Windows Cool Headed, a light programming puzzle game

J

joqlepecheur

Guest
Hello!

Today is a big day, -Cool Headed- giveaway launch is underway on indie DB for a limited duration:
https://www.indiedb.com/giveaways/cool-headed



It is now available on steam, and you can download the demo to try it:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/848660/Cool_Headed/

The game is played by taking the decisions in advance, then watching it unfold.
The bots are walking left to right on a sideview, they are deployed on the launchpad to the left and you win when one reach the objective to the right.

So how does that work ?
  • First you will have to choose a level on the extensive overworld
  • Then choose a team depending on points available and bots unlocked.
  • Here comes the tricky part: you have to give orders


As seen above, orders are split in 3 parts:
  • in the BOOT ORDER, you can adjust the initial time a bot will move forward
  • ORDERS (1, 2, and 3 in our example) makes you choose between moving forward for a duration, stay in place for a duration, or for certain bots use a special power (quack in this instance). SKIP is there in case you don't need as much complexity for the tasks. The number of orders you can give is dependent on the -extra memory- stat of that particular bot.
  • the END LOOP is the final action performed. EXPLODE is a self destruction mechanism, MOVE will make the bot always move forward as much as it can (remove an obstacle in front of it, it will resume moving), and STOP will make the bot stay in place forever.

There are tons of things you can do, and every level presents different challenges. The demo is about 20 levels, the full game more than 110 with 17 different bots.
It is made so that if you enjoy the demo and play the full game, you will keep the benefit of your savefile.

Here is a peak at the 4th world:


For the release of the game, I will be available directly to discuss on a temporary discord:
https://discord.gg/vCgjb3Q

The game will suit curious and patient gamers best. It requires lots of out of the box thinking and observation skills, but no execution skill at all!
It is quite weird, but in my early test sample, the best player was someone with very few experience in video games.
So far, not a single player has been able to discover the most elusive secrets of the game :)


If you have questions on some particular level design, why, what how, I will be happy to answer.
I have been developping the game for 2.5 years now, I hope you enjoy !
 
Looks great and the gameplay sounds good. I like the graphics, the robots eyes remind me of Futurama, which is cool.

The pixel font you are using looks good too, just wondering why you didn't use it everywhere, the high res font on the buttons and orders menu looks a little out of place to me.
 
J

joqlepecheur

Guest
Hi

The reason I added another font is because unfortunately the pixel one I initially picked was limited in terms of characters.
You can currently toggle the game between english/french, and I also had plans to expand in other languages like spanish depending on game success, so I wanted something that could be extended easily.

There are places where text is quite extensive, for instance in bot select screen, and also in the cutscenes that make the story.
While I could have found another pixel font with necessary characters, I thought at the time that this particular font had better readability. Also, mixing the 2 fonts has the benefit of adding contrast for some elements.

Looking back on it, I could have calibrated this a bit better, but now you know why ;)

bot select.png
 
Hi

The reason I added another font is because unfortunately the pixel one I initially picked was limited in terms of characters.
You can currently toggle the game between english/french, and I also had plans to expand in other languages like spanish depending on game success, so I wanted something that could be extended easily.

There are places where text is quite extensive, for instance in bot select screen, and also in the cutscenes that make the story.
While I could have found another pixel font with necessary characters, I thought at the time that this particular font had better readability. Also, mixing the 2 fonts has the benefit of adding contrast for some elements.

Looking back on it, I could have calibrated this a bit better, but now you know why ;)

View attachment 21018
I gotcha, I only mentioned it because the rest of the game looks so good, and the high res font doesn't look bad, just noticed it didn't match the pixel font.
 
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