FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD43 → There Will Come Soft Rains

There Will Come Soft Rains

By kamekai

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1853.8233
Fun5063.2733
Innovation2703.4833
Theme2003.9533
Graphics5983.3733
Humor7412.3726
Mood344.2132

Comments

pawel-w 2018-12-04 00:47

So much choices to make. I like the scientific approach you took.

denifia 2018-12-04 00:55

Really cool idea :) I enjoyed the music and background rain. Reading through all the choices was fun.

One thing to note is that in my first play through I died after my first choice :(

woofdog99 2018-12-04 00:56

it was good

publicidadeba 2018-12-04 01:08

The mood was right and I think this game makes people think about this issue from a differente perspective. Not my type of game, but I respect your creation a lot. Well done.

dwam 2018-12-04 01:09

I enjoyed this quite a bit. In particular, I liked that the decisions were more complex than the typical "obviously moral good thing vs thing you need to do to keep the meters high enough and not lose". You were always trying to do the right thing, but had to make an actual difficult choice on how to do it.

Well done!

2018-12-04 01:14

I love this game. It's a great way to show the moral grey area of some decisions. You've either done a ton of research or you live and breathe climate politics. Thank you for making this game!

kamekai 2018-12-04 01:19

@denifia you picked China, didn't you ;)

It could use a little more balancing for sure. Thanks for the feedback!

kamekai 2018-12-04 01:23

@dwam I appreciate the feedback.

I did try to keep the propositions from sharing too many similarities while offering interesting choices, and the result was that I only have a baker's dozen of good propositions. Luckily, this being Ludum Dare I figured most people would only play 1-2 rounds and that left me some time to (attempt to) balance the stat changes for each choice. Quality over quantity, after all.

Thank you everyone else as well for your feedback, it means a lot!

denifia 2018-12-04 02:03

@kamekai yup... China :)

gerardb 2018-12-04 02:36

That's surprisingly good! So deep, well thought and well executed. Definately not Bad Software at all ;)

The only "problem" I see is that this game is not for everyone. It may be too dense and with too little graphic feedback for some folk out there.

It also goes with the theme really well!

justcamh 2018-12-04 03:51

I'm not sure what the impacts of the different stats at the bottom were. I didn't know if they needed to be averaged, or if some were favorable. Perhaps more direction? I also don't know what the country choice had to do with the game, as I didn't notice anything specific to my chosen country. Overall, the choices I made felt futile, leading to a linear path. Whilst this is understandable when constrained to a time limit, there could be some diverging paths that make the player feel in control. Overall fun and rather informing!

kamekai 2018-12-04 03:59

@justcamh read the help page, then read each region page. You will notice certain stats are highlighted, insinuating different handling for stats.

egos 2018-12-04 11:46

great idea to use the concept of reign for the theme of sacrifice !!!

in addition your game addresses very current problems But in reality I would not win as easily (I managed the first time in the USA)

kamekai 2018-12-04 12:45

@egos I think in time this genre of gameplay will come to be known as a Reigns-like. Has a nice ring to it.

gebowunjo 2018-12-04 15:34

Nice Reigns-Like game ! Love the ambiance with the cool music ! =D

2018-12-05 14:53

very important game! I included it in my compilation video series of games from the Ludum Dare, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/SIjkcYjuHDo

velvetlobster 2018-12-06 01:24

so profound and sad ... the art is solid and creates a great mood ... music is soft and lovable ... +actual statistics!! wow this is a very good project people!

arvejeitor 2018-12-07 16:31

Great mood!

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-23 07:37

The music was awesome. I like this game so much.

skill347 2018-12-23 10:06

I loved the game, im really sad that you deleted the option to rate audio! I would totally rate 5/5 :smiley:

fmdkdd 2018-12-23 10:34

When I discovered this LD's theme, I thought of making a climate change game where you had to save people from the rising seas (Choplifter-like). We decided against it because we weren't sure the gameplay would be that good, but I would have liked to have made a game raising awareness. I'm glad you went through with this idea.

I liked the geographical context when choosing the region to play with, and that some propositions had external sources. It anchors the game in reality and gives the player something to take away.

Gameplay-wise, I would have liked to have some visibility on the outcome of your choices. If I'm the head of the government, then surely I have *some* information on that. You don't have to give the player all the information; decisions could have a visible "expected outcome" and a hidden "actual outcome". The actual outcome may have a random component, or be affected by previous decisions and/or the current budget/stability etc.

maxkyckling 2018-12-23 11:49

I really liked this game! Gameplay, audio and graphics were on point! (Yes even graphics, even though it's just fonts and stuff, but you really put it all together). It was really fun actually, something that similar games haven't been able to achieve. I'm also really glad that you're raising awareness of climate change! Good job!

geckoo1337 2018-12-23 12:14

Nice game which a real introspection about climatic question - you manage the theme as well as possible. The stormy weather sound is good - maybe too repetitive - too short. I thing that you could uncheck the humor category (no sense), but adding the sound category (you forgot it I guess). Well done. Thank you ++

kamekai 2018-12-23 22:45

@skill347 Unfortunately I got the rain sounds and nature sounds from [FreeSound](https://freesound.org) and thus didn't feel qualified to be rated on Audio, even though the piano track was mine. Still, glad you enjoyed the atmosphere, and hopefully this will compel me to purchase a nice field recorder and start creating my own database of nature sounds.

@fmdkdd I agree about your and others' comments about the outcomes sometimes being too obscure. I had hoped originally to have time to go back and improve a few choices by offering hints in the form of color-coded phrases, and looking back I should have made the time. It's nice to encourage the player to try to play out outcomes in their head with little information, but realistically most players won't have much experience with many aspects of climate change and sociopolitical thought experiments. Outcomes are also entirely predictable with no random element, to encourage multiple playthroughs.

@geckoo1337 the stormy weather track is actually 2 or so minutes long and decently varied but I agree, the piano track loops far too quickly. I should have added a few more phrases to it, I was just in such a hurry that I laid down something fast and moved on. After listening for a while though I wish I'd spent more time on it. As I explained above, I didn't feel qualified to be rated for audio since I didn't produce the rain or nature sounds.

Glad you folks enjoyed it.

sorlok 2018-12-24 00:29

One of the best uses of theme I've seen so far, since one couldn't just always make "good" decisions (it would bankrupt you or people would force you out of power). I managed to save the world once! Great game, really loved it.

frescogusto 2018-12-24 18:26

really like the links to external informations :^) nice one

kamekai 2018-12-24 19:10

@frescogusto Hope you learned something ;)

linus 2018-12-26 16:11

nice.png

Well, looks like America will live a little bit longer.

I really like games that have an important message to tell about the world in an interactive way.

The gameplay is fun because you have to think about not overdoing anything, I was very close to running out of money but managed to save it. I guess that rewards are usually better than punishments.

Great job!

kamekai 2018-12-26 16:27

@linus Rewards can be better than punishments but always leave some room for the unexpected. :)

acaral 2018-12-26 18:03

It sounds terrible, it sounds realistic and it feet the theme. You did also a great job for the atmosphere of your entry. Nice work indeed.

najmm 2018-12-27 14:11

Man it sure is hard to run a country lol... Btw love the UI/UX, you really nailed the look and the ambiance feels good too...