WEB SCRAPPER

In the not-so-distant future, the internet has succumbed to the fate of a digital landfill. Decades of garbage data — the byproduct of humanity's pursuit of surplus generative content — has polluted the beautiful sea of knowledge that once was. Coming by genuine information becomes difficult, as they are buried deep within packets and packets of bloat.

You are here as one of the few remaining humans committed to the act of preservation. Dive deep beneath the ocean of data and retrieve the remaining pieces of what's left of our interconnected history.

Controls

Arrow Keys — Movement
Z — Pick Up and Drop Packets
X — Lock Player Position (Useful for rotating in place)
R  — Restart Level
Esc  — Quit Level

Gameplay

Counters — Each level features a limit in how many times the player can pick up data packets. Data packets will also limit the amount of distance the player can carry them. Plan your moves and try to do the least amount of pickups to get a par score!

Packets — Comes in three varieties. Normal packets can be moved a maximum of 10 steps before having to be dropped. Dead packets cannot be moved around, but can be oriented to another space by rotating. Bonus packets are more challenging, but optional.

Diversifiers

• OK Computer — A game related to Computer Science. The game's dramatic concept references the acts of web scraping, information gathering, and data preservation. More superfluous references include the visual design inspired by computer chips, the use of data packets as primary collectibles.
• MANS NOT HOT — A game that gets the player thinking mathematically. The main source of challenge comes from the limited amount of distance that the player can take while carrying around data packets. To beat the game as efficiently as possible, players are encouraged to figure out the shortest paths to take in order to collect all packets within the allotted amount of pickups. This includes thinking about how moving one packet may affect the required distance between the packet collector and other data packets.
• PPKM — A game that dynamically limits the player's movement depending on current circumstances. When picking up a data packet, a counter appears to indicate that the player has at most 10 steps to move around before they have to drop the packet down. Once 10 steps has been reached, all movement is halted and the player can only orient themselves within the cardinal directions before dropping the data packet. Additionally, dead packets prohibit the player from moving around completely, only being able to rotate and drop the packet within the tiles around them.

Asset Credits

• Family Friendly Inspect Sound.wav by LilMati — https://freesound.org/people/LilMati/sounds/657948/

• ItemPickup.wav by nicholasdaryl — https://freesound.org/people/nicholasdaryl/sounds/563465/

• Firewood Drop 5 by Frostnox — https://freesound.org/people/Frostnox/sounds/796643/

• Nom Noise by TheDragonsSpark — https://freesound.org/people/TheDragonsSpark/sounds/543386/
• Retro, Footstep.wav by LilMati — https://freesound.org/people/LilMati/sounds/515783/
  
• Acquire by Kenneth_Cooney — https://freesound.org/people/Kenneth_Cooney/sounds/781199/ 
• Retro video game SFX - Fail by OwlStorm — https://freesound.org/people/OwlStorm/sounds/404743/

• Game Music Loop 5 by XtremeFreddy — https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/game-music-loop-5-144569/

• Young Moon by drmseq — https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/young-moon-212306/

• Free CC0 Top Down Tileset Template Pixel Art by Rgsdev (prototyping phase) — https://rgsdev.itch.io/free-cc0-top-down-tileset-template-pixel-art

• 3d green matrix line wire grid space background by upklyak — https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/3d-green-matrix-line-wire-grid-space-backgro...

• Circuit board seamless pattern by macrovector_official, modified by me — https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/circuit-board-seamless-pattern_4546129.htm

• European Teletext by Jayvee Enaguas — https://www.dafont.com/european-teletext.font

All other graphical assets are hand drawn by myself

Splash screen jingle composed by myself on BeepBox 4.2 — https://tinyurl.com/2yly7ule

Source Code

https://github.com/ferupk/csui-igj-web-scrapper

Made for the CSUI Individual Game Jam 2025.