cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

MOLnet - APK and final videos!

DeeKej
Explorer
IT'S DONE! 😄 Play it, break it, throw it around! Let us know what you think! 😄

Challengepost submission post (apk link inside!): http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissions/36131-molnet

Tutorial trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x18-0mwwUXE

Alternate (final) trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IORbcLmD5w

MainMenu.png

Going into VR Jam, we knew that we wanted to really utilize the 360 degree space around you in gameplay. Also, as moving the player around is prone to cause motion sickness, we wanted to keep the player stationary during gameplay.

As lovers of sci-fi, Gibson, and virtual worlds in general, we quickly came up with the idea of a game about an AI. We did not, however, want to do the same thing as you see frequently in other media where you have an AI gone rogue. It follows a team of humans sent to destroy it where the theme explored is basically mankind versus scary, overpowering and sometimes godlike technology. No. That's been done time and time again. Instead, by combining our goals and thoughts about controls (and overall optimal VR experiences), as well as our idea to make something different with AI, we're simply letting you play as the AI.

NodeNet1.png

Using nothing but gaze-input and taps on the touchpad, you (the player) must navigate the virtual world of nodes in order to prevent an outside force from reaching your mainframe. Knowing your way around the virtual world is only half the battle as you must also keep constant watch over your enemy's movement in the physical world, projected in-game as a 3D-map behind you.

In essence, the game mechanics is a glorified resource handler where you must keep watch over your own capabilities, including power and processor usage, and both your own and your enemy's objectives. Your enemy will use whatever path they can find to reach you, traveling through both their physical world and your virtual world, trying to either hack your mainframe or breach your server room.

There are three different outcomes, so try to find them all! We'll let you decide whether they're 'good' or 'bad'.

As to what we wanted to bring into the game, but couldn't before the deadline:

Right now there's only one 'squad' that is sent in for you. The plan was to have multiple squads cooperating, but the pathfinding for the attackers proved to be too much to write alongside everything else in the given time frame.
We set out to create a 15-20 minute long play session, but as per the recommendations from the Q&A's we've shortened it to 5-10 minutes (even 1½ minute if you know which nodes to grab!), and as such, we also had to skip some of the node types and abilities that we had originally planned for.
Additionally, there's still one bug to note for Note4 'Lollipop' users: Please remove the external SD card from your phone while installing the apk.

Lastly, we recommend players to stand while playing, or if seated use a swivel chair, as you'll want to be able to rotate easily while playing. We also recommend that you use headphones in order to really take in the amazing sounds that our sound designer Mikael made.

Tutorial.png
14 REPLIES 14

DeeKej
Explorer
Final submission is live! 😄 Damn final trailer didn't process enough in time (30 minutes left even now as of writing this), but go and play with our game! DO IT! http://vrjam.challengepost.com/submissions/36131-molnet

nilstastic
Explorer
Hi, nice to see a fellow Swede. Are you going to the meetup on Monday? (I'm on the waiting list..) 😃

Cons: It was a bit to hard. The game seemed to suffer from the infamous developer difficulty mode which makes it hard to get into for a casual. 😃

Pros: It was fun! My girlfriend played for 15 minutes - it's a game people want to play!

DeeKej
Explorer
"nilstastic" wrote:
Hi, nice to see a fellow Swede. Are you going to the meetup on Monday? (I'm on the waiting list..) 😃

Cons: It was a bit to hard. The game seemed to suffer from the infamous developer difficulty mode which makes it hard to get into for a casual. 😃

Pros: It was fun! My girlfriend played for 15 minutes - it's a game people want to play!

I am! I'm actually one of the organizers, and will be presenting as well on Monday. We usually have a few drop-offs, so if you're just about to get bumped up from the waiting list, you can just come anyway. 🙂

Thank you for the feedback! The game suffers from not getting as much/the right feedback back to the player as it probably should have, so I can imagine it being a bit hard because of that. I'm glad it felt fun regardless! 😄

spinaljack
Protege
I had a go of this and while I liked the concept I didn't really know what was going on or how I could win.

Starting a new game also didn't seem to reset your hacking speed as it still took much longer to do the first 3 hacks again.

Also having to turn all the way around to watch the progress of the soldier was a bit of a pain, it might have been better if the network and the map were more closely linked so if I saw that the soldier was heading to a room I could head him off and seal that door. As it is trying to match up door ids and the map was nearly impossible.

I'll have another go later to see if I can work out the mechanics and beat it.

edit:
okay so I watched the trailer and copied which nodes to take and managed to get all 3 endings.
really nice ending videos.
I can see this becoming a really involved and clever strategy game if you add in those other features, maybe introduce a rival AI as well or soldier factions who will fight each other if you can get them into the same room.

DeeKej
Explorer
@spinaljack:
I had a go of this and while I liked the concept I didn't really know what was going on or how I could win.

Yeah, feedback for telling the player what to do is what's lacking the most in the game.
Starting a new game also didn't seem to reset your hacking speed as it still took much longer to do the first 3 hacks again.

Damnit, we thought we'd gotten rid of that bug! 😧 Thanks for pointing it out!
Also having to turn all the way around to watch the progress of the soldier was a bit of a pain, it might have been better if the network and the map were more closely linked so if I saw that the soldier was heading to a room I could head him off and seal that door. As it is trying to match up door ids and the map was nearly impossible.

Okay, great feedback! There was supposed to be more to connect the two visually, but it never made it into the uploaded version. We'll have to see what we do with that going forward.
I'll have another go later to see if I can work out the mechanics and beat it.

edit:
okay so I watched the trailer and copied which nodes to take and managed to get all 3 endings.
really nice ending videos.
I can see this becoming a really involved and clever strategy game if you add in those other features, maybe introduce a rival AI as well or soldier factions who will fight each other if you can get them into the same room.

Thank you, both for playing and for the great feedback! We will most likely keep on developing MOLnet when we've caught up on our day jobs, and we'll make sure to see what we can do about the things you've pointed out (much of which reflects what most players have commented on 🙂 ).