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View Full Version : Heart of Darkness Video Game Project!!!



Chrispins
06-11-2011, 09:48 PM
I'm sure you guys are familiar with Apocalypse Now, right? Well did you know the movie is actually heavily based on the novel, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad? We had to read that book my high school senior year in English VI, and we were assigned a project based on it. Now, a lot of people went the home movie route with their friends. Me? I made a video game in less than a week with Game Maker, and I had no idea how to use it. I stressed out so much over the crappy tutorials I could scrape from the internet and worked long nights (until 3 AM) every weekday, but eventually what emerged was this:

http://www.yoyogames.com/games/148189-heart-of-darkness

or

http://www.mediafire.com/?70idxq7jq59dxpc

You'll know what part of the book this game takes place just by looking at the title. I call it "Heart of Darkness: Arrows from Above". Just read the prologue if you're still lost. You can skip the prologue if you want by left-clicking the screen.

Here's some basic info about the game in case you're not much of a gamer:
1. It's a platformer game (like Super Mario Brothers)
2. To move left and right press the left and right arrow keys
3. To jump press the up arrow key
4. The light grey areas are NOT solid
5. Falling arrows can kill you (arrows going up in the background do not kill you)
6. You can jump on the thin platforms hanging over the grey areas (watch out, the wooden ones break and the grey platforms do not block arrows)
7. Make sure and read what the crewmen have to say. Some have helpful tips

If you read the book you might want to burn it because of how hard it was to read the dialect, but you might get a few chuckles out of the game. I think you guys will get most of the references from the book, especially the "pilgrims" and the rivets (and yes I know they didn't mean colonial pilgrims).

sgodtoh
10-15-2013, 01:01 AM
It took more trys than i care to admit but I finally beat the first level, arrows from above. Is that all there is to it or am I missing some? This was great, really funny after just reading the book, and i really want to play the rest of the story. Have you made it, or are you hopefully going to?

Chrispins
10-30-2013, 11:22 PM
It took more trys than i care to admit but I finally beat the first level, arrows from above. Is that all there is to it or am I missing some? This was great, really funny after just reading the book, and i really want to play the rest of the story. Have you made it, or are you hopefully going to?

Hey! Sorry for replying so late. I didn't really expect anyone to notice my post :o

Glad you like my "game" haha xD. It was very fun to make Unfortunately it's just one level. After turning it in to the teacher I sort of put the project down for a while and I'm not even sure if I still have the project saved somewhere. It might be lost :/

I'm curious whether you read the book out of self interest or because it was a required reading. It's kinda dark looking back because basically the whole premise is that deep down humans are really a bunch of selfish animals capable of the worst evils when we're not bound by the rules of civilization. Yea..... lol. For me it wasn't personally the most fun book to read, but that's why I tried to make fun of it in game form (like using rivets as health haha). If only Marlow got is damn rivets in the book...