Attack of the 48 Hour IRC Games!

Actually, I didn't use any nightly features in Blockworks (aside from requiring a nightly HSpeak version to compile the scripts). And I actually spent about as much time on the graphics as on the scripting (hours and hours spent fighting with Image Magick to processor the blocks I copied from the minecraft wiki, trying to get it to not blur edges (I failed), automating importing, and trying to improve support for importing the weird BMPs Image Magick produced.) Exporting the maps took plenty of time too.

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I've played the games and liked them all. In no order:

There Is No Exit

That is correct.
Really nice to see something from Eggie.

Karate Fight

I wasn't expecting this from ol' Giz! Short and sweet. There are multiple ways to win, and it's actually sometimes a good idea to guard. I agree it could do with some more complexity though because dodge is all-important (and sound effects obv.).

The Towers of Love and Energy

This is actually pretty good for three hours. A better RPG than anything I've made in 10 years. The battles were just silly though (due to skill selection). There is an infinite money exploit. In response to Hawk, a final boss is good enough closure for me. But i was hoping that there would be more tables, revealing some sinister truth. (Well, the last table had a miscoloured NPC on it that doesn't respond, so maybe the truth was lost to a bug).

The Actor's Daughter

Really nice graphics (especially the Crystalum!) and atmosphere. The battles in this one are pretty crazy though. As far as I can tell, the high-attack stance sets your attack to 50% of Max. As Hawk noted, this isn't even useful against the attack-sapping boss. But with just a couple of extra levels, that boss went from impossible to cakewalk (have to kill it fast enough). The H.Potion chests don't give you anything. All the ice enemies in the second tower which can set your speed to zero are... amusing? Luckily it seems you can skip all the battles here and still defeat the second boss.

Look, But Don't Touch

This was wonderful; great story telling. There's lots to see, and a good amount of sleuthing to do. Normally I don't like minimalistic plot explanation, but I think it worked well here. Realising you've explored everything is just slightly a downer. I only spotted 3 typos. This would be my pick for top game.


Maybe the theme of the contest is that there is no exit, except by knockout. The Actor's Daughter's theme might have been "hurry up".

Wait, is this contest still on?

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dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x

Might as well say here that the two stance things are kinda broken as is, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. I'd try looking into them a bit more, but I'm kinda lazy right now.

No, but there will probably be another one soon

I hope to be notified, I'd like to take a whack at it.

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dOn'T MiNd mE! i'M jUsT CoNtAgIoUs!!!
Play Orbs CCG: http://orbsccg.com/r/4r6x

I've also played the games and liked them all and will address them in no particular order.

There Is No Exit

This was a simple entry, but definitely the most personal. Eggie hasn't made a game in a long time and it's neat to see him dig so deep into himself to make one here. Hang in there, dude. There's always a way out.

The Towers of Love and Energy

Nice RPG with a lot of variety for a 48 hour game. Kinda surreal and I always give points for that.

Look, But Don't Touch
Really weird game from Hawk. I dig the text adventure vibe, and everything is vague enough to be mysterious. Kind of fun to look around and try to guess what happened/what's happening. I don't know if I saw everything which is kind of a bummer but it was very well written.

Blockworks
Just freakin' amazing. I realize TMC's a programmer and there's probably like a million programmer reasons that this isn't super impressive, but I'm a moron so I'm super impressed. Freakin amazing.

The Actor's Daughter
One of the best things about this game is that I was really frustrated when it was over. Really wanted to see where it was going, and I thought the balance of battle was kind of neat, 'cause I found myself running from battles I couldn't win so that I could level up and replenish my HP and MP with the formations I could beat. But that ending, you can't just leave a guy hangin like that


Karate Fight
I agree with everyone's comments so far. I wanted dodge to be important, I wanted a defensive style to be important, but I don't think I gave enough options to mitigate the sheer luck factor. Probably shouldn't have randomized The Master's stats, but it felt weird to balance anything when I was already 4 hours late.


I can't say I really detected a theme. Everyone just kinda did whatever and it seemed to work out well.

You forgot The Actor's Daughter D:

Also, I meant to say: the battles aren't as bad as I made them out to be, as long as you don't try to fight every one, but run from all the ones you don't need to fight. Some of them were actually fun challenges. The enemies at least had a little bit of complexity to them.

Noticed that. Forgot to copy paste it over. Whoops.