7 replies to this topic

[TheSnidr]

Duality
A game by TheSnidr

Play at YoYoGames
Download source

Raocow playing Duality:


This game takes place inside the prison-like mind of a person whose whole life is distinctly split
in two - while on the outside he pretends to lead a normal life and imitates the sensation of being happy,
on the inside he's just dark and untouched by the surroundings. He lives a life separated
from his surroundings, hiding his true self behind a happy facade, heading towards nothing but
self destruction.
You are his thought process.

The game has a very abstract use of the theme, "facade".
The actual game is more of a physics puzzle inspired by the Portal franchise.

There are no menus or saving systems. I felt this was unnecessary, as the game is so short (takes about 6-15 minutes depending on how smart you are).
Everything but some utility scripts (like dot_product3d and cross_product) is written during the 72 hours of the jam. As the physics too are written in the same time interval, they may be a bit funky at times, but overall they should work

Game by TheSnidr
Sound effects by Zekka

Edited by TheSnidr, 15 February 2012 - 12:09 AM.

[BattleRifle BR55]

I enjoyed it a lot, except for the fact that bumping held cubes into other objects made you drop them. It made some of the fan jumps kind of irritating at times, as I had to keep trying to watch my landing so as to not knock the cube against a platform on my way up.

I also noticed that "Congratulations" was misspelled.

I only got 6 collectibles. Is there something in collecting all 10?

[TheSnidr]

Thanks for the comment! Fixed the spelling mistake.
How would you suggest I improve the cubes? They need to be physical objects, so they kinda have to collide with object objects.

The collectibles don't do anything special other than provide some extra challenge to those who want to get 100%. Some of them are really hard to find (and yes, there's one in each room)

[BattleRifle BR55]

The way Half-Life 2 handles held physical objects would make it play much nicer. That way, at least you can bump into things with the cube without it always dropping right away. There was one level where I had to keep dropping back down to the ground to get the cube because I kept hitting it on a platform next to the one I was trying to land on.

[TheSnidr]

Just updated it with a few small bug fixes (no game changing changes), among other things greatly improving the cube lifting and moving. I don't think I will be able to make it as good as HL2 though, but it now takes a little more violence before you drop the boxes.

[Nanolotl]

I found this game fairly enjoyable apart from the previously mentioned object dropping as well as the fact you can't look up or down for very long without the view resetting, which was quite annoying.
The gravity gimmick was well executed and nice to see in a 3D game rather than a 2D one. I didn't bother collecting the blue things, but I ended up getting 5/10 accidentally.
Some of the spike traps were a little irritating where you couldn't tell whether you were going to get hit or not.
Also, in the 9th level I kept dying for no apparent reason after using a spring.
Apart from those few gripes, it was a very enjoyable game. Especially for 72 hours work.

Edited by Nanolotl, 31 January 2012 - 10:15 AM.

[TheSnidr]

Thank you! I'm really happy you liked it. I'm unable to reproduce the randomly dying in level 9 though, did you do anything special when it happened? Were you perhaps carrying a cube? The cubes are a bit unstable when moving at high speeds, so that might be the problem.
This is my first time making that kind of physics though.

Also, the view resetting was a necessary step in order to reduce disorientation after the gravity has flipped. It gives a better perseption of what's really up and down. That said I could probably have reduced the restraining forces, but oh well, the jam's over

[TheSnidr]

As promised, the source is now available:
http://sandbox.yoyog...-duality-source
This includes the level editor