Humanity Simulator

samurai-spark 2017-05-01 17:20

Hey @rabbittortoise and @tunes9 cool game!

It took me a while to get what's happening but after that it was a nice experience :smile: The critical take on the theme is really clever. The graphics are nicely done and fits to the game. Building objects works decent. The movement ridiculous, but its enough that its cool again :laughing: The only thing is camera switching. You use static positions but you should really try a smooth camera movement with a dump. But that's all.

Nice entry you two! :grin:

zelos 2017-05-01 17:22

I like the idea, but the gameplay is a bit clunky. The turning around the corner part is weird because of the camera, but I can forgive that.

I basically just stood still and drove in circles once I could build a factory. And then I repeated that until I could build better stuff. It took a pretty long time though, and nothing much happened in between. The graphics are okay, but I feel like everything needed a bit more impact. Everything you do feels like 'am I supposed to be doing this?', if you know what I mean. It's not quite sure what you should be doing.

Other than that I think the game is pretty good.

goncalo-monteiro 2017-05-01 17:24

Apart from bugs, the feedback needs to be better when we build something or clear florest. The concept can be fun, it just needs better execution. But still, good job considering the jam.

binaryferret 2017-05-01 17:36

Interesting concept and take on the theme. Bloody humans destroying the world! :D Loved the different weather effects that appeared, thought they were used really well.

Cameras can be a pain, and when moving over the side of a cube it was a little jarring but apart from that a fun little game. Well done! :D

psychead 2017-05-01 17:36

Good job, guys. I like the critical realization of the game. You should work a bit on the feel of the game, like movement, balancing and the camera jumps. With some polish and a few more elements to smooth gameplay out, I can see this work out well.

cyberstarlight 2017-05-01 17:39

I like how grim it is about humanity, destroy the planet for hard cash XD The UI could have been better, and the bulldozer feels weird moving sideways, but I get that's not the main point of the game.

It gets really hard after a bit! well disasters: Storms, forest fires, acid rain, tornado(?), oil field fires, toxicity, and I probably missed some XD I got around 200,000~ dollars, seems like there is some disaster chasing you after you build too much? or maybe I just destroyed the planet too much, not sure. anyway I quickly lose all health when I build about one cube side with factories, I'm not sure how to avoid that ):

I like how you handled that planet generation and I'm curious about how you implemented the weather getting whacked? elaborate if you feel like it ^^

nice entry, and god luck with the score!

tunes9 2017-05-01 18:32

@cyberstarlight Thanks for your comment. The strafing with the player was kind of a mistake at first, but we made it a feature for fun (also the jumping). The weather conditions are determined from the pollution level: the more polluted the planet, the more and more serious disasters and weather effects spawn. Buildings add to the pollution level and remaining forests slowly decrease it.

thesand 2017-05-02 09:34

A well made game. It really made you think about how we destory our world, just to get some cash. There was some bugs. like the one where you got stuck on some tiles. But overall i think its a really well made game! Good luck and well done you guys! ^^

huvaakoodia 2017-05-02 15:18

IN THE GRIM DARK PRESENT HUMANITY IS DESTROYING ITSELF! Gee, thanks for the morning optimism...

Driving around in a bulldozer, reaping the benefits of capitalism, sure is *funny*, but not that much *fun* really. The number one problem: Why do I need to keep picking up money? In fact where does the money come from? The :evergreen_tree::evergreen_tree::evergreen_tree:?

I'd prefer a streamlined version. Felling trees yields :moneybag:, which automatically goes to your bank. Factories and such spend the planetary resources and convert them to sweet, sweet :moneybag:, which also directly goes to your bank account.

The ever increasing toxicity of the planet could start spawning in mutant species which attack your company assets. Invest in turrets and other defenses to smite them devils... Uh, I'm feature creeping again it seems.

Fine work, for the most part.

krunoslav 2017-05-02 19:19

I very like the idea! I love games when *human progress* is evil (in a past ludum a did a game about that, but you was the nature agains the humanity). Oil plants are very good to pollute, I liked to shop trees and pollute world, it was fun :D

@huvaakoodia, I think that the idea to collect yourself the money makes the game more fun, otherwise you should just wait to have enough money to keep building factories. It is a casual game.

altron 2017-05-03 08:07

Great game! I enjoyed it (well, I probably shouldn't say I enjoyed polluting and destroying the planet :P). The camera was a little bit strange sometimes, and I would appreciate the ability to zoom off. Also I felt like the polluting was too fast - I've built just a few factories and two coal plants and suddenly I won, I didn't even get to build the oil pump :P But overall the theme and execution is nice.

flatgub 2017-05-03 08:37

I really enjoyed this! Going around the edges was a little janky because of the camera but I got over it. I didn't realise you could chop down trees until I looked at the options menu on my second playthrough, but I still enjoyed it! It got really hectic after i reached the point where you start getting chased down by tornadoes! I'd have liked if buildings were constructed facing you and not all in the same direction so I didn't end up with a maze of rows and rows of factory.

I struggled to find any perceivable improvements past the slaughterhouse but i guess its just the ratio at which you get small vs big money? (Also I laughed at "muh shekels")

Very fun game, I'd definitely play it more if it were polished!

itssaraficed 2017-05-03 09:40

I really like the concept, deffo would play this kind of game if it was more polished. since movement is very abrupt between slow and quick. Well done on the transition between planet side. Fun entry!

rother-games 2017-05-03 14:30

The concept was good, but the driving over the edges was annoying and I lost the orientation quickly.

mars 2017-05-03 19:58

Simple concept, but it works. I wouldn't say the gameplay is engaging enough to warrant playing many times over, but I did enjoy it the first time at least.

You've done well at invoking the pleasure of purification. Even though the player is technically destroying things when chopping down trees, it leaves you with a even surface, so it gives you that kind of good feeling that cleaning something does. If there'd been some more visual feedback as the player does so as well, it could become a really satisfying experience.

The edge camera snap is possibly a little too abrupt, if it was a smooth pan it might feel less jarring to go over the edges.

It's pretty decent as is, but with some more polish and work it could definitely be even better. Except for the "muh shekels" money. Can't top that.

gurbx 2017-05-05 10:59

Very interesting and different concept. Like others have said, I think it was a little disorienting and hard to navigate when driving over the hard edges of the world. Other than that, I enjoyed playing it, and it's also a good comment on how we are destroying our planet!

slash-random 2017-05-06 12:07

Interesting game. Unfortunatly, it didn't run well on my computer, but it was somehow playable. As some others already mentioned, the pollution rate is a little too fast. The theme, graphics and the cubeworld are really cool. I agree with @altron that a zoom function would have been nice.

Cool game with a very unique concept. Great work!

adroitconceptions 2017-05-06 16:58

Linux build played fine on my computer.

the goal was confusing... was it make as much $$ as possible or pollute the planet? pollute the planet seemed to be the goal... but now I wasn't sure. if the goal was make money while keeping the planet as clean as possible, that would make for a better game to me. Not personally big on 'destroy the planet' ideas. not to sound all treehugger, but this is our only planet, we need to take care of it.

game played ok. I found the moment to be fine after a moment to get used to it. the complete lack of animation and supper tight camera movement took a moment to get used to... it is interesting that that a very responsive camera can feel wrong these days - that we actually expect some 'delay' in the camera responsiveness.

rabbittortoise 2017-05-06 18:32

@jason-kennedy Thank you for testing the Linux build. The game's idea is to get as much money as possible while you pollute the planet, polluting the planet to certain level being the main goal. We wanted to have a hidden message behind that. About that camera: We knew it wasn't too good, but snappiness was better than bad smoothing and delay (First time trying to animate a camera).

sgstair 2017-05-11 03:55

Pretty solid game! I most like that the storms seem to target you heavily as the toxicity goes up, and the black clouds over dense factories impeding your vision, while frustrating, I think are actually a good design element. Lots of really small quality of life improvements could be made, most importantly I think: Magnetic attraction for money within a range, and better indication of how toxic a factory is (is there any point to building the more expensive ones?)

I played this on stream at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141022066 - time 0:32:40

random-storykeeper 2017-05-11 07:19

Well my disaster escalated quickly. One playthrough and this was my score:

Humanity Simulator 02.png

I thought it was pretty easy to pick up and understand how to play. There are some interesting things that pop out for me, like how this resource gathering game is about destroying the planet rather than building from it. Or rather, creating structures, make dough, destroy planet. It works humourously for this game.

It's also strange, but in an intriguing way, how this planet is cube shaped. It felt like an odd choice altogether, but I was with it. I was trying to leave one side unscathed, but I guess I forgot which side it was and ended up cutting too many trees and resources, resulting in the storms catching up.

I can't say I was a fan of the movement in this game. The planet would automatically start rotating when I was quite far away from the edge, and it really made it hard to focus on gather money or maneuvering to a forest that was near the edge. Even though it does make it so that you can see the next side of the planet without having to actually move there, this was too disorienting to try and collect resources, which I guess is just the downside of having such a box shaped planet as opposed to a round one.

Also, the timer in the top corner loses its 0 digit when counting single digit seconds. It may be more consistent to allow for 0s to come before a 1-9 digit when counting seconds. (For instance, a time of 6 minutes and 4 seconds is displayed as 6:4 on your HUD, while it would be more consistent and intuitive to have it displayed as 6:04.)

Other than that, I thought the rest of the game was fine. The sound effects were satisfying (though I would have liked to hear more added, such as when chopping down trees or creating buildings) and I thought the colour palette was all right. I think the clouds obscuring my vision as the planet got more polluted was a great touch.

rabbittortoise 2017-05-12 11:54

@sgstair Thank you for the feedback, it was interesting to see how you reacted to the game. Higher cost buildings generate more money and pollute faster. We didn't get the descriptions ready in time for submit. And yes, this game needs a LOT of polish.

terryg 2017-05-13 05:30

the controls for placing things is difficult and the collecting the money is repetitive the controls are jagged

tuomo 2017-05-14 13:14

Great and interesting idea but I feel execution needs bit more work. At first gameplay feels fun but becomes quickly repetitive. Driving around collecting money doesn’t really give feeling that I’m polluting the world. And money just seems pop out everywhere with no reasons or explanation. Visuals are well done, maybe bit dark at places. Overall good job, idea is there, execution needs some rethinking.

2017-06-07 17:03

Neat game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGAiipylkqo