FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Lab Rat

Lab Rat

By Hellequinne and maxathon

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4933.8170
Fun5923.6470
Innovation6953.5569
Theme4404.0370
Graphics8863.8572
Humor2783.7767
Mood3353.9068

Comments

teamnova 2020-04-21 01:23

Cool! Good job!

physi3 2020-04-21 01:28

Great job :)

edvard-sandquist 2020-04-21 01:29

Nice game man! Liked the graphics and music is cool too! Great work.

pedrorocha 2020-04-21 01:31

Good work, the art is perfect. I just missed some mechanics apart from feeding the animals (I was unable to interact with the liqueur maker).

nomadicrockman 2020-04-21 01:36

Really fun take on the theme! Although the controls could be improved a bit.

ssh-randy 2020-04-21 03:07

Awesome! Loved the humor, thought the controls were a little wonky around the top (where the cutting board and the top right specimen were, if you stood next to the cutting board, you couldn't switch to the specimen without walking away first).

Never figured out how to make cobb salad :/ So i lost on the 4th or 5th level.

The gameplay felt a little repetitive by the end

maxathon 2020-04-21 03:59

Really appreciate the feedback from everyone — positive and constructive. Keep it coming! This was our first time making a game together and it was a blast.

mehrdadsh 2020-04-21 06:58

funny game man, nice

marbles 2020-04-21 07:17

Funny game and very nice pixel art except for the character, it feels like the colors don't go well with the rest of the environment. I also liked the tileset!

chambre19 2020-04-21 07:21

Great game with a lovely art style. Really enjoyed the entry.

Keep up the good work and see you next time!

puzmak 2020-04-21 09:21

Spooky! I loved the colors and pixel art a lot! For some reason couldn't hear the music...

endytroll 2020-04-21 11:18

Nice pixel art graphic, and good idea :) Great job!

woob 2020-04-21 16:54

Reminds me of another game but in a better style and gameplay. For me one of the best games i could try. Really awesome work. I love the sound, the atmosphere was really spooky.

svenerik 2020-04-21 17:06

Loved the the design of the game overall. Maybe the pacing could be a bit better. Besides that, not being able to click on stuff with mouse when near it irked me a bit. Good work though! ^^

synystercola 2020-04-21 17:19

A very solid execution! Had a lot of fun with this game! Now I want carrots and lettuce...

myro973 2020-04-21 17:25

Wow this game took a dark turn quick... Real fun, good idea and execution ! I couldn't figure out how to cut my pinky or how to use the items in the drawer though

defiant-genesis 2020-04-21 17:30

Some of the controls were a bit wonky at times but besides that I found the game creepily fun. Hail the Rat God!

semihuller 2020-04-21 17:58

This game is fun I liked it a lot :D

marcel-grolms 2020-04-21 18:22

Amazing Game, like the Pixel Art a lot. It would be great if you could retry a semester if you want to at the end.

double-top 2020-04-21 18:38

The movement felt kinda floaty sometimes and I didn't figure out how to make the cobb salad, maybe some recipes could help. The concept and the mechanics make much sense considering the theme and the pacing of the game is great. Well done!

mrtroy 2020-04-21 20:29

It was really cool. I got to the 3rd level and couldn't figure out how to dice or cook the meat. What I tried in a previous level didn't work, so I ended up losing.

louiejams 2020-04-21 22:54

Wow, this was a great entry considering the time frame! The art was really nice and the music really set an eery tone. I found it difficult in the beginning but it got easier as it went on for the first few rooms. But when it started to ask for toasted cheese and salad (at the same time), I felt like i had to chose between the animals as i did not have enough time to make both! Fun idea, good job guys! :D

automatonvx 2020-04-21 23:36

art is really nicely done, sort of a fun concept, gameplay is ok, scene setting and story etc. was nice and worked well. felt pretty polished over all, good job. Would recommend making a webgl version though as its easy to do with Unity and you will probably get more players that way, people tend to feel a bit uneasy about downloading and running random exes from the internet. good job.

maxathon 2020-04-22 03:17

@automatonvx Thanks for the suggestion about webgl. @hellequinne has added a web version now at https://davidfrankel.itch.io/lab-rat!

matt-d-parker 2020-04-22 05:39

I kept feeding lettuce and carrots... that's all there was for me to do?

malai 2020-04-22 07:28

All hail the *** god (spoiler free i hope). Despite little forgiving bugs I encountered one which could lead to problems: On my resolution (1400x900) it can happen if you dont have the item to feed to the animal you cant close the context menu because the inventory is over the close button, going into the pause menu and walking away somehow solves it. The same can happen if you have the tongue and scalpel and try to throw something away, the scalpel and tongues come first and you cant click the things you want to throw away nor the close button.

hornicar 2020-04-22 10:55

This game is brilliant ! The spookiest is that it represent my PhD right now very well... "I am the crawling chaos!"

pieter-uys-fourie 2020-04-22 14:41

Having trouble typing this without my pinky

ridde 2020-04-22 14:53

Loved the game and the art style is very cool and unique. However the pace of the game is a bit slow for my liking other than that cool game, nice work!

maxathon 2020-04-22 16:11

@malai Does hitting escape with the menu open close it? You can also control the selected menu item by hitting the "down" button w/the menu open (unless the bug is preventing this)

malai 2020-04-22 16:23

@maxathon both method seems to be solving the problems i had :D making the inventory ui click through probably wouldn't have confused me

cvetk0 2020-04-22 20:59

That is a cool game! The general mood is great, though I missed some sense of urgency as there didn't seem to be any penalty for not delivering requested, especially to the tentacles :smile:. And the issue I noticed (at least web version) was that sometimes the inventory would overlap the actions which couldn't be clicked then, not critical but not very pleasant either. I liked it in general so looking forward to seeing more from you. Keep it up. Cheers!

iasper 2020-04-22 21:34

Despite having a few problems, such as not always being able to use the butcher's knife, I very much enjoyed the atmosphere. The difference in sound effects for each animal/monster is such a small thing, but helps tremendously with making you figure out who to take care of. The art was very on point and I also enjoyed the music choice. The difficulty curve was easy enough not to get annoyed but also hard enough not to get bored, and every level had something new and unique to add. Congratulations!

jake-marks 2020-04-22 23:10

Loved this game. I love little crafting/combining mechanics in games. Reminded me of the "Pam's Harvestcraft" mod for Minecraft. And the Lovecraft horror vibes are done in a funny way. Excellent!

twobitadder 2020-04-23 00:51

i really enjoyed the discovery aspect of the game! i had a little bit of trouble with holding two tools, but i did really enjoy trying to figure out how exactly to combine everything i had to get what was necessary. it was a lot of fun!

730 2020-04-23 01:04

Very nice game, gets pretty creepy in a very particular way. Got an A everywhere so I wonder if there was some way to lose or something.

jarithius 2020-04-23 06:12

Great jam game, very fun to play, and it had good pixel art. I like the micro management style of the game play, and the humor when you tried to observe the specimens. I did notice that all the buttons were not immediately understood by me. I had a resolution issue where I could not click OFF of the specimen tank at the bottom, but I did eventually figure out you had an escape key built in for that, Well Done. Game looks and plays well. ^^

space-nomad 2020-04-23 13:10

what won't a student do for the phd right? as a student i can confirm that it's very realistic 10/10 seriously though awesome game. i loved the subtle shift in tone and how it escalated and escalated. great job. one of my favorites so far

palvel 2020-04-23 17:33

I enjoyed it :)

langotriel 2020-04-24 12:49

Feed the carrot to the turtle. Got it. Feed .. my lunch? to the rat.. ok.. Dice the meat for the mini-bear? So now I'm a chef :cooking: :laughing: A hungry chef who doesn't get to eat. I'm starting to think I am getting a raw deal in this lab; there better be health insurance.

Jokes aside, I think the visuals are good. I always like consistent, well made pixel art in LD games! I also appreciate the ramping of difficulty and the story elements thrown in (I'm a sucker for story). Really well done! :)

aune 2020-04-24 19:41

Very nice pixel art and music really nice / completly in the mood. I laughed a lot for the finger and the bandage. A really enjoyable progression

marcusnystrand 2020-04-25 15:10

Got to the salad level, couldnt figure out how to make one :(

Really impressive game with a nice dark humour to it. Can't believe you made me cut off a finger

Solid entry for this jam, well done!!

soldierbear 2020-04-25 17:59

The general look and feel of the game is amazing. I really enjoyed the music and the UI interaction sound effects. This is a great submission, congrats!

curleyrach 2020-04-25 18:49

As a Scientist and a lover of overcooked I really enjoyed this :laughing: It definitely stressed me out but in a great way! I felt the difficulty ramped up well and the art and music complimented the whole thing. Great job :D

madalaski 2020-04-25 19:28

This game is so well presented and felt so good to play that I didn't even notice the main character didn't have a walk cycle. A fantastic entry that deserves a lot of love. Definitely reminds me what it feels like to be an academic student 0_0

trigueiro 2020-04-26 12:23

Very enjoyable! One of the best games on this LD, in my opinion :)

ghostmaple 2020-04-26 18:56

Neat concept, the flavor text when observing is a nice touch. The controls were a little tough for me to get the hang of, though I later figured out you didn't need the mouse to make selections. (Maybe add the controls into your description above or to the itch page?) I was a little confused why I needed the scalpel to cut things when there's a knife right there on the cutting board. Altogether, nice work!

Also, if you are going to use assets from outside the your team (e.g. sound/music), the general rule is to remove yourself from ranking in that category. (And if some are from your team and some are not, just mention that that category should only be judge on those alone.)

zvyaga 2020-04-27 12:39

Nice and fun game))

maxathon 2020-04-28 16:36

@ghostmaple Thanks! Good point about the art on the cutting board.

Yes, we did remove ourselves from Audio ranking (although all sound effects were made by us) because we used outside music. Does it show up differently?

johnnysix 2020-04-28 22:38

Nice, very in depth, lots of character to the art and the story was well done. I failed to get to the end once the chopping board showed up. One minor thing that was challenging was switching between mouse / space. If you continue developing, I'd definitly say switch it to all mouse/ touch - it'd make it a lot more smooth to play, and open it up for mobile too. :smile:

ghostmaple 2020-04-29 04:57

@Maxathon I was sure I saw Audio when I rated, but I must have been looking at too many games that night. Mea culpa!

fabula-rasa 2020-04-30 21:03

Overall a fun game. Actually, a third one about feeding things I played today - must be a themed day :wink: I liked the creepy atmosphere and crazy tasks (like: "hey, now cut off your finger and feed it to the thing"). Those PhD students will do just anything to keep their position!

I encountered a sort of a bug. I approach a trashcan with a lot of things in my inventory and, as the list of things doesn't scroll, I couldn't chose "close" and they only way to exit from trashcan interaction at that point was to throw out my necromonicon or amulet.

Screenshot_1.jpg

maxathon 2020-05-01 00:11

@fabula-rasa You should be able to hit Escape to leave the menu, but definitely a bug regardless. Thanks for the heads up and glad you enjoyed the game!

nachodlv 2020-05-02 18:58

Nice game! I liked how it gets creepier and creepier. I feel like the sound effects are too loud compared to the background music. Very enjoyable game. Good Job!

bananabas 2020-05-08 11:55

Cool game. I love the humor and that the player has to think outside of the box