Labyrinthine

READ THE README FILE.

This was made with an early version of Raycasting Game Maker, as a challenge to myself: my goal was to design the most interesting game that I could despite the severe limitations of this "toy" (I'm hesitant to even call it a game design tool). I think I succeeded...for the most part... I'd written this project off as forever lost, until I stumbled across it while recovering data from an old hard drive. Ahh, memories...Anyway, I uploaded the result as a novelty and little else.

RGM is so limited it's ridiculous. The only things that are customizable are the graphics, the sounds, the map layouts, and the controls...in theory (this version allowed mouselook, but you couldn't map anything to the mouse buttons!). Even in its more recent incarnations, RGM is little more than the most bare-bones Wolf3d template imaginable: 5 identical enemies with only sprite sets to tell them apart, up to 10 pieces of non-destructible furniture (later versions allowed breakable objects), up to 5 nearly-identical weapons, 10 or 20 wall textures max, only one door texture, and the goal is always "find the key, find the exit." No locked doors, no different ammo types, no bosses, and you couldn't switch off the player's footstep sounds, nor the random "alarm" sound that played every other time you activated an enemy -- if you didn't want those sounds, you'd have to replace them with silence yourself. There is also an in-game map, but it displays incorrectly (it's apparently bottom-view, not top-view), so it's basically useless...which is too bad, since the later maps of Labyrinthine are sprawling mazes.

Here's what I did to spice up the otherwise bland-as-hell gameplay, which is identical for every single game made with RGM:

• Doors share the same graphic as one of the most common wall tiles, forcing the player to really explore the labyrinth to find the way out.

• The monster sprites actually make some monsters more dangerous than others: the spheroid monster is very difficult to see at a distance, and the silent inviso-stalkers are impossible to see unless they're attacking or right up in your face. The final "boss" is stationary, but surviving his room is extremely difficult.

• Due to the door graphic and some devious map design on my part, each map is easy to get turned around in, but not impossible to navigate. The inviso-stalker maps are especially nerve-wracking, since you're never sure if you're alone or not.

• There are only two weapons, and no backup weapon should ammo run dry. So players must make every shot count.

The graphics are all from Rise of the Triad, Corridor 7, and Space Harrier 2. The music is from Oddworld, except the ending tune, which was freeware I think. There's no way to get this version of RGM anymore, or I'd have gone back in and maybe given it a facelift.
#shooter