Quantron's Game

A game that I made for Quantron.

This was a failed Ludum Dare 53 entry, now finally finished. You can still visit the Ludum Dare page if you want to see the original version.

Please read this post for why it took so long and is still broken.

WARNING: This game is hard. And contains flashing screen effects. Press "F" on the title screen to toggle them.

How to play

Player 1

• WASD = Move/Jump
• Space = Attack/Charge ranged attack
• S = Command Sleeper's AI (see below)
• Esc = Pause

Player 2

• Arrow keys = Move/Jump
• Enter = Attack/Charge ranged attack
• Down arrow = Summon soul (in World 5)
• P = Pause

Players can respawn on the other player with their attack key, if the other player is not moving or attacking.

In singleplayer, Sleeper has an AI that plays the game with you instead of using the Player 2 control scheme. Press S to tell them to stop moving (however, you may find they won't always listen). Press Enter to respawn them whenever they die.

As of v1.0.2, Sleeper AI will not move while Reaper is dead unless the player tells them to by pressing S.

Known bugs

I will try to fix what I can, especially any crashes or soft-locks, but some of the other minor bugs just aren't worth it. Still, if you find something that isn't in the bug list below, let me know so I can add it and at least let everyone else know, too.

• There are a few cases where Sleeper’s AI will do something that isn’t very smart, usually resulting in their death
  
• Sleeper AI doesn’t always jump over tiles right after respawning, until Reaper goes to them or presses “S”
• Players’ attacking animations may sometimes skip a frame (visual bug)
• Taking damage and healing at the same time can cause a player’s health bar to be a point off from their actual health, until they take damage or heal again (visual bug)
• Crates cannot be opened while other tiles are breaking
• Collision shapes of breakable tiles are wonky, and players can get stuck on them
  • At the end of World 5, I gave them rounded corners so players would only sort of trip over them a little (it’s the best I could do, and it’s also kinda funny)
• Bugs (as in the flying enemies) get stuck on breakable tiles and stop moving
• After a player reaches the computer at the end of a level, both players automatically go to it, but can get stuck on tiles and won’t try to jump over them
• Sometimes the top UI is very briefly shown between cutscenes
• If a player respawns at the last second before the first boss is defeated, it may cause several bugs during the subsequent cutscene, as values/behaviors are not set correctly
• During the middle cutscene of the ending, fireballs may go in the wrong direction
• When transitioning to the final boss battle from the previous scene, the player isn’t in the same place they were before; they’re always positioned in a specific spot
• The B̵̧̦̉ạ̶͇͌͘s̶͓͆̈́i̸̦̇̓l̶̳͑̒ī̴̙s̶̪̫̾̂k̵̨̤̾k̵̡̛̯̠͇̳̖̜̓̿͊̈̀̽̾́͐̊͑̃k̴̻͕̺̖̣͎͕͂̆̿̃̀k̶̨͍̟͕̯̖̼̮̤̗̗̤̝̲̈́̈́̎̏͂͛͝ͅk̴̬̬̦͉͇̈́́̇̽́̆̌͛̕̚ḵ̷͓̺̙̠̱̰͇̹͌͑̀̊̊̇̎̅́̊́͋͊͘͠

Updates

v1.0.4

• Gravity boots are now disabled during cutscenes
• Fixed a bug where gravity boots weren’t disabled when deleting the save
• Fixed a bug where music from a level could sometimes resume after unpausing on the title screen

v1.0.3

• Added inertia-canceling gravity boots, which can be found at the start of World 1-1, and Reaper can drop them by pressing B (I have no idea what this will do to the physics or Sleeper AI)

v1.0.2

• If Reaper is dead, Sleeper AI now only moves when commanded to by pressing S, and stays idle otherwise
• The sound effect to command Sleeper AI now also plays if Reaper is dead
• Sleeper AI now can’t be commanded to stop running at the end of World 5
• Flashing effects can now be toggled by pressing F on the title screen
• World themes now start at later points in the song in later levels of the world
• Fixed a bug where the save icon would appear on top of the version number on the title screen
• Fixed a bug where false tiles would not completely fade back to 100% opacity after a player falls through them too quickly
• Fixed a bug where the secret warp computers would spawn the players at a checkpoint in their chosen world, not the start of the level

v1.0.1

• Fixed a bug where Sleeper wouldn’t hit breakable tiles if Reaper is dead
• Fixed a bug where Sleeper wouldn’t stop after entering the World 2 boss room, and continue to run up against the far wall during the cutscene and boss battle (now on entering, Reaper respawns even if they had no lives, and Sleeper will now stay in the middle during the battle)
• Sleeper now tries to jump right before the boss dashes
• Fixed a bug where UI wasn’t properly hidden after defeating the boss in World 2 if Reaper was dead and had to be respawned for the cutscene

Reused Assets

As promised, here is a list of reused assets from my other games.

• All sound effects were ripped from Reaper and a few of my other games
• The theme for World 5 is a remix of Creepers (which itself is also a remix)
• Other songs also have recurring motifs from other games
• The player, creeper, and soul sprites are derivatives of those same sprites from Reaper
• The souls’ movement code was ripped from Reaper
• The tome sprite is a recolored version from Lex Temporis
• The ship in the ending was ripped from Dead Stars
• The statues are sprites I’ve been working on for a while, before starting this game
• The font is of course reused

Some other sprites are from previous games, like the players’ ship, but are newly drawn instead of edited or recolored.

Thanks to jazz_horse for testing and feedback.

Development log

I am going to do something different - April 27, 2023

What am I doing - May 18, 2023

Not jamming - June 22, 2023

The Will to Meaning - September 28, 2023