Xenopus (Action adventure puzzle game?!)

[arcthemonkey]

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/2442/xenoheaddt3.png[/img]
What is Xenopus? Xenopus is a fast paced maze-navigation puzzle game about the unlikeliest of heroes - a frog embryo!

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Xenopus began as a creative project for a developmental biology/embryology class I just completed. We were tasked to use some creative medium to present a concept in developmental biology. Pretty much everyone else in the class either made a power-point presentation, or a board game.

I said, screw board games!

So, based on a really cool illustration in my book, I decided I was going to make a game about the embryonic development of Xenopus laevis, a species of frog. Initially, I imagined an RPG where your character went through the various stages of embryonic development as you gained levels, but I quickly abandoned this idea in favor of something a bit more... unconventional. Hence, the current form of Xenopus was born, more or less. With the help of khmp, the scripts and gameplay rules were pounded out, forming the game you are hopefully about to download.

Originally, Xenopus was only going to be a single level. I figured, I didn't have a huge amount of time, and knowing me, I wouldn't finished a HUGE project in time. In the end, though, I decided that I would have more than one level, but that I would only commit to having one finished for my presentation. My teacher agreed to these terms, and it was so.

Oh, and did I mention that the game is intended to be educational? Yeah, there's that.

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The gameplay is simple. You have X amount of time to collect Y amount of nutrients (chickens). If you don't collect these nutrients in time, you get game over. But this is complicated by the presence of scads of exotic wildlife who would love nothing more than to eat a giant, sentient frog embyro. So, of course, if you run out of lives, it's game over. Further complicating the situation is the fact that you don't have nearly enough time to collect even half of what you need!

What gives?

Well, there's a trick - every time you collect a nutrient, the timer pauses for a second or two. So, as long as you don't let anything interrupt your nutrient gathering run, you should be just fine. Also, there's more nutrients on the map than you even need to finish it. Have some time left on the clock? Go get 'em! Easy, right?

Not really. I'll admit - this game is hard. Not like, get pissed off and kill someone hard. Not really carve my name into your forearm hard. The thing is that the levels, even the very easiest ones, are not intended to be finished in one go, unless you get lucky. There is a fairly particular way the levels are meant to be solved. Think of it as a puzzle. In fact, that really is what this game is - a puzzle game. Just zipping around, dodging enemies won't do it - you have to solve the level.

The one level provided in the demo should help get you familiar with the nature of the puzzles.

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Spoiler

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4726/xenopusshotfinalll3.png[/img]
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/885/xe ... al3pc3.png[/img]
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/9367/x ... al2bd5.png[/img]

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A very early version of Xenopus (v0.5.1 - the version number is BACKWARDS in all the downloads) with only level 1 available (level 2 is coming along nicely, though) can be downloaded here:
http://www.arcthemonkey.net/games/games.htm

Please do not forget to INSTALL THE INCLUDED FONT!!!

Credits:
arcthemonkey (Design, level design, blah blah blah)
khmp (For basically all the scripts)
Cerulean Skye (For the awesome xenopus sprites)
Ratty (For the crab sprites)

 

[Necrile]

Very fucking hard, indeed. Anyway, its pretty fun; and I also don't understand how once you get to the part where you fly up to the cave, and it automatically makes it game over? Bug or intended?

 

[arcthemonkey]

That shouldn't happen if you play through again. There is a bug (that I can't recreate consistently enough to fix it) where, if your mini-timer (the countdown to when the main timer starts again) hits zero, the whole thing zeros out. When you go up there, there's a brief pause in the action, and the second timer runs out, which can trigger the bug.

Another bug I'm aware of is that the position of the pop-up numbers isn't updated fast enough under certain conditions. khmp and I don't know how to fix it.

Tell me if you try it again and it doesn't give you game over. If people complain that it's too hard, give me specifics and I'll try to adjust it.

 

[Necrile]

I'll try it after I take a power nap in a few minutes, I recommend putting a multiplier in; where it builds in this style:
Every food adds 1 to the multiplier count. When it reaches 10, it boosts up to 2x, then 3x, then 4x as a pattern. After 3 seconds of not getting food, the multiplier drops completely back to 1x. Its just an idea, I'll edit this post when I wake up.

 

[arcthemonkey]

I considered a combo sort of system. In fact, all my original design documents included such a thing. However, once I decided that, essentially, getting a "combo" and maintaining it would be the only way to finish the levels, I decided to detach any added point benefit from such a thing, especially since later levels will give you such little time that if you break your "combo" more than two times or so, you lose. You gain points for every nutrient you get above the required amount, though, and you will most certainly have to maintain a sort of "combo" to get them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, if I gave bonus points for mere combos, they would themselves lose value unless I redesigned every stage to give more time and make combos more difficult to get.

Has no one else played this?

Edit: Also, the readme included has some gameplay hints for level 1 that should make it a bit easier.

 

[Necrile]

Just woke up and booted it up, and it gave me an error.
Scene_Title line 31, dump format error 0x56  I didn't do anything different, I don't know why NOW its giving me errors..

Anyway, on a side note, do Xenopii really eat chickens?

 

[arcthemonkey]

Try erasing the save file and try again. Line 32 in scene_title is $data_common_events = load_data("Data/CommonEvents.rxdata")

Don't worry, you won't lose anything :P

Also, no Xenopus laevis does not eat chickens. They are pretty darned small frogs at adulthood.

I can't remember why I decided to use chickens, in the end.

 

[Necrile]

Its line 31
And it still keeps happening, this sucks.. I wanted to try and beat the first level so bad ._.

Edit: I redownloaded the demo. Just so you know the second option should say W/O RTP instead, at least, I think so. Also, I had the bar completely filled but instead of winning it said I DIDN'T win. I had 10 seconds left on the timer, and I had 1 life left; and I can't figure out why I didn't win O_o

 

[arcthemonkey]

Line 31 is pretty much the same thing...

Well, damnit. I dunno, try erasing it and downloading again. I have no idea what that bug is

Edit: STUPID TIMER BUG
I'm gonna see if I can't get khmp to fix that. Again, sometimes to timer jumps to xero if you break a "combo", and I have no idea why.

Also, about the link, thanks :D I'll fix that.