Apple and Worm: Patching holes in spacetime game

[diegzumillo]

I mean, I'm making a game, not making a gamer. I talked about making a gamer with my wife but she just grabs my head, analyzes, sees how big it is and says "nah, thanks". (this paragraph made sense because the topic title was "any gamers here?I am developing one")

Anyway, the title of the game is Apple and Worm: Patching holes on spacetime. Patching holes IN spacetime? who knows? But it's a puzzle platformer in a curved space. Think of it as Mario meets Möbius strip. You play as Apple and the story is that a couple of curious inter-dimensional beings are accidentally creating holes on spacetime, so you have to catch up with them by going through the holes. Each level is a maze-like puzzle, which each curved region changing your orientation and position. It's hard to explain but easy to understand once you play it.

I'm a physics grad student, which is influencing a lot how I make this game, from the mechanics to the story. During my masters I studied a bit of topology and differential geometry and this idea just popped into my head. That's why I thought I'd mention it on this forum, I think it has appeal for us physics and math enthusiasts.

Well, it's still early in development (spare time is scarce in grad school apparently) but you can play the alpha demo right now if that sounds interesting to you. I would LOVE to hear any feedback. Any questions about the game and/or my arguably big head, just ask away.

Click here to play the game.

edit: omg, that mobius strip part just came out as I was writing this. I should rename the game to Super Mobius Bros! haha But no.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Using Chrome 45 I get "The Unity web player currently does not work on your system."

I'm a physics grad student, which is influencing a lot how I make this game, from the mechanics to the story.

How so?

 

[diegzumillo]

Using Chrome 45 I get "The Unity web player currently does not work on your system."

Chrome doesn't support most plugins anymore, unfortunately. You can either use another browser or download the standalone (it's a zip with an exe and a folder).

How so?

The fact that I'm a grad student is influencing the game only by accident. The game is becoming an allegory for academic career and I don't know if I like that. About the "physics" part, the answer is in the sentence after the one you quote. The idea came from studying topology and differential geometry. The game has these curved regions, when you go through them your character retains its relative orientation and the gravity follows along. I guess we could say the game is less physics than math inspired. Because it has its own rules, completely unrelated to our reality. Each object has its own gravity. So you can see boxes falling in one direction while you fall on the other direction.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

How about putting in a PF easter egg

 

[diegzumillo]

Ha! that would be great! I'm totally open to ideas on the 'how' though.

Not much of an easter egg but I could redirect the player to PF after the bonus are unlocked. I don't know if you read the game description there, I didn't want to dump all info at the first post, but one of the features of the game are these hidden Isaac Newtons that once you collect enough (bouncing on their heads... get it? because apple) you unlock hidden lectures. These lectures are just cute and silly interactive explanations of basic physics and math. You will also collect Emmy Noethers and other 'thinkers' throughout the game. At the end it could ask if the player has any questions and then redirect to PF if he says yes. Or maybe redirect only after he unlocks all of them!

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Those all sound great! Or just display the PF logo :)