glitched through the wall and into the boss area; proceeded to fail a lot because the controls kept either a. eating jump inputs or b. refusing to stop the character when I released a key. Seems like a cool game, but needs a lot of polish.
a) I think it might not have been eating inputs necessarily, but my computer sometimes gets a significant amount of desync between pushing a button and the game actually receiving it. have you implemented e.g. coyote time and jump buffering? those might both help the situation.
b) The issue was mostly releasing the button after landing on a bird and then sliding off anyways. Perhaps platforms could have increased friction close to the edge, if you're not trying to move in a direction? Alternatively, if momentum is always preserved in air, that definitely needs a tutorial, since it is nonstandard to platformers. Had I known that were the case, I would have released the keys midair and this would probably have been less of an issue.
a) I've implemented coyote time (and most likely can't make it any longer because it would make some unreachable-intended platforms reachable!). I could definitely add jump buffering, tho! It's a good idea, I'll add it to the issue tracker ✌
b) Yeah moving platforms can be quite... tricky. To mitigate platforming frustration, I actually just yesterday made friction on moving platforms higher, I'll let you know when the update is live!And about the momentum-preservation: it IS mentioned in-game.... but only after acquiring the scanner. Maybe not ideal, I reckon? Then again, I try to keep the before-scanner section of the game silent, so it can be a bit hard to teach momentum-preservation at the point when the player first arrives in the bird room....
Really excited to see where this goes from here, the new boss fight feels like a good capstone to all the things you've learned at the end and I really hope this gets out in time for 2022! Here's hoping :)
sorry, TIC-80 doesn't support (yet...?) exporting to mobile platforms... You can try to play the browser version with a bluetooth controller on mobile, but I can't promise anything about how well the game runs.
You can actually play bigger .tic files with TIC-80 as well. I uploaded the .tic file of 0.4.1.0 here, so you can use it for playing the game on mobile. Transferring the file to mobile TIC-80 app can be a bit tricky I guess, and the game wasn't really created with mobile in mind, but at least it's now available as an option!
This is a brilliant game, it has a peaceful yet challenging feel which is hard to pull off, a simple yet soothing art style and it scratches the itch of the collector within me, at least it did until i got to the bird boss.
I have never wanted to throw my computer at a wall as much as i have when i faced his boss. At first, it was enjoyable and a clever idea, but when stage two came, it just slowly built up my anger. The jumps need to be perfect, as you have to line up on the birds to even reach, but you can't forget to let go of the buttons once you land otherwise you waltz on off the birds and have to restart. And once you get to the top, there's a non zero chance you can't even move to stage three, because you keep the momentum of the birds and crash right into the wall, which keeps you from scanning the boss. As for stage three, i actually don't have any idea how to beat it, maybe there's some technique i'm missing but i have no clue. I just gave up after a while since i don't think i'd be able to calm down and enjoy what came after the boss even when i beat it.
It's a fucking marvelous game apart from this boss, and i might just be godawful at games for not getting past it, i don't know. It's a shame i couldn't enjoy the game to it's fullest. Still, what you've made is great.
Thanks for the insightful critique. I feel like I shouldn't take this lightly, especially as I see how much the boss killed your enthusiasm.
So I certainly need to rebalance the boss. I think most of the work I have to do is managing expectations - stage three is actually quite easy mechanically after you figure out what you gotta do (hint at the end of the message). But as the first two phases are purely about mechanical execution, you'd reasonably expect the third one would be, too.... [EDIT: I actually went and made the stages mechanically easier as well with a few level design changes. Should be MUCH less frustrating now]
So I guess this was a fair warning to me - I should always playtest a new feature with new players, instead of just those who already mastered the mechanics. :D cheers!
hint:
the bottom one is not the only bird that can be scanned to start the sequence.
I tried out the boss again, and god, it feels way more in my hands. When i fell off i didn't get upset that i misunderstood the physics, but rather felt like it was a fair challenge. You definitively succeeded here.
Wowza I am impressed I want more of this game it's so cool and so interesting and it's literally for the people who go into the journal feature of creatures in games and just spend hours there...really cool atmosphere too.
This was a really fun demo and I am super excited to see more! I love how densely packed the maps are while still lending themselves to figuring out how to traverse them as a main goal. I especially like how each of the animals has their own sound effects, and the idea of using the animals to help traverse the environment is really engaging
Very cool, I'd love to see a full version of this! It reminds me of some of Nifflas's games. I loved the nonviolent mechanics and the sense of exploration, curiosity, and discovery. I was also intrigued by the hints of deeper story elements in the intro.
One critique, the platforming mechanics were occasionally a bit frustrating. In particular the vertical jump height is quite short but the horizontal distance is very long, which makes it easy to overshoot your target. Also things could get pretty fast-paced with the moving creatures, especially with the scanner thrown into the mix. Maybe you could tweak the physics so it's a little calmer.
Thanks for feedback! Always appreciate comparison to Nifflas, Knytt Stories was a big inspiration ^^
It's good to know about your frustrations, too. I admit, changing the platforming dynamics sounds a bit daunting this late to development, as it could have many ripple effects to level design. One thing I could consider, however, is to add a "game speed" option, where you could make everything a bit slower to fit your tastes.
This is a really good game, I found it really fun exploring the world. I also really like it when demos have more to them when you dig deeper instead of going straight for the finish, having an almost completely new world outside the bounds of the normal demo only accessible by this little glitch with the scanner (I wonder if you found the bug while playtesting and decided to add an entire secret level behind that bug)
It did get a bit annoying at points trying to get to certain places but that's just the nature of this sort of thing. I think I managed to rack up a completion rate of 158% but I know I missed alot, including that '?' room and 2 of the Ilivesilives cats.
I'll look forward to the full release and what it has to offer!
