Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD41 → Speed Phoning
By timbeaudet
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 780 | 3.27 | 31 | |
| Fun | 1044 | 2.70 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 534 | 3.41 | 31 | |
| Theme | 153 | 4.15 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 958 | 2.72 | 31 | |
| Audio | 746 | 2.15 | 31 | |
| Humor | 754 | 2.58 | 30 | |
| Mood | 1076 | 2.46 | 28 |
Holy balls, I didn't think it was gonna be that much fun. It took me some time to realize why my puzzle was shuffled all the time. After I managed to understand the logic of the game, I realized I could drive along the track without even really looking at it (now does that mean, I have the ability to drive while using my phone? :p). Guess it's a different kind of story if there was incoming traffic on the other lane however :)
It took me about 5 minutes to finish. I have forgot how to solve puzzles like that and the distraction was huge. One thing that was missing were some obstacles, like people. Not necessarily interrupting the car, but just getting hit and yelling something. That would add a lot of distraction.
It's a very nice game. I had a lot of fun. Cheers!
You definitely included instructions in the game description. And the controls. And I definitely should have read them. I didn't. But figuring out what the hell was going on and trying to solve a sliding block puzzle in the 5 seconds I had without moving the car. While hearing your beautiful and ever-deeper voice telling me to SPEED UP. SPEED UP. SPEED UP. SPEED UP. was definitely an experience.
After that the game was surprisingly easy, but maybe I just like sliding block puzzles too much.
Nice work and stuff.
Wow, that was crazy...a good example of what can happen with distracted driving! Fun.
I had a really hard time at first, but once I got the idea what was expected of me, I was able to complete it. It was actually a pretty intense experience. This was one of the genre combinations I was considering, but I never considered a real-time implementation - I just didn't think it would be reasonable. This not only has real-time racing, mixed with puzzle solving in a way that really highlights how incompatible they should be as genres, but ties them together with similar sensible mechanics on both ends.
The graphics are good, and functional, if a bit barren looking. I liked the perspective choice. The racing car look, however, while appropriate for a racing game, does seem to contradict the mood of the rest of the game. Namely the common issue that using a cell phone while driving represents, which is re-enforced by the target speed is given as 30mph. It would have been more in line with the mood to have some beeping sound effects rather than an admonishment to drive faster, and ideally a more urban looking setting would have worked better than a race track if you had time.
The sound is missing an awful lot. No music, limited sound effects, and very rough ones at that. Despite the dash of humor they possess, their flat delivery makes them fall flat at doing either.
Once you realize what's going on, the gameplay is incredible. Don't think I've played such a stress inducing game without having jump scares involved somehow. What I found particularly amazing was that even though all you need to do while driving to keep going is move one square randomly back and forth; because of the way the controls work, I still found myself messing up and veering off the road when all I was trying to do at that moment was just keep driving for a second =P.
I see it's on purpose that you have to use the same hand for both... I hate it! That's probably also on purpose, to some extent.
It was indeed on purpose to keep the controls for both things. And it is indeed a punishing game until one figures a few things out. @GameCarpenter Thanks for the thoughtful comment, good points about it being better suited for city driving, this was a thought later on. Sounds definitely lacking, as is a good pass of polish.
Was able to finish it around 5 mins also, great job and take on the theme. gotta say the sound was distracting and hard to concentrate (i did mute to be able to finish)
Other things I though of @GameCarpenter mention them already so I don't know if I can add much about it
Winning Speed Phoning.gif
Pretty interesting concept, I got too distracted by the puzzle sometimes and lost my progress (I know it's intended, but still scary). The presentation is functional, but a bit empty, some trees would go a long way. Otherwise the gameplay is solid and more intense that it looks.
Nice job.
web build is broken for me (macos 10.13, firefox 60.0b14 / chrome 66.0.3359.117) - on chrome all the models are pure green, and on firefox nothing 3D is visible at all
Interesting concept, but I found the "speed up" voice over and the auto braking to be rather frustrating. I think instead of auto braking, having obstacles on the course would have been more interesting, and isntead of being badgered, require you to be going 30mph+ to be able to move the puzzle blocks.
