Pied

Controls:

• ←↑→↓ to change your heading

• all 26 characters of the alphabet may be needed

Gameplay:

• Pick up letters (rats) by moving over them.

• Your trail of rats will determine the letters you have to type to the beat! If you miss a letter, strike too early, or type the wrong letter all your mice scurry away (your score and streak are reset)!
• There are secrets in this "game"

A little about this game (and my excuses why it's not what it should be):

When reading over the theme choices a couple choices really stood out to me, leader, follower, and rhythm. I knew the exact game I wanted to make right off the bat. There's this folklore thing called the pied piper who was basically like a fantasy exterminator. He'd go into towns and lure all the rats out of it for a price. Apparently this one town didn't pay him so he lured all there children away, or at least that's the gist, you can read more here about the pied piper if you are so inclined. Anyway, so the game was going to be pretty similar to what you see above, but I had these aspirations to have the different keys play notes, and the longer your streak was the speed would increase and musical accompaniment would build, and there'd be special rats that require you to hold down one key and the sound would play continuously, etc.. This would be a kind of snake meets guitar hero sort of game. It was and is great in my mind, but unfortunately I was unable to devote the time a project like this needed, and for that I apologize to you all.

Jamuary 2017 compared to now:

Last year I brought everything I had. I was a much worse programmer/game developer, but by golly I had the gumption to just put all I had into that project. Last years project Decades Lost was really watershed moment for me. I was feeling like game development may have been beyond my capacity to a degree. I had high hopes, and lots of ambition, but I always fell short of what I thought I should be able to accomplish. Decades Lost was and is still the most ambition game I've made as well as the most complete. In so many ways making that game allowed me to see a future where I could really be the person I desperately desired to be.

This year my game development abilities are far beyond what they were a year ago, and yet I did much less. I'm not fully disappointed, as I feel this project took a back seat to some rather important things in my life, but I do have that feeling of wonder for what this could have been.

Lost Decade Games:

Matt and Geoff are my personal heroes. They've helped me in so many ways achieve my dreams, and have never asked for a thing in return. Matt and Geoff, thank you guys for everything. Thank you for inspiring me and so many others. You guys are awesome.

Thanks to all the people in the LDG community for all your help and support throughout the years. You are all awesome talented incredible people. I'm so glad to have internet met you, and look forward to seeing what you all achieve in the future.

In closing:

I have high hopes that I'll have the pleasure and gift of hosting Jamuary for years to come. I know there will be highs and lows, and honestly this year was a kind of middle ground for me. I wanted to do more, but at the same time feel content with the little I have accomplished. I have great ambition to take next years Jamuary more seriously. I want to research some other jams and events like that and figure out what could really make this thing more special and ran better, but we'll see what future Vox actually throws together. Sometimes he's surprisingly responsible, but most of the time he's a big let down.

Anyway, thank you so much for playing. About five years ago I started making games from scratch, and always dreamed of a day where someone would take the time to play the crap I made. I've come so far since then, and it's just so incredible that you or anyone else plays the stuff I make. I look forward to improving and hopefully making something truly worth your time. Have a wonderful day, night, week, month, year, and just believe in yourself. You are an incredible unique individual with immeasurable talent. I mean it. Just keep working  on what your passionate about and believe me your dreams can come true.

-Vox

Special thanks:

The, I'd say catchy yet haunting strummings you are hearing are my good friend Tim. It's exciting to be able to incorporate the passions of my friends into my passions. If you listen closely you can hear me typing the code for this very game while he was recording . So thank you for all your time, effort and support bud if you ever actually read this.

It was my intent to get my wife's cello in here, as she's an extremely talented woman, but I unfortunately have terrible time management skills and never ended up making the time to have that happen. I feel we are all worse off for my plunders. Darling if you are reading this just know I'd be nothing without you. Thank you dearly for your support and love. And especially thank you for playing every game I make with such enthusiasm, especially when they suck <3

Special thanks to Al and Bill. Al thanks for talking over this and every other game idea I've ever had with me and always taking it seriously. Bill thanks for always being encouraging and down for whatever, and for letting me use your computer to write my the first program I ever wrote like 6 years ago.