FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD42 → Comfort Zone

Comfort Zone

By radow, Fuchsi, Ente, png, Artemisia and cheetahcat

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4373.5357
Fun5893.2357
Innovation2203.6057
Theme3303.8057
Graphics8663.0156
Audio4913.0755
Humor4242.9153
Mood1923.6357

Comments

spoopsmcgee 2018-08-14 01:38

This gives such a good picture of what it's like to be socially anxious at parties or even to just value your personal space when pushing through crowds. I like that you can push people a little bit and that there's different achievements. Overall really fun.

burgee 2018-08-14 01:42

High marks for theme and for overall here, what a great commentary on how people can be ignorant of those around them.

Having gone through some personal stuff in the past few years, I've realized how common it is for people to say some really stupid things without thinking about it

HI-5, great work!

314owen 2018-08-14 01:43

Fun little game, Great job!

egawag 2018-08-14 01:44

Really interesting game. It was cool to have multiple endings and different story paths especially in a ludum dare game! Nicely done.

g4mr 2018-08-14 01:46

Game requires you to play full screen 1920x1080 (no problem, you added proper borderless windowed :D) - without it the game doesn't scale in windowed mode.

Now that i've got one of the endings, this is really well done holy shit. A new take on the game mode so far. Great job.

ente 2018-08-14 01:56

@spoopsmcgee Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment! We really tried to convey that kind of atmosphere and still make it a fun experience and one that doesn't only have "bad endings".

ente 2018-08-14 01:58

@burgee Thank you! I hope you are in a better place now or are on the road towards it! :) It was really personal to do that kind of commentary for all of us as well, so I get you.

ente 2018-08-14 02:03

@314owen thank you! =)

@egawag thanks! yeah, we focused a lot on the story. we actually still have a little bit of dialogue which we couldn't implement yet and want to put in a post jam version! ;) It all just got too much to do in the end...

@g4mr Thanks for the comment about the window. We might look into it in the post jam version, but I don't really know, as this is not my field. ;) And aww, thank's for the nice comment on the game mode!

stellaryyan2 2018-08-14 02:18

Great story game!The audio really make me social anxious.😅

joshua-w 2018-08-14 02:22

I really enjoyed using grey people as shields to push my way through hordes of stress people. What I'm really curious about is how you managed/planned the background voices. If I remember correctly, you recorded them yourself? Did you just write down a whole bunch of random expressions and sayings and then speak them?

garris 2018-08-14 03:37

Awesome work. Thank you for all the little details in here to portray anxiety. I'm not sure if this was intentional or just a trick of the ear, but when you're coming down from high stress, as the sound comes back, all the voices sound extra loud at first. If that was an intentional detail, bravo. If not, please don't fix it haha.

Game played great and the atmosphere it creates in presentation is very accurate for an anxiety inducing situation. Even better though I think was using the theme as meaning running out of personal space. Fitting and very effective.

radow 2018-08-14 10:11

@joshua-w What a great strategy! That this would be possible never actually occurred to me while creating the game, but I love it! The voices were gibberish-conversations we just made up (no writing down - to read and properly pronounce that kind of words would actually be much harder). There were 5 2-person gibberish conversations that get layered over each other and that actually do have some kind of flow (1 person might say something that ends high, as in a question and then one person answers something that sounds like a statement) and then there are 4 actual minute long conversations in English "hidden" in the party (but depending on your sound setup they might be hard to understand).

@garris This is a result of the way we implemented the audio-fading-effect. Before fading out the music and conversations get a low-pass filter before fading out, while the heartbeat fades in. When stresslevels sink the reverse happens. We are really happy with the effect and especially with the way sinking stress feels, but sadly this is the reason why there is no web build right now, as webGL does not support audioeffects such as low-pass filters. We might try and "fake" a similar effect without the filter in order to provide a web build later, but we do want to preserve the experience and will have to do some testing.

@g4mr That is correct. Other 16:9 rations should work as well, but we just haven't found the time to test for other ratios and build workarounds or find solutions that work for all.

@everyone Thank you all for playing the game.I'm glad so many people felt it was fitting portrayal of anxiety. We really wanted to make this game, but were a bit concerned that we might not be able to do the topic justice in a 72h game.<3

dunin 2018-08-14 11:04

Simple and interesting game. the main feeling is well rendered and I kind of recognized myself when I saw the achievement list...

artemisia 2018-08-14 11:12

Hi @dunin I am really happy that you liked it! :)

We will try your game soon too! ^^

avavt 2018-08-14 11:41

Hey there, I'm the guy who made a post about making 2-players game :)

I find the game quite fun. Achievements as a guide for sandbox-y game is something I wanted to try for a while and haven't got the chance. And it's used well here.

This game touches me personally because I'm a party hater. The experience of avoiding people in the mist of loud techno sounds while looking for friends is something I can totally relate to.

For the game itself, what I like: - Ambience/background sound. It adds a lot of depth to the atmosphere. - Interesting "development"/"unfolding" of the story and gameplay, and also how well they go together. The whole experience in general is very good.

What I don't like: - Inconsistent art style. It's better to have consistent bad art than mixed arts. - The techno song. Oh but maybe it's intended to be unlikable. - The single door that connect 2 large area that always get jammed. I think it's cheap/uncreative. - The time speed. Waiting till 23h takes forever, and the number of people increasing is also too slow. Maybe it could be hastened a tiny bit?

radow 2018-08-14 11:57

Hey @avavt thank you for the feedback. Do you mean the door leading from the hall to the left part of the flat? The movement of most people is somewhat random, but the first crowd of people that comes to the party around 20:26 initially goes to the left. That might lead to the experience you described. We didn't have as much time for balancing the timetable as we wanted to and then focused on balancing the stress levels.

fuchsi 2018-08-14 12:27

@g4mr thanks for pointing out the issue. The content warning screen was a last minute addition and didn't have the proper scaling settings. It should be fixed now @radow.

ente 2018-08-14 19:17

Hey @avavt could you tell me, which part of the art style didn't fit together in your opinion? That would be really nice. We worked as a team of two people and do have different art styles but I think we could try making it work better next time. Though you could also mean things one person did which are on different layers and do have a different style as well, so I would be curious to know which it is. ;)

avavt 2018-08-14 19:33

@radow yes, that door. I don't know the specific reason, but once it get jammed, it will never un-jam.

@ente I mean the game itself use hand-draw images, but the glass icon is pixel art, and the dialog/buttons are using unity's default panel.

c0nst4ntin 2018-08-14 20:10

Very nice and detailed Game. I think the Graphics were nice and the multiple endings were amazing. Well thought through. Overall nice Game!

windfury 2018-08-15 00:58

Dude really good work, i liked your ideas e the art style is really nice given the time you guys had. i just love it!! please rate mine game if you can. Keep up the good work!!

awix 2018-08-15 05:44

A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good. Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)

megalink 2018-08-15 09:33

This game is brilliant! Great on job on communicating emotion and theme through the gameplay. Captures the feeling of social anxiety perfectly. I especially like how the light around you "pulses" like a heart when you are very stressed. Awesome job!

krystekku 2018-08-15 13:52

At some point in the game when a screen was pulsing and heart beat I started to feel the discomfort of the protagonist. Good work :)

zephyrextreme 2018-08-15 16:40

Really interesting game. Specifically that visuals, when your heartbeat would increase. Good Stuff!

2lol555 2018-08-15 18:14

Cool game, nice concept. Really loved the idea that it is not physical space only discomfort around people.

Great job!

iballs 2018-08-15 18:15

nice work

enric 2018-08-15 18:22

This game is amazing. I really liked the approach on the theme it is really imaginative. Awesome game guys!!

leetchi 2018-08-15 20:49

really enjoyed this game man! one of my favorite at the moment! nice concept, perfectl in the theme and in the actual society mood ! well done for this one ! keep it on !

togimaro 2018-08-15 21:52

Awesome interpretation of the theme! I really enjoy the interractions, it's very relatable x) I have done all 4 endings! (But only 2 achievements :/)

Nice work! :D

tj101010 2018-08-16 01:58

I loved the audio, including the voices as you approached crowds and the effect when people got into your personal space. Great job!

chaotikza 2018-08-16 09:24

Very nicely done! Captured the feeling of anxiety at a party perfectly.

Only issues I had were that I couldn't figure out the surprise and that letting the cat out of the house was broken (got an achievement, but the cat didn't leave and the dialog didn't go away unless I chose the other option).

rend 2018-08-16 11:18

Cool achievements system, that's a huge amount of work for such short time. And for a game with a message, it's well conveyed and everything makes the player feels the social anxiety, that's really well done.

cheetahcat 2018-08-16 11:35

@chaotikza Thanks for your feedback.

Yeah, we are aware of the bug with letting the cat out of the flat. Due to the time limit, we didn't get around to fix it for the jam version. The cat was supposed to disappear, too, after you let it out.

Also, we created a lot more dialogue content and dialogue options with various NPCs for the game that we didn't get around to implement. So, if ppl like the game and we feel like working on it a bit more, it will become more complex and well-rounded. ;)

el-metallico 2018-08-16 17:40

Pretty solid entry, man, i like it, great job!

rayne 2018-08-17 07:19

I really liked the drawings in the buttons! I think it's a little detail that often goes unnoticed

zicboy 2018-08-18 08:30

Awesome game! I enjoy the art and mood of it. Keep up the good work!

halomegames 2018-08-18 09:00

Great job! Makes me thinking what kind of color i am in the society. For someone i may be red, for the others white but for beloved ones the yellow. Really good!

rahim-pxr 2018-08-27 17:19

Nice game, Love how everything is balanced! Good luck, Don't forget to take a look at ours if you don't mind and see what it's like when we just focused on graphics in this game jam! Game Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42a

ursagames 2018-08-30 15:46

Great entry! It was cool to see some similar concepts as my own entry. I couldn't bring myself to free the animals though. Thanks for sharing your game with my stream awhile back. Your game was played around 1:33 into this vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/297885983