August 24th-27th 2012 :: Theme: Evolution
Revolution is a fast-paced fighting game with unique physics, where you try to see how many past versions of yourself you can take on at once, (r)evolving to the next level at each stage. We plan to carry on adding masks to the game, and hopefully eventually we will have one for each letter of the word 'Revolution', but for now the masks loop to give you more of a game to play. See how many hearts you can reach!
[UPDATE]
31/08/12 - A bugfix version of Revolution has been uploaded, which may solve the problems people have been having with the game crashing on startup. Please give it another go and leave a comment!
Check out GIF animations of all the art from the game on our blog!
Special thanks to our teammate for this round, Dan Holloway for writing the awesome soundtrack. Programming was done by Joseph Thomson and art was done Robert Thomson.
Pre-compo synopsis:
You spawn on the inside of a circle, headless, and all you seem to be able to do is run. You run around the inside of the circle, and then you see something fading into existance as you reach 1 full revolution. It's a mask! A very poorly made mask but a mask nonetheless, you put it on and when you channel your energy through it, a knife appears! floating and disembodied, how useful! especially since an enemy seems to have just spawned! headless, and what you think looked like an 'R', but it faded. You put your knife to work on the poor guy and you are alone once more. You run around a bit and as you reach another revolution you see, yes! another mask! You decide that this one looks noteably nicer, so you put it on and channel your energy through it again. A sword appears! and around the other side of the circle, another headless little guy, and a guy with a knife and a very familiar looking mask, one with an 'R' above him, and the other with an 'E' and they both seem to be coming towards you.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
![]() | Coolness | 81% |
#11 | Overall(Jam) | 3.89 |
#14 | Innovation(Jam) | 3.85 |
#17 | Fun(Jam) | 3.69 |
#24 | Audio(Jam) | 3.78 |
#26 | Graphics(Jam) | 4.28 |
#36 | Mood(Jam) | 3.47 |
#77 | Humor(Jam) | 2.84 |
#105 | Theme(Jam) | 2.94 |
Comments
Please check out the new version!
We've included several bug fixes that didn't quite make their way into the first version, including fixes for the overpowered enemies, and for the music (you might actually hear it now ;-D )
Hey guys, my ancient pc can't open it
http://local.twitpicproxy.com/web4/img/645837344-25db6af785c27dfa790022350b2a826e.503c7378-scaled.jpg
@kodguaxinim - Please run the "Revolution" shortcut provided in the top folder, rather than the executable in the bin folder.
http://pic.twitter.com/Ts1pc1zj
Same, without the .ogg error :/
@kodguaxinim - Thanks for trying it again. If your graphics card is sufficiently ancient (6 to 8+ years old), it may not be able to play the game. We have tested with PCs supporting OpenGL 2.1, although I think OpenGL 2.0 should work.
If you get round to trying it again, you could check up at the top of the command line Window, where details of the supported OpenGL version are given (anything below OpenGL 2.0 probably won't work).
I love the concept, and the graphics are awesome. The controls are kind of awkward and hard to get used to, and I couldn't move on after getting the cardboard box mask the second time because the longsword has such a longer reach than the knife.
@ameliayn - It's possible :) By little sister just got to nine hearts! haven't seen anyone get past nine though. And thank you!
Great game! I actually made something really similar (in concept) for the Global Game Jam a few months ago: http://struct.ca/games/cycle/
The game crashed when I tried to open it. Tried a few times, it crashed everytime :(
@Matt Rix - Thanks! That game looks and sounds really nice.
@gbellgames - Any output on the console? Perhaps look for the OpenGL support into like I told kodguaxinim?
This game is FANTASTIC.
Music... brilliant.
Graphics... brilliant.
Game... Amazilliant!!
This is brilliant! Fast, frantic fun. Beautiful graphics. Great sound. It's got it all. One bug: it froze when I finally lost all my health - but hey, I'd already died by then. Love it! I'll be keeping this one bookmarked, for sure!
