Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → Crunch Time
By gelisam and michaelsonbritt
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 558 | 3.46 | 50 | |
| Fun | 679 | 3.19 | 50 | |
| Innovation | 64 | 3.99 | 51 | |
| Theme | 315 | 3.74 | 51 | |
| Graphics | 661 | 3.34 | 50 | |
| Audio | 485 | 3.08 | 49 | |
| Humor | 394 | 3.29 | 48 | |
| Mood | 579 | 3.26 | 48 |
I sadly cannot start it (Ubuntu x64). This is my output:
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RtApiAlsa::getDeviceInfo: snd_pcm_open error for device (hw:0,0), Device or resource busy.
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::runtime_error' what(): RtApi::openStream: a non-NULL output StreamParameters structure cannot have an nChannels value less than one. Aborted (core dumped)
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Why this startup script? What is its purpose?
Took me a while to figure this out, but this was a really neat puzzle game! "On second thought, weekends are for work" really got me tho lmao.
@erik-brendel, if you're willing to install Processing 3.3, you can run from the source. Open the .pde file and click "Run", no compilation required, just works, and has a good reputation on Linux, Mac and Windows. The binary package was created using Processing's "publish" tool, but neither us of had time to publish from a real linux machine. So those binaries are "use at your own risk". Haven't seen the error before, must be some kind of sound compatibility issue.
Nice idea for the jam, loved it :)
Tough but satisfying. My only issue is that backing up to previous steps takes a bit more time than I'd like. XD
@ryusui, agree, we wanted to shorten the backup sounds but it was fifteen minutes before submit time and because of my hacky code we decided it was too risky :)
This was really interesting. It was very tough to basically think in like multiple space of how to fit all the pieces together. Good Job!
@michaelsonbritt I know the exact feeling. My own game is an untenable mess under the hood thanks to what I can charitably describe as a "damn program structure and maintainability, full speed ahead" approach to development. I hope I can find some time to properly chop it up into an object-oriented design so expanding the game won't be a nightmare.
@ryusui, I always assume those kinds of nicely twitch-tuned action games are a delicious mess under the hood. But so delicious. Cursed Gold has nice action feel, bullet sounds, and animation, and totally satisfying the way enemies slow down when hit.
Your game Crunch Time is a really cool idea and really puts the theme of "The more you have, the worse it is", into a really cool game. I enjoyed the game a lot and the idea of having to strategically place the different events on the schedule was really fun
Cons: - It took me longer than it should understand the rules, so maybe add a better tutorial. (Or it could just be me being stupid :) )
Overall this was a really nice game and you should be proud of what you achieved. :)
It took some time to get into it but I had a great time playing!
I cannot start the 32bit win version, but the 64bit win version is okay.
Is there some requirement on the Java version? my jre is 1.8.
The game mechanics is a little confusing, maybe it's because I stayed up whole night. :)
Love it! Made it through the game. I found the turial harder than the actual game ;)
I didn't have a problem running the game as I used the 64 bit version. At first I was a little confused but after quitting and restarting the game I started to get the hang of it. Was able to get to the end but I don't believe I found both solutions. As for the game it was a nice blend of strategy and humor. The audio fit well and helped set the mood. I just wish the background room chatter continued through each of the scenarios. I think it would have given it a more authentic feel for working in the corporate world. All in all it was a well done game. Kudos for submitting!
The idea is cool, but I didn't have a clue what to combine with what
I really didn't understand what you where doing/planning but i understood the puzzle itself. Quite a fun game, some more content wouldn't hurt but since it took a while to solve it was enough. Liked the style and the audio though, so great game!
I feel this game is made more with devs in mind than artists like myself, I couldn't really figure out what anything did, and the interface design did little to pull me in far enough to commit the time to learning the game mechanics.
@JoramWolters, it's definitely a joke game aimed at people familiar with software development in a corporate environment; people who would read Dilbert. The first two screens present the game mechanic in its simplest possible form plus there's tutorial text to explain. The mechanic is to pick one square from the left area, then one from the right areas, and the graph on the left gets pasted to the right. When pasting, it's only allowed to replace *one* right-side box, the one you clicked. The pasted graph can't replace more than one box on the right. Boxes flash red to indicate this.
Can you suggest how to present the mechanic more clearly? Because I am interested in interface design and presentation clarity. But I still want to give the player room to discover and avoid spoon-feeding them. We chose not to include too much highlighting and cues, because part of the puzzle is that a player will overlook certain valid connections at first. So the game is designed to withhold cues that make a solution too obvious.
@michaelsonbritt Thanks for the clarification!
Usually I'd say don't worry about spoon-feeding, but if learning the mechanics is a vital part of the gameplay (as seems the case with your game) then not-telling a lot of stuff is probably vital to your design. I'd say the game is solid as-is, it just doesn't fit me as a target audience, which is fine :)
As a game-design teacher who does a lot of teaching about interface design, I'd have to say there's disappointingly little to find on the subject online, so I can't really refer you to any one good source if you want to learn more about it.
I did find the leaked UI design doc for The Division to be fairly interesting, and there's a GDC talk by some Blizzard folk about Hearthstone's design seed which I always take to heart.
Good luck!
> I just wish the background room chatter continued through each of the scenarios.
@kunonooni The background music is supposed to play in a loop independently of the scenarios, did you perhaps accidentally mute the sound by hitting M?
The chatter dissapeared for me as well. Seems like it just stops to loop after a while.
The game was a fun challenge, and the jokes on corporate culture got a couple giggles out of me. I should complain that I wasn't able to see the whole puzzle at once, but in fairness I didn't find that an issue. The levels were short enough that going back through them was pretty quick.
I wasn't sure what happened with the start of the non-tutorial level. If on the first phase, I put the Target class over Server, I can't place Server over Receiver on the second phase, even though both it and the Source/Sender symbols match up. There's probably some mechanic I missed.
Nice work on the title.
@amras0000, you can't place Server over Receiver because then Source node would clobber the Sender node. You're only allowed to clobber one node on the right side, which is the node you clicked. That's what the tutorial text means when it says "No other class may overlap", but it seems to confuse a lot of people. The Sender node flashes red to indicate it's conflicting. Not sure of an easy way to make this rule more clear, but I'm definitely open to thoughts. Just goes to show how important it is to QA the learning process, for a game with nontrivial rules!
Sadly the game doesn't work on my Windows 10, it crashes with a exception in native code with the exception code 0x20474343 and exception information 0x0000000022d66f60.
Solid graphics and overall aesthetics!
I did not get the mechanics even though I could make it through all the levels :grimacing: In my opinion, the key to a good tutorial is to start really simple and let the user fill in the blanks, even if those blanks might not require any or much thinking at all. The user can also be guided with graphics and animations, besides using text.
Keep up the good work!
This is a neat little puzzle game! It took me a while to figure out how it worked, but once I had it it was pretty fun.
Hey guys, just wanted to say. If you don't sue us, we won't sue you. - Creators of Crunchtime, revenge of feature creep.
@soldierbear, it's funny how we used the same idea for background sounds, but approached everything else much differently! Do you have any advice to earn a nonzero amount of money when releasing a game in Revenge of Feature Creep? I feel pretty stuck.
Really good puzzle game by the way, took me a while to figure it out but once I had, very good. I think the reason why it took so long to work out was because the text is the same for one of the boxes on the first level as in the code complete, but that kinda made it more gratifying when you realise it.
@michaelsonbritt, I'll let a more qualified person answer your question. @the-enigma.
Hi, very nice game, I like the idee. When I undersand it I completly forgot the reality :p The game is hard because you need to remember all steps when go back on time. A button to cancel action will be apreciate to avoid commit and go back time each time you try new calandar. Great work :)
At the beginning it was very puzzling (*get it?*), but it instantly made sense when I realized I had to pick up the UML elements and place them in the calendar. Maybe a drag-and-drop mechanic would be more intuitive? I love the sarcasm, and the game actually works really well (although the levels aren't very challenging, but I can imagine that's quite difficult given the design restrictions). The office background sounds are a nice touch, and the visuals are effective. Solid short entry, well done!
Brilliant idea to fit the theme. Great sense of mood too.
This triggered my crunch mode PTSD. Seriously. It captures the worst parts of large-scale corporate programming. Well done!? :D
Bit of a learning curve but nice puzzle game :)
Interesting idea, I like how you can commit yourself into corners.
Great puzzle game!
Graphics: Really relay the whole "corporate" feeling, with quasi-cheerful fonts, PowerPointy transitions, and meaningless squares.
Sound: The background noise cut out at some point and didn't come back. The typing noises are good, but seem to clip a bit?
Gameplay: It's hard! But fair. The explanations could be better, but once I understood the concept, it was good. But still sometimes something won't fit, and I'm not entirely sure why. I really love how you have to go back and modify previous solutions!
Woah it's hard to come up with and develop such an original idea during a jam, hats off to you! Really like the gameplay and how it resonates with developer like most of us here probably are (at least it felt familiar for me ;) Awesome!
Interesting puzzle once I understood it. I think part of the trouble I had with the tutorial was all the jargon in the text. Without understanding the jargon, I couldn't really understand at first why some moves were considered legal, and others caused red flashing. It was just that first hump though. After passing that first stage, the rest was a fun challenge.
This game ticks me off. It's hard. It's frustrating. Its unfair. That is why I'm giving it 5 stars for mood. Never have I ever felt more like Dilbert in my life. Having go move back and toss out a ton of progress you had just made because of a simple mistake at the start. Good gameplay, debatable. Some people will like it, other will not. But for mood it is perfect. Whether the game was designed this way or not, the punishing mechanics really do make you feel like a corporate slave who only moves back with every step forwards. And when you do accomplish something, you are simply handed another task.
It would be awesome if on a extremely difficult level, your boss would force you to start over as soon as you finished by making a slight change on the first bit of code.
Pretty good! Unclear, cruel, pointless. The perfect atmosphere for a corporate game.
After getting through the tutorial, this turned out to be a competent puzzle. The refactoring mechanic, going back to earlier phases and making sure the graph fits all the calendars, is quite novel. It is not without issues though.
Lets start with the setting. Software development is close to all of our hearts, but I do find it weird that you are fitting UML into a calendar. Is that a thing in bigger software houses?
The background ambient does not loop. The sound effects are lacking too and harsh on the ears. (Played Linux 64-bit, if that matters)
The refactoring works, yet the more phases there are the less effect each phases has. If the graph fits the first three levels, chances are it is just going to fit the next few too (happened to me with the last set of levels). I guess it is possible to design around that with clever tricks and maybe more mechanics, allowing to subvert the base rules.
Lastly the tutorial is not that clear. The second phase for me caused an issue as an important piece of information had not been said explicitly: The names from the classes don't need to match! The rules only say the symbols need to match, so technically they are not to fault, but the human mind works in mysterious ways making its own *"logical"* connections. I got another person to play too and they also found the tutorial confusing.
Basically a fool-proof tutorial should only do one thing at a time and explain it as succinctly as possible, without withholding information. A tricky task, yet doable. Here's my take on this:
**Tutorial start**
Phase 1: >- Select a class from the code area. - Click a class with the same symbol in the work area
The work area has two classes with different symbols and neither name matches the code class. The commit button can appear once the player has made the right (only possible) match, thus it does not need to be explained verbally.
Phase 2: >- Classes cannot overlap occupied tiles
The work area once again has two options: one with a blocking class/post-it-note below it, another without. Both classes have the the correct symbol and non-matching names.
Phase 3: >- If you cannot fit your code classes into the work area then you need to refactor it in the previous phase.
The refactor button appears in this phase. Going back to the previous phase the class can be connected differently in the same vein than in the current phase 1 (as in, above the matching class, not below it)
Phase 4 & 5: >- Put everything you've learned into good use.
A few more levels with some refactoring needed (if the player didn't get lucky of course)
**Tutorial end**
Not a big difference, but it does make it very clear that class names don't matter and assures that the player only needs to learn one thing at a time.
Solid effort nonetheless.
Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Above average (3.5)* Innovation: *Great (4.5)* Theme: *Good (4.0)* Graphics: *Good (4.0)* Audio: *Bad (2.0)* Humor: *Above average (3.5)* Mood: *Above average (3.5)*