Techno - xkcd Game Jam

Techno is my entry to the xkcd Game Jam. It took about a day and a half to make with just me working on it, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

The Idea

As the name would imply, the game is based on xkcd 411: Techno. The random comic button brought me there, and I had the idea for a really hard, but short, gameplay experience that you would loop 10-20 times. By the end of it, you would anticipate the approaching obstacles, and dodge them before seeing them as if prescient.

The Gameplay

In Techno, you control a stick figure as he dodges a randomized onslaught of traps, with the goal of minimizing the amount of damage you take. Every 15 seconds, the field of traps resets to the start, and you get another chance to avoid them better. Positioning is key, so try to keep track of the order of obstacles, then jump and duck your way around them! At the end of the game, you'll get to see stats on your total, average, and best damage numbers.

Here's a tip: sometimes, you'll have to take damage to advance. In these situations, go feet-first into one of the traps! Your limbs take less damage than your head!

Possible Future Improvements

If I were to take this further, I'd want to mess more with the canvas to have the main menu scale at higher resolutions. It'd be cool to have your last loop recorded in a gif that you can show off to pretend you were that good from the start, similar to Opus Magnum. I didn't want to try to do that within the time constraints, but I might look into it later if I have free time. Hair selection should be doable. And, of course, more obstacles!

Credits

• All of the art (impressive, I know), animation (that explains that), and code was created by me, Euophrys.
• The xkcd font used in the game was created by IPython on Github, which is licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0.
• The music tracks used in the game are all 15-second sections of the following songs, all of which are CC0 (Public Domain):
  • Beach Run by Soft and Furious
  • Boss 6: Swoop attack by Komiku
  • Bubble Gum by Keith Jars