The Great Machine On Mars

This rover is the greatest machine you've ever designed.

But on arriving at Mars, something is discovered.
Perhaps an even greater machine...?

Submitted for the olc CodeJam 2020

Controls

• W / A / S / D - Movement
• Mouse Left/Right - Direction Change
• Mouse Click - Transmit (change wall colour)
• 1 - Visual Camera
• 2 - Infra Red Camera
• 3 - Ultra Violet Camera
• M - Toggles minimap grid

Requirements

• Python: https://www.python.org/ (3.7.7 or greater recommended by pygame)
• Pygame: https://www.pygame.org/
• Extract the zip file to a directory and run tgm.py

Gameplay Hints

• The battery level runs across the top of the screen
• The battery is consumed even when not moving
• Movement, turning the rover and transmitting all cause higher levels of battery usage
• The minimap grid map be useful for lining up the rover more precisely
• The signal strength indicator is on the left side of the screen
• Next to the signal strength indicator is an arrow which indicates whether the signal strength increases or decreases based on the previous colour configuration
• Only the outer walls can be modified by transmitting
• The inner walls of each room (apart from one room) show the correct colours for the given puzzle logic
• The symbols in each room of the visual map MAY help with the puzzle logic
• Check the game directory for an Error.txt file if the game does not load
• Don't forget that collision only occurs with the walls shown by the visual camera
• See below for solutions/puzzle logic

Negatives / Lessons Learned

• I had hoped to create a single executable, but I couldn't get it to work
• Code is not optimised and is very messy/hard to follow
• I had planned more puzzles but didn't have time (or intelligence) to put them in
• UV map does not affect/assist in solving the puzzles (just a silly easter egg which might be very difficult to see clearly)
• Lots of hard coding of parameters
• Bending of the walls is frustrating
• Puzzle rules are difficult to get across
• I didn't have much time for play testing (amount of battery available might not be best optimised and may make things too challenging / not challenging enough)
• Link to the theme is tenuous at best!
• Instantaneous communication with a rover on Mars...?! Not accurate at all right now!
• No floor movement animation; I tried some things, but ran out of time
• Some strange behaviour I can't seem to fix (e.g. starting direction seems to be different every time)
• Sometimes the battery can deplete very quickly when running along walls
• I was thinking of another way to represent the colours (for people with disabilities to enjoy the game) but ran out of time
• I would have liked to have added textures to the walls, but didn't have time

Positives

• I coded all of the effects (e.g. text typing effect and the door closing) without any other frameworks
• Very interesting to come up with puzzles/logic that can be displayed within a restricted space
• I thought the static effect looked quite nice for such a simple implementation
• I was pleased to code my own FPS implementation whilst watching the "Code-It-Yourself! First Person Shooter" video
• I was very pleased to work out my map implementation using base 4 numbers along with an unreleased "map editor" of sorts
• I was pleased to implement the maps as external files
• Having to code all of the game logic/progression was interesting and fun

Spoilers Below...

Spoilers:

• Room 1 - Colours equal to the walls they face (= symbol)
• Room 2 - Colours not equal to the walls they face (!= symbol)
• Room 3 - In each horizontal and vertical line of the room there must be at least one red and one green block (% symbol - remainder)
• Room 4 - In the Visual map, the 'inside' blocks are the same colour on the external walls and vice versa for the outside blocks
• Room 4 - The IR map is the opposite logic to the visual map
• The UV map actually doesn't have any puzzle to solve it is just an image related to the final broadcast when all of the puzzles are solved