Nexus of Torment

For the DOS Game Jam of 2022.

• Score attack with a style multiplier - take risks for more points!
• Thirteen mazes, each more tormenting than the last - the duplicitous carfax, the traditional hedge, the deadly colonade, the brutal gauntlet, and the proverbial more
• The pinnacle of graphics and sound … from an IBM clone from 1982

  

You are trapped in the maze. Robots relentlessly hunt you down. React quickly. The key to survival is to destroy them — before they destroy you! Rack up as many points as you can! It's you against them … to the end.

Move your avatar with the W, A, S, and D keys. To use your gun, hold down one of the arrow keys; release the key to fire. After drawing or using your gun, your aim takes time to recover. The longer you hold the arrow key before shooting, the more accurate and the more deadly your shot will be.

You have limited ammunition, but your tormentors have seen fit to drop more bullets into the maze.   Move your avatar over the bullets to collect them.

Watch out for the patrolling robots! If they sense you, they will speed up and pursue you. If a robot gets close enough to grab you, it's all over! A single lucky shot may blast a robot to smithereens … or it may take two, three or more shots. Be careful!

For some unknown and twisted purpose, your tormentors are keeping a point score. Destroying a robot is worth 50 points, but this value increases as you earn a multiplier for style. The more risks you take, the greater your multiplier becomes.  You can increase your style bonus by:

• Destroying a robot when it is actively chasing you
• Destroying a robot at close range — the closer they are, the bigger the bonus
• Destroying a robot with six or fewer bullets in your reserve. (You earn the biggest bonus if you destroy it with your very last bullet!)
• And other, secret methods. Can you find them all?

Try to survive! Whether guided by malign calculations or by the sadistic whims of your captors, the robots are slowly getting faster and deadlier. How long can you last?

Design, art, and programming by Xin Jin Meng. Music arranged by Number Two.  Thanks to Peter Allen, Alex Blechman, Russ Lieblich, Steve Montero & Jerrol Richardson.