This is one of the 48 Liberated Pixel Cup Games. I’m reviewing them.
Disclaimer: I am also competing. I am not a judge!
Blood Moon[Download me!][Prebuilt Jar]
This is a Java game. I had some major issues with the code submitted. For starters, the readme quite literally says “Something something description of your project goes here!” and it’s building instructions quite literally suggested I…”sudo package-manager install some-dependencies”.
A quick browse through the project, and I noticed it was a Java project, so I fired up Eclipse and imported the source and the resources. The next thing I noticed, and I thought it was a bit odd, was that there are no external libraries. Initially, I feared having to hunt down libraries manually, but in reality, there are no external libraries. They built this game from scratch, using pure Java APIs!
People often ask me why I <3 Open Source Software so much. “Because I can modify it to suit my needs!” is my usual answer, but today, I can actually give an example of actually doing so. You see, the developers sadly used Windows-style filesystem references. Everything was broken on Linux. I took my time, and manually replaced all their links to .\\Resources\\Images\\Treasure\\coin_gold.png and changed them to Resources/Images/Treasure/coin_gold.png. The maps also had the same Windows-style links, which meant I had to modify a couple of maps as well. It’s worth nothing that they also wrote their own mapping system. In the end, thanks to having the game’s source, I was able to fix it myself. The game’s project doesn’t have an actual repository, as far as I know, but I’d be more than happy to contribute my fixes back upstream.
After cleaning up the project, I finally fired up the game. A huge scroll lists the controls as well as the basic attacks and skills. I feared I would only see it once, but hitting esc, then help brings it up again in case you missed something.
You can move around with WASD, and use your skills with JKL. G switches weapons, between a dagger, a bow, a pole and others. There’s an HP / Mana / Exp system built in, and as soon as you level up, it offers you to select a skill to level up. I recommend you stick to Mana Regeneration and Multishot (Which has a hilarious quote, if you catch the reference). It allows you to shoot 3 arrows at once (But only if the bow is equipped, otherwise it won’t work).
The maps are very bland, and there’s only one type of enemy: Bats. Bats everywhere. They shoot fireballs that don’t seem to do much damage, as you’ll level up rather quickly, and every time you level up, you also heal up completely. Getting to one of the clearly marked edges takes you to the next map, and so on. They feel kind of repetitive, and it would be easy to get lost, if it wasn’t for the fact that the number of bats increases as you get near the boss, the Pumpking.
You might notice that some bats drop coins, and others a sword-on-a-rock. The sword is actually an item, and you can use U to change your clothes to monk robes or suits of armor. You can even mix-and-match the equipment!
Once I found the Pumpking, I killed it with a single shot, and the Victory screen was shown.
Overall, it’s a fun adventure game. While the game itself isn’t very impressive, the fact that it was made using no external libraries really impressed me.
The Zip file I provided above contains my filepath changes. I hope they patch their game to include them, to allow Linux compatibility as was the contest’s goal.
t Jar!]
