FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD43 → Path of the Programmer

Path of the Programmer

By themadprogramer

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4982.3121
Fun4992.0721
Innovation4072.7121
Theme4692.5021
Graphics4252.5721
Audio3012.7821
Humor3302.3320
Mood4262.5221

Comments

darylsteak 2018-12-03 04:15

Untitled.png

Pls fix, this looks like it has potential.

Might wanna reply to me if you fix it

themadprogramer 2018-12-03 04:17

@darylsteak that's a windows right?

darylsteak 2018-12-03 04:29

@themadprogramer mhm, srry for getting back to you so late.

anfaas1618 2018-12-03 06:30

nice graphics tho 4/5 nice game ,rate my game too its my first jam

mightymaster99 2018-12-03 20:43

Unplayable. Same error as Daryl.

themadprogramer 2018-12-04 13:45

@darylsteak @mightymaster99 how about now?

darylsteak 2018-12-04 14:23

@themadprogramer Same error :/

themadprogramer 2018-12-04 20:35

@darylsteak @mightymaster99 okay so sorry I accidentally re-added the broken file.

The issue with RPG Maker games is that you can export "lite" packages for people who have necessary files installed or "full" packages that take about 200 MB's. This was the first time I actually tried exporting a game "directly" (there's a first for everything I guess :P) so it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Since for me, someone who does have the necessary files the "lite" download works just fine.

I'm keeping both available for download and would advice you to at least for the judgement duration download a file I specified in the downloads section if you'll be reviewing any more RPG Maker games XD.

Thanks a lot for immediately bringing this to my attention and sorry I was unable to respond any sooner.

hamrathdoesldjam 2018-12-04 21:24

Oh, I did a similar game for #LD42. But it was for Commodore 64, an old home computer from the 80s. Good job (no, really!)!

themadprogramer 2018-12-04 22:31

@hamrathdoesldjam I had a lot more ideas but I dared attempt this on a weekend I really shouldn't have! Originally the name was going to be "The Road to College" and programming was meant to be a possible path the player could take. So instead of just School level and Programming level you'd have all sorts of attributes like for music, arts etc.

I wanted to make a more psychological game, where your choices impacted the main character's mindset and after a certain point you would lose control as he'd start to procrastinate or breakdown or conversely if he was in a good mood would be "likely better" at certain actions. But eventually I scrapped all that and settled for something that I could finish, even if it meant *sacrificing* a lot of the real idea I had.

Perhaps I might make a complete game in that light some day in the future. Thanks anyway :smile:

matank 2018-12-04 23:39

Nice idea, congratulations on completing the game! Would be nice to have a few more options, but as you said it's hard to make things too complicated in the limited time of the jam. But maybe you can work on improving it in a post jam version? (maybe if you find something else to sacrifice to get the time for it :) )

shieldgenerator7 2018-12-05 06:00

pretty good game! sacrificing gold was a meaningful decision and the mechancis were really cool. i think my favorite part was at the end of the first level when half my screen was covered in coins and my bag was really big. really made you feel like you were encumbered by all the gold you were carrying; that effect was weigh more effective than just having a number counter or saying "encumbered" on the screen like in Skyrim XD

didnt complete it because the mobs got too hard for me, but the bit i did play was engaging and fun!

EDIT: Sorry I posted on the wrong game

shieldgenerator7 2018-12-05 06:20

it looks like you didnt put much time into this. it was boring and uninteresting. the sound and character graphics were ok. i didnt finish the game.

Heres a few critiques I have: 1. Going through the menus was absolutely the worst. It would have been better if you had custom menu options here instead. I think RPG Maker may have been a hindrance in this regard. 2. There needed to be a way to tell what your focuses currently were. I had to default to setting focuses every month because I forgot what they were set to. 3. It wasn't clear which month the exams were going to be in. If the calendar said "December: Exams", it wasn't clear if that was going to happen before or after I chose focuses for December 4. Even if 1 through 3 were resolved, the game's concept is still uninteresting. Playing as a student trying to balance programming with school work is interesting and can be done in an interesting way, but your implementation of it was just terrible

I hope you get more time to do a proper game next time around.

themadprogramer 2018-12-05 09:37

@shieldgenerator7 yeah the calendar is a bit of a "wish I had 10 more minutes to fix that" kind of thing. PL was originally meant to be a Programmer's League where you would compete with other programmers but without consequences like game overs. The issue now though is it's a bit hard to tell what is what even though the calendar clearly specifies exam months.

and yes I agree, I really handled this in a bad way. You could literally replace school with "work" and programming with "fun" and it'd still be the same game. There wasn't any story besides multiple endings (which let's be real probably no one is going to play through 4 years to get to unless they were curious in advance, perhaps I should add that to the description for *some* encouragement).

Thanks for your comments :)

derlassehenrich 2018-12-05 19:21

Cool man! That game really represents my life :D

cute-dog-irl 2018-12-05 21:23

Hmm, interesting concept, but there isn't really much too this game I feel. It wasn't very clear how much schoolwork you needed to do to pass exams so I never had any idea how I was doing. The calendar was very hard to read because of how it's in the background behind the menu's. I think it might be nice to have some more options or more things to worry about than just exams and the final programming score.

vernon 2018-12-06 00:05

First thing here, tiny resolution on my 4k monitor and the inability to change that almost made me not play it :(

After that I think it is a fun idea, but the game isn't very "fun" yet. I agree with other posters that I would have liked to see how I was doing on the exams, would have been great to see a grade or something so I knew if I was getting close to failing or if I was okay. I kind of expected the background to change along with my progress too, but maybe you just didn't get to that yet.

All that said I think you have a good concept here, just make it into more :)

2021-08-19 10:03

The game is fun to play, especially given it resembles so much my true life story. When I was a teen I was dreaming about becoming a programmer so sacrificed much time to make my dream come true, however back then I didn't know that all the subjects were of the same importance and constantly failed the midterms and finals after having entered the college, so to pay someone to do my programming assignment using https://assignmentcore.com was an obvious step to be taken given all the circumstances. Three years later I've finally learned to code, while this game serves as a reminder of the past.

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