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PLAYED 3,029 TIMES
AliceAndBob
Instructions are simple, use the arrow keys to move the characters, make them meet at the same time at the door.
One of the characters moves as per the input, while the other character behaves opposite to the input, viz. turns right when the left arrow key is pressed, and turns left when the right arrow key is pressed. Initially, my idea was to have everything to be opposite (i.e. even the up and down arrow keys), however, this is simple to code, but it overly complicated the things.
Maybe in further levels, we can add that. Another idea I was toying with was to make the characters start at corners diagonally opposite, but that way the maze became a bit complex. This is another feature that can be added.
This game was written and produced by Karan Anand for Professor Perlin’s fall 2009 games class. This is the second set of mini games that the class has worked on.
UPDATE (7 NOV. 2009). Alice and Bob was updated to a new verion today. Karan Says, “Based on the amazing feedback, there are a couple of changes made in the original game:
1. Added the background music, and more sound effects
2. Introduced new gameplay elements, viz. Switches to unlock doors, Spikes, More Inverted Controls
3. Added 2 new levels, with progressive level of difficulty, based on the skills learnt in the game
4. Tweaked the speed / acceleration a bit (for good or for worse, is upto the player to decide I guess)”
AVERAGE RATING
(7 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)
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Very original idea! It would be nice if the controls were a little looser for getting the characters through passageways. I know it’s very important to keep things synchronized, but often I felt like I was wiggling the character left or right a little just to get it up through a passage, when I really just wanted it to see what I was trying to do and move me over a little to get it through.
When the time reaches 60, it resets to 0. Also, the levels are a little unclear, I passed the first level, then at the end of the second, it said “press space to restart” but I started on a new level. They don’t seem to be randomly generated, so I think numbering them clearly would help (and so would save games or old-school “continuation codes” so you could keep your progress). Really interesting gameplay though.
October 27, 2009 @ 12:24 am
The concept of this game is very smart and clever. It clearly lends itself to are a great range of levels from easy (like the two you have here), to much harder and tricker levels I can only imagine.
I realize that your menu and information bar aren’t central to the game play, but they’re so static that when I’m playing I don’t even look at them. Perhaps that’s ok, if it is then maybe you don’t need an information/score bar at all. In the least I think a you could have “real” buttons.
I thought this was going to be a silent game until I beat the first level. The sudden sound even startled my office mate. What about adding some sounds throughout the game play so that the winning sound is not so alarming?
October 27, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
As Ken mentioned at the class, there is a trick to clear the game easily.
And for my prefernece, I hope it would be a little bit more speedy.
October 27, 2009 @ 8:02 pm
The game is very clever and original. My only complaint is that the motion of the character seemed to slow and binary. A little faster motion, and maybe acceleration would make it feel more smooth.
October 27, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
Good original game. I like the idea of controlling two characters in the opposite direction.
When I started playing the game I thought the character on the right would move in the direction of the keys, while the character on the left would exhibit the mirror movement. It took me some time to get used to the opposite sided controls. But this maybe just me..
Agree with Kai above that it was difficult to get the characters through the gaps because the game is too precise.
An idea for a further level: You can have a “button” on one side, which the character on that side would press to open up a passage way on the side of the other character.
October 28, 2009 @ 12:53 am
I liked the game mechanic a lot! And I found the two levels pretty challenging until I realized you can get each character to the top of the screen one-at-a-time and then use the side walls to sync them up again. Then it became too easy and sort of defeated the point of moving them symmetrically. It would be cool to put spikes or badguys or something in the world as well so I can’t just forget about what the second character is doing.
I want to play the next version!
October 28, 2009 @ 10:34 am
@ Alec: I wanted to have background music for the game, but couldnt find any freely available sound track to go with it.
@ Mike & Youn: Good idea, now that you mention it, I feel the speed is slow too. I guess acceleration should fix this.
@ Rachit & Kai : I am toying with an idea of a random level generator, and in the further levels, I am planning to inverth the up and down keys as well. Maybe that would be too insane!!!
@ Murphy : I wasnt sure how hard would be be for the players to get used to the control scheme. So I wanted to give them some space to play around. Good idea about the spikes, that sounds like fun.
Thank you all for the comments!!!
October 28, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
The game concept is really original. I loved playing it and would definitely want to play a full version later on.
I had the same problem where it was a bit tricky fitting the characters into a passageway.
An idea might be to include multiple checkpoints in the maze, so that you would need to sync up multiple times instead of just at the end. And maybe something chasing you, like water filling up the maze, to instill a sense of urgency.
In response to Rachit’s comment, maybe give the option to choose what character you want to control.
October 28, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
I liked playing it. I specially liked the concept of two characters moving in opposite directions. The movement was intuitive after going through the first level. I agree with other comments about using the top walls to sync the characters, it would be interesting challenge to come up with levels where that is not possible. You can remove the walls on the edge of screen and if the player’s character goes out of screen its game over. Other additions can be animated characters, semi-permiable walls (only one of the characters is allowed to pass through), moving walls/blocks, switches(one player triggers a switch so the other can go through a gate), guards, spikes. I think the game can be made very interesting.
October 28, 2009 @ 3:27 pm