Intergalactic Transmissing. (GGJ2018)

ROM link: http://files.slembcke.net/temp/Intergla ... ng.nes.zip



First actual NES game for me (I've only tinkered...)! I convinced some people at the global game jam to work on the NES. An action/puzzle game. The basic idea is that you have to help push a radio transmission along. Turning out a bit better than I had expected. We only have one tiny level right now, but we have a level generator (theoretically). Still need to add enemies as well, but getting really close!

Github:
https://github.com/slembcke/GGJ2018

Video here:
http://files.slembcke.net/temp/Intergal ... issing.mp4

Looks cool! Sort of like a sokoban puzzler with a fair number of twists and other influences (among them snake? can a transmission cross itself?). Pretty unique concept i think.

You open to suggestions?

Latest build here: http://files.slembcke.net/temp/InterTrans.nes
Hold B while ramming the signal to give it a boost in your current direction. Fill the board with it. (Win condition not currently detected.)



So it's sort of a mashup of a puzzle game that I've been avoiding finishing for years:


Basically, you start somewhere, then can move in a straight line until you hit something. The goal is to fill the board.

Highly unfinished HTML5 version here: http://files.slembcke.net/temp/PuzzleSn ... Snake.html
(No win/lose condition, have to reload the page to get a different puzzle, no instructions, etc)

The biggest problem we have is that the puzzle snake levels are 5x5 (easy) to 8x8 (pretty hard) in size. For the NES version, we are doing 12x12... Even after giving the player the start position, it's still pretty brutally hard... and we still want to add enemies or something to make it more interesting. At this point we have ~3 hours to finish it lol, so suggestions won't do much good.

Take it for what it is worth (probably not a lot given the time): a single screen could contain 1-4 smaller "zones" to fill with 1-4 different "snakes"/antenna pairs, enabling

1)much easier stages while also being able to fill the screen
2)differently sized zones
3)the player to shift attention between different puzzles which could help user experience-wise (one puzzle too hard at the moment? do something with the others, which may open your mind to the one that was hard).
4)Kind win conditions: solve 1 of 2, 2 of 3, or 3 of 4 to go to the next?

Ooh, it's similar to Zen Puzzle Garden. The extra constraints might be just enough to mean I can actually figure out these puzzles.

Yeah, kinda similar, but in ZPG you can move one square at a time right?

Semi-final ROM is here:
https://globalgamejam.org/2018/games/in ... ansmissing

Should generate/add more levels, and assign them a better difficulty order, and we sort of broke sound at the 11th hour. :-\

I think this game is donesies. I added a level start screen, reordered the difficulty of the levels, and placed the latest sounds that we didn't have time to add in the last few minutes of the GGJ scramble.

Latest build http://files.slembcke.net/temp/InterglacticTransmissing.nes.zip. (Also updated in the OP)

I think it turned out pretty good after all. Pretty playable, and my wife and I enjoyed going through all the levels in the 2 player co-op mode.

This is very cool indeed!

If you were interesting in working on this a little bit more and filling it out to be a full game then Epyx would be very interested in buying or licensing the game from you and publishing it.

We would re-brand it to fit with the classic Orion series that Epyx produced for home computers back in the day as it has some similar concepts, I would go with the name Space Mission Orion to fit with the previous games nicely (Star Fleet Orion, Invasion Orion etc.).

Let me know what you think and feel free to shoot me a PM if you want to talk more.