Thanks! It's always nice to hear when someone has found their way to out-of-bounds areas in the demo. :D Thanks for the comments, I'm working hard on the full version literally right now :]
I really enjoyed the exploration and scanner mechanic. Looking forward playing the rest of the game. Oh, I found the "phonetical aid" such a great gimmick, one of those details letting me know how much love and enthusiasm you are putting into this project. Great music too. Thank you very much! <3
Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, I thought it's better to communicate in some way how these obscure Eastern Finnish creature names should be pronounced. :D
good game. after discovering more and more, I am wondering if you can actually fill the whole pokedex thing or if certain stuff really is unfindable yet :-)
^^ If I recall correctly, you can't fill the Emuudex in the demo. But there sure is more to be found beyond the tutorial area, as Dzar's recent comment hints ;>
yeah, you can actually scan the butterflies. their htibox though is only as big aas a single block, they fly almost the whole time inside walls so its hard to scan. they seem to appear and not appear at random, so I never know when one appears or disappears. they dont seem to linger long in an area, anyways, going away quickly after being seen.
after jumping unknowingly into the "to be continued" room, i decided to reset so i could continue exploring, but the title screen says, "Data incompatible. Please delete save." Is this possibly because i reset without letting the credits finish? This killed my motivation to keep playing for now, since i don't want to repeat stuff i just did, though i do plan to play through once the full version is released.
I love that it's non-violent, and i loved the exploration, puzzles, scanning, and the music. I didn't like the difficulty of a few of the jumps, but i still found them doable. Thank you for making such a lovely little game! :)
thanks for the report, i gotta investigate what's going on. That message should only appear when I've updated the save format, and this isn't obviously the case here. The credits reset isn't to blame either, the game only saves when you touch the Salavia flower. I suspect the data is actually fine. If you can, it would help debugging if you sended the save file to borbware (at) gmail, it's a gibberish named file located in appdata/roaming/com.nesbox.tic/TIC-80/.local
Anyway, great that you liked the demo! Thank you for playing! :]
Hey i really enjoyed this game and i can't wait for the full version. It really reminds me of toki tori 2, and i love how the scanner mechanic is used for so many different things just in the demo.
One thing I ran into is that in one of the rooms i pushed the snail creatures in the wrong way and blocked off a shortcut, then couldn't reset it.
I found the smiley face. Also, it’s 2021, the credits have lied to me and I will never recover. Also also, how am I supposed to 100% when I can’t continue after the credits?
Took me a while to get into it, but it's good. Kinda like Toki Tori or even Outer Wilds, where you can interact with creatures in surprising ways and make progress that way. I'll be interested to see the finished game.
Thanks, these messages mean a lot!! I've been busy at work for a few months but now I'm starting to have more time to work on EMUUROM again. A bit unsure if I get to finish it this year like I promised in the trailer but I aim for an early 2021 release, at least!
I must confess, that I lacked the patience to finish it, but enjoyed the original concept.
I was confused at first, as the game gave me little to no instructions about its objects. But it unraveled itself nicely through the interactions with them. I liked how the very first room teaches you this basic lesson that sets the mood for the whole game. This world seemed so alien and strange at first, but as you learn how each creature behaves it reveals its hidden patterns and becomes 'readable'. Although some of the platformer challenges were too hard for my taste.
The scanning-collection mechanic on top of it adds a new dimension to the exploration. I liked how biological descriptions of creatures give hints to their mechanical behaviors.
Overall, the game left with a strange feeling of being in an alien, yet non-threatening world, that has its own strange, yet comprehensive laws. Great work!
Thanks for the, umm, thanks! And for feedback! Nice to hear that the 'alien-ness' of the world is coming through, and that the scan entries are working as intended! ^^
As for the platforming challenges - I aim to make some of them less frustrating in the full version. Which room(s) in particular made you quit, if I may ask? :D
I would say that rooms 35 and 45 were quite challenging, but I've managed to overcome them. Jumping the caterpillar was especially frustrating since it required very precise timing and I'm just not good at this. I wouldn't say that any particular room has made me quit, but when I reached room 34 I felt a bit overwhelmed. It's just that rooms are so mechanically dense and full of challenges, and there's little to no breathing space between them.
With that said, I can easily see a platformer puzzle person relishing your game precisely for the things that I found somewhat frustrating about it. Namely, densely interconnected puzzles and hardcore platformer challenges. I'm just happened to be not that kind of person :)
P.S.: oh, and thanks for the map! It made me realized I've missed some of the secret passages.
The tricky caterpillar jump is something I could try adjusting by just making its collision box a bit wider. I do want the game to have hardcore platformer challenges as well, but in the demo area I would like every player to at least reach the scanner first...!
Designing this kind of a game is like walking a tightrope in a cramped room lol. I'd like to add as much breathing space to the rooms as possible but, like, w h e r e. The interconnectedness of adjacent rooms gives me, as a designer, very little breathing space, so unfortunately that is reflected on the player on many occasions. What a problem have I generated for myself!
Anyway, the design of room 34 is something that i'm not perfectly happy with yet. It should be the last exercise before the end of the tutorial area, but maybe there's just too much to take in at once.
I made a small change to the room recently (not sure if additions are really helping lol): Otukka the caterpillar is there! Hopefully its presence gives the player a subconscious idea where they should be heading.
Being a game designer myself, I feel what you going through. Designing puzzles is a tough challenge, but adjusting them to player's expectations and skills afterward is even harder. Especially when you have such an intricately interconnected system as your game world. But that's that major source of fun in our craft, isn't it? ;)
I think caterpillar actually works well at signposting the exit! And increasing its collision box might work well too.
This is an sneakily amazing and charming metroidvania.
Makes you learn and earn movement and keep coming back and looking for new secrets.
The creature and area names really give it depth and make you want to keep exploring and there are several areas seemingly just out of reach, but then you find a way.
I could only get to 97% or so and will likely keep playing to explore since it really has a feel of a different world.
Can't wait for more additions and a formal release.
Also great example of what is possible with tic-80 in the landscape of Fantasy Consoles.
Thanks for your kind words, and congrats for almost completing the demo!! (Though there are some off-bounds secrets as well to be found....)
Also, great to hear that the creature and area names are resonating, I know my silly eastern finnish words aren't that easy for the english-speaking world to remember, let alone pronounce... :D
Because TIC-80 can't export Android builds atm, it's a bit tricky, but possible! Note however that because the game is not optimized for Android, FPS drops are common (especially when scanning).
If you want to try it out anyway, here's the instructions!
1. Buy the PRO version of TIC-80 (it's $5). Download and install the apk for your Android device (you have to allow installing from unknown sources in settings).
2. Download the .lua version of EMUUROM demo and move the file to TIC-80's data folder. For me it was located in /sdcard/Android/data/com.nesbox.tic/files/TIC-80/
3. Open TIC-80, and type in the following commands:
load emuurom-0.1.i.lua
run
And you're good to go! Bluetooth controllers can be used to play the game, but onscreen controls are also available.
