Insomnia

Insomnia is a platform jumping game where the player tries to climb to the top of a rickety light house in order to escape some unspeakable evil. It was created in less than one month’s time for TIG Source’s Common Place Book Competition. This competition celebrated the works of H. P. Lovecraft by creating a game from an idea in his Common Place Book (random idea notebook). This game was formulated around idea 23:

“The man who would not sleep—dares not sleep—takes drugs to keep himself awake. Finally falls asleep—and something happens. Motto from Baudelaire p. 214.”

He later turned this into a short story entitled “Hypnos”.

The game begins with a text introduction written in the style of H. P. Lovecraft (including his xenophobic tendencies). After the intro the user is given a help screen to describe the buttons and principles of game play.

The game itself consists of the screen scrolling up at a steady pace. Platforms are randomly distributed in the game area. The player must jump or climb from platform to platform to keep the bottom of the screen from “eating” them. The sides of the playable area steadily constrict to represent the narrowing of a light house tower.

To make things interesting the player is currently suffering from sleep deprivation (hence the title of Insomnia). This is represented by a graying around the area furthest away from the player. As the player grow more tired the graying area gets smaller and smaller until it consumes the player in the darkness of sleep. The player’s movement and jump height are also hindered by sleepiness.

To counter the sleepiness the player can find and take various power ups scattered about the level.

Cold water	A cup of cold water splashed in the face gives you a brief respite from the horrors that lurk in your dreams.
Hot tea	A hot cup of tea provides a mild dose of caffeine to keep you awake.
Medicine	Prescription medication probably wasn’t meant to be taken bone bottle full at a time. That probably would explain why you start seeing black tentacles after you take them.
Drugs	Non Prescription medication comes in an evil looking green syringe and its use only seems to encourage the black tentacles, but you have to stay awake by any means necessary right?
Tazer	Electrical discharge weapons were meant to be used on to be used on other people, however that quick shock is just what you need to stay awake naturally.

Hint: By holding the up arrow while in the air the user can perform a wall hook when the jumping player hits a wall. To get out of the wall hook the player needs to jump. By combining the wall hook and wall jump the player can climb to places that can not be reached by wall hooking alone.

Credits:
Wilson Saunders: Programming, Art, Writing and Design.
Karmin Mir@k D.I.K: Additional Art.
Anthony Curry: Music and Sound Composition

The following are development screen shots: