Note: web version is missing special effects (shaders), but they're only decorative. It also requires you to press Space to advance past text.


Navigate a collapsed cavern to find a creature of legend.

Created for the Eggplant Game Jam #9: "Reinventing Basketball". There's not a lot of baskets in Explorb, but the original idea came from creating something around ball handling and a tweet from ChevyRay about building exploration in 2D:

thinking about 2D game exploration again and how much it frustrates me with its limitations. constantly trying to figure out ways to give myself a sense of exploration when the amazing discovery benefits of 3D cannot be applied.
...
the absence of “looking” alone is just, so debilitating. you can’t look off in the distance, you can’t wonder what’s around a corner, you can’t see a goal from far away, you can’t worry about what might be behind you.

Controls

  • Move with LS or wasd/arrows.
  • Throw/push the ball with RB or left click.
  • Pull/catch the ball with LB or right click.

Regrets

I didn't manage to make it as far as I'd hoped on this project, but the complete gameloop is there: use the explorb to clear away debris, explore, and discover what awaits. I wanted to add more movement, more hints at what's hidden beneath the debris.

I also wanted to experiment with the ball controls more to give more gameplay to tossing the ball around.

Maybe I'll revisit it in the future.


Credits

Created for the Eggplant Show community game jam in about 24 hours spread out over one month.

Code

 A lot of libraries helped make this happen:

  • anim8 -- Enrique García Cota
  • baton -- Andrew Minnich
  • cargo -- Bjorn Swenson
  • cpml -- CPML is Colby Klein, Landon Manning
  • flux -- rxi
  • gabe -- Kyle McLamb
  • hsx -- Ilya Kolbin
  • inspect -- Enrique García Cota
  • lume -- rxi
  • maze -- Vitaliy Sich
  • mlib -- Davis Claiborne
  • moonshine -- Matthias Richter
  • nata -- Andrew Minnich
  • push -- Ulysse Ramage
  • slab -- Mitchell Davis
  • windfield -- SSYGEN
  • everything else -- idbrii


Pixel Art

s4m-ur4i's HUGE pixelart asset pack

The license includes commercial use. If you like to edit the graphics and use them in your commercial project: you can do it!

Music

Candyworld Background Music - Sunsai. 2018.

License: Creative Commons Attribution License.

Font

Humble Fonts Gold - Eeve Somepx

License: Common Sense License

Download

Download
explorb-win64.zip 5.2 MB
Version 1.0.94abdc1 Dec 09, 2021
Download
explorb-win32.zip 4.7 MB
Version 1.0.94abdc1 Dec 09, 2021
Download
explorb-macos.zip 6.5 MB
Version 1.0.94abdc1 Dec 09, 2021

Development log

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