I think I've just made the first random-based map that relies on player input
transparently. It's more of a proof-of-concept than an actual level... I recommend you try the level out first, or at least look at it while you read this so it makes sense.
So, first off, it's a level like Factory Floor or I am Robot - you're in a contained room and have limited effect on the puzzle. You have to react to various objects falling. To do so, I used the fact that an object will roll combined with ice to create perpetual motion. However, the player stands under the ice, and controls when the rock rolls without actually touching it. These movements affect the seekers in the skelwing chamber, and thus, affect their near-random behavior enough that it alters some aspects of the puzzle (namely, the objects that fall).
When an object falls, the player must deflect it with the rock by moving it to the correct position using the method described above. This causes the object to either hit a cloner and fall to the chamber below, or hit a cloner and red button, then get destroyed. The red button affects the conveyor belt in the skelwing room, to further alter their path, and the cloner creates another skelwing. They bounce around their room, hitting walls, rocks, and seekers, until one happens to hit the trap at the top. Once it gets released, it hits the yellow button, causing a rock to potentially hit a mass cloner and a trap release (to potentially keep the flow going).
In short, the player affects how often skelwings appear and hit the trap, while the skelwings affect how often other skelwings and falling objects appear. Note that because of the trap at the entrance, these is a nearly fixed maximum flow of skelwings. Oh, and of course, there is a roulette action going on for the object that spawns - since you don't know when a skelwing hits the button, or if anything is lined up with the cloner when the rock hits the button, you have absolutely no way of knowing what will fall and when.
It fits on exactly two game screens, too. I challenged myself to keep it that way, which is why the items are evenly distributed on the right, but it looks rather busy.
Click here to view the secret text
×Oh, and I
may have discovered a very interesting timing quirk. I set some dynamite off beside a bomb to escape, and it was beside a ruby, and was intended to create a laser, which didn't seem to fire. My conclusion to this was that a rock fell on the bomb just as my dynamite exploded, causing the
bomb's explosion to be destroyed and overwritten by my dynamite's explosion. This means the bomb's explosion didn't fully flourish and was cut short in a very short timing window from my dynamite. I'm not sure, I might be completely wrong here.
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SubTerra
- Ultimate rank
- 2009 level design contest, 2nd place
