FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD41 → Boxing Surgery Simulator 2000

Boxing Surgery Simulator 2000

By ponywolf, james-war-Lloyd and mutatedsoftware

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1753.8970
Fun1833.8171
Innovation2563.7171
Theme3553.8971
Graphics604.4571
Audio2143.6871
Humor734.0071
Mood2023.7669

Comments

recursor 2018-04-23 23:31

Wow. Excellent artwork and sounds. This is quite polished, and I played it for quite some time. I will say that I had difficulty figuring out what exactly I had to do to help the boxers. I ended up killing most of them, but had fun the whole time.

coatline 2018-04-23 23:31

Cool! Very tough as well. Interesting how you used the theme. The graphics are great!

chormacorple27 2018-04-23 23:32

I really like this game! It is fun and and I really like the graphics. I love the overall style of the game. My only problem is that it's a little too hard, but otherwise, I really enjoyed this game!

2018-04-24 01:26

So much fun! Love figuring out what to do. Amazing.

ponywolf 2018-04-24 01:48

Thanks @recursor @Chormacorple27, @shchvova @coatline ... We just pushed a build that fixed an issue with the other boxers starting too tough--was playing differently in the browser than our desktops. Should be a bit easier now, but not too much :)

We've got 15 mins to get the balance right :scream:

lerg 2018-04-24 11:35

Heh, some gory content inside. I wish he didn't die so quickly from wrong treatment.

ponywolf 2018-04-24 15:07

@Lerg We were looking to have people fail fast and get a new boxer. In the grand scheme we were going to have the boxer's look change randomly... Thin/Thick, Skin color, placement of wounds, etc. but we ran out of time :smile:

ponywolf 2018-04-24 15:28

Put together a few GIFs and thoughts in this mini-post mortem...

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/boxing-surgery-simulator-2000/$93280

pixel-77 2018-04-24 15:41

Good Fun once you know what to do and how, could do with a bit more of a tutorial though.

rongo-matane 2018-04-24 15:48

Wow, this is hilarious! The art and polish are really fantastic. The only issue i have is that it is difficult to learn, as i have no idea what to do. For the surgical part, i can figure out what to use where, though i'm note sure if i need to use it multiple times, or until it goes away or only once. For the fighting part, i don't know how to figure things out because i cannot watch the guys and bubbles at the same time. I just noticed there are scores in the second round, because it was overlayed by bubbles so often. But please do not get the wrong impression, i find this game to be next level, really great work.

ponywolf 2018-04-24 15:55

@Rongo Matane No wrong impression here, thanks for the feedback. We wanted people to experiment to figure out what tools do what and fail fast/restart to play a perfect game. The boxing section score isn't really used, its more about finding positive word bubbles and keeping your boxer alive for 15 rounds.

@Pixel-77 We struggled about adding some sort of tutorial, but for a short game like this, we thought teaching you how to play would just turn it into a clicker. We hoped that unlocking what the tools and word balloons do is half the fun.

alxander 2018-04-24 16:11

The art is outstanding and the overall feeling of the game is nice (the sound design adds to that). I didn't mind experimenting with the tools in surgery mode. I like that you can quickly get right back at it if you lose. Good game

culin 2018-04-24 16:21

Very cool combination of themes!

agar3s 2018-04-24 17:03

This is one of the best games I've played in this jam :D :boxing_glove: great art work

yirggzmb 2018-04-25 01:01

Had a lot of fun with this! Very much enjoying figuring out what all the tools do, and I'm still not sure on some of them. lol Well done!

adhesion 2018-04-25 03:34

Great concept & presentation but honestly I found the gameplay to be fairly baffling. It was really hard to tell which phrases made a difference during the fight (I saw the different icons but couldn't really tell which ones were good and if they were having an effect), and it was tough to figure out which tools fixed which ailments in the surgery phase. (think I only figured out bandaid & stitches) Failing the surgery bit was so punishing and there was so little time to do it that it was really hard to figure things out. If not a tutorial, then some clearer feedback & slowing things down a bit would help a lot I think. Would love to see this with some tweaks. Nice work!

joe-zabriskie 2018-04-25 04:02

Nice work! Game looks and feels really good. Super crunchy.

Still don't know if I can help my boxer fight. Didn't seem to make a difference a lot of the time.

Super fun and easy to get into!

neverautomatic 2018-04-25 06:58

I really liked the art style, and all the tiny details and effects. I'm impressed that this was all done in one weekend! Great job!

arzi 2018-04-25 13:41

Great art and the game feel polished, but I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing in the surgeon part, which very much killed the fun for me. I understand that the feeling of chaos is what the surgeon genre is all about, but now the lack of instruction just made it frustrating.

ponywolf 2018-04-25 15:15

@arzi @adhesion Thanks for the feedback! We really struggled with how much to explain. I think I had a version where only the tools you could use were highlighted, but that just turned it into click on the highlighted tool and then click on the wound, and it didn't feel like you were "discovering" anything. That's the deal with the LD Jam though, there's no time to put it in front of players and see what they like/dislike. (We barely finished :scream_cat:)

We'll do Desktop and Mobile builds shortly, and maybe we'll give more feedback and reduce the "pain" for using the wrong tool. No promises :wink:

arzi 2018-04-25 15:42

@ponywolf Yeah, gauging how much to explain is always hard and in Ludum Dare where you have very limited time for iteration and testing even doubly so. Good work anyway :)

ponywolf 2018-04-26 02:48

Hi all! We posted a post-jam desktop build of the game that address some of the feedback... The HTML version is still the LDJam version with no changes--cause after all, it's a jam, but if you have a PC, there's a version for you that may be a little better balanced.

groggi 2018-04-26 10:16

Really nice grafics!! Took me a while to understand that I didnt control the Boxers directly. And I still don't know, which one was mine... :D But I quite enjoyed this nontheless, killed a bunch of boxers though.

memel06 2018-04-26 15:49

This is one of the best LD41 entry I played! I had loads of fun being a surgeon to that badly smashed face. And I actually managed to glue his eye (screen attached) ahahaha, awesome idea and implementation, and really theme-fitted.

This remembers me the good old flash games when I was 14.

Thanks for your work! kkkk.png

those-30-ninjas 2018-04-26 15:49

I really love the combination of themes. The style of all the art was great. One of the best games I've played from this jam so far. Great job!

noxbuds 2018-04-26 15:57

Well that was certainly... unique. Funny quotes, great art, and some great audio.

ponywolf 2018-04-26 16:03

Mac post-jam version should now be live... :boxing_glove: :tools: :apple:

animaster 2018-04-26 16:04

Great design. But can't understand how to fight, after 8 round i always die. Still don't know is there a penalty for pop the wrong encouragement

kichex 2018-04-26 16:14

Great job! maybe having a bit of a tutorial would make it clearer

polegar 2018-04-26 16:15

Awesome ! The feeling while playing is great thanks to the audio and the graphics and it's a really original idea.

The only drawback is that it's too hard (even impossible ?) to finish the game. And since it's a really good game I tried a lot of time :)

ponywolf 2018-04-26 16:17

@Animaster @polegar Yeah, the post-jam build addresses some of those concerns, while trying to keep some of the same discovery mechanic. Give that a shot and please feel free to post more feedback! Thanks!

re-markable 2018-04-26 16:34

Everything about this is great! The idea of combining these two genres is very clever on its own, and the way you guys created it works extremely well! Can't think of any reason why I wouldn't give this a 5/5 overall, great job guys!

la-mecanique-du-plastique 2018-04-26 16:40

Good game, I enjoyed it ! The graphics are quite appealing and make, together with the sound design, the game looks pretty polished. I was a little confused by few things : first it wasn't clear to me if I had any influence during the boxing phase with my click (I kept clicking furiously but couldn't identify my boxer or see if that did any difference, maybe I got the control wrong). Also some of the surgeon techniques seamed a little weird to me, but at the same time, that's what makes it funny :). Great job ! This could make a good mobile game with some small UI adjustments.

jamfella 2018-04-26 16:45

This is brilliant entry. Top-notch graphics. I too didn't realize which boxer I was, but hey, that didn't matter as the surgeon part was awesome. Glue rocks. Best one I played so far.

ponywolf 2018-04-26 20:18

@jamfella Thanks! The boxer's shorts are visible in the surgery scene, and whatever color they are matches the color of your boxer... Or you are always the one on the left :smile:

ponywolf 2018-04-26 20:18

Thanks @La mecanique du plastique and @Re-Markable !!!

eduardo-scheffler 2018-04-27 17:05

Very good job guys, great idea! I found the feedback sound very funny. Congratulations!

akeean 2018-04-27 17:09

If only the surgery tools were obtained via lootboxes, EA would 1:1 clone your game or buy out and later close your Studio ;-)

Fun idea & well executed!

adsilcott 2018-04-27 17:42

A very polished and enjoyable game. Looks like the difficulty has been mentioned and fixed post-jam. I played through several times and really enjoyed it!

campbell 2018-04-27 18:03

Amazing game! Just wished I knew what I was doing a little more, but I am thoroughly impressed.

szabe 2018-04-27 18:15

The art looks pretty great, and I like your take on the theme a lot. It's a bit chaotic, I was never sure what I was supposed to do during fights.

benpeterson 2018-04-27 18:20

lol this is so gross but I love it, I tried like six times but I couldn't win; still don't know what the scalpel is for

ithildin 2018-04-27 22:11

It almost looks like a finished game, the amount of polish is amazing :open_mouth:

Besides the execution, the take on the theme is fantastic, with lots of humorous details and a great atmosphere.

This said, while I was able to manage to figure out which item would fix what (and I enjoyed that), in combat I never had a clue on what I was doing exactly.

Congratulations, this is one of the best entries I've played so far!

landosystems 2018-04-28 04:36

What a great entry! This is so polished and cohesive. I'm still not sure if the player can throw punches in the boxing section. I liked how experimentation was needed to figure out how to fix up various injuries. Super impressive, great work!

stark 2018-04-28 07:02

Very fun to play! Bookmarked the page to play more later =)

biobazard 2018-04-28 12:01

One of my favorite games of this jam ! I love the art style ! The unlikely combination is finally working very well ! Good job !

hisfantor 2018-04-28 21:53

that went down pretty quickly

mutatedsoftware 2018-04-30 16:04

Thanks for the plays and comments everyone! There is so much good cheer and good advice in the Ludum Dare community. We're overjoyed just to be part of it :D

tero-laxstrom 2018-04-30 18:46

Well done. Good graphics and sounds. It was clear what this was meant to be. I just didn't follow the game. What should be done. Feedback for the player could be a bit better. Only feedback I really understood was if I did something wrong, but maybe that was on purpose. I can see someone loving this game, just not my kind of thing. Anyways, good job.

deprecat 2018-04-30 22:48

I'm so impressed with how much was done in such a short amount of time!

I would agree with the others, a tutorial for later builds would make a world of difference. The only reason I knew what the razor blade was for was because of Rocky movies and watching boxing with my dad. Otherwise, I would have no idea why I'd have a razor blade in my surgery kit. I had to learn the others by trial and error too.

I also love the surgery part way more than the boxing part. While I see why it's there, I think I'd rather just keep doing the surgery portion and at most see a cutscene of the boxing. It's just not as engaging as what you have with the surgery and it feels like I have to wait to get back to it.

Beautiful game! Really glad I got to play it.

ponywolf 2018-05-01 00:43

Thanks @Deprecat and @Tero-laxstrom for the feedback. We're discussing ways to clue in players on what to do without making it too easy. The boxing is a bit improved in post-jam builds, but it could always be improved.

ratherjolly 2018-05-04 03:23

OH MAN! Talk about Polish. Like... Freaking Sterling. That Game is pretty much ready to ship! KEEP IT UP! Only thing I would change is adding a count to the float up text. I spent most of the time just clicking without even reading it. Apart from that... Seriously, beautiful game.

cristiano-m-garcia 2018-05-13 12:44

I loved the art and the effects. The gameplay is super fun. Congratulations for the game.

I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.

I hope you continue with the project.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

digitaldude555 2018-05-14 13:52

Great all round game, graphics and animation are good. Sound of the punches were perfect. Surgery section is fun but only when you figure out what to do, needs some hints or tutorial. Same with the word bubble section need some basic instructions. Anyway best I could do was make it to round 8 tried a few times.

2018-05-15 17:02

Nice graphics, fun game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 41 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k82mDaf7ze8