CARA GRABS ANTIMATTER

Navigate a spacewreck in search of vital fuel pellets to power your ship and get back home in time for dinner! Avoid the spikes - some of them are hidden!

This was made for Dos COM Jam, where games have to fit into a single file less than 64KB in size. My entry is 24KB! There's a web version for anyone that doesn't have a 1985 PC handy

Comments (4)

Wan
 • 1 year ago • 

Finished in 4'15!

I have no idea how much of a technical achievement this game is, but I can say it's a well polished little puzzle game, smooth to play from start to end. The presentation feels pretty authentic as an early 80s game, and there's a particular charm to the UI and the tutorial texts. The sprites and animations are good too, as is the retro colorful yet functional color palette! If I had to give some criticism it would simply be that the gameplay and level design are pretty straightforward, possibly too easy for my taste ; I would have enjoyed more contents with difficult layouts that force me to acquire muscle memory for certain trap sequences. If expanded it could be become a bit like VVVVVV maybe.

…Now we both now what it takes to get jammers to actually finish our games, so with that goal in mind it's actually perfectly balanced ;-)

AaronBacon
 • 1 year ago • 

Really good execution of a Retro game style, and while I'm sure some of it comes with developing for actual Hardware, even the UI with the detailed characters Face in the corner is really reminiscent of old games where the actual character is 16x16 and can't have much in the detail department. Definiteyl managed to do alot with a restricted environment, even adding extra mechanics as the game progresses, keeping it interesting. Nice Work =)

Antti Haavikko
(@anttihaavikko) • 1 year ago • 

Obviously had to do a second run to beat Wan 😅

Simple and fun. A bit short (and easy) as it kinda ended just as things were getting thougher. For the leaderboards it would be more interesting to combine both time and score. Dunno if the score even can have any differences right now, penalty for deaths? Well I guess dying does take some time (actually quite a bit) too.

Looks nice and retro. The color palette still being pretty pleasant to look at even though was it that oh so horrible VGA palette? The sounds didn't surprisingly get irritating but of course would have needed to be backed up with some banging tunes.

The turn based doors were really under utilized. I think there was only one level (the last one) where they really mattered at all. The pressure plate spikes could be toned down a bit. Now they really push for fully routing the level before even moving as trying to just wing it and think on your feet seems to be too fast (for my old man reflexes at least).

Not much to critique really at all. Good job! 👍

toasty
 • 1 year ago • 

I was really happy to beat Wan's score, then realised I'm still miles away from first place 😱.

As ever, a technically impressive entry with oodles of style and fun to play. I think the UI is my favourite part here. The palette is great and the portrait is really something. I love the embossed effect from the dithered borders, too.

Like Antti, I think some more use of the turn-based doors would be cool; they were my favourite mechanic. But that might just be me - I'm not so good with twitchy puzzles and prefer to mull over my next move for an hour or so 😅.

I think this would make a great tournament entry.

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1@Antti Haavikko2'07"000 
2@toasty3'33"000 
3@Wan4'15"000 
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