FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Search and Resque

Search and Resque

By hilvon

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6133.2134
Fun6303.0334
Innovation4233.2534
Theme4493.5734
Graphics5053.3534
Audio6991.6725
Humor5012.3126
Mood5963.0031

Comments

predominant 2021-04-26 06:27

The lighting is great. There was a couple of missing walls where I could fall out of the map, but if I avoided them, it was great!

hilvon 2021-04-26 06:41

@predominant I recon you played the WebGL version. :smile:

I mean the marching qubes I implemented also had some mixes up triangles so there were "holes" in the ground mesh but hardly big enough for you to fall through. Unfortunately WebGL does not generate those ground meshes, so you get opening in the places that were left open by design and should've binn filled with ground for you to dig.

secretjuice 2021-04-26 06:46

This was a cool application of marching cubes. I liked digging around looking for the panels and miners underneath the dirt. I would have liked to be able to dig a bit faster though. Great work!

rushhourz 2021-04-26 07:00

Very nice. I first also thought of implementing my mining game with Mesh Generation, but thought it would take too long. Well in the end I regretted not doing it the "right way" and already had some technical debt. So I'm really glad to see it here :D

h0pe86 2021-04-26 07:02

Damn! I wished there was audio in this game! It would be helped to establish the mood of it! I loved the concept and the mechanics!

hungryroy 2021-04-26 07:02

Well done. My only complaint is that the camera turns a bit too quickly for me, making me a bit dizzy.

hilvon 2021-04-26 08:03

@secretjuice The slow digging was somewhat a deliberate chice. Basically having faster digging would've required rebuilding meshes more frequently, and I felt like CPU was already strained as it were.

Then in the actual buld version - outside Unity Editor - the performance kind of leveled a bit, but by that time all the settings were already built in, and I didn't feel like adjusting them again. However in case the game has future development, this is definitely something to look into. :smile:

@rushhourz - I had the feeling that I am biting more that I can chew all the way till about 5 hours before the deadline. Especially since on day one all I had was a messy marching cubes implementation that dropped fps to 5 with character viewrange around 5 units. But I am super stoked to have actually managed to pull it off! :smile:

@h0pe86 - Me too. Me too. I actually wanted to record some sounds for the game using my own voice... and then realised I don't have the software to do it. And with 3 hours to the deadline I decided to focus on making the builds rather than chasing a way to add sounds.

@hungryroy - Hm. That is odd. I had some issues with the camera speed during development. Guess the fixes didn't cover all the situation. :cry: Anyway I hope you liked the rest of the game.

firellon 2021-04-26 11:25

Unfortunately, can not open under MacOS Catalina. And since web version does not work so well either atm, can't review this beautiful game :(

sharkmax218 2021-04-26 11:32

In your game mouse moves very fast

sharkmax218 2021-04-26 11:33

Rooms boring, may be add some elements to make it more colorfull

hilvon 2021-04-26 11:42

@firellon Thank you for the feedback. I will try to look into adjusting some build settings, but since I don't have a MacOS device to test the build myself, I have to publish them blind, and just hope that Unity does not mess them up.

@sharkmax218 Thank you for the feedback. I am aware of the "Turbo mouse" problem and I am going to look into it and maybe add a fixed version. Yes, the environments are a bit bland. But with excavatable ground mechanic taking the entire first day and a good chunk of day two to implement and optimize for performance, there were only so much time I could spend on making models and textures and the rest of the game. And I prioritised adding UI and tutorial hints over making textures and furniture for the enfironment.

littlegamer 2021-04-26 12:51

The gun for mining is a nice idea ! My only real complaint is the lack of sound. The atmosphere could have really kicked of with a bit of echoes, footstep, breathing, etc...

I believe the player can soft lock if he venture to far in the ground with the furthest miner. Good experience, the way of mining can probