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Life & Debt: A Real Life Simulator

By krassenstein and Cupcake

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall5083.5154
Fun5693.3154
Innovation3753.3954
Theme2073.9154
Graphics7023.2653
Audio3.588
Humor833.9453
Mood4803.4053

Comments

thy-duck 2017-12-05 03:43

Love the humor of the game. I would add some difficulty scaling, kind of throws everything in your face at once. Still really fun to play. Nice one!

witylernn 2017-12-05 04:32

10/10 realistic

filipe-leal 2017-12-05 04:59

I'm soooo broke! Well.. I think life ain't easy either. Nice job

manbeardgames 2017-12-05 05:01

This is definitely my life. Also, quit taking me to court krass. 10/10 would play again

Quick note, not sure if your supposed to be able to actually win or not. I'm going to try some more though

gamesplusjames 2017-12-06 01:18

Much too accurate to real life! It was a bunch of fun seeing all the notifications of things happening to you to give debts & cash :D It was fun seeing all the different items to find in the game too! Great job as always! :)

sorlok 2017-12-06 05:10

Excellent take on the theme (although I am biased, since my game also features debt). I liked the "race to the top" approach --as long as you had no debt and all items, it didn't matter how you go there. The pop up blurbs were pretty good too: "Lost a Bet on How to Pronounce Ludum Dare". :D Nice jazzy remix of a classic theme, which went well with the feel of the game.

nardandas 2017-12-06 05:26

Interesting take on the theme, but I'm not really much into idle games. I think the random penalties fall a bit too strong to make it an enticing idle game. Also, please opt out of audio if you didn't make any yourself.

beanslasher 2017-12-06 05:52

The humor in this one was rated 5 stars, I think this is a really unique game idea!

krassenstein 2017-12-06 06:13

@nardandas Good idea, i opted out from the audio category, thanks! :)

dr-argus 2017-12-06 06:28

Streamed this last night and loved the humor. I don't know how I lost a music copyright infringement case to your for $40k, though! That happened early in the game and represented the bulk of my debt. You really took it to me! But, good news! I won KrassJam for a cool $1000 so I'm using your own money against you, sucka! Fantastic work. You two make a great team! :-)

goat-toaster-games 2017-12-06 14:13

Damnit ma pay your own damn medical bills! Haha great lil game.

wizcas 2017-12-06 14:55

Twitch Streamer: $1800/year, paid by month. LOL:rofl: Very very fun!

oskardevelopment 2017-12-06 18:23

Was there a better income than being a programmer? Was a bit hurting to get two events at start at +10,000 debt each. Would've loved a speed button to make it go faster, as at this speed I think it'd take a few hours to win. The education debt of 40,000 was soul crushing.

number6406 2017-12-06 18:52

Really nice gameplay, I love the graphics ! Nice job on this game :)

krassenstein 2017-12-06 21:10

@oskardevelopment Currently, there's an Actor as well for higher pay but on a 30 day pay cycle. All of the events are completely random too. A speed button may make its way in in future updates. We're planning on taking this further into a full project. Thanks for the feedback!

dawik9000 2017-12-06 21:19

I think there should be an active way of getting more money, not just wait for pay evey month/week. Apart from that, good game, congratz!

krassenstein 2017-12-06 21:39

@dawik9000 We're planning on adding a multitude of ways to make money, just as you would in real life. Thanks for the feedback! Can't wait to play your game on stream!

gistnoesis 2017-12-06 22:33

My banker is rich :) But I've plenty of useless things to play with :)

pedro-miranda 2017-12-07 11:41

Hey, tried to play the game but for some reason the newspaper and the "buy stuff" HUD appears offscreen (far right) :( life and debt.png

potti 2017-12-07 14:25

I am playing on a 16:10 monitor, the gui is cut off at the right.

This seems very down to earth, i find that neat. Solid Game.

grentacular 2017-12-07 14:40

I tried to plan to win, but the random events put a stop to that pretty quickly, so I then tried to lose, but that was slow, so I filled my house with canned soda and that was satisfying. Nice work.

machrom 2017-12-07 15:19

Fun at first, but then the wait kills it a bit. Also I had the problem that half of the UI on the right was offscreen(so maybe that killed it for me actually). There are some really funny events(and jobs) though!

Good job(would love to play it again when the offscreen UI gets solved)! :)

krassenstein 2017-12-07 18:28

@machrom @potti @pedro-miranda I currently locked the game to 1920x1080, im working on a fix for the anchors for the UI now so that this issue gets resolved for screens with lower resolution. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! <3

kerneltt 2017-12-07 18:56

nice game, felt it a little too slow

jean 2017-12-07 21:31

This is so hard xD

Nice game, good job!

jynspielt 2017-12-08 01:36

Solid submission! Great Humor, solid graphics. Thanks for making this.

brainoid 2017-12-08 11:11

I enjoyed this one a lot even though I was able to break the game and having $328948324, it was stressful to see how my debts got worse and worse. In the end, I had the house of my dreams. Thank you for the game man!

soldierbear 2017-12-09 16:09

I enjyoed the game but the RNG can be brutal which makes the game feel very slow.

randomhuman 2017-12-09 21:52

There's some good jokes in here, but also quite a bit of waiting around to get to them. But of course, this creates impatience which encourages you to buy things on credit, and that sort of plays well with the moral of the story doesn't it? I wished there was some way to identify the things I had already bought after the fact.

honest-dan 2017-12-09 22:42

I enjoyed watching Brainoid play this very much. Really impressed with your game Krass, its a good mix of humour and on point with the theme. The happy theme from the character animation and choice of music really went well together. Original and fun idea, and filling your house with items is satisfying in the way you implemented it!

kiyunn 2017-12-10 00:45

Nice game! Would love to have had a button where I could quickly pay off the item I financed though after gaining enough to pay the whole thing off, rather than continuing to pay a bit of it every month. But I enjoyed this very much, it fits the theme well!

aeveis 2017-12-11 06:54

very nice! It's sort of like an idler depending on how much stuff you want and fast you want it. Though if that wasn't your intention would have been nice to speed time up or so. It'll take me a while to beat it (I alt tabbed it just to keep things going), but the writing is funny. I was able to get a pretty good paying job (actor at 95k) and I'm just waiting it out. The random debt events are happening a lot though so I'm not sure if I'll make it. I like how extra items you buy just fall in the background and stack on each other (so many cabinets...). Good job!

Update: It was taking me too long and debt kept building up, so I gave up.

jenninexus 2017-12-12 07:15

Loved playing a relatable life / $ management game made by a talented husband & wife duo! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/208865266

derr 2017-12-13 19:44

Hi Krass (ollie_r here), nice game! I'm not sure I would call it enjoyable, more like... relateable. x3 I could really feel it, great take on the theme!

profan 2017-12-17 20:50

Good lord, how many variations of cabinets can one person accrue?... It turns out as a shopaholic, the boundaries are nearly nil! Must have all the cabinets money can buy!

The Twitch streamer pay take was a nice touch! Too relateable.. Great work overall! :)

hiyek 2017-12-28 13:57

**For starters:**

The title screen and music were great, I watched the furniture fall for a good five minutes thinking the effect was pretty trippy (also could be that cookie I ate a little bit ago..)

**Teensy little gripe:**

One minor visual bug was that there were black lines on the wall when changing walking direction

**Stuff I would add for polish:** *(based off the 0.0.1 version)*

- Would've been nice to maybe have a tooltip that tells you what each piece of furniture is when you hover over it (especially since there are many identical cabinets with different names) - A way to sell back anything you don't want would be great - Paying off a bill all at once (even though it doesn't matter with all the life event RNG. NEVER FINANCE ANYTHING heh) - Maybe an option to mute music (since I was hoping to run an experiment by just afk'ing a new playthrough for a bit while I played some other LD submissions :P)

**The Meat:**

I think you guys did a fantastic job on this game! The pixel art is well done (even potato blob man's animations are decent!) and I found myself thoroughly enjoying the tune that loops in the background; I know it by heart after my lengthy playthrough!

I just kept pacing my slowly-growing abode, waiting for each paycheck from my mysterious benefactors and resisting the urge to beat the crap outta the little shit who keeps using my card for in-app purchases!! I found a lot of humor in the little life events *(who knew NOT going to school puts you in debt, I thought it was the other way around!)* :B

As I fought an uphill battle against the RNG Gods and fell deeper into debt, I began to appreciate the things I had already purchased. This appreciation began to run deeper than my longing for a completely furnished apartment, and it was in this moment that the game's message truly shined (I guess that lava lamp and soda can will hang there, floating forever)!

unwinnable.png unwinnable2.png

Two in a row followed by the lack of education $40k debt... I'm calling it. Time to rack up -$1m.

debtcity.png

Overall, such a wonderfully fresh take on the theme! Plus this game teaches some valuable life lessons (e.g. "the value of a dollar"), which you don't see too often in games!

Some things to take away from this joyfully grueling experience: Don't finance things you can't afford in the short term!! ** ALWAYS LIVE BELOW YOUR MEANS ** by only buying the things you truly need and can afford up-front; if you truly desire a *want* badly enough, then you must be patient as you work towards that goal!

FYI If I ever have kids, I'm 100% going to make them play this when it comes time to teach about fiscal responsibility lmao

Sorry for the slapdash review, I just got internet installed tonight after completing my cross-country move and I'm trying to get through as many games as possible before the window closes!

krassenstein 2018-03-26 02:53

Just wanted to update everyone here but Life and Debt has released on Steam and has so many more features / additions / upgrades.

Check it out here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/799840