Incredible work! I'm always so appreciative of non-violent games in genres that normally have some sort of death. This was really cool too, learning about animals. It was a little difficult to understand at first, but experimentation was necessary to grasp what I had to do. The progression was just so good. The only disappointment is that it's not finished. :OP
I've had this game on my to-play list for awhile, but I'm glad it was included in The Bundle so I could prioritize it. Thank you.
This game is so weird... but so fun. We played this on our new youtube channel and it was so refreshing to try out. Most of the video is us saying "oooh" and "ahhh" ha!
I'm so glad you liked it! We would be thrilled to make more at some point. :) The game is really relaxing and felt good to play amidst all of the high-energy stuff we were doing.
OKAy i love this?!?!? The enthusiasm! The dynamics! And my god, the pronunciations! My finnish ass was NOT prepared for them lol (and I'm def going to say kehreejä that way from now on!)
Emuurom brought me back to the golden age of indie Flash games – it's a beautifully crafted, creative, exploration-focused experience full of secrets and cozy feelings.
It also reminded me of Rain World, my favorite game of all time: you're in a world full of creatures, but they're not out to get you specifically. Rather, you're just living in it, and learning about them and their behaviors is a large part of what the game is about. They're also similar in their approaches to mystery: Emuurom tells you little to nothing about how to play or how things work up front, so that's all for you to discover on your own. If you, like me, can't get enough of the feeling of discovery, you gotta play this game.
I got the demo for this in the recent bundle - I really like it. The puzzle elements are interesting, the visuals (especially the scanner) are cool, and the music's nice and relaxing. I can't wait until you release the full version.
If you go into this game expecting a nice little "gotta go fast" kind of platformer, you'll probably be stumped like I was at first. Why aren't there more rooms? What am I supposed to do next? Who am I anyway?
I'd say EMUUROM is more akin to a puzzle game than a conventional platformer. The whole point of the game is to figure out how to use the environment to your advantage so you can fully explore the world. When I finally realized what I was supposed to do, I felt like a complete dum-dum because the answer had been staring at me all along. D'oh!
Some of the 'bugs' I found were actually features that I could use to advance. There's also the built-in potential to screw things up, but never badly enough to make the demo unfinishable. (Unless you manage to clip into a wall or something)
I enjoyed the sense of mystery, funky bleep-bloop music and chill atmosphere, and felt like I wanted to know more about these creatures and the world they inhabit. I did feel like the game could use a bit more hand-holding in the beginning, but on the other hand, that might take away from the joy of discovering things on your own. You are, after all, exploring an unknown world!
Pok-- I mean Emex completion rate currently at 91%. Some day I'll figure it out.
All that said, I think my favorite part is the main menu.
EDIT: Emex 101.75% complete! I give this game a 101.75/100 ;)
Wish I could pin comments lol. I mean, it's an actual cohesive review, I really appreciate it!
So yeah! Many of the bugs that can be used to your advantage are indeed totally unplanned, and in many cases discovered by other people than me. Naturally, I've chosen to leave them in, as they double as hidden cool mechanics and speedrun strats!
Mystery, exploration and getting lost are indeed important themes for me, so I'm quite cautious about adding any hand-holdy tutorials in the beginning, as it might change the tone - as you speculated. THEN AGAIN, I'd like to make this game accessible to as large audience as possible, so I should address it somehow.
Answer for the accessibility problem could be something I've long yearned to make: a game manual! That's the next thing I'm gonna do for EMUUROM: A Retrobiologist's Field Guide, a short journal that explains the UIs, basic mechanics, behaviour of some EMUUROM and tells the backstory of the protagonist. And if you want to go in blind, it would still be possible; you could just read the guide afterwards!
Btw, I finally embraced the puzzle aspect of the game and added it as a tag.
Thanks for the feedback, this is valuable data that makes EMUUROM better still (and maybe more importantly, fills me with determination)!
What a refreshing game! I enjoyed the atmosphere with the music the most.
The scanner visuals were also awesome and I like that it also affects gameplay with the way it can stop moving platforms.
That being said, I felt a lot of the jumps were kinda tight, especially considering it was the start of the game. My main frustration came early on with the first bird section, not realizing the bird momentum carried throughout your jump. Maybe that was my bad on that one.
Otherwise, I like it! I was constantly motivated to find the next screen to go to and finding secrets like getting out of bounds.
How were the scanner visuals made? My guess is linecasts animated with a sine wave and colored based on the sign of the wave. Would love to know more.
The first bird room has been a source of frustration for some players, but I'm at odds with it atm - it seems to partly work because it in fact should teach that momentum is preserved when jumping from a moving platform. That being said, it shouldn't do that through frustration, though! :D
And then, the scanner lines!
They are 8 lines (4 red, 4 yellow) that increase in length by 2 pixels every frame until they collide with something. The rotation angle phi_i of an individual ray i is calculated with
phi_i = phi_0 - phi_max * sin(0.02*t + pi/8*2*i)
where phi_0 is the center direction (that the player can manipulate), phi_max is the half of the ray cone "width" angle and the sine term changes per time t and ray i.
I found the three hatty mushrooms, lured the worm into the lake to head back towards the start (though I couldn't scan the starting "tombstone"), scanned the dandelion/maskros and Mt. Sus, scanned the cat and snow clouds.
1. Can the player make it into the hole next to Mt. Sus?
2. I managed to get into the secret tunnel where the bird flies into on the screen below the dandilion (Pujjio?). I ended up falling and couldn't get into the tunnel again, but is there anything to discover right now in there?
Got in the tunnel! I tried calling the bird over to ride over the waterfall-pit but no luck crossing yet. I did potentially discover a bug. Upon returning to PUIJJO from the HUOM screen, the top bird was permanently gone (see imgur link). I'll see if it's reproducible.
There is a little "air shaft" in the secret tunnel that leads up....maybe I'll jump up, land on the bird, and jump again to the screen above PUIJJO. To be determined...
I take back my comment about the controls. After playing more and getting the hang of things, I think it's at a good level of difficulty. Since there's no enemies, there should be a challenge somewhere, and completing some of the harder jumps is definitely rewarding!
