Cataracta's eco-friendly adventure

congusbongus 2020-04-21 02:55

Some instructions would be nice - I finally figured out you can pick up the vase(?) but nothing else.

sofy35 2020-04-21 02:57

Nice world ! GG for your first jam ! too bad i can't take the flower with me..

ponzis 2020-04-21 02:58

Sorry about that. It's a bug that I fixed after I published the build. I updated the game build to fix that issue.

aetup 2020-04-21 02:59

The music and the pixel art give me a nice relaxing vibe. I like being a humble roomba exploring the spaceship.

trifectuh 2020-04-21 03:08

Really digging the tunes and the artwork. Also the room moving around as the camera pans makes for a very cool comic book panel style effect that I appreciate

jlv 2020-04-21 03:10

Fun little game. I enjoyed the audio and the consistent graphics. The robot is also quite responsive. However, the player is a bit left alone - I was not sure about what to do, what interactions were doable, or what was the goal of the game. Still a very nice entry. Good job !

lihpten 2020-04-21 03:18

Thanks for all the wonderful feedback on our first game! We were a little pressed for time if that isn't obvious... Any issues with the collision meshes is entirely my fault... Except near the door, you can blame that on the camera (I forgot that the room has edges to be honest :p ). Fun fact, there was an earlier feature where Ponzis had implemented character scaling and I spent too much time messing around and making the robot fly out of the space station window... We've definitely learned a lot from this and will hopefully have a crack at it again in October!

milano23 2020-04-21 03:26

Cool concept. The music was well done. Took a while to understand what to do. I kept going over towards the puddles thinking i was supposed to do something but i couldn't figure it out.

bitpokit 2020-04-21 16:31

I really love this game! The music, the graphics, the setting ... excellent work!!! I would love to see some story elements to really take it to the next level! :)

mccheesebob 2020-04-21 17:10

@bitpokit Yeah, we had a basic story planned but unfortunately ran out of time. Thanks for your feedback!

vesper 2020-04-21 17:20

Seemed cute, but I couldn't figure out what the objective was so I just ended up aimlessly carrying my flower around. There was a panel on a wall with different coloured flowers which presumably had a function, but clicking on it didn't work? Still, I appreciate the nice little central concept of the little Roomba preserving its precious flower.

Congrats on successfully completing your first Jam!

saadsirius 2020-04-21 19:51

The music was kinda catchy and minimalistic but i liked it,i was not able to figure out where am i suppose to go and what the objective is a starting tutorial would be a great improvement also i got stuck near the elevator don't know how,overall nice game.

thelemba 2020-04-23 05:29

I can't really seem to figure out what i'm supposed to do, the robot doesn't pick up items, I'm playing the web version btw

cataclysmicknight 2020-04-23 06:06

OH! You can walk off the screen to the right! I was walking around in that first room for sooooooooo long before I realized that. I'm not sure if there's an end or not and it kinda looked like the last switch had multiple flowers to check off or something but the lever never did anything and when I walked off the bottom of the screen the game restarted. I tried dropping the flower there and playing through (third time through total) and the flower wasn't left on the floor there, it was back at the original place.

Love the concept of a robot taking care of a flower on a spaceship though :smile:

daltonleavey 2020-04-25 00:06

Really like the idea but a little confusing. I think it just needs more polish. Something letting the player know they can move outside of the first room and which direction they can go would be cool. I also think the blue area of the screen outside of the spaceship should be the dark blue like the title screen or the window. Great work though!

filip-bergkvist 2020-04-25 16:10

Hi, you (@mccheesebob) played my game, so I played yours c:

I don't really know what to do in the game, at all... I just walked around aimlessly, carrying and dropping the flower when I felt like it. Since I never quite figured out what to do, WAIT. I just read the comment from @cataclysmicknight saying that you can walk to the right! One sec...

Ok no I still have no clue what to do. I walked through a few rooms, found a big flower, and then went back to the start somehow. Since you didn't have time to add explanations in the game you could add clear instructions here on Ludum Dare so that we have a hint of what to do.

Anyway, the art is simple, but nice, I especially like the animation on the little player robot! The movement works well, and the music, while only playing shortly after entering a new room, is fresh and fits the game, I like it a lot.

However, there are a few simple things you could have done to have raised the quality of this game significantly (with only a small amount of extra time). Since this is your first game, and you seem very keen on joining again in october I'll give you some tips for if you would do a similar game next time!

* The player sprite should save it's last direction, so that it doesn't flip every time you stop if you moved to the left. * Sprite sorting can be difficult, but in a game like this, sort sprites dynamically through their position.y value. Higher y values should give a lower (I think) sorting order, to make them go further back. Add an offset to the y position to make this more configurable, since you should sort by the "feet" of a sprite, not the pivot. * There is a Pixel Perfect Camera package from Unity that fit games like these really well (we used it for our game) so that the pixels scale up perfectly. This, combined with turning AA off would fix the lines that sometimes appear between your background sprites. * Make everything you can as clear as possible. There is no real way of knowing that going right leads to a new room. The elevator door doesn't open. Dropping an item keeps it in the exact same location, so you only notice that it is dropped after you move. These things should be made obvious with animations, sound and such. * The transitions are very jerky, save the camera position relative to the player upon starting the transition, and then place it at the same relative position upon ending the transition. * The default blue Unity background is ugly, if it was the same blue as the window, it would have looked WAY better (and reinforced that it is space)

And remember, stupid people like me will play your game with no background whatsoever in what the game is (except for what you tell me). Try to reserve some time for at least writing some text on the game page, or if possible, make a tutorial/text in the game to tell the player what is needed to know.

I have no doubt that your next game will be much better (my first one was absolute trash...) so keep it up! Remember that small games made well are often better jam games than big unfinished messes. You were also 5 people, and with some more experience next time, you should not need "ran out of time" as an excuse. Prioritise, focus, and most importantly cut unneeded features. I'll start following you guys just because I want to see what you do next time, don't let me down!

Also, feel free to @ me here with what I'm supposed to do, so that I can give it another shot!

thedouche 2020-04-25 16:52

Didn't get it i think @filip-bergkvist pretty much summed it up. With a more clear objective i have no doubt you can take this and you're further games were ever you want! Keep on going!