Hazard Pay
You're a foreman on a demolition site and your job is to keep your crew safe.
Using the keyboard tell them where to move and where to stop to avoid falling objects.
Keys A & D instruct your workers to move left and right.
Keys J, K, L instruct single workers not to move.
Space detonates a bomb clearing the screen.
Dev Notes and Commentary:
Open Source MIT License - Github Link
A few weeks ago I put together a bartop cabinet with Armbian to play homebrew arcade games. When looking for an engine that was easy to learn and resource efficient I came across Ebitengine. Coincidentally this was right in time for their annual game jam!
I tried to rely on early arcade motifs to make a game that is technically easy to play but quite difficult to execute on and demanding a bit of perfection. A construction hell platformer I suppose.
I tried to put together the elements of a complete game in time for the jam deadline. I feel this was pretty successful. For an actual physical release I'll spend time on more rhythmically constructed movement patterns. I had to rely on a bit of designed patterns and a bit of repetitive shuffled patterns to pad out the game play. The Friday stage should be unbeatable as released. If you do manage somehow you're a better player than I'll ever be.
The bartop cab has a 2p control panel so I'd like a 2 player mode that isn't a simple split screen survival.
Thanks for playing and checkout Ebitengine! It's a great package I enjoyed working with.
Comments
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I really enjoyed the overall cute atmosphere of the game with the wubwubwub sound effect for talking and the foreman guys face.
I thought the first level started out really intense - perhaps the falling beams could be spaced out more and slowly grow faster and faster? It took me something like 3 tries to beat the first level, so it could probably be shorter as well.
Once the second man came out, I really stood no chance! I barely made it any of the way into level 2 after 5 or so tries. Difficulty is pretty on point for an arcade cabinet, especially if it takes your friends quarters! :D
It would also be cool if there were bombs or lives you could grab from the falling blocks, or perhaps some money value gives you another life / bomb.
Overall a fun game, though a bit tough for my tastes. I saw you mentioned the Friday stage and I never even got to Wednesday. Thanks for the game!
I like all of those suggestions, thank you for sharing!
Funny enough I have an extra life as a falling object coded in but forgot to put it in for the jam cut
I definitely intend to make the learning curve and difficulty more natural and give more preview cues for upcoming patterns. Ideally there would be no randomization in level layouts but that will come in time :)