Brainroll

Brainroll is a sokoban inspired puzzle game where the main mechanic is that you slide on ice, making you take several steps instead of a single step each turn. This game is my first game and was created with the goal to ship a fully finished commercial game in the handmade spirit. It took be about 2 years of working on average 2 hours per day after my day job to finish it.

The codebase is heavily inspired by Handmade Hero where I used a similar subset of C++ to develop it. It uses Win32 as its platform API. OpenGL for graphics, Steam SDK for integrating with Steam features.

It was built in my own engine that I call "Maraton" which includes many of the features taught when following Handmade Hero such as Hot-Reloading of code, Sound mixing, debug systems, grahics abstraction, font baking. I also use an UI implementation inspired by Ryan Fleurys posts.

Postmortem / Devlogs

Brainroll Postmortem Part 1: History, Planning & Design

Brainroll Postmortem Part 2: Art & Assets

Brainroll Postmortem Part 3: Engine

Brainroll Postmortem Part 4: Movement, Ropes & Undo

Mechanics

  • Slide on ice:

You have to slide on ice where only will only stop if you collide with something else.

  • Move brain blocks that stick to you :

There are brain blocks that will stick to you and follow your every move. Use them to help Brainroll reach the goal.

  • Move chained brains connected to magical pillars:

Some brains are chained to magical pillars, they have hindered movement that you have to use to your advantage.

  • Move brains on top of pressure plates in order to open doors :

Doors can be opened by placing a brain block on a pressure plate.

  • Complete levels with as few moves as possible to unlock trophies :

Try to complete the levels with as few moves as possible in order to get all three trophies (bronze, silver & gold).

Recent Activity

Hey guys, my first game is now released on Steam!

For you who missed it, it is a puzzle game where you play as a brain called &brainroll who has to move brain blocks while sliding on ice. It mixes ideas from ricochet robot and sokoban.

The game and engine is handmade written in a C style of C++ and is built using Win32, WASAPI, DirectWrite, OpenGL, lz4 and of course a UI system inspired from Ryan's great articles.

If you're interested then please check it out and if you end up getting it then please consider leaving a review!

Thank you again for the help and motivation to finish this project.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396530/Brainroll/

In connection with the release of &brainroll on Steam, I have written a blog post about my thoughts on the release of my first game.
I am still not that confident in writing, especially in English so some feedback is most welcome!

https://www.oskarmendel.me/p/bringing-dreams-to-reality

Also if you havn't already, check out Brainroll on Steam, I have updated the page to show the release date. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396530/Brainroll/

With a lot of help and motivation from the HMN community I am proud to announce that my handmade built game &brainroll is finally being released on steam in the coming weeks!

It is a sokoban-style puzzle game where you play as a small brain called Brainroll who has to move brain blocks while sliding on ice. The game features 50 levels where you can get up to three throphies based on how good your solution is.
The game and engine is written in a C style of C++ and is built using Win32, WASAPI, DirectWrite, OpenGL and lz4 for compression.

Initially the game will only be released on Windows but I will eventually get around to porting it to Linux as well.

If this is of any interest to you then please consider wishlisting the game on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2396530/Brainroll/