Doodles

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2009
#1

What happens when blackboard doodles come to life? Help [abuse…] Doodle Man as he squares off against the perils on the blackboard.

Features ragdoll physics and lots of levels.
http://hsaka.webs.com/doodles/doodles.jnlp

http://hsaka.webs.com/splash2.gif

At the start of a level, left click on the green circle to make doodle man come alive.

Click on doodle man’s head and move the mouse to drag him around. Release the mouse button to toss him.

Pink Rectangle - make doodle man stand on this to start the level.

Circles - collect all of these to open up the exit.

Yellow Rectangle - make doodle man stand on this to end the level.

Motion Points - shown by the bar at the top left. MP will drain as you move doodle man around. When MP reaches 0, doodle man can no longer move.

White Rectangles - doodle man will get stuck in these if he touches them. Also they will drain your score. If they are touched when your score is 0, your MP will drain.

Right click to start a new level or to restart the current level if your MP is 0.

[i]- I’m interested in whether the game runs unplayably fast or slow on your machine.

  • Timing code modified, please verify whether the MP bar still drains too quickly. Thanks.[/i]
#2

Runs well here.

Interesting concept, and tricky :slight_smile:

#3

I like the idea, but it’s just way too hard to get him to ever stand on the finish.

#4

Thanks for playing guys.

@Demonpants - is it really that hard? You don’t need to make him stick the landing in one toss. After you throw him at the circles, you can pick him up and make him stand up on the end rectangle to complete the level. I think it’s part of the challenge of the game, but I can change it…

#5

Well, see what other people have to say first. I just know that given the amount of time I had to hold him I was never able to spend enough of it being steady to have him land on his feet. I was always forced to move him so quickly that he would get thrown…

I personally think that having a timer is not the best way of doing this, specifically because in order to move him quickly you also lose your precision because he gets thrown further. I would rather have a sort of obstacle course and have as much time as I wanted.

#6

I agree with the others - the concept is cool, but getting him to stand on the goal square is really tricky. I just couldn’t do it, and I tried perhaps 20 times. :slight_smile:

#7

Thanks for testing the game. It seems that my timing code is flawed because the MP bar seems to be draining way too fast on your systems. :-X

- I modified the timing code. Can you guys confirm for me whether it is playable now? Thanks very much.

#8

It is completely unplayable now - the physics is messed up.
Before your recent change, I was able to play until level ~6 and I think its a pretty cool game. Very unique!

EDIT: I just tried it again and it seems to work. It is now much slower than before and the character seems much more rigid which in turn makes the game much easier.

EDIT2: I just tried it again and it was unplayable - so results are really inconsistent.

EDIT3: got to level 22

#9

Yeah, perhaps it was a result of the timing code? I had probably 1.5 seconds all told to move him before.

Now I can move him much longer than last time, but the game does seem sort of messed up. I beat levels 1-3, but in both levels 2 and 4 he seemed to be attracted towards flipped around counter clockwise. In fact, in certain places on the screen while I was holding him he would just sort of spin around aimlessly.

#10

I’ve switched timing methodologies again… I’m not sure if this will help at all.

[quote]he seemed to be attracted towards flipped around counter clockwise
[/quote]
Yea, sometimes when he gets banged around hard, his legs get tangled up and he starts flipping. A little shake usually gets him untangled again.

@irreversible_kev - That’s really disturbing how inconsistent the game is running for you. I’m not sure why that is happening :-\

Thanks so much for playing tho…

#11

On each level i got about 2-3 seconds for moving him around.
Antoher annoying thing i found: When restarting a level, the score is totaly resetted :o

#12

[quote]Antoher annoying thing i found: When restarting a level, the score is totaly resetted
[/quote]
You now lose 1000 points if you die.

The game should also be easier to control now… [Hopefully]

#13

After getting Doodle Man to stand on the pink rectangle, I can’t figure out what to do next. If I try to move Doodle Man, my power drains out and the game is over. I’m not even colliding with the white rectangle. Also, I think I ran into a bug where Doodle Man’s body got completely twisted up. He just keeps spinning around. I had to restart. Nice use of verlets though. You should talk about how the physics work in this game.