The Principle of Maximum Action

Think of a hookshot. Got it? Great! Also, the floor is lava.

The game

 You are a blue circle and you must connect the maximum possible anchors together while going up to avoid lava! Then if you want, you can submit your score online :D

Keyboard/gamepad controls

[A] , [←] or (joystick) to move the sensor counter clockwise

[D], [→], or (joystick) to move the sensor clockwise

[W], [↑] or (A) to catch the selected anchor

[M] or (X) to mute sounds

Some screenshots

Voting results

Overall
21st
61%
5.944
Graphics
24th
70%
5.278
Audio
16th
45%
5.944
Gameplay
18th
52%
5.889
Originality
24th
70%
5.611
Theme
20th
58%
6.389

This game entered in the Solo competition (33 entries).

Comments (11)

plasmastarfish
 • 4 years ago • 

Nice entry! The scoring based on line length was an interesting twist to the grappling runner formula, and the online high score board was a nice touch.

It felt a bit bad that every time you grappled onto a new point you immediately lost your momentum. It made it feel like if you ended up in an area with no faraway points, which let you accelerate for longer, you lost because you got unlucky.

I also feel like the lava could rise slower, or accelerate more gradually, or "cheat" in a way that makes it feel more like a looming threat getting closer and closer rather than something that is invisible for most of the run and then kills you all at once.

Music was solid.

Great work for 72 hours.

AaronBacon
 • 4 years ago • 

Pretty cool game. The visuals are nice and the music accompanies it well.

It does feel like it has a fairly simple strategy though, just hold up and press (Grab Point) every time you pass one (going sideways at all seems to just be suicide with how fast the lava goes), and I'd agree with plasma that RNG seems to play a large part in how high of a score you can get.

Still a fun and good looking game though, nice work!

Psychic_Ash
 • 4 years ago • 

The controls felt a little clunky. Every time you made contact with a node, you lose all momentum. as you're recovering the bottom moves up at a very uneven pace. Could use balancing. I did like the hex patterned fire with the lighting effects. that was pretty neat. Overall, just not really my kind of game.

Mr. Chocolate Salmon
(@mr_chocolatesalmon) • 4 years ago • 

It was a bit confusing and I couldn't quite understand the best approach to take. Pressing up seemed to only work half the time, and there was one game where it wouldn't work at all. But apart from that the gameplay seemed to flow alright.

CFusion
 • 4 years ago • 

The idea is solid, the music and visuals suit the setting and theme perfectly giving a sense of urgency though the gameplay experience ends way too quickly.
I feel lava rises rather aggressively giving you very little room to make decisions.
My best score was me spamming the up button while looking upwards and hoping the RNG will be on my side. Still a very solid effort though.

I did encounter some small bugs:
Level starts with no nodes and the lava won't rise so had to restart the game
I Got stuck on a single node since the lock on wasn't detecting the nodes around it. Would have to move the cursor around a bit for it to lock on again. Generally happens if there aren't many nodes around.

Yaro
 • 4 years ago • 

Hey there, it's a nice game! Cool idea with the momentum, the music is nice, well done!
Sometimes I didn't quiet understand how the game works though. While going sideways seems like the best approach to keep momentum and get the bigest thread distance, sometimes by going upwards I was dying faster but getting a better score. I did manage to get 155 as highscore, but that 1st place with 410 points seems like, A LOT!!!
Good job overall!

DictorDro
 • 4 years ago • 

Cool skill game
But I didn't get the principle of how lava doing. As I noticed, it just randomly appears on ~100 points :D
And honestly it's pretty hard to score more than that, like a invisible barrier bothers you to up higher, but maybe it's intentionally

Baconinvader
 • 4 years ago • 

Fun little game but I felt like it got too hard too quickly, maybe I was missing something? The momentum of your character felt good nonetheless.

wolfingame
 • 4 years ago • 

Awsome climbing simulator :). Sometimes after start player don't have any point to follow.

Colisan
 • 4 years ago • 

Nice game ! I managed to score a shy place on the top 3 with a score of 220, but was taken down shortly after =(

What I liked :

  • The gameplay feels nice especially with a controller! The inertia after a long reach was pretty satisfying =D
  • The music was awesome!
  • Randomly generated layout mean that every play is different, it's nice for replayability =)
  • The lava graphics are nice, both original with those hex tiles, and it's very understandable that it's dangerous lava
  • The music again!

What I think could have been better :

  • The layout sometime contains huge gaps without anything. It's frustrating when you encouter them in play, it is even more when it's right around the spawn and you have to restart the game…
  • The graphics and font could use a little polishing I think, maybe with less gradients use?
  • The lava starts getting insanly fast after a short while, I don't understand how you could outspeed that. If it's not the case, then each play has a maximum time, and it feels kinda weird for a scoring arcade like this =)
  • I didn't really understand what makes my final score… Is it the height? The length? The amount of node reached? Which in what proportions? My best score was holding "up" and praying for a generous layout… Too much luck in your final score make for a weird experience =)
dorkulon
 • 4 years ago • 

I was not good at this game :D I think the most points I ever got was 80 or so. I saw some comments about using a controller, whereas I only played with a keyboard. Maybe that would have been better. :) The idea was neat and it was cool when you could get into a rhythm. The only issue for me was that as soon as I did, the lava would catch up with me and I could not escape it. The music was appropriately intense! Good job!

Login to comment

Links

Download!

Author

Mills_Himself

Details