games affected your mind, but that's no reason to be afraid of death-from-overwork.

Sorry about the gigantic wall of text.

[Mkkk]

awesome game 2dcube good luck in the comp.

[e_svedang]

It felt fresh without losing the feel of the older games, great!

[acidBatterie]

loved it

[True Valhalla]

Hey 2D, loved the game and recommended it on the PC Powerplay forums (www.pcpowerplay.com.au/forums).

On that note, im wondering, did you know they put Karoshi 1 and 2 on their DVD's?