Lestac, a non-linear 2D exploration game
lestac.netHey folks! Even though HN is more hacker-oriented, I still thought I'd give it a shot.
Factoids:
- It's the first commercial game fully made in ooc
- It's sold only on itch.io (which recently made HN frontpage)
- It was originally a Ludum Dare submission
- We just released a Christmas update!
- It's lame because the game is not about killing stuff!
By ooc, do you mean the programming language? [1]
if so, can you share any thoughts on how that affected the development process? Any quirks? Any features that made it much easier?
Thanks!
Precisely!
Well, it's interesting that ooc returned to its roots, because when I first started working on it, it was for a small simulation game project at university.
I'll try to be as unbiased as can be, though.
Here are the reasons I liked writing it in ooc:
I'm not trying to sell the language here so I'll stop, but mostly - for this project, after 5 years spent working on and off on the language (and peripheral projects), it got out of the way. I could just write what I thought and it worked. From what I gather, it's a rare satisfaction in the software craftsmanship realm :)- I find it hard to write bad ooc. The language is smart, but not too smart, so you can write code that's concise yet not too confusing. - Moving up from C, having a single tool manage the build of your whole project is really cool. I recently added cross-compilation support, so I produce the Windows, Mac, Linux 32-bit & 64-bit builds from the same machine. I have a simple Makefile for tasks like packaging so releasing a new build is a 'make deploy' away! - Recent versions of rock have gotten relatively good at error checking (there's still plenty of room for improvement), but it's often a lot more helpful than well, most compilers I've seen. (Clang isn't bad, but it's C, so it can only help you on a low-signal level). - Most of the libs I wanted to use (SDL2, SDL2_mixer, OpenGL 3.x) already had bindings, and for the others (stb_image, etc.), well, I wrote'em. It's usually a matter of neatly organizing C functions into an object-oriented-ish interface.As for the downsides, well, there are things I know to work around, language features I know I'd better avoid, and the occasional compiler blips. But for a project of that scope, I got away with "using my toy language" relatively scot-free!
I still remember the very harsh comments when I first presented ooc to HN a few years back. Forunately I was in a high at that point so I didn't care. Had I listened to them, I would never have gotten where I am now. So: stay positive, everyone!
Not to be confused with Ook! http://esolangs.org/wiki/Ook!
The trailer tells me nothing about the game. The description "non-linear 2D exploration game" is much more enticing than anything on the site, how is this game non-linear? I was expecting some sort of insight (or at least hint at) on the website, but I didn't see any. Then again maybe if I had gone even further into the trailer than however long I did (a couple of minutes?) I would have found something.
Either way, not a good way to sell something. :(
Ah well, I'm still working out my marketing skills - a field which I hate with a passion, but there's two of us and, well, someone has to do it.
Basically — environments to explore, set to an original soundtrack. That's really the selling point. The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!
Since the Christmas update, there are two separate worlds with different 'quests' - the latter being a snow/winter/Santa-themed world.
We definitely plan to add other gameplay mechanics, but we think the "charm" of the game is already there. We're happy with how Early Access is working, and totally understand if people don't like that niche and/or want to wait until there is more content / gameplay arcs.
To shed some light on the "non-linear" qualifier I used in the submission, allow me to refer you to the Ludum Dare Postmortem for Lestac: http://amos.me/blog/2013/lestac-the-making-of/ — which explains some of it.
As a side note, to anyone on HN who is interested in following the development of Lestac right from the devs' mouths, let me know, I can totally give out a few http://devsofa.cc keys for the Lestac channel.
You realize this game is the very definition of linear gaming...?
> The actual gameplay, so far, is mostly finding items, bringing them to characters, in exchange for other items, so that you can find your way to the exit!
Finding items that you can collect would be a useful feature for some people.
Finding items that you can collect, and use to modify your "home" or similar would be cool too.
I assume I can pick up the items somehow? The "tutorial screen" only tells me of the arrows, space and enter, none of which pick up items.
As mentioned, Shift-Down will do. (Also, while holding an item, Shift will use if the item is usable, throw otherwise. Usable items can be put down with Shift-Down as well).
These controls are actually explained in the LD levels (door on the right in the very first screen of the game), which you're encouraged to play first!
Still early access, thanks for bearing with us.
Shift+Down is how you pick up items. It's a little finicky though. I think it could stand to be more forgiving on where you're standing to pick them up.
I bet it has lots to explore and "lovingly crafted" I can buy, but "gorgeous"? Not everything can be gorgeous. Maybe try "quirky" or "with character"?
Anyway, buying to support, and wishing you success.
Point taken & suggestion applied. Thanks a lot for your support!
Fun little game. I have a few suggestions that would make it better, in my opinion.
1. Include a 'save' feature or save automatically when a person steps through a door or transitions from one screen to another.
2. Maybe allow a person to adjust how much left/right movement happens to a degree in the options. The guy seems a little 'floaty' to me, and I had trouble not over-shooting my intended jumps. Of course, a max would be needed pretty close to where he's currently at, and a min would be needed that's still enough to play the game.
3. Allow it to support controllers and/or customize the controls.
4. Make picking up items more forgiving. It's currently a little too picky, in my opinion.
2 and 4 we've had on our mind (2 is already an improvement over the previous builds! still has work to do. I believe sane defaults would be enough though.)
And 3, I definitely want in. If only because I enjoy playing platformers with controllers so much. The only "problem" is that controllers are so wildly different from one another -chances are, most customer complaints we would have gotten would have been about that! It's definitely slated for an upcoming build.
As for 1, that's a non-trivial feature do to how levels work, but it's also definitely something we want as the game expands. As it stands now, with two separate worlds, it's not too hard to finish each in one go, yet saving would be nice, especially as more complex quests get added and potentially spawn multiple worlds.
Any chance of adding some other method of payment? I don't have a PayPal account (and would rather not use it), but have all my credit card info already loaded up in for instance Google Wallet and "amazonpayments".
I have to admit I'd probably have made an impulse purchase if there hadn't been that small hurdle (and, for me, moral dilemma).
( For reference see https://www.humblebundle.com/ )
The game looks nice though ! It's exactly the kind of "quirky" indie game I love :)
itch.io does support Amazon Payments / Stripe but that's only available to US sellers, and we're based in France unfortunately :(
I'll take a look and see what our options are. Thanks for the kind words!
edit: Stripe does support France, but in closed beta — just signed up, we'll see when/if we get in the beta!
This looks like (and looks like it would feel like) knytt.