I've really enjoyed my post regarding "Vawe", a patterned mosaic fix-em-up game that Aspies seem to be quite good at. When I finished writing it, I couldn't find anyone else that could either play it well or even enjoy it much, and that felt isolating. Posting it here and simply knowing that other Aspies are interacting with it, often enjoying the experience due to the very thing that brings most of us here, has been ace.
So I thought I'd maybe share another, weirder, quite Aspie game, by an Aspie. If you want to jump straight in, I've put it here:
http://emptyfortress.com/severance/
Again, I'm making nothing from this, there are no ads and it's completely free, so this isn't shameless advertising or profiting.
Controls
Single-click to remove a block
Drag the background to scroll the level around
A more detailed "what now?"
In short, the aim is to assemble Gemstones in to the largest clusters that you can. A cluster is two or more gemstones that are in direct face-to-face contact.
You achieve this by carefully clicking away any non-gemstone blocks, making the blocks above them fall down as a stack.
Once the cluster is as big as you think it can get, click it away to score it, and continue..
There are no penalties in the game. The worst thing that can happen is accidentally blowing up a big, complex Gem cluster.
If you don't like the level you're on you can generate a new one by clicking the logo in the top-left of the white HUD, or by clicking the level seed (the level name immediately beneath the logo) and typing anything.
Anybody else can enter the same seed word to play that level, including all levels that lead from it.
But there's lasers..
Lasers and Mirrors and Manifolds, yes. And Prism portal generators. And Boulders. OH and Explosive blocks of various powers. And Floaty cloud blocks. Scaffold blocks.. Inert blocks that seem to do nothing..
I'll let you in on a few "secrets";
Getting a laser to shine on any face of any gem in a cluster will light up the whole cluster in that colour.
Lit gems and Gem clusters earn a score multiplier, which increases exponentially with every additional laser strike when the Gem (or cluster) is finally clicked away.
Things change
Every new level you begin has an age, indicated by the number in the bottom-right of the white HUD.
Besides interactions with other things, laser light over time causes Boulders to "evolve" into Gemstones, and Gemstones into rarer, higher-scoring Gemstones.
Manifold blocks have five faces that "receive" laser light, and one face with a lens that emits the combined laser colour.
Time passes differently on different levels. You'll find levels that have an extremely short "year", in which Gemstones transform almost as soon as a laser hits them.
More stuff
This game uses the same kind of random seed system as Vawe. The name of the level is the seed that generated that level.
Every block in every level also has its own name, which can be used as a seed for a new level under certain circumstances, for instance, shining a laser through a Prism block and out into space (in any direction) creates a clickable portal to a new level, seeded from the name of that laser.
Create white light by shining red, green and blue lasers through a manifold.
Create a rainbow by shining white light through a Prism block.
Every Gemstone has a different internal refraction index.
You can revisit any level you previously played by clicking the button with the dot then clicking "Visited seeds".
Caveats
This game like many hundreds of my personal projects, is unfinished. I'm not working on it right now and won't be any time soon, so as with Vawe, if you find a bug it won't be fixed. Sorry dude.
I may write something else similar from scratch though. For Aspies from the start =]
Nope, you cannot rotate the map.
But.... WHY?
NO idea. I was in a dark, undiagnosed place and needed gemstones and lasers in my life.
03 Jan 2017, 3:30 am
