Open Mic Ordeal
Finish a poetry reading while an unruly audience throws food and shoes onto the stage. This arcade game asks you to balance reading at the lectern with movement, jumps, and ducking through attacks, and it plays with a keyboard or on a touch screen.
A little how-to
Complete three poems before you lose all three hearts. Hold Read (E on a keyboard) while standing near the lectern to recite; the lines of the poem appear as you read, and reading without a break builds flow that speeds you up to one and a half times. Jumping, ducking, or stepping away interrupts reading. Thrown food casts a shadow where it will land. Shoes, stage rushers, and rolling boo-waves flash a warning at the stage edge first: duck under shoes and jump over rushers and boo-waves. A hit costs a heart and, if you were reading, knocks the poem back a few words. Catch flowers to recover health. Completing a poem clears the current attacks and gives you a short opening to continue.
Controls
Play with a keyboard or the on-screen touch buttons. Choose Take the stage, or press Enter or Space, to start. Left/Right or A/D moves, Up/W/Space jumps (tap for a short hop, hold for a full jump), Down/S ducks (or drops faster in the air), and holding E reads at the lectern. On a touch screen, the arrow buttons move, jump, and duck, and holding Read recites. M or the speaker button changes sound; P, Escape, or the pause button pauses. After the performance, Try again, Enter, or R starts another attempt.
Progress and scoring
Winning performances can update the best score saved on this device, and the sound setting is remembered there too. Reloading does not restore an unfinished performance. Open Mic Ordeal has no account campaign or cross-device save.
The local score adds 1,200 points per finished poem and 14 points per second on stage, then subtracts 90 per hit, with a minimum of zero. Open Mic Ordeal is unranked and has no online leaderboard.
Bugs or ideas?
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