Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → City Soundscapes
By firesplash-entertainment and MrsTari
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 2259 | 2.93 | 41 | |
| Fun | 2309 | 2.64 | 41 | |
| Innovation | 1152 | 3.32 | 41 | |
| Theme | 2215 | 3.01 | 41 | |
| Graphics | 1710 | 3.24 | 41 | |
| Humor | 1464 | 2.62 | 38 | |
| Mood | 2109 | 2.77 | 38 |
SO, The Game looks cool, however most of the time clicking things did not work. The game had some performance issues with fps and freezing as well. The game took a long time loading the scene. Maybe for the next Jam use a loading screen in between the main menu and 1st level :)
Hey @twistashio thanks for your feedback.
For the performance issues: We noticed that while developing but could not reproduce it in the build. Funny... Looks like it only happens sometimes. Likely it will work when you restart the game... Taht was what we noticed while editing at least. Unfortunately there was no time to deep-dive into this issue.
For the clicking: Try to zoom in a bit. If the camera is too far away of the objects to be clicked, sometimes the raycasts don't work correctly.
@twistashio Well... Just reaching out again as we just uploaded a "day one patched" version. I think I found an issue which might have impacted performance dramatically under some circumstances. If you like, check it out :) would love to hear if it runs better now.
looks interesting, but download AND payment in a gamejam... not really a fan :/
@gandalfderwaise The payment is optional. This is more like a donation. Most jammers are hosting on itch. There is a link "No thanks just take me to the download"
@firesplash-entertainment Will try it again:)
Very funny to see how policeman fight with people. And i like the dragon too. :D However ze kontrole of ze kamera is a bit not easy... Also thanks so mutch for have complimented my pixelart in the game with trees!
Sounded like all the fighting sound effects were coming from one point, as it would get really loud with the camera all the way at the bottom.
@ion-programming and @moustikaiser-von-stroheim thanks for your rating and comments. We appreciate your feedback.
For the cam: We noticed two bugs and had two ToDos still open in the end: - Bug: Under some circumstances cam suddenly the MOBA cam is moving much faster than expected - Bug: One of the UIs is so near the bottom screen edge that the cam starts panning. But this was not planned to be solved in favor of: - ToDo: When selecting songs and using the fountain, the cam should witch to a hardcoded "LookAt" View angle like it does for building. - ToDo: Right-Click-Pan the cam - We disabled this initially because we had some issues. That was planned to be debugged in the bug-fixing time which we had to use for completing the gameplay...
The sounds are actually emitted where the fights happen. There is some randomization in it to control how much sounds are played at the same time. Looking back we should have used another approach instead as many enemies in one place can still cause sound issues (noticed that yesterday) did you know, that you can switch off Fight-Sounds in the settings if they are too disturbing and still hear all the others?
I have nothing to said more than that was said before. You idea is funny and well executed. Perhaps, there are some cam/cursors bugs which making the game a bit harder.
Unfortunately I didn't really understand how to play this game :( I clicked policemens and their preffered music appeared but what do I have to do with this? I only managed to go through the city and click police guys to see their preferred music. But how I could help them? I don't understand. This would be really great to add a tutorial to the game :)
Interesting idea for the management concept. Investing the fountain is too effective in short-medium term as far as I see. I agree with a loading screen, I thought the game freezed in the meantime. Overall, this is a good execution. Thank you!
thanks for the opinions :) They are very appreciated.
@curtis-pelissier Yeah. Thats the lack of polishing, bugfixing and balancing day we had this time :D @noirdrive same goes for your comment. Unfortunately we had a time issue this LD.
@yaroslav-gozak did you read the "How to play" section? But yes, we wanted to add a tutorial. But we had to drop this in favor of at least some balancing. For your question: You can not actively do things except playing music from the roofes. This is a crossover between the every single time suggested "You control the environment" and the actual theme. On the roofes youw ill find yellow (golden) platforms. click them and buy speakers. Then you can click the speakers and play music from them.
Nice idea, good job! And thank you for including volume control.
The game looks really cool. And the idea was cool also
Very simplistic controls and nice graphics. Well done, fun game!
It's like a finished game but not polished yet, tbh I still don't know how to play this game properly lol. But it's a great game, the gameplay is very interesting and I'll be looking forward into it.
I think it's a bit too complicated for a jam game. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what you're going for and enjoy the music, but the lack of tutorial, directions and feedback on your action sadly hurts the game. So, cool game, could become something very special with a lot of polish, but it's overly ambitious
thanks for all the new comments :)
Yeah, I know the lack of especially a tutorial is bad. We are participating in LD for 6 jams now so we got quite routined. Unfortunately this time we had some trouble which did cost us about half a day what is why we could not finish everything. Soooo sad about that :(
The game does appear to freeze after clicking the start button while loading the main scene. The main game feels like a sort of tower defense game. Unfortunately, for some reason some of the speaker arrays just vanish. Looks like you have a nice array of music, but I couldn't get a score high enough to play all but the cheapest
@sheldonzs sorry to hear you didn't reach the higher scores. Did you make use of the fountain in the city center, when the policemen stop working? It is a huge instrument. Also make sure to play the updated version.
Thanks for the nice words btw.
Also the start button issue is one of the most disgusting we made :D
The vanishing speakers happened to me during development when trying to upgrade them. I never found out why this happened but I had an assumption. But the issue disappeared when we changes a part of the code. When did you encounter this? Building or upgrading?
I feel like there was supposed to be music but I couldn't hear it, only the sound effects. It's very pretty, great job on the art.
Took me a bit of messing around to finally "get" the game, but that's my fault. Like the graphics and overall game. Cool idea and interesting way of playing. Loved the dragon!
Well something at least should have been explained in the actual game. It was like a "watch these dudes fight, you can see their stats too" type of game. Sure, after a whole lot of experimentation and trying to click on everything I found some actual interactivity. Seems like the fountain healed the injured policemen. Fine. The dialog was confusing though and the icons in it made like no sense to me at least. Then I found out the sound things on the roofs they seemed to affect the people somehow but still was super confusing and unclear whether I was doing something wrong or what.
Might have tried and experimented some more but there was this very nasty bug in the macOS version at least where every single button had its hitbox misaligned from the graphic. Some were like 50% down and some were 50% up. Even something as simple as clicking ok on the fountain dialog was super annoying since I had to move my mouse cursor far enough down that the camera started moving. So pretty much every time I healed, I was looking at the southern sea afterwards.
The prices seemed to constantly be too much for the income to actually do anything. Sure it might be my own fault for not playing right. But on the other hand it's kinda your fault for not even giving a slightest shred of information to the player on what to do, how to do it or even what anything means. Of course everything is crystal clear to you guys since you made it but I'll bet no one else can really understand everything without quite frustrating trial and error.
The art was fine, even though I'm not a fan of this PS1 era 3D graphics style. The color palette was very muddy and dark, something lighter and more vibrant would have fit the cartoony style so much better. The fight sound effect got super annoying quick. Hearing a single damn audio clip stacked multiple times on multiple spots like 100% of the time you're playing is not great. It was ear grating, clicky and repetitive as hell. The only other sound effect that I think even was in the game, the police crying (or at least that is what I think it was) was ok though. Desperately would have needed more sound with some variation sprinkled in.
The UI was very confusing too. Even in the end I had like no clue what those different bars or their icons were supposed to represent. Even the health bars were not that informative because the people kept stacking on top of each other. Would have made more sense if the people would spread out some so like they would pick a random angle around their target to fight them from.
And what was that blue circle on the map even?
Anyways, good job! The game would need some polish and whole lot of player guidance (or even starting off simpler on a smaller scale and then expanding from there) but not a bad game by any means. :thumbsup:
Nice idea, although the controls were veeery confusing. I would make a drag+click control and make it so the player can look around and manage things WHILE being in pause mode (take a look at FTL for reference) also, I didn't understand what to do at the start and how to place things? Like others have reported, a lot of times clicking did nothing which can pump up the frustration real quick :( You could maybe solve that problem by changing the curser if you hover over different options? :) Good job on finishing your game, nice graphics!
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Análise...
1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo: Ao que pude entender da minha primeira sessão de jogo (pretendo voltar e jogar mais uma), eu posso interagir com o jogo comprando torres para música e recontratando policiais que se demitem por terem apanhado de bandidos. Não há muita explicação sobre o funcionamento as mecânicas, mas algumas coisas vão sendo explicadas enquanto acontecem, ainda mais que só há uma forma de o jogador interagir (usando o mouse). Eu sinto que o jogo carece bastante de um estágio mais simples, antes de um estágio tão difícil como esse, talvez algo com uma torre e mais policias, além de ondas menos brutais de ladrões/malfeitores. Eu não aprendi a jogar muito bem, falta bastante feedback (apesar de já ter muito), porque o jogo tem uma mecânica interessante, mas não está tão divertida assim se não for possível aprender a interagir antes de abandonar o jogo. O fluxo de jogo está mais para a ansiedade do que para o tédio. Com certeza eu me senti impotente diante das entidades inimigas. Mesmo que não tenha um estágio "tutorial", seria bom começar com bons minutos de hordas menos complicadas. Senti falta também de guardas poderem ser chamados para confrontar problemas fora de seus pontos de vigília. Quando eu for jogar novamente, vou tentar focar em apenas uma torre e ver se consigo entender bem como as escolhas implicam em alterações na funcionalidade dos policiais e dos bandidos. Achei (também) o controle da câmera difícil (senti falta de poder arrastar a câmera clicando e puxando).
2 - Gráficos, Áudio e Narrativa: Os gráficos ficaram muito interessante (e o dragão ficou engraçado ali). O áudio (apesar de não haver indícios de ser autoral, pois não é uma categoria na qual eu possa votar) cumpriu o papel de ambientar. Os efeitos sonoros podem se tornar desagradáveis quando há muitas entidades, seria interessante encontrar uma solução para isso. A narrativa não é muito bem transmitida dentro do jogo (tive que ler muita coisa antes de jogar, fora do jogo). Seria interessante começar devagar e ir colocando a narrativa nas falas de personagens ou em suas respectivas ações (creio). Fica a dica fazer polimentos na HUD, colocar som autoral e trabalhar mais na narrativa; caso o grupo pretenda dar continuidade ao projeto fora do tempo do evento.
3 - Cultura: O jogo faz referências diversas à situação policial e de criminalidade. Não sei se foi intencional, mas o jogo me fez lembrar de "Future Cop: LAPD" (PS1), especialmente por também ser policial e por conta da estética das luzes. Além disso, a câmera e o "dragão" me fizeram lembrar de "Sim Theme Par" (PS1). Além disso, há muito (ao meu ver) de "jogo baseado em mecânica musical", "point-and-click", "iddle" e "tower defense". Creio que a continuidade do projeto, bem como seu polimento, possa representar um ponto comum entre todas essas referências. Além disso, a existência da tabela de pontuações demonstra que o jogo pode se tornar um ponto de desafio comunitário, o que facilita (ao meu ver) a busca por tais nichos.
4 - Monetização: Creio que com os devidos polimentos e desenvolvimentos narrativos, o jogo possa ser estendido e entregue ao público-alvo. Com os diversos modos de jogo (considerando que competir na tabela de pontuação seja apenas um deles em uma versão finalizada). Ao meu ver, seria jogo para ser adquirido via stores como itch.io (ou outras, a depender dos nichos da versão final e do intuito da equipe em avançar com o projeto).
Analysis...
1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow: From what I could understand from my first game session (I intend to go back and play one more), I can interact with the game by buying music towers and rehiring police officers who resign for being beaten by bandits. There is not much explanation about how the mechanics work, but some things are being explained as they happen, especially since there is only one way for the player to interact (using the mouse). I feel that the game needs a much simpler stage, before a stage as difficult as this, maybe something with a tower and more police, in addition to less brutal waves of thieves / criminals. I didn't learn to play very well, I lack a lot of feedback (although I already have a lot), because the game has interesting mechanics, but it's not so much fun if you can't learn to interact before leaving the game. The flow of play is more about anxiety than boredom. I certainly felt powerless in the face of enemy entities. Even if you don't have a "tutorial" stage, it would be nice to start with good minutes from less complicated hordes. I also missed guards being able to be called in to confront problems outside of their vigil points. When I play again, I will try to focus on just one tower and see if I can understand how the choices imply changes in the functionality of the police and the bad guys. I found (also) controlling the camera difficult (I missed being able to drag the camera by clicking and pulling).
2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative: The graphics were very interesting (and the dragon was funny there). The audio (although there is no evidence of being authorial, as it is not a category in which I can vote) fulfilled the role of ambience. Sound effects can become unpleasant when there are many entities, it would be interesting to find a solution for this. The narrative is not very well transmitted within the game (I had to read a lot before playing, outside the game). It would be interesting to start slowly and put the narrative in the lines of characters or in their respective actions (I believe). The tip is to polish the HUD, add authorial sound and work more on the narrative; if the group intends to continue the project outside the time of the event.
3 - Culture: The game makes several references to the police and crime situation. I don't know if it was intentional, but the game reminded me of "Future Cop: LAPD" (PS1), especially because I'm also a cop and because of the aesthetic of the lights. In addition, the camera and the "dragon" reminded me of "Sim Theme Par" (PS1). In addition, there is a lot (in my view) of "game based on musical mechanics", "point-and-click", "iddle" and "tower defense". I believe that the continuity of the project, as well as its polishing, can represent a common point among all these references. In addition, the existence of the score table demonstrates that the game can become a point of community challenge, which facilitates (in my view) the search for such niches.
4 - Monetization: I believe that with due polishing and narrative developments, the game can be extended and delivered to the target audience. With the different game modes (considering that competing on the score table is just one of them in a finished version). In my opinion, it would be a game to be purchased via stores like itch.io (or others, depending on the niches of the final version and the team's intention to proceed with the project).
Thanks for all the feedback!
I will not go too deep in detail as we already covered most of the things that were said in earlier comments.
We unfortunately had a big time issue this LD for multiple reasons. This is why we werent able to do final balancing which is why money balance is a bit off.
The sound stacking is an issue we tried to avoid but in late game it gets still too much. A better machanic and different hit sounds (as we did for cries) would have been great. I completely agree on this.
@antti-haavikko want to especially speak about the learning and how to play thing: As time was very tight in the end we did not create a tutorial as we usually do. We however described everything in detail in the game description here and on itch. Did you read through? If yes, do you feel the explaination is not good enough? If no.. Well still our fault. Nobody likes reading dry and long game descriptions :laughing:
@gustavo-christino I have an appointment now so will read yours later and leave another comment.
It's a nice concept but I'm not sure how it fits into the theme. What am I keeping alive? The city? The police force?
In any case, idea is good and I liked how the sounds of different songs mixed together and changed as you travelled around the map. The sound is very nice in general. And juggling of everybody's musical preferences can be potentially very fun.
What muddied up the experience for me was performance. Many times, after I paused the game and later unpaused it, I could not make the camera to move around the map anymore. It took some random clicking around, pausing, changing speeds to finally get it moving again. And the game was all the time running, of course, making me essentially unable to play. I also experienced other problems with the camera panning around the city - speed was very inconsistent, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes it took ages for it to start moving.
It is an impressive jam job overall, but could use lots of polish on top :)
I positively loved the dino though :)
At first I only saw the police fighting after I saw how they were dying, the atmosphere is cool, I also had a problem when there were many punchers, good job!
I see that you took that disco image on the twitter page to heart.
It's a little bit difficult to understand at first; it's rather dark and the brown square that indicates a line array doesn't stand out at first; perhaps an indicator of sorts would help. It also took a little bit to learn how to play songs, since the when I clicked on an active line array the first song it showed me on the menu required more trophies than I had; perhaps starting the list on a piece that requires 0 trophies would be better. The most important problem is that it's hard to tell what your police and the criminals are feeling. For an extreme example of what would probably be more obvious, you could color people green if they are happy with the music, and color them more red the less they like the music. Green policemen would break the immersion quite a bit though, so try something else to make it obvious. It is difficult to judge the mood based on masses of overlapping clouds.
In general, communication seems to be the main problem, though you didn't mess it up that much either. For example, you added indicators for the line array radii, so I could tell who was being affected by my music. Music tolerations also helped a lot in my decision making. Small note: you can't click on police behind buildings to check their tolerations. Overall a nice game.
Nice concept as always! ;) Tbh I was a bit confused as to how I make the speakers play sounds, but once I found out, I scored high on the leaderboard! :sunglasses:
Played the original version. Music selection is a nice touch, overall looks cool, but I have no idea what affects who and how. Very creative use of theme tho!
Hello, I checked your game and that's what I think about it. To start, the idea is very innovative police + music, very cool :) The hole music in the game is very special. I like the graphics, But I think that it could be more varied. The gameplay is very cool. I like that the emotion of the policemen is in there.
Extraordinary game!
Thank you for all the remaining comments. I got no time to get back to you in time.
Also once again thanks for ALL the reviews. The final rating is way worse than our standard used to be but it was expected and it is deserved. We lost about one day in summary (half a day real time loss and half a day for the reset as we needed to toss the first idea) and that time was hardly missing in the end. Guess with more time for fixind, balancing and polishing we would have been able to reach at least rank 1000 in most categories.
However it's been a great learning resource as always. Looking forward to next LDJam :)