Worlds in Cards


Worlds in Cards is based on the idea that whole worlds, albeit very tiny, are contained inside cards. The player can be inside a single world at the time, but she can jump from world to world if they are adjacent and the landscape matches. If for example, a world has a ladder going down, then the world at bottom must have a ladder going up if the player wants to move from one to the other (and viceversa)

However, you can’t control the player directly. Instead the player’s character goes back and forth between the limits of the world—either a single card or a combination or cards correctly arranged that forms a "bigger" world—she is confined in. Howerver, the player can swap two cards on the screen that have neither an object nor a character, be it the player’s character or any other of the characters that are wandering around the level.

Even the game’s window looks like a card of sorts, althought this is more a side effect of trying to fit the game in my Android phone. However, I think it fits the theme, specially if you have a large resolution, because the window looks so tiny…

I didn’t have time to create many levels—5 to be exact—and they aren’t very challenging. I guess it takes much more than I have to make puzzles.

I couldn’t test extensively the Windows version as I only have a VM and the Linux binaries "work on my system", but I can’t guarante that they will work everywhere (64-bit was build under Gentoo and 32-bit in Debian testing.) The Android build works at least on my tablet and phone.

The music was made with Greasymonkey’s autotracker, so I don’t claim credit and I don’t think it would be fair to rate it. I tried to use a custom "autotracker" that I did sometime ago, but didn’t produce the same kind of quality. Most sound effects were made with sfxr, except for the sound that the cards do when are swapped; this one was made with a broom.

I tried, and failed miserably, to have a look-and-feel reminiscent of GB, partly because I thought that maybe my lack of artistic skills wouldn’t be that noticeable. Oh, boy… how wrong I was!

This game was my entry to the Ludum Dare 23 competition.

This game is known to work on GNU/Linux, Android, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows platforms.

Screen Shots

Level 4 Level 5 Level 2 Level 1

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Controls

The game is controlled using the touch screen or the mouse. Simple click on an empty card to select it and then select a different empty card to swap the two. If any character enters a selected card, this card is automatically deselected and you have to start again.

License

Worlds in Cards is distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3.

Credits

ChangeLog

1.0.0 (2012-04-22)

  • Initial “Ludum Dare” version.

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