ASCIIpOrtal Update 2

Posted by Derek Yu Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:43:00 GMT


Cymon’s ASCIIpOrtal looks like more than just a straight demake! The new feature is neat in 2d. (Source: Erin Robinson, via her Twitter)

Posted in , , ,  | Tags  | 40 comments

Comments

  1. bateleur said 38 minutes later:

    That’s superb, I love it! <3

  2. ChevyRay said 44 minutes later:

    Wowow! Now that IS cool. This will be one of the more spectacular roguelike games, when finished.

  3. Flamebait said about 1 hour later:

    Awesome. Not sure I understood the last minute or so of the trailer though.

  4. Aquin said about 1 hour later:

    My mind, it has been blown.

  5. AdamButcher said about 1 hour later:

    Yes! A demake that actually adds to the idea, rather than just taking stuff away. I always felt there was space for more object-based puzzles in Portal- and in 2d it should be easier. Well dones!

  6. Hunter S. said about 1 hour later:

    Was this a triumph.

  7. Danial THe AsUN said about 2 hours later:

    Can’t watch the video. The client or flash thing is shitty - won’t buffer while I have it paused.

  8. gum said about 2 hours later:

    Cool but haven’t we sort of seen this game before? http://www.increpare.com/2008/11/portile/

  9. Powergloved Andy said about 5 hours later:

    oh Cymon, how I love you.

  10. levi said about 7 hours later:

    This is by far the best demake I’ve ever seen.

  11. Cymon said about 7 hours later:

    @gum: Portile was one of my sources of inspiration, unquestionably. As was another game called “Super Serif Bros.” In fact I list out my inspiration on the forum post about it:

    http://cymonsgames.retroremakes.com/forum/index.php/topic,7.msg8.html#msg8

    @ Hunter S.: I’m making a note here. HUGE SUCCESS!

    Tho the game is 100% playable it’s far from done. I need to make menus, add sounds, and really try to make this as accessible as possible. Well, as any text-based game is now-a-days.

    @Flamebait: Should I take that handle as an omen? Basically I’ve set it up so that the game loads levels from text files, anybody want to make levels for me?

    I know I’m going to get a ton of e-mails requesting betas (you can click on my name above) and that’s fine, I expected that. If I get 100 levels submitted I can pick and choose. Heck, I’ll probably just throw them all in there in different map packs, the game does allow for that.

  12. Cpowa said about 8 hours later:

    OMG Absolutely awesome, I can’t wait for the realase!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  13. krizzl0r said about 8 hours later:

    yum, brainfuck in ascii.

  14. cactus said about 9 hours later:

    looks awesome

  15. Nicholas Moon said about 9 hours later:

    gum, really? You look at those two games and see that they’re 2d takes on Portal, and that’s all you see? That’s sad.

  16. PHeMoX said about 9 hours later:

    I’m not a fan of ASCII art, but I can’t deny this does look sweet.

  17. Bob said about 10 hours later:

    Wwwwwwhhhhooooaaaaaaaa! That’s unbelievably awesome!

  18. Adam Atomic said about 10 hours later:

    that is crazy! definitely intrigued

  19. Cymon said about 10 hours later:

    Um, what happened to my previous comment? I wonder if I made one too many links. Derek, can you fish it out of the spam queue.

    Well, a mention on offworld and boingboing has officially filled my beta team requirements. Wow, this is defiantly the biggest thing I’ve ever been a part of like this. So I’m closing beta, no new members are needed at this time. Thanks everyone and keep watching for 1.0!

  20. Stefan said about 11 hours later:

    I love your enthusiasm :) Best of luck with your game!

  21. dippy said about 11 hours later:

    is the video not loading for anyone else?

  22. Cymon said about 11 hours later:

    I’ll upload a youtube version… hopefully tonight.

  23. MasterShake said about 13 hours later:

    Great work, Cymon.

    I’ve played demakes and never felt the need to keep playing given I already had the original. But this demake stands out on its own. There’s actually motivation for owners of the original to play it.

  24. HostFat said about 13 hours later:

    I upped it yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtyxUsSEb58

  25. Jamey said about 13 hours later:

    What do you think is the best/most efficient language for programming ASCII games? I love the aesthetic, which draws from ancient memories of things like ZZT for me. I’ve developed some small games in Play BASIC, which I really like, and have used Dark Basic as well. But what platform makes it easiest or most efficient to make these grid-based ASCII-only gems?

  26. Tet said about 14 hours later:

    Asky portals!

  27. Martin K said about 15 hours later:

    Neat, and charming as hell. Also, your obvious and genuine enthusiasm (as featured in the video) for your own creation made me smile.

  28. jph_wacheski said about 16 hours later:

    Yes this does look very cool,. Roc on!

    Jemay- I have just started on a grid based framework in ZGameEditor,. currently it is just a setup for working with grid based game data in an array,. I built a little level cenerator that makes caverns, and just added a little ‘monster’ that follows that player, who you can move about with the arrows. The idea here was just to show how ZGE can be used to do RogueLike games. check it here;

    http://www.emix8.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2453#2453

    I will be useing this to build some form of a game, as well it is offered for others to mess with,. post any improvments.

  29. alastair jack said about 18 hours later:

    insanity!

  30. crukid said about 19 hours later:

    Oh that’s just hot.

  31. Skofo said about 23 hours later:

    Hm, Cymon’s contact form doesn’t appear to work.

    Great job on the game! Can’t wait to play it.

    Also, you were reddit’d! http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/8z01e/portalmadeon_asciivideo/

  32. Skofo said about 23 hours later:

    argh, link wasn’t escaped correctly

    http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/8z01e/portalmade_on_ascii_video/

  33. deadeye said about 24 hours later:

    Woah, being able to look through the portals is definitely really friggin cool. Someone else already said “mind blown” but um, yeah… mind blown :)

  34. Cymon said 1 day later:

    I’ve been reddited, boingboing/offworlded, here HL2.net forums… it be insane. I gotta say, I’m liking the attention.

    Made a video, special for Youtube, since the other one already got youtubed and I didn’t want to just duplicate.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBnHQ16TvCI

  35. mtarini said 1 day later:

    COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

    Suggestions:

    1 graphics needs to be made just a tad ore complex as an option using just a little larger AND SQUARE icons (as a few rouguelike). Ascii is cool but the game must not suffer too much from it.

    2 graphics must clearly tell the player which location are directly visible and which are just guessed (the latter should appear darker, or gray and dark, or whatever). I think it would be so much cooler.

    Oh, as an option, make non-visible squares black! Pure fog-of-war. So that what you see thought portals is even more real.

  36. Joseph said 1 day later:

    The effect is quit jarring but wonderful!

  37. Bigger said 2 days later:

    Really great stuff Cymon. I’m looking forward to this for sure!

  38. MasterShake said 2 days later:

    Ah yeah, Mtarini brings up a good point.

    There should be some difference in color between the actual game area and the areas you see through portals. Cuz at one point in the vid, I became utterly confused as to which was the first or the latter.

  39. Cymon said 3 days later:

    I decided to try out making the view through portals unique. Unfortunately the limitation is with the colors available and how Curses handles them. In other words, it’s just not going to happen.

    I will, however, try to make your character unique looking in the original view and not in the look through view.

    The fog-of-war thing…what? Do you mean ray cast every point so that like in a roguelike you can’t see what’s around corners? Yeah, not gonna happen, sorry.

    Besides, you know I’m going to release the source code, so if you want to try it yourself. When I’m done.

  40. johnnyk said 7 days later:

    Very cool man! Your enthusiasm for the project is infectious :)

RSS feed for this post

Comments are disabled