@vilya - Haha, thanks. Yeah, there is a known bug where the game crashes if both you and the last enemy die at the same time. Congratulations on beating the odds, and actually getting this to happen. If you play again, then you will be able to continue playing the game when you die (unless you are very unlucky).
Won't work on my relatively new Sony VAIO laptop running Windows 7. Immediately crashes upon opening.
It's too bad because the animations look really nice and the concept is intriguing.
Seems to get impossible around the 9th round. Other than that, I found this to be fun and polished. Good job!
@Incredible Ape - We have tested on Windows 7 64-bit, so I'm not sure what's going on. I trust you ran the shortcut rather than directly running the executable? Other than that, if you could check the console output when the game crashes for any error messages, that might help us address the problem.
You could also try moving the contents of the "bin" directory into the top directory (the one containing "Revolution", "bin" and "assets"), and running the executable.
Very nice and innovative, but gets kind of boring after some time. I really liked the graphics, the sound and the idea but I failed to understand exactly what was going on (I guess a little more feedback on hitting the enemies could have been useful).
Aside from that, I was very amused by the whole idea. =)
Tried moving the contents of the bin directory to the main directory but it didn't seem to change anything. Here's everything that was printed to the console when it crashed:
[INFO] =========================
[INFO] == OpenGL Context Info ==
[INFO] =========================
[INFO] Version: 2.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2119
[INFO] Shader: 1.20 - Intel Build 8.15.10.2119
[INFO] Renderer: Intel(R) HD Graphics
[INFO] Vendor: Intel
[INFO] Extensions:
[INFO] GL_ARB_depth_texture
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_compression
[INFO] GL_EXT_blend_minmax
[INFO] GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
[INFO] GL_EXT_blend_subtract
[INFO] GL_EXT_blend_color
[INFO] GL_NV_texgen_reflection
[INFO] GL_ARB_fragment_shader
[INFO] GL_EXT_abgr
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture3D
[INFO] GL_ARB_occlusion_query
[INFO] GL_EXT_framebuffer_object
[INFO] GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat
[INFO] GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint
[INFO] GL_ARB_vertex_program
[INFO] GL_NV_blend_square
[INFO] GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap
[INFO] GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp
[INFO] GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object
[INFO] GL_EXT_packed_pixels
[INFO] GL_EXT_draw_range_elements
[INFO] GL_SGIS_texture_lod
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_env_add
[INFO] GL_EXT_rescale_normal
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp
[INFO] GL_EXT_separate_specular_color
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_env_combine
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_rectangle
[INFO] GL_ARB_multitexture
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_env_combine
[INFO] GL_EXT_bgra
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias
[INFO] GL_EXT_blend_func_separate
[INFO] GL_EXT_secondary_color
[INFO] GL_EXT_fog_coord
[INFO] GL_EXT_stencil_two_side
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_cube_map
[INFO] GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays
[INFO] GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
[INFO] GL_EXT_shadow_funcs
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_env_add
[INFO] GL_3DFX_texture_compression_FXT1
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
[INFO] GL_ARB_color_buffer_float
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc
[INFO] GL_ARB_point_parameters
[INFO] GL_ARB_shading_language_100
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar
[INFO] GL_ARB_shadow
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_float
[INFO] GL_ARB_window_pos
[INFO] GL_ARB_shader_objects
[INFO] GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
[INFO] GL_ARB_fragment_program
[INFO] GL_ATI_separate_stencil
[INFO] GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two
[INFO] GL_ARB_vertex_shader
[INFO] GL_ARB_point_sprite
[INFO] GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_rectangle
[INFO] GL_ARB_draw_buffers
[INFO] GL_ARB_half_float_pixel
[INFO] GL_ARB_draw_instanced
[INFO] GL_ARB_half_float_vertex
[INFO] GL_EXT_draw_buffers2
[INFO] GL_WIN_swap_hint
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_sRGB
[INFO] GL_EXT_packed_float
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_shared_exponent
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_rg
[INFO] GL_ARB_texture_compression_rgtc
[INFO] GL_NV_conditional_render
[INFO] GL_EXT_texture_swizzle
[INFO] GL_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB
[INFO] GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil
[INFO] GL_ARB_depth_buffer_float
[INFO] GL_EXT_transform_feedback
[INFO] GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit
[INFO] GL_ARB_vertex_array_object
[INFO]
[INFO] =========================
[INFO] == OpenAL Context Info ==
[INFO] =========================
[INFO] Version: 1.1 ALSOFT 1.14
[INFO] Renderer: OpenAL Soft
[INFO] Vendor: OpenAL Community
[INFO] Extensions:
[INFO] AL_EXT_LINEAR_DISTANCE
[INFO] AL_EXT_EXPONENT_DISTANCE
[INFO] AL_EXT_ALAW
[INFO] AL_EXT_FLOAT32
[INFO] AL_EXT_DOUBLE
[INFO] AL_EXT_OFFSET
[INFO] AL_EXT_MULAW_MCFORMATS
[INFO] AL_EXT_IMA4
[INFO] AL_EXT_MCFORMATS
[INFO] AL_EXT_MULAW
[INFO] AL_EXT_source_distance_model
[INFO] AL_LOKI_quadriphonic
[INFO] AL_SOFT_buffer_samples
[INFO] AL_SOFT_buffer_sub_data
[INFO] AL_SOFTX_deferred_updates
[INFO] AL_SOFT_direct_channels
[INFO] AL_SOFT_loop_points
[INFO]
http://pic.twitter.com/Itjees7G
Those old cards mimimi :/
Ty for the attention, and the art style in the game is preatty neat, I really like the concept of the e synopsis, reminded me of the short story of Neil Gaiman, "Other people"
Good god why are there 4 download-buttons, 3 of which get download-tools
Nice work on the animations and music! Also like the minimalistic, glowy, approach.
Controls are horrible though. Why are W,S, I and K on the screen, if they don't do anything? Having left+right on the wsad-"arrows", and jump+attack on the IKJL-"arrows" barely works. You constantly mix up keys, which is somewhat irritating.
@ghRibacki thank you!, hopefully we can change that in the future!
@Incredible Ape - thanks v. Much, annoyingly though that doesn't tell us anything :(
Matthias_zarzecki - I'm glad you enjoyed the art! Shame that you didn't like the controls. The reason I put all the letters on the screen is because they are the letters that are next to the keys you need on the keyboard. I wanted to show that they were keys on a keyboard rather than just random letters. I chose A and D because that's left and right from the standard directional button setup WASD, and J and L because they are spaced similarly to WASD but for your right hand, and not too far away from your left hand as the arrow keys were. Are you using a non English keyboard? I didn't think about foreign layouts when I was doing it. Could you suggest an ideal button layout? I'd be really interested to know. Thanks!
This game is so fun! Not to mention that it has an awesome music. Atm my personal favorite from the jam entries :).
@BrothersT Thanks for your critique too!
I think keyboard-layout-wise Revolution is ok. Main problems with that usually are Y+Z (german keyboards) and Q+Y (french keyboards).
What I believe would work better: Having "jump" on the "up"-key (i.e. "W") feels intuitive, many people naturally do that. Having fire on a single key away from the movement-keys is alright, but culstered around L, in this case, is a bit unintuitive too. Space would work, maybe Mouse-clicking could too.
Also useful: Adding the arrow-keys as usable alternatives, you'd just have to bind them aswell. No explaining necessary :)
Wow, the graphics are great and the game mechanics are really unique. Nicely done! :P
Doesn't really follow the theme. Controls were hard, game didn't feel very fun as a game, BUT HOT DARN WAS IT GREAT! Music was fantastic, art is amazing.
Not really related to the theme, the gameplay isn't breathtaking, but the music and the animations are pure awesomeness !
a few ideas>
.put a visual sign on the circle in order to see the world moving.
. expand the fighting gameplay with blocking, others making the world turn...
good jam guys
Thanks for the feedback everyone. We will certainly be taking it into consideration.
@ matthias_zarzecki - Sorry about the controls. It was my (programmer's) fault for not supporting foreign keyboards. I would usually have used keyboard scancodes, but this time I used GLUT for input, which reports key presses by their ASCII characters. I need me a better input library!
@perry - Were the controls hard because you were playing on a foreign keyboard, or because you would have liked up/w as the jump key (or for some other reason)? I appreciate the feedback, but some suggestions on how we could improve things would be very useful.
And with regards to the theme, the original idea was that you "evolve" through iterations of the character, becoming stronger and more powerful each time (but also taking on increasing numbers of enemies). We only managed to get three masks in, so we decided to loop the game to give people more to play. Perhaps not the strongest link to the theme, but I just wanted to point out that the link isn't _just_ the play on words ;)
@BrothersT: oh well, I need a new laptop anyway. It will probably work fine on my PC but I won't be back home till after judging is over :(
wow great job, the glowing forms and animations and the music are all fantastic. combat feels a bit samey but this idea has a lot of potential. i wonder if being able to jump across the circle or do other kinds of movements would add anything to it, make it more gymnastic instead of being bound to the ground.
Loved the circle arena twist. Fresh approach to the fairly generic theme. Good entry.
@Incredible Ape - Hang in there, and maybe we can get it working. We're looking to find some older computers to test on. We will message you (and everyone else who failed to get it running) if we think we might have fixed it.
@Porpentine - Gymnastic moves are exactly what I was thinking might be interesting. Maybe I should have increased the jump strength when you level up...
@imef - yes, it is actually possible to say, face off against two knights when you have the box mask, without getting hit once :) but the beginning is always a bloodbath, you just have to decide whether it's better to stay in the middle hitting the enemies and letting the enemies hit you (and each other) or get out of there and try and separate them out a bit. For anyone wondering, it is indeed possible to get past nine hearts if you play tactically!
Wow, one of the best games I've played. Stunning animations, brillant and smart art direction and fun gameplay mechanics. Great job!
Fantastic game! I like how you make the player circle the ring to get the mask, forcing combat!
Really like this one. It's a challenge to beat the opponents, but it's fun doing it. Music became somewhat repetitive.
--Stijn
Thanks for the updated version. It worked on my laptop finally!
I "got" the game right away, having to defeat an enemy and then make a full REVOLUTION around the arena to gain their weapon. And I liked how my previous incarnations were re-spawned to fight against me, making each round more chaotic than the last.
Not much strategy besides "mash jump and attack as fast as possible" but the music and animations made it fun enough to play for about 15 minutes.
I wish there were more sound effects for the weapons. Maybe there were but the only one I could hear anyway was the pistol and it was disappointingly weak sounding, especially since it was the "best" weapon (although I liked using the sword better).
I also wish the arena had some kind of markers on it that would give you a clearer sense of how it was rotating. That would have alleviated a lot of the confusion, but maybe confusion is what you were going for.
Over-all, fun and beautifully polished. My favorite thing was being able to jump off of the heads of my opponents!
Your character and his animations are very cool. Is very fun to play. Well done.
I can't download it - the windows link goes to a page with 2 download buttons, 1 of which tries to make me download something called iLivid, and the other spawns a popup advert window. Why didn't you just upload the file to a URL? Can anyone help? I'd really like to play this.
A bit to chaotic for my taste, but the core idea is neat. I made it to the 9th heart
Holy damn, I loved this game. Very clever and the animations are so smooth it made my eyeballs slid out of my head. Nicely done!
I never knew gladiatorial combat on a hamster wheel would be so much fun. Great job on your animation, it adds a lot of character to the game.
First I was very impressed how slick it was visually. Then I discovered how unique gameplay it has. But then my hand started hurt just after level 4 or so and then it wasn't anymore fun. Too much smashing or is it just my play style? Very good game anyways.
The fact that the game restarts with the guy that killed you is what really sold this to me. The game litterally comes full circle. That is what gives this game the poetic depth that I felt you were going for and I initially thought it was missing when I was fighting all those 'enemies.'
Unless you were just trying to make a fun game. In that case you succeded as well.
Also, great job on audio. I loved how it adapted to what was happening.
Dammit, why can't I find a good upload site that links directly?
[Link fixed, again!]
Thanks everyone for all the great comments, compliments or criticisms, we really appreciate them all! We're glad to hear how many people like it, and we're sure you'll like the finished version even more!
@samoojamies - yeah it's quite hectic at the moment, we were hoping to have time to balance it a bit more, add more moves, improve the ai and stuff. We're hopefully going to continue working on this though!
JaJ - thanks man! It's good to know that it was obvious enough to someone, I thought we'd have more comments asking why you suddenly lose a load of hearts. Yeah in the original idea it doesn't loop around either, so we were trying to make it as obvious as possible that you were fighting previous versions of yourself.
We were trying to be a little poetic with it, but didn't want it to feel too heavy, hence the f-zero style music and comical characters.
I did realise I was fighting former versions of me before I died, but at that point it felt like more of a gimmick than something meaningful. The fact that you took over the 'you' that killed you made all the 'you's' more equal in their fight, and in my eyes this gave a lot more meaning to the concept.
I liked that the game wasn't so in your face 'look at me I'm being poetic.' I like games that are fun for some and 'click' for others a lot better than games that force feed meaning to everyone but end up being boring because of it.
I love the graphics and animations. Don't see Evolution in there though. Good game.
no mac?
oh well, looks good, and the ratings are nice.
ill have to play it soon
Oh and @incredibleape - thanks for sticking with us! My brother was glad to hear his fix worked for you! I completely agree with your comments, in fact at everything you said I went "yep" in my head because they were all things that we were really hoping to get in the game before the deadline. We need to learn to keep it simple.
@mrphil - the idea is meant to be that you fight all the previous evolutions of yourself, but we didn't have time to create all the characters required so we just looped the 3 that we had, to give you more of a game to play.
It was pretty fun, nice looking and all. But it gets boring when you learn that it's repeat every time.
Fantastic and very addictive! Graphics and sound are superb. Perhaps it's missing some sort of indication of the wheel's rotation.
I loved your previous game as well, this one is brilliant too. I totally see the connection to the theme with the different masks, and I'd like to see a version with 30 different masks ! (that could follow the history of mankind). I love the idea of the circle, the art is amazing and the music gives you this feel of extra dynamism. If you do continue working on it, however, I'd recommand trying to improve the fighting system, with a guard button, dodge, or something like that (look at how other games make you fight multiple ennemies at the same time), because when there are too many ennemies it becomes button mashing. But Sincerely, this is fantastic. Best note I've given so far for a Jam entry.
I have to say that I love your game, I visualized the howto video before playing and I was surprised how much work, effort and love that you have set, congratulations!
I love the concept and the execution. The animations are fun and the music is great.
I din't find the controls too difficult which is surprising because I don't do well on platformers.
3 specialist I can tell. The music is good (nice retro sound), the graphics excellent and the game works very well. Excellent job. If you want to go further with this game, maybe some more difference in gameplay would be good.
Great music, amazing art/animations, but I found the gameplay a bit repetitive.
Still one of the best (if not the best) game I've played in LD, amazing job guys!
This looks really cool. Unfortunately I don't have a Windows machine.
So i'm guessing this game doesn't end eh?
God Dammit this is THE best game iv'e seen so far, Considering it was influenced by the Hunger Games. Although I want to give you 5 Stars for everything, I'm going to have to rate it fairly. (Gotta put that soundtrack on Itunes though!)
Very cool looking game! I like the idea of the circle: seems quite innovative. Pretty fast the gameplay gets too hard though, and just before that it seems as spamming hit with occasional turn is the best technique - this is something to think about when you'll be making a post-compo version - and you definitely should make it. Great entry.
Fascinating stuff. Great job so far, looking forward to the post-compo. Amazing graphics and animation, btw.
When i grabbed the cowboy outfit, my computer crashed. Twice.
controls are a bit strange, but i liked the game
I don't understand how to kill the no weapon person with the cowboy suit. That gun was not that great. Going back to the knife felt way too difficult. Graphics were really good.
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The game's difficult. The enemies are sure making their weapons feel more powerful than how I used them. :p
I'm not well with the controls, it just seems too awkward.