foursay 2020-04-21 19:14
The gameplay reminds of the "transmission" theme of Global Game Jam (I think its year 2017's theme), though it is also suitable for this "keep it alive" theme XD. the art style is quite unique and I really enjoy it!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Keep It Undead
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1404 | 3.41 | 78 | |
| Fun | 1450 | 3.21 | 80 | |
| Innovation | 610 | 3.59 | 78 | |
| Theme | 1062 | 3.73 | 80 | |
| Graphics | 826 | 3.89 | 81 | |
| Audio | 1467 | 2.61 | 64 | |
| Humor | 980 | 3.06 | 77 | |
| Mood | 1678 | 3.11 | 75 |
The gameplay reminds of the "transmission" theme of Global Game Jam (I think its year 2017's theme), though it is also suitable for this "keep it alive" theme XD. the art style is quite unique and I really enjoy it!
I like the art style. I really enjoy the ironic zombie go home sign, as if it were there choice.
The world feels fleshed out and the game play is smooth. I did have trouble issuing multiple commands to a group.
Nice work.
Cool concept and nice art. Great work overall.
Cool game! I was a little confused at first (I thought I was playing as the guy with the mask instead of the disease itself) but I understood once I got to the second level. Super fun!
Really interesting (and topical) design! I was a bit stuck on the 2nd level. nice job :)
Really nice game idea, the art style was great too, reminded me of hidden folks. A couple of comments: - It wasn't obvious to me at the start that I was supposed to leave. I thought I had to infect everyone at the same time, and the exit was for the normal people to escape the infected area. - The music was off by default, was that intentional?
A very solid game! I didn't immediately understand the controls or the goal, but once I did I really enjoyed it :) The art is really nice as well. Good job :)
It took me a little bit to realize we were meant to be escaping, not infecting everyone, but once I figured it out it was a really fun puzzle!
The hand drawn art style is super pretty :)
Pro tip to anyone who didn't realize: you can click and drag to select multiple people
Nice simplistic art style, makes everything very easy to parse as you play. The multi select is a game changer. Having the characters wander off in a random direction after they reach their destination was a bit frustrating but if they didn't then maybe it would be a bit too easy? Overall nice work!
Thanks everyone for your comments! I've updated the description to explicitly mention drag&drop, I hope it helps :)
@shardykins: the wandering away is part of the game. They're zombies, you can't expect them to do something smart...
Poof poof :D
Super fun concept, super fun gameplay loop! There's no much to say here. You nailed it! Now, to work in making it one of those Cut the Rope style games for android and iOS! :P
That said, I've got some crazy ideas. First, why do the zombies follow the X? Why not you, the player, could be able to place something that would atract the zombies? Like you could place beacons that atract then. I imagine that, initially, you would only have the possibility to place one. Than you would receive more as the levels got more complex. Also, could be beacons that could be used to push then away, so they don't go in a undesired place. This beacon could be something funny, like sandwich or even a bacon (bad pun, I know)!
Talking about my gameplay, in the begining of the first level, I really thougth that I was supposed to infect everyone (the letters were tiny, so when I fullscreened I gotcha), so it was like a simplified rts game. Had so much fun with it initially! Why not make it a kinda bonus levels with a time limit?
Another really nice thing are the graphics. Very beautiful style! You could stylize it a little more (to make it a little cooler)! The controls were really sattisfying (to drag a box, like a pc, was for some reason pretty cool), but there were problems with the zombies. One of the pigs didn't liked me, cause I've waited for him a bit of time, and he wasn't coming to the place I needed him lol
The music was not that fitting tho. The theme of the game doesn't really match, cause the theme of the game is not properly horror, but a funny little thing. But, if you put a casual like game music, it will also lose all the charm. It needs to be something that has some coolnes and irreverence, but not so much sugar (so we don't get musical diabete!). As a composer, I imagine that you should take that "virus motif" sorta thing you got there and merge it with an irreverent vibe.
Ok, that's it I think. Hope I helped!
Edit: made some mistakes
The first game of the dare I've played that made me want to finish to the end! It did a great job of keeping the tension alive when you're about to heal and don't know if that last cough will let you progress or not. Would have been nice to have a little more agency. I found when next to a fence it was easier to aim so I started trying to find obstacles to help me get more control.
Had fun :D
The game idea is very fitting in many senses. Slightly reminds me of micro-managing in real-time strategy games. However, since you can't control the coughing, it's much harder to achieve your objectives.
I also agree that it was not obvious you had to escape to progress to the next stage.
That said, a very nice take on the theme and great sense of humor.
Nice good looking game. I took quite some time to figure out that there was more than one level, but already liked it before seeing the other levels :smile:
Nice graphics and an interesting idea! At some point it was not much of a challenge, maybe a faster gameplay and some infection twists would do it. Some ideas: infected beings die after a while, water channels that can distribute either the virus or the antidote(?), a guy putting vaccines that make people impossible to infect, a different virus that you have to avoid, guys with a view cone (stealth-game like) searching for infected people, or different speeds for different beings. Also, great music! It should be on by default :)
I absolutely loved the graphics! The art reminded me a lot of Hidden Folks. Also, very cool concept with transmitting the zombie disease through each level, it really felt like a puzzle I had to solve, which was refreshing. Very impressive!
A topical game! The concept is unique and I like the art style! There's a lot of strategy you can pick up on quickly. Nice job :thumbsup:
Liked the minimalist art. Did not pick up on the escape, despite the abundant signage. Had a little bit of trouble selecting units rather than giving a move command to the previous selected. Character art is on point though. Good job!
Thanks everyone for the comments!
@undead-aubergine Thanks for the ideas. We're thinking about building on this concept, so we might add them! We actually built the vaccination and the view cone, but we didn't have time to tune them and make good use of them, so they didn't make it to the playable version.
@nathant We got a lot of feedback that this was not clear. I hoped that the first "tutorial" level will make it clear, but maybe we need a better initial level for that.
I almost gave up on the game before I read the comments since I thought I had to infect everyone... But fortunately I didn't.... I finished it and it was quite fun with unique mechanics and good graphics! Very good job. Be sure that the player knows what he has to do
I like the graphics. The biggest problem is probably the slow pacing and not knowing how long an infection will last. Not sure if it's randomised, or if there's a way to infect cows.
Love the art-style. you should make fridge magnets with the cow.
All of the sounds are all disabled by default for some reason, so I almost gave you a bad rating there before trying again and turning them on! I think it would be worth re-uploading with that fixed if you can figure it out.
I enjoyed the game though, I'm sure you could expand it to make even more interesting puzzles with the manned-cure-cannons. I thought the art was nice, although I would have appreciated a bit more colour I think. I liked the win-mechanic, but at first I was trying to infect everyone because I didn't understand the description. I think "Get an infected character to the exit" would be clearer, I was trying to infect everyone at first!
Nice entry with interesting mechanic, good job!
Again, thanks everyone for your comments! Lots of valuable feedback in there!
@blubberquark Yeah, we realized that a bit too late. I'm thinking about adding an indication that the infection will soon end, but this seems borderline with respect to the Jam rules. We'll definitely fix this afterwards. The duration is not randomized (but it's long enough that it's not easy to predict), and cows can't be infected.
@ciaranw Yeah, the sounds off by default is some issue with default values for settings in the WebGL export of Unity. I'll see if it can be fixed. On the other hand, the music is third-party, and it should not be part of your score. We wanted to add more levels (and more mechanics), but didn't have time to make nice levels during the jam... We'll try to add more (including one more tutorial level to unambiguously show the win mechanic) post-jam.
nice game with a great concept and art. The one biggest thing holding this game back is how often it comes down to waiting for an uninfected person (or pig) to get close enough to infect. its mostly an issue in levels like 2 and 3 but it still has that issue a bit in levels 4 and 5. one way to alleviate this issue is allow the player to control an uninfected person. there would probably need to be limits on it like only one at a time and maybe only humans or only pigs could be controlled if they were uninfected.
I liked the concept and the art was cute, however I was not a fan of the gameplay. It felt slow and I had too little control.
Controls made this frustrating, otherwise it could potentially be a nice puzzle game. Handmade graphics were really nice.
Hi! We've played your game on the stream. It's mostly in Russian, but I left some feedback at the end. Here's the link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/603233098 Good luck!
Nice graphics! Very stylish I could not stand the music more than 30s Very good idea, and cool realization
Some improvement points: - Difficult to understand how to play at the beginning - I gave up after waiting for a pig more than 1 minute... So I don't know if you have some sool level designs after zone 04 :(
Very cool game, I really liked it. Cute graphics. Very difficult to understand.
It wasn't as difficult to understand for me, but I wasn't a big fan of the controls. Sometimes the zombies would get deselected for no reason. It would make it much better if I were to select with left click, move with right click.
I didn't get to finish it because there was some sort of bug in the farm with the 3 sprayers. I moved all humans to the right side, then, when they got disinfected, my zombie guy couldn't infect anyone :P
Really cool entry though :) I appreciate the graphics & style.
Very topical and very nice execution overall!
I do agree with a lot of what people have already mentioned so far. I felt like I didn't know what I was suppose to do in the first level. I actually think the level with enclosures next to each other would have been a better introduction level. Also I felt like the walking speed of the units slowed down when they were next to fences, possibly trying to walk diagonally?
But all in all, great job on your entry!
lol cute, I liked the art style I like the twist on keeping it alive being about the virus It took me a long time to figure out level 1, I know it said spread the virus outside but i didnt realize there was a trigger box near the exit. Also, I kinda got distracted trying to infect everyone because that was fun xDDD
Great job
What a cool idea, I really enjoy the reverse kind of zombie games, where you are actually on the zombie side. Also quite nice, that you have introduced sort of new kind of zombies that are only spitting, and that supports really well your core mechanic. Felt really fresh and new (eventhough we are still talking about zombies :)). Personally the first level was really great to learn how the stuff works, but next 2 levels were bit slow, since you can´t really control the lenght of your spit, and some of the not-infected people/pigs were quite hard to reach from time to time, and I just had to wait. Also at this point I realized that the tunes were quite repetitive. Don´t get me wrong, I loved it, it is just that this part of the game was bit slower and it got me focused on other stuff, rather than just on the gameplay. But this can be hardly a complaint, since the last levels were really well handled! Great job on your game, also great and unique art style! Thank you for this experience, this definitelly goes to the best I have played so far.
Very clever puzzle game but it's pretty random based as you need to rely on the movement behavior. I'd prefer having more direct control.
A very polished game, the graphics are great and the sound okayish.
I loved that you could infect the people (and pigs) manning the turrets to disable them. The hand-drawn art is perfect. Well done!
I love the hand drawn art.
Good zombie cows!
Black&White with some spot colors works well visually here. Spooky atmosphere with the music!
I liked the visual style. Drawings worked well and the sparse color use really conveyed both the necessary information to the player and the mood of the game.
Really nice job on this one!
I really like this idea, and I like the art style. I think I would have wanted more juiciness; some kind of pleasing feedback for your actions. Currently everything moves very slowly and you spend the level listening to people cough, which isn't the most pleasnt thing. The concept has potential as a mobile game though, with some time.
The art is nice. I prefer more a gameplay with action, but still I enjoyed this game a lot.
Good Job! the sounds pig its fun.
The idea is super interesting, and I like the graphics and the atmosphere. The gameplay feels a bit slow, and it really difficult to make the disease spread. Overall is this a good jam game.
Really like the game play and the art! Took me a moment to realize I needed to have someone walk off the screen. I think the path finding could use some adjustments and the balancing over all. I wish there was higher population density or some endless mode
I was not sure if I can control the attack first, but second and third level nicely teach the player further elements of game mechanics. Grahics are very nice, sound effects are good. I was in a good mood when playing!
Very cute, I like the theme and the graphical style. Gameplay is a bit random, though it's not so annoying because you can always try again. It does require some patience, though. In level 1 I tried to create a exponentially growing outbreak. That would have been satisfying but I didn't manage it. I think it would have been nicer to be able to control the cough/shooting better.
Great work. Could the zombies just stop when they get to a destination and cough in that direction, it would make it so much easier for the player.
@darthone there is no path finding :) Our zombies aren't very intelligent :P Thank you all for your awesome comments!
This is a really unique interpretation of the theme! It took a little bit of time to realize that the goal wasn't to spread the virus to everyone in the level. Once I figured that out, I had a blast trying to spread the virus to the exit of the level.
I liked the simplistic art style, but if you expand this it might be a good idea to try and zoom the camera in somewhat to make details of the art more visible.
Thanks everyone for your comments! A lot of people trying the exponential growth - we need to add some puzzles for that :)
Try the post-Jam version (for now, Win/Mac download only). We've added one more tutorial level (to teach the player to leave the level) + redesigned the first level. If you do, let us know what you think (cc @mental-inaction)
@lyrcaxis Actually, you can select zombies with left mouse button and assign destination with right mouse button. But we thought that this control scheme might be hard for people to figure out without a lot of text (and it wouldn't work on phones, tablets and Macs) so we added the the left-button-only control scheme. But the right click is still there ;)
I really enjoyed this game! One of the most fun ones to play! Really simple to understand and has a good duration for a jam game! Cool concept and interesting interpretation of the theme! Nice art as well!! :smile: Well done!