Infiltration -- A Ti-83+ puzzle game

[Hot_Dog]

Infiltration is a puzzle game which takes place in a parallel universe.  The game is meant to take a humorous approach.  Your goal is getting from level to level by entering the correct password at each exit.  Passwords are found by solving puzzles.  

The game engine is almost complete, so essentially I'm designing levels at this point.

In the screenshot, you find the character "H" in the password by draining the water through a very picky drainage system.  In this particular level, you also cannot reach the exit without draining the water.

You can read more about the game in the spoiler.  

Spoiler for Hidden:

* The screenshot has beach levels, with harder puzzles.  There are many different worlds, and the first worlds have easier puzzles
* The alphabet characters are in another language for gameplay reasons.  The alphabet will be in the manual, along with what key to press to type a particular character.
* Most characters for the password are found in your surroundings or in puzzles.  Sometimes you can find a charcter by picking up a card.
* Almost every level has a jewel inside of it.  You do not need to collect jewels to proceed, but they can unlock levels.  Jewels are harder to get than password characters.
* Later in the game you will have access to a phaser.  Kill enemies to unlock levels!

The game engine allows great flexibility for many different kinds of puzzles, so feel free to PM me or write in this topic if you have a puzzle idea that you'd like to see in the game!  (Please, no puzzles with motion such as Tetris or Jewel Quest)  Just remember that the puzzle solution should reward a player one way or another with a character for the password.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Looks great! :O I like the fonts too but I like the concept so far.

[Art_of_camelot]

I'd have to agree. The font size really suits the screen size, and it looks quite nice. This looks like a really cool concept, and I can't wait to see it developed more.

[Hot_Dog]

I'm glad people like the concept.  I wanted to come up with something that has probably never been done before.

But it definitely requires some thought.  It's easy to create a puzzle where the solution rewards you with a character, but my goal (which is not so easy) is to create puzzles where the only solution IS the character

[DJ Omnimaga]

One thing I love in particular is how you can modify the terrain/map like digging around to create rivers or something.

Anyway good luck with this project

[Hot_Dog]

One thing I love in particular is how you can modify the terrain/map like digging around to create rivers or something.

That's the fun part of designing the game.  Of course, all the items and object interactions are pure Z80 code and text data, so the game definitely needs compression.

[DJ Omnimaga]

How big is it so far in terms of data and code? (not that it matters much, but I'm curious about the ratio, since I remember one of my game, Metroid II Expansion, was about 15 KB of code and 110 KB of data, if we excluded the xLIB app)

[Hot_Dog]

How big is it so far in terms of data and code? (not that it matters much, but I'm curious about the ratio, since I remember one of my game, Metroid II Expansion, was about 15 KB of code and 110 KB of data, if we excluded the xLIB app)

I'm working on the next level, so it's about 3126 bytes so far.  The ratio of code-to-data is about 50/50.  Most of the data in the game is code for what to do with specific objects or events, which is why Infiltration can have many different kinds of puzzles.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Ah ok, and how big is the map (dimensions)? I wonder if you use any form of compression like RLE or half-byte?

[Hot_Dog]

Ah ok, and how big is the map (dimensions)? I wonder if you use any form of compression like RLE or half-byte?

RLE might be good, but I'm sticking with pucrunch because I'm used to it.  Maps are 16 wide x 32 high.

[Hot_Dog]

Don't forget, if you have a puzzle idea that you'd like to see in Infiltration, let me know.  I'm currently working on the next level, which will have a variation of picross.

[Hot_Dog]

I should have a new screenshot pretty soon.  I finished some beach levels, but I didn't want to put up any screenshots that would give away any solutions to puzzles.  So I had to go back and create textures/levels for the beginning portion of the game.  That way I don't give any puzzle portions away

[DJ Omnimaga]

Yay! I can't wait for it .

As for puzzles, you have those classic block pushing puzzles, right? (To make your way somewhere like in Zelda)

[Hot_Dog]

Yes I do!  You'll see push-blocks in the next screenshot   They're generally used to fill bottomless pits, although there are exceptions

[Hot_Dog]

Here's a screenshot that gives gameplay without giving away puzzle solutions.  More screenshots will come!