Ah, the missing bird bug resurfaces. I've no idea atm why and how it happens. :D What I've gathered is that the bird should return after the player goes a few screens away and then comes back, but it's still a guessing game...
Oh, the vertical air shaft? I thought THAT was the hole next to Mt. Sus you were asking about earlier :D it's not important (yet).
hint: there is a hidden path nearby to get past the waterfall pit.
Also, nice to hear that the controls "clicked". I'm still pondering if I should tweak them a bit, but this reassures that platforming physics are at least 95% complete.
The visuals of scanning things is so cool! It was a joy to play.
I like how the theme is "peaceful" where you don't fight any enemies, but instead explore the map and document the wildlife.
The snail shortcuts are a great idea and I hope you continue with that. Sometimes with games, the map is so expansive that it's hard to remember which places I have visited. Seeing the snails helps me remember that I unlocked that part. A very simple minimap showing which screen the player is in could be nice, but wasn't necessary.
If possible, I would make the secret tunnels more apparent when scanning, as sometimes it's hard to see clearly when all the blocks are flashing.
The movement is a bit "slippery" too, which makes some jumps difficult. Having the character stop as soon as the move button is released would help this. Right now, the character seems to slide, or carry their momentum.
Interesting mechanic where scanning an animal for enough time will freeze it in place. Could see this integrated into the platforming but it would be hard to time in it's current state.
When scanning and pressing the jump button, I see my character "phasing" upwards, like it's showing my future path if I again press the jump button. I wasn't sure if this was a special mechanic or not, which was a little confusing, but it seems like it's just for visual sake.
Too bad I couldn't leave the end screen since I wanted to explore more. It seems like this was intended so I'm looking forward to more!
Thanks for your comments hygge! my paragraph-by-paragraph answer follows:
I've for a few years wanted to make a "biologist game". Then the idea collided with an already-existing post-jam platformer, and they fused into EMUUROM.
Snail shortcuts are tHE BEST. Also, there is a map screen, but its button is currently only told in one of the 'tombstones', or virstanpylyväät.
[it's the S key]
I'll consider adding more holes to the ground (through which the scanline is seen in the secret tunnels)! That might change the aesthetics of the tilesets considerably, tho, which means design work (note also: i am lazy)
Slipperiness of movement is mentioned enough times already for me to do something about it.
There will be a few emuuroms that are designed around pausing :)
The "future path" phasing is indeed just a visual thing
for now
maybe I should add an easter egg to the endscreen as well...
:D Luckily, there is indeed more to be found in the demo, see my answer to your second message :>
GOOD GAME; AT THE START i WAS VERY CONFUSED ABOUT IT ALL; ESPECIALLY THAT i COULDNT READ THE SIGNS: BUIT ONCE i GOT THE FIRST THING IT BECAME MORE CLEAR. and then it was already over :-(
Neat idea and execution. Hope that there will be more.
I think that "ground" tiles should be more clearly separate from "background" tiles. At least once I thought that I can make a jump and was blocked by something I thought that would belong into background. Also I think that some challenges are too precise. A little bit of leeway would make it flow smoother.
In all other ways I think that level design is just right. I always had some kind of clue where to move next, even without any instructions. Challenges were fun and it is nice that new mechanics emerge through different creatures that have their own purpose (love how snails work as shortcuts for cleared challenges). Music is awesome.
I had some performance issues on browser, which I guess is to be expected.
Thanks for extensive feedback! ^^ Great to hear that level design does its job, as I'm not that experienced on the matter, hehe.
I'll try to smoothen out some of the trickier jump sections, especially those in the first bird room for the next release 0.1.e. And I guess I should also work on the tilemaps, too! Which tile was the one you thought was part of the background?
And yup, it's is tricky to deliver a steady 60fps on browser, and for optimization I can only do so much (but I'll try to work on that, too.)
Here is that part. Now that I think of it, it might have more to do with that plant that is on front of the wall, giving impression that it belongs to background.
Ps. I've found myself booting up this game just to listen to that catchy music that plays most of the time.
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glitched through the wall and into the boss area; proceeded to fail a lot because the controls kept either a. eating jump inputs or b. refusing to stop the character when I released a key. Seems like a cool game, but needs a lot of polish.
thanks for the critique!
a) haven't noticed inputs getting eaten myself. what controller did you use (or maybe a wireless keyboard?)
b) if that happened on air, it's intentional, i like to preserve the character's momentum. i could finetune the on-ground friction a bit, though 🤔
some polish underway, i'll try to do my best! :D
a) I think it might not have been eating inputs necessarily, but my computer sometimes gets a significant amount of desync between pushing a button and the game actually receiving it. have you implemented e.g. coyote time and jump buffering? those might both help the situation.
b) The issue was mostly releasing the button after landing on a bird and then sliding off anyways. Perhaps platforms could have increased friction close to the edge, if you're not trying to move in a direction? Alternatively, if momentum is always preserved in air, that definitely needs a tutorial, since it is nonstandard to platformers. Had I known that were the case, I would have released the keys midair and this would probably have been less of an issue.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the reply, this helps immensely!
a) I've implemented coyote time (and most likely can't make it any longer because it would make some unreachable-intended platforms reachable!). I could definitely add jump buffering, tho! It's a good idea, I'll add it to the issue tracker ✌
b) Yeah moving platforms can be quite... tricky. To mitigate platforming frustration, I actually just yesterday made friction on moving platforms higher, I'll let you know when the update is live!And about the momentum-preservation: it IS mentioned in-game.... but only after acquiring the scanner. Maybe not ideal, I reckon? Then again, I try to keep the before-scanner section of the game silent, so it can be a bit hard to teach momentum-preservation at the point when the player first arrives in the bird room....
Cheers!
Really excited to see where this goes from here, the new boss fight feels like a good capstone to all the things you've learned at the end and I really hope this gets out in time for 2022! Here's hoping :)
thanks, nice to hear the boss works :> i'm working hard to make 2022 release happen...!
FINALLY I was able to play the game demo on a computer, I wanted to praise the collision system, so perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, that's definitely something I haven't heard before. :D thanks!
Made a video
thanks for trying out the game! it was a fun play session to watch!
Happy you enjoyed the video and hope your able to finally release the full version this year
can you make it suitable for mobile? i cannot process the game cause im on mobile T-T
sorry, TIC-80 doesn't support (yet...?) exporting to mobile platforms... You can try to play the browser version with a bluetooth controller on mobile, but I can't promise anything about how well the game runs.