I did want to have things to dodge. The 30mph to be able to move is an interesting flip that would definitely been less rage-quit inducing than "Speed Up". I also did play that audio far too quickly. Something I didn't notice while driving the kart during development.
It's a nice little puzzle game, I had fun playing it ! The racing part could have been a bit more developped but overall that's a fun game.
I am from europe. Seems that your server is in the us. I takes forever to download the game unfortunately. After 5 min. I get a timeout.
Haha, this is my kind of game! Playing two games at once! Not to mention, you decided to do a sliding puzzle, just like my entry!
It took me a while to figure out what the heck was going on... I actually beat the game without moving the car at all. Then I decided to try moving around, and soon figured out how both systems work in tandem with each other. Pretty cool! Still, after struggling with driving and solving at the same time, I opted to park the car and finish it that way. Just had to wait for the right shuffle RNG, and slot the pieces in quickly. So yeah, kind of abusable~
Overall, this was a really neat idea! Just needs a little more polish, but the idea is solid. Well done!
I really like the design, reminds me some old C64 games. :)
I am awful at those slidey puzzle things, so this was harder for me than the average person. Probably.
For the sound design, I'd only say "Speed up!" once when the speed has dropped too low. That way, it's not constantly repeating. But I love that sound effect, so toss me the wav and I'll make the dance remix!
Would be nice if the car couldn't keep going endlessly in the grass. Ended up far out in limbo without any way to get back.
Love the idea of having to do a phone game while driving, though. And it's a working compo game! So good work on that. :)
OMG it is really so damn difficult yet fun at the same time!! Damn awesome concept!!
Btw if you wanna try our my game its here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/memebumps It is a horror + comedy game
Quite an interesting concept, I feel this game actually provides a pretty good insight into using your phone while driving, and how dangerous it is. The starting puzzle with the top 3 pieces in place was reasonable and fun to complete, but the completely shuffled puzzle felt too hard. Well made!
This was so stressful to manage both things, but I managed to win in the end. Gameplay was very smooth, so kudos to whatever engine you used. Unique idea.
Very fun, also very challenging, there where definitely times where I got overly distracted by either the puzzle or the driving. Might be nice for some different puzzles or maybe some obstacles you have to avoid while driving.
I watched you on stream during the development of this game, so naturally I don't get to experience the initial confusion of trying to figure out what to do. Regardless, even knowing what to do, the game starts off with a very loud _SPEED UP_ as if you've already done something wrong. Maybe giving the car some initial velocity would work around this and give some better indication as to what's up.
I'm not very good at sliding puzzles but managed to do it after a while. I didn't have any problem doing both the puzzle and driving at the same time, as you can constantly hold the up arrow, and then quickly tap space and any other arrow key to move a piece -- for moving a piece upwards, just release the up arrow and hit it again.
While playtesting during the stream, the puzzle controls were inverted, as in you were moving the hole around instead of moving pieces into it, which was very disorienting -- I'm glad you changed this to the more intuitive behaviour!
Very impressed this was all done in C++ with your own hand-crafted game engine!
Thanks everyone for trying and leaving the comments. @tsjost indeed this is not my best LD entry, and not starting off in such a negative "Speed Up" state would have been much better. As an experience is concerned, letting the player drive a bit before using the phone, and then letting them solve one puzzle without requiring speed, might have been better than auto shuffling.
I wanted to spend more time on the 3D portion, but the weekend didn't go smoothly for me. Mentally I could tell I was much more frustrated than normal. I practically rage-quit Blender. I had to take long breaks and thus the project wound up suffering a bit- still reasonable for a first attempt at 3D.
https://www.screencast.com/t/C5N1SLVN69c I got this. This was neat, in the sense that you are trying to do two things at once. You struck a proper balance between the speed and the puzzle. This is a very solid representation of what you were going for. Nailed the theme. This was misery trying to get just right. We solved it! We got it! We are something ah hahahaha. :D