Shrunk Down

mathijsvissers 2017-05-01 08:43

Cool idea for the theme. (Although, wouldn't this technically be a giant world, instead of a small world?) Platforming physics weren't the best, I got stuck on the side of platforms a lot while jumping. You can also spam mudballs once he has his arms up by spamming spacebar. I liked the art, although it's not top quality, I dig the handdrawn vibe.

djfariel 2017-05-02 03:03

John got big again? oh myyyyyy

MathijsVissers said most of what I wanted to say regarding bugs. One way to fix the wall sticking issue is to give the player's rigidbody a material with 0 friction. Thanks for the game. :)

scornz 2017-05-03 10:39

"Intoxicated by lemonade", this made my day. Good job :D

chrras 2017-05-03 20:30

Thanks for your feedback, it's really nice getting some opinions!

@MathijsVissers: Well, it's all about perspective, isn't it? For normal-sized John, the ant-world would be a small world, but for the ants, the world is giant :)

The problem with 0 friction is that you would be able to glide on the surface of things - this could probably be prevented in other ways, but we couldn't think of any time-efficient way of doing it.

mordokay 2017-05-04 16:55

I love platformers so I would obviously like this one. The music fits very well with the game and the hole story behind it is also very funny to think about. Good Job!

karln 2017-05-04 17:09

Was I supposed to be able to throw a million mud balls in a row by spamming the Space bar? It's super effective!

This was fun, I've been wanting to do a game that unlocks abilities as you go but not come up with anything yet.

Could have made the bramble things show up a bit better against the mud background though :/

jazzpah 2017-05-05 21:43

@MathijsVissers Indeed. We didn't have much experience with unity's built in physics engine and so a lot of time was wasted trying this and that. At some point we had to cut it short due to lack of time. We did though, as @djfariel mentioned, set friction on the walls to 0, but it was the damn corners that got the better of us.

Thanks a lot for the feedback and hope you enjoyed.

hiki911 2017-05-14 17:44

it's look like a game that was made by me for LD34 =) funny concept, a little bit unresponsive controls(throwing mud and jump), but still GJ!

daisy 2017-05-16 20:41

Haha this is pretty charming! Can never trust those kids with their innocent-looking lemonade stands.

Unfortunately I didn't get to find an antidote for poor John. I kept jumping into pits whilst being chased by that big ol' ant. Personally I'd have liked a checkpoint a bit before that section, but maybe I just need to get good as they say. The main thing stopping me just running through the game back to that section was getting stuck on the walls.

I do like how you spaced out getting John stronger and giving him a little boosts to ramp up the gameplay. Really like how super slow he is at the beginning to give you that sense of uh... shrinking poison by lemonade. :P Good job!

julianmh 2017-05-16 21:15

Love the derpy art style. This exactly what a ludum dare game should look like! :) Game is mechanically familiar but fun. Audio is good. Very nice work!

You could improve the collision a bit and maybe add a few checkpoints for people who die constantly like me :)

lolilith 2017-05-16 21:41

Great game! Though a tad difficult for someone that doesn't play platformers that much. As said before I kind of got stuck on the ramps. Maybe you can space them out more so that with the right timing you can run and jump them all in one go (or maybe that is already possible and I just really suck at this game, haha). I tried to take down the second big ant by spamming dirt, but that seemed to make the dirt ineffective (maybe a small bug?). Overall I really enjoyed this game! It was a nice challenge.

diknows 2017-05-16 22:05

The mud is pretty small, you should have just given him a huger lump. The controls are a little off with throwing aswell and I got stuck on a lot of walls while trying to jump on some platform.

Buuut thanks for the game, the graphics were funny and the music was pretty enjoyable!

mathijs750 2017-05-16 22:11

I like the concept, it reminds me a litle of the childrens book [Erik of het klein insectenboek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_of_het_klein_insectenboek). The concept of blueberries as gradual power ups works well. The game got a bit too hard at the end when the big ant queen started chasing me. Although it also felt a bit like the controls were at fault too. :ant:

finlal 2017-05-16 22:38

Interesting concept, and good music, great work!

occultone 2017-05-16 23:19

I Played this on Livestream today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YtyZ8Rudok

REALLY great job gating off the game until the proper skills are gained. This is not an easy skill for Level Designers to learn and you seem to have had a lot of thought put into it. Character controller was a bit stiff, but it was satisfying to win challenges and the boss chase you had was well constructed!