bitingcold 2020-04-21 02:00
Got a bit buggy in the "game over" menu, but still very nice graphics and really fun to play :) chrome_jJpG1jtFJ0.png
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Firestarter
By snowdrama, rot_god and arc1llusion
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1204 | 3.50 | 27 | |
| Fun | 970 | 3.44 | 27 | |
| Innovation | 1275 | 3.26 | 27 | |
| Theme | 2121 | 3.10 | 27 | |
| Graphics | 647 | 4.00 | 27 | |
| Audio | 1430 | 2.70 | 27 | |
| Humor | 730 | 3.28 | 27 | |
| Mood | 1357 | 3.32 | 27 |
Got a bit buggy in the "game over" menu, but still very nice graphics and really fun to play :) chrome_jJpG1jtFJ0.png
"Incentivize them" lol :D
Almost had a heart attack because my volume was high and I didn't know it has sound. Loved the art and was very fun to play tho! :)
Perfect solution to overpopulation problem :) The sound is very loud and cops are not the brightest but I liked the city graphics.
Ran around keeping the population in check for a bit but burning was just too fun so i decided to go overboard. Running from cops and distracting them with fires was fun!
Woah! I died super early but it was really fun!
I am very alarmed with the radical NIBMYism this game promotes (jk). The art in this game is awesome! I love the use of blues and neutrals for the buildings. I think it might benefit from some visual cue for how large the city is. Good job!
@bitingcold - Yeah I'm working on fixing that hahaha It's some leftover code that was supposed to handle the controller for menus.
@alpharock6 "No digital people were harmed in the making of this video game, the programmers on the other hand, their livers didn't like what happened later"
@chrissimas Sorry! I had no way to determine how loud the sounds might be on other peoples computers! I'm going to push a change soon that halves the volume.
@listonos clearly nothing wrong with their methods haha. Sorry about the sound(see above) the cops were really hard to tune, and I think there's a bug where they always wander, after something, I'm looking into it haha.
@myles-mccoy You and me both, Burn it all down.
@connie-liu Ahh that stinks, I added the dialogue to try and explain what the population bar was, but I can imagine it's not always intuitive what the goal is.
@drewg8 I should point out now, that there are actually alternate palettes if you open the menu! Also a pixelization filter for the retro enthusiasts.
FirestarterSS2.png FirestarterSS3.png
nice little game, really got the simcity 1 vibe, hiopefully you could do a small walking animation for the characters! Also maybe some tweaks about the acceleration / deceleration of the player so it got some momentum and its harder to control / escape from the police.
@chromaphase yeah there's a lot of balance things I could think of. Originally it was supposed to ramp up in difficulty, buildings would spawn faster, cops would be even more aggressive. The cop's navigation AI is really bad too, and I would have liked to improve that. The walking animation was an oversight because I had intended for the game to always have the pixelation on, when on I hardly noticed it wasn't moving, but when we defaulted it to be off, that's when I noticed and at that point it was too late to really spend time on it.
I really liked the visuals, that is what drew me in. The idea was a bit dark for my taste but the general concept was an interesting interpretation of the theme for sure. Congratulations on the jam :)
really really like the visuals! found that the police were essentially a non issue most of my time playing it, if they were more of a threat it would be more interesting. great job though
@verbvirus Thanks! I think we spend maybe TOO long on the visuals, and I personally over complicated it by wanting to use a custom palette shader, If I had been smarter I could have done it much faster. As for the theme, late into development I almost switched it to be a firefighting game, because I was concerned that the dark nature of it would turn people away but I didn't have enough time to convert everything and we would have had to throw out the idea of police or other NPCs on the map entirely. Maybe in the future I'll convert it over to a firefighting game. We'll have to see haha!
@besto Yeah there's a bug with the police, not sure what it is, it has something to do with something added in the last few hours involving the police wandering around but I think they congregate in a single place and it overrides a lot of the chase logic.
This is a great game! I'm not entirely sure ow it fits with the brief but maybe that's just me! I loved burning all the buildings down, I lost because I burnt too many down. :')
@ponypen The idea was kind of a "The anti-hero that nobody appreciates because they don't see the problem" idea. You're attempting to save the city from becoming an overcrowded slum by preventing people from moving in. The character's goal isn't to burn down the city, but to save the city by keeping the city from becoming overcrowded in an unconventional manner. I tried to come up with a more interesting scenario then a generic superhero "Save the city" thing, but without more time to make the nuance of the situation more obvious, It doesn't get conveyed well.
@snowdrama Awesome, thanks for clearing that up! :)
It was hard to know the rate the population would grow and what the current population was so I got a few game overs without really ever knowing why. To manage it I would travel all around to look to see what had changed or just sit around somewhere away from the police waiting for time to pass then burn one or two, so it ended up a lot of hurry and wait. I think a tracker of current population, even if it's a vague value, it would help so you knew when you could act or do something without risking getting a game over.
Dark, but fun. Is there a win condition? I wasn't sure if I was getting closer since I also went the arsonist route after a while. Burning buildings should not be that enjoyable.
@kjscott The bar on the right is a meter of the population, and the population increases every 5 seconds. When the bar fills, it's game over from population growth, when it empties it's game over from burning too much. Could you not see the bar? If so that's a bug I'll have to look into(Unless you played on the GB green palette, it's a known issue that the background and foreground colors are the same therefore the bar doesn't look different, it's an easter egg but not intended to be played on seriously)
@hwaet No there is no win condition, the goal is to survive as long as possible without the population going to high or too low(very easy right now as there's no increasing difficulty)
@snowdrama, I hadn't noticed it. I will have another look tomorrow and see if I can spot it.
The cops are not very effective in this city, even when a builging explodes near them, they still walking around like a normal day. So, if you see where they are stucking, you just have to play at the opposite, and you'll almost never see them anymore. But, it was fun to play, I guess it's because of the arsonist that lies in every child, and still hidding somewhere in every adult. :grin: Good job!
Very nice graphics! The few dark colors made the mood for me :)
I wasn't sure what to do to play the game well. I burnt some houses, the game told me to slow down, so I was watching the thermometer and keeping it balanced. I could go forever like that. The policemen seemed to be bugged in the low corner and don't go very far.
It was fun to play, thanks for creating it :)
Cheers from Czechia! -- Standa, the crazy kazoo guy.