35A2

created for idiosyncratic games, week... 3? maybe mut can provide me with a better numbering scheme.

it's kind of too long to explain the entire thought process... this is a highly playable videogame. i was experimenting with a form that would provide a very constrained and intense play-space with no room for freedom. i'm not sure how to explain that, exactly, so i'll leave it at that, plus the word "claustrophobia".

i've been totally fascinated (and disgusted?) by repetition lately, which i discuss on my forum-shaped notebook-blog a little bit here: https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=1348.0 and i think i came upon this highly relevant design by accident. i haven't decided yet how i feel about the shape of this game, which [you can experience by playing it], but i think it's really relevant to the inspiration material.

another thing i was doing was reflecting upon the zugzwang-inspired parity dynamic that fuels a lot of michael brough's grid-based roguelikes, and the larger orbiting genre known as broughlikes; thinking about this particular element, i sought to create something new that could create a similar 'base texture' upon which to build more complicated mechanisms. the combat mechanic that you see here is pretty much exactly what i imagined, though i had to do a lot of work to get it to feel as good as it does. it's fun making weird design experiments feel good!

finally, this is a straightforward numerology obsession upon the numbers 1, 10, and 100. it's a 1-dimensional game, the screen is 10x10 tiles for a total of 100 tiles (though technically i ended up dividing the screen, for practical purposes, into more like 20x20 half-tiles), the game spawns 100 enemies in total, and every 10th enemy is a special enemy, so there are 10 special enemies... the other numbers come up in a couple other places. i originally wanted to make a "1x1" game, a "one" game, but i think this turned out surprisingly well, i'm very happy with the result, even happier giving myself this time and space to reflect.

p.s. if you want to play future explorations in repetition, i made a discord for exploring peter mcdonald's 'oblique repetition' style of playfulness... more information inside: https://discord.gg/ngJbtXXBcz

love, droqen

p.p.s. it's been a while since i've given myself the opportunity to get totally obsessed by a game idea (even a tiny one). there's something problematic there that feels like it parallels kill gameplay's "gameplay." how do i feel, letting myself get obsessed? at least i managed to unearth my own permission to leave, and got a finished game out of it in the end!

p.p.p.s. in part i blame kayin and adrien dittrick for this game. respectively, for asking me when was the last time you had a game with a hitbox/hurtbox droqen you can be honest (this game does not use Area2Ds but it basically has hit/hurtboxes), and for stack those numbers in a giant pyramid until they become gold. >:(