Actually, Tic-80 does support Android: but it can only run .tic & png cartridges in the free edition.
It handles input easily by an built-in virtual gamepad & touchscreen (both used in a tic-80 nonogram; ROWBYROW !).
So it's worth a demo, maybe...
(However ios users may only play it via an html export, as there's no Tic-80 app for their OS.
Also Love2D needs a Mac to install the app for ios)
But there's an another problem: character limit.
.tic cartridges have a limit, and Emuurom has ~%600 code over the limit.
There may be a solution, just I have little experience with Tic-80.
Actually, I found an older, .tic version at tic80.com!
The answer now is: yes, it's playable on mobile! (android)
You can actually play bigger .tic files with TIC-80 as well. I uploaded the .tic file of 0.4.1.0 here, so you can use it for playing the game on mobile. Transferring the file to mobile TIC-80 app can be a bit tricky I guess, and the game wasn't really created with mobile in mind, but at least it's now available as an option!
Cheers!
This is a brilliant game, it has a peaceful yet challenging feel which is hard to pull off, a simple yet soothing art style and it scratches the itch of the collector within me, at least it did until i got to the bird boss.
I have never wanted to throw my computer at a wall as much as i have when i faced his boss. At first, it was enjoyable and a clever idea, but when stage two came, it just slowly built up my anger. The jumps need to be perfect, as you have to line up on the birds to even reach, but you can't forget to let go of the buttons once you land otherwise you waltz on off the birds and have to restart. And once you get to the top, there's a non zero chance you can't even move to stage three, because you keep the momentum of the birds and crash right into the wall, which keeps you from scanning the boss. As for stage three, i actually don't have any idea how to beat it, maybe there's some technique i'm missing but i have no clue. I just gave up after a while since i don't think i'd be able to calm down and enjoy what came after the boss even when i beat it.
It's a fucking marvelous game apart from this boss, and i might just be godawful at games for not getting past it, i don't know. It's a shame i couldn't enjoy the game to it's fullest. Still, what you've made is great.
Thanks for the insightful critique. I feel like I shouldn't take this lightly, especially as I see how much the boss killed your enthusiasm.
So I certainly need to rebalance the boss.
I think most of the work I have to do is managing expectations - stage three is actually quite easy mechanically after you figure out what you gotta do(hint at the end of the message). But as the first two phases are purely about mechanical execution, you'd reasonably expect the third one would be, too.... [EDIT: I actually went and made the stages mechanically easier as well with a few level design changes. Should be MUCH less frustrating now]So I guess this was a fair warning to me - I should always playtest a new feature with new players, instead of just those who already mastered the mechanics. :D cheers!
hint:
the bottom one is not the only bird that can be scanned to start the sequence.
ok the boss is now updated, hopefully it's less frustrating now. try it out! :]
I tried out the boss again, and god, it feels way more in my hands. When i fell off i didn't get upset that i misunderstood the physics, but rather felt like it was a fair challenge. You definitively succeeded here.
Phew, I'm SO relieved to hear that! Once again, thanks for your critique, it really pushed me to make it a much fairer first boss. Cheers!
How do you skip the intro cutscene? That's way too long.
hold down Z (or on controller: A). good point, i could make the skip button a bit easier to notice.
EDIT: skipping the intro is now easier!
Wowza I am impressed I want more of this game it's so cool and so interesting and it's literally for the people who go into the journal feature of creatures in games and just spend hours there...really cool atmosphere too.
thanksss!!! <3<3<3 your line about the journal feature is so good i might end up using it when advertising the game lol
went and did it
This was a really fun demo and I am super excited to see more! I love how densely packed the maps are while still lending themselves to figuring out how to traverse them as a main goal. I especially like how each of the animals has their own sound effects, and the idea of using the animals to help traverse the environment is really engaging
thanks for the comment and the follow! <3 the densely packed maps are very time-consuming to make, glad you like them :]
Very cool, I'd love to see a full version of this! It reminds me of some of Nifflas's games. I loved the nonviolent mechanics and the sense of exploration, curiosity, and discovery. I was also intrigued by the hints of deeper story elements in the intro.
One critique, the platforming mechanics were occasionally a bit frustrating. In particular the vertical jump height is quite short but the horizontal distance is very long, which makes it easy to overshoot your target. Also things could get pretty fast-paced with the moving creatures, especially with the scanner thrown into the mix. Maybe you could tweak the physics so it's a little calmer.
Thanks for feedback! Always appreciate comparison to Nifflas, Knytt Stories was a big inspiration ^^
It's good to know about your frustrations, too. I admit, changing the platforming dynamics sounds a bit daunting this late to development, as it could have many ripple effects to level design. One thing I could consider, however, is to add a "game speed" option, where you could make everything a bit slower to fit your tastes.
Now only to, uh, try implementing it.... :D
This is a really good game, I found it really fun exploring the world. I also really like it when demos have more to them when you dig deeper instead of going straight for the finish, having an almost completely new world outside the bounds of the normal demo only accessible by this little glitch with the scanner (I wonder if you found the bug while playtesting and decided to add an entire secret level behind that bug)
It did get a bit annoying at points trying to get to certain places but that's just the nature of this sort of thing. I think I managed to rack up a completion rate of 158% but I know I missed alot, including that '?' room and 2 of the Ilivesilives cats.
I'll look forward to the full release and what it has to offer!
Thanks! It's always nice to hear when someone has found their way to out-of-bounds areas in the demo. :D Thanks for the comments, I'm working hard on the full version literally right now :]
I really enjoyed the exploration and scanner mechanic. Looking forward playing the rest of the game. Oh, I found the "phonetical aid" such a great gimmick, one of those details letting me know how much love and enthusiasm you are putting into this project. Great music too. Thank you very much! <3
Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, I thought it's better to communicate in some way how these obscure Eastern Finnish creature names should be pronounced. :D
good game. after discovering more and more, I am wondering if you can actually fill the whole pokedex thing or if certain stuff really is unfindable yet :-)
^^ If I recall correctly, you can't fill the Emuudex in the demo. But there sure is more to be found beyond the tutorial area, as Dzar's recent comment hints ;>
Damn, I wanted to see more! :O
looking forward to the full game.
It might be obvious but one cant scan the butterfly, right?
i scanned the butterfly successfully and it has a description and everything. But then it vanished.
yeah, you can actually scan the butterflies.
their htibox though is only as big aas a single block, they fly almost the whole time inside walls so its hard to scan. they seem to appear and not appear at random, so I never know when one appears or disappears.
they dont seem to linger long in an area, anyways, going away quickly after being seen.
Hint: If the butterfly disappears before you manage to scan it, you can load the game to try again. :p
after jumping unknowingly into the "to be continued" room, i decided to reset so i could continue exploring, but the title screen says, "Data incompatible. Please delete save." Is this possibly because i reset without letting the credits finish? This killed my motivation to keep playing for now, since i don't want to repeat stuff i just did, though i do plan to play through once the full version is released.
I love that it's non-violent, and i loved the exploration, puzzles, scanning, and the music. I didn't like the difficulty of a few of the jumps, but i still found them doable. Thank you for making such a lovely little game! :)
thanks for the report, i gotta investigate what's going on. That message should only appear when I've updated the save format, and this isn't obviously the case here. The credits reset isn't to blame either, the game only saves when you touch the Salavia flower. I suspect the data is actually fine. If you can, it would help debugging if you sended the save file to borbware (at) gmail, it's a gibberish named file located in appdata/roaming/com.nesbox.tic/TIC-80/.local
Anyway, great that you liked the demo! Thank you for playing! :]
Hey i really enjoyed this game and i can't wait for the full version. It really reminds me of toki tori 2, and i love how the scanner mechanic is used for so many different things just in the demo.
One thing I ran into is that in one of the rooms i pushed the snail creatures in the wrong way and blocked off a shortcut, then couldn't reset it.
thanks for playing & feedback! I'm working on an updated demo where you can reset snails after a mishap :>
I found the smiley face. Also, it’s 2021, the credits have lied to me and I will never recover. Also also, how am I supposed to 100% when I can’t continue after the credits?
Hehee, thanks for playing! A new demo with less lying (TM) is coming soon :D
About 100%; the blue Salavia flowers save the game - you can load the game by pressing ESC and choosing Reset game.
Took me a while to get into it, but it's good. Kinda like Toki Tori or even Outer Wilds, where you can interact with creatures in surprising ways and make progress that way. I'll be interested to see the finished game.
Worthy successor to Waking Mars coming. Hot jams too.
ngl this is the best tic-80 game i've played so far
feeling honored, thanks! the full game will be even better...!
im waiting lmao im in school rn when i post this reply
Thanks, these messages mean a lot!! I've been busy at work for a few months but now I'm starting to have more time to work on EMUUROM again. A bit unsure if I get to finish it this year like I promised in the trailer but I aim for an early 2021 release, at least!
I do have, in fact! You're warmly welcome! https://discord.gg/W8MTQ3MdU8
this game is so awesome!!!
thanks!! ^^
Thanks for the great game!
I must confess, that I lacked the patience to finish it, but enjoyed the original concept.
I was confused at first, as the game gave me little to no instructions about its objects. But it unraveled itself nicely through the interactions with them. I liked how the very first room teaches you this basic lesson that sets the mood for the whole game. This world seemed so alien and strange at first, but as you learn how each creature behaves it reveals its hidden patterns and becomes 'readable'. Although some of the platformer challenges were too hard for my taste.
The scanning-collection mechanic on top of it adds a new dimension to the exploration. I liked how biological descriptions of creatures give hints to their mechanical behaviors.
Overall, the game left with a strange feeling of being in an alien, yet non-threatening world, that has its own strange, yet comprehensive laws. Great work!
Thanks for the, umm, thanks! And for feedback! Nice to hear that the 'alien-ness' of the world is coming through, and that the scan entries are working as intended! ^^
As for the platforming challenges - I aim to make some of them less frustrating in the full version. Which room(s) in particular made you quit, if I may ask? :D
Demo area map with room numbers:
Hey, you're welcome!
I would say that rooms 35 and 45 were quite challenging, but I've managed to overcome them. Jumping the caterpillar was especially frustrating since it required very precise timing and I'm just not good at this. I wouldn't say that any particular room has made me quit, but when I reached room 34 I felt a bit overwhelmed. It's just that rooms are so mechanically dense and full of challenges, and there's little to no breathing space between them.
With that said, I can easily see a platformer puzzle person relishing your game precisely for the things that I found somewhat frustrating about it. Namely, densely interconnected puzzles and hardcore platformer challenges. I'm just happened to be not that kind of person :)
P.S.: oh, and thanks for the map! It made me realized I've missed some of the secret passages.
Thanks for the insights!
The tricky caterpillar jump is something I could try adjusting by just making its collision box a bit wider. I do want the game to have hardcore platformer challenges as well, but in the demo area I would like every player to at least reach the scanner first...!
Designing this kind of a game is like walking a tightrope in a cramped room lol. I'd like to add as much breathing space to the rooms as possible but, like, w h e r e. The interconnectedness of adjacent rooms gives me, as a designer, very little breathing space, so unfortunately that is reflected on the player on many occasions. What a problem have I generated for myself!
Anyway, the design of room 34 is something that i'm not perfectly happy with yet. It should be the last exercise before the end of the tutorial area, but maybe there's just too much to take in at once.
I made a small change to the room recently (not sure if additions are really helping lol): Otukka the caterpillar is there! Hopefully its presence gives the player a subconscious idea where they should be heading.
Being a game designer myself, I feel what you going through. Designing puzzles is a tough challenge, but adjusting them to player's expectations and skills afterward is even harder. Especially when you have such an intricately interconnected system as your game world. But that's that major source of fun in our craft, isn't it? ;)
I think caterpillar actually works well at signposting the exit! And increasing its collision box might work well too.
This is an sneakily amazing and charming metroidvania.
Makes you learn and earn movement and keep coming back and looking for new secrets.
The creature and area names really give it depth and make you want to keep exploring and there are several areas seemingly just out of reach, but then you find a way.
I could only get to 97% or so and will likely keep playing to explore since it really has a feel of a different world.
Can't wait for more additions and a formal release.
Also great example of what is possible with tic-80 in the landscape of Fantasy Consoles.
Thanks for your kind words, and congrats for almost completing the demo!! (Though there are some off-bounds secrets as well to be found....)
Also, great to hear that the creature and area names are resonating, I know my silly eastern finnish words aren't that easy for the english-speaking world to remember, let alone pronounce... :D
Is it possible to use it on android and if you can how?
Because TIC-80 can't export Android builds atm, it's a bit tricky, but possible! Note however that because the game is not optimized for Android, FPS drops are common (especially when scanning).
If you want to try it out anyway, here's the instructions!
1. Buy the PRO version of TIC-80 (it's $5). Download and install the apk for your Android device (you have to allow installing from unknown sources in settings).
2. Download the .lua version of EMUUROM demo and move the file to TIC-80's data folder. For me it was located in /sdcard/Android/data/com.nesbox.tic/files/TIC-80/
3. Open TIC-80, and type in the following commands:
load emuurom-0.1.i.lua
run
And you're good to go! Bluetooth controllers can be used to play the game, but onscreen controls are also available.
Ok thanks
This is really really good, excited for the full game
thank you! these comments fill me with determination. :)
This is awesome, I need to play the full version. Hope it's released soon!
thanks! i'm aiming for 2020 release - there's still quite a lot work left, but i believe i can make it!
Great news, I'll be surviving the pandemic for it.
Incredible work! I'm always so appreciative of non-violent games in genres that normally have some sort of death. This was really cool too, learning about animals. It was a little difficult to understand at first, but experimentation was necessary to grasp what I had to do. The progression was just so good. The only disappointment is that it's not finished. :OP
I've had this game on my to-play list for awhile, but I'm glad it was included in The Bundle so I could prioritize it. Thank you.
Thanks, and congrats for 100%-ing the demo! If you want to take a look behind the curtains, there's some out-of-bounds content left to be found...!
This game is so weird... but so fun. We played this on our new youtube channel and it was so refreshing to try out. Most of the video is us saying "oooh" and "ahhh" ha!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryMLG4aWcRw
damn! thanks for letsplaying (it's the first!)
gonna watch this right away->
I'm so glad you liked it! We would be thrilled to make more at some point. :) The game is really relaxing and felt good to play amidst all of the high-energy stuff we were doing.
OKAy i love this?!?!? The enthusiasm! The dynamics! And my god, the pronunciations! My finnish ass was NOT prepared for them lol (and I'm def going to say kehreejä that way from now on!)
Hahaha I'm so glad you liked it!! This game was really fun, we're talking about playing some more of it.
ooh i'd love to see more!
how do you scan creatures???
You need to obtain the scanner first!
Emuurom brought me back to the golden age of indie Flash games – it's a beautifully crafted, creative, exploration-focused experience full of secrets and cozy feelings.
It also reminded me of Rain World, my favorite game of all time: you're in a world full of creatures, but they're not out to get you specifically. Rather, you're just living in it, and learning about them and their behaviors is a large part of what the game is about. They're also similar in their approaches to mystery: Emuurom tells you little to nothing about how to play or how things work up front, so that's all for you to discover on your own. If you, like me, can't get enough of the feeling of discovery, you gotta play this game.
I got the demo for this in the recent bundle - I really like it. The puzzle elements are interesting, the visuals (especially the scanner) are cool, and the music's nice and relaxing. I can't wait until you release the full version.
haha thanks! working on it as we speak!
If you go into this game expecting a nice little "gotta go fast" kind of platformer, you'll probably be stumped like I was at first. Why aren't there more rooms? What am I supposed to do next? Who am I anyway?
I'd say EMUUROM is more akin to a puzzle game than a conventional platformer. The whole point of the game is to figure out how to use the environment to your advantage so you can fully explore the world. When I finally realized what I was supposed to do, I felt like a complete dum-dum because the answer had been staring at me all along. D'oh!
Some of the 'bugs' I found were actually features that I could use to advance. There's also the built-in potential to screw things up, but never badly enough to make the demo unfinishable. (Unless you manage to clip into a wall or something)
I enjoyed the sense of mystery, funky bleep-bloop music and chill atmosphere, and felt like I wanted to know more about these creatures and the world they inhabit. I did feel like the game could use a bit more hand-holding in the beginning, but on the other hand, that might take away from the joy of discovering things on your own. You are, after all, exploring an unknown world!
Pok-- I mean Emex completion rate currently at 91%. Some day I'll figure it out.
All that said, I think my favorite part is the main menu.
EDIT: Emex 101.75% complete! I give this game a 101.75/100 ;)
Wish I could pin comments lol. I mean, it's an actual cohesive review, I really appreciate it!
So yeah! Many of the bugs that can be used to your advantage are indeed totally unplanned, and in many cases discovered by other people than me. Naturally, I've chosen to leave them in, as they double as hidden cool mechanics and speedrun strats!
Mystery, exploration and getting lost are indeed important themes for me, so I'm quite cautious about adding any hand-holdy tutorials in the beginning, as it might change the tone - as you speculated. THEN AGAIN, I'd like to make this game accessible to as large audience as possible, so I should address it somehow.
Answer for the accessibility problem could be something I've long yearned to make: a game manual! That's the next thing I'm gonna do for EMUUROM: A Retrobiologist's Field Guide, a short journal that explains the UIs, basic mechanics, behaviour of some EMUUROM and tells the backstory of the protagonist. And if you want to go in blind, it would still be possible; you could just read the guide afterwards!
Btw, I finally embraced the puzzle aspect of the game and added it as a tag.
Thanks for the feedback, this is valuable data that makes EMUUROM better still (and maybe more importantly, fills me with determination)!
What a refreshing game! I enjoyed the atmosphere with the music the most.
The scanner visuals were also awesome and I like that it also affects gameplay with the way it can stop moving platforms.
That being said, I felt a lot of the jumps were kinda tight, especially considering it was the start of the game. My main frustration came early on with the first bird section, not realizing the bird momentum carried throughout your jump. Maybe that was my bad on that one.
Otherwise, I like it! I was constantly motivated to find the next screen to go to and finding secrets like getting out of bounds.
How were the scanner visuals made? My guess is linecasts animated with a sine wave and colored based on the sign of the wave. Would love to know more.
thanks for playing! ^^
The first bird room has been a source of frustration for some players, but I'm at odds with it atm - it seems to partly work because it in fact should teach that momentum is preserved when jumping from a moving platform. That being said, it shouldn't do that through frustration, though! :D
And then, the scanner lines!
They are 8 lines (4 red, 4 yellow) that increase in length by 2 pixels every frame until they collide with something. The rotation angle phi_i of an individual ray i is calculated with
phi_i = phi_0 - phi_max * sin(0.02*t + pi/8*2*i)
where phi_0 is the center direction (that the player can manipulate), phi_max is the half of the ray cone "width" angle and the sine term changes per time t and ray i.
So your guess wasn't that far from the truth!
follow up:
*spoilers*
I found the three hatty mushrooms, lured the worm into the lake to head back towards the start (though I couldn't scan the starting "tombstone"), scanned the dandelion/maskros and Mt. Sus, scanned the cat and snow clouds.
1. Can the player make it into the hole next to Mt. Sus?
2. I managed to get into the secret tunnel where the bird flies into on the screen below the dandilion (Pujjio?). I ended up falling and couldn't get into the tunnel again, but is there anything to discover right now in there?
3. Can the player make the jump to reach the cat?
4. Anything else that I missed?
1. Only from the above.
2. It's possible to get into the other side.
3. Not unfortunately :(
4. ^ See 2. ^
I'd suggest you to try it again,
no one has made it yet.
*spoilers*
Got in the tunnel! I tried calling the bird over to ride over the waterfall-pit but no luck crossing yet. I did potentially discover a bug. Upon returning to PUIJJO from the HUOM screen, the top bird was permanently gone (see imgur link). I'll see if it's reproducible.
There is a little "air shaft" in the secret tunnel that leads up....maybe I'll jump up, land on the bird, and jump again to the screen above PUIJJO. To be determined...
https://imgur.com/a/M8iEJWx
I take back my comment about the controls. After playing more and getting the hang of things, I think it's at a good level of difficulty. Since there's no enemies, there should be a challenge somewhere, and completing some of the harder jumps is definitely rewarding!
Ah, the missing bird bug resurfaces. I've no idea atm why and how it happens. :D What I've gathered is that the bird should return after the player goes a few screens away and then comes back, but it's still a guessing game...
Oh, the vertical air shaft? I thought THAT was the hole next to Mt. Sus you were asking about earlier :D it's not important (yet).
hint: there is a hidden path nearby to get past the waterfall pit.
Also, nice to hear that the controls "clicked". I'm still pondering if I should tweak them a bit, but this reassures that platforming physics are at least 95% complete.
The visuals of scanning things is so cool! It was a joy to play.
I like how the theme is "peaceful" where you don't fight any enemies, but instead explore the map and document the wildlife.
The snail shortcuts are a great idea and I hope you continue with that. Sometimes with games, the map is so expansive that it's hard to remember which places I have visited. Seeing the snails helps me remember that I unlocked that part. A very simple minimap showing which screen the player is in could be nice, but wasn't necessary.
If possible, I would make the secret tunnels more apparent when scanning, as sometimes it's hard to see clearly when all the blocks are flashing.
The movement is a bit "slippery" too, which makes some jumps difficult. Having the character stop as soon as the move button is released would help this. Right now, the character seems to slide, or carry their momentum.
Interesting mechanic where scanning an animal for enough time will freeze it in place. Could see this integrated into the platforming but it would be hard to time in it's current state.
When scanning and pressing the jump button, I see my character "phasing" upwards, like it's showing my future path if I again press the jump button. I wasn't sure if this was a special mechanic or not, which was a little confusing, but it seems like it's just for visual sake.
Too bad I couldn't leave the end screen since I wanted to explore more. It seems like this was intended so I'm looking forward to more!
Very excited to see where you take this game.
Thanks for your comments hygge! my paragraph-by-paragraph answer follows:
I've for a few years wanted to make a "biologist game". Then the idea collided with an already-existing post-jam platformer, and they fused into EMUUROM.
Snail shortcuts are tHE BEST. Also, there is a map screen, but its button is currently only told in one of the 'tombstones', or virstanpylyväät.
[it's the S key]
I'll consider adding more holes to the ground (through which the scanline is seen in the secret tunnels)! That might change the aesthetics of the tilesets considerably, tho, which means design work (note also: i am lazy)
Slipperiness of movement is mentioned enough times already for me to do something about it.
There will be a few emuuroms that are designed around pausing :)
The "future path" phasing is indeed just a visual thing
for now
maybe I should add an easter egg to the endscreen as well...
:D Luckily, there is indeed more to be found in the demo, see my answer to your second message :>
GOOD GAME; AT THE START i WAS VERY CONFUSED ABOUT IT ALL; ESPECIALLY THAT i COULDNT READ THE SIGNS: BUIT ONCE i GOT THE FIRST THING IT BECAME MORE CLEAR. and then it was already over :-(
GREAT TO HEAR, THIS IS THE INTENDED EXPERIENCE (save for the abrupt ending,) MORE COMING SOON!!
Neat idea and execution. Hope that there will be more.
I think that "ground" tiles should be more clearly separate from "background" tiles. At least once I thought that I can make a jump and was blocked by something I thought that would belong into background. Also I think that some challenges are too precise. A little bit of leeway would make it flow smoother.
In all other ways I think that level design is just right. I always had some kind of clue where to move next, even without any instructions. Challenges were fun and it is nice that new mechanics emerge through different creatures that have their own purpose (love how snails work as shortcuts for cleared challenges). Music is awesome.
I had some performance issues on browser, which I guess is to be expected.
Thanks for extensive feedback! ^^ Great to hear that level design does its job, as I'm not that experienced on the matter, hehe.
I'll try to smoothen out some of the trickier jump sections, especially those in the first bird room for the next release 0.1.e. And I guess I should also work on the tilemaps, too! Which tile was the one you thought was part of the background?
And yup, it's is tricky to deliver a steady 60fps on browser, and for optimization I can only do so much (but I'll try to work on that, too.)
Here is that part. Now that I think of it, it might have more to do with that plant that is on front of the wall, giving impression that it belongs to background.
Ps. I've found myself booting up this game just to listen to that catchy music that plays most of the time.
haha, didn't even consider that interpretation! I moved the plant one tile right so it should be less ambiguous in the next update.
Ps. Nice to hear that you like the music! You can also listen to (an older version of) it on my soundcloud: :D https://soundcloud.com/oggborbis/sets/tic-80-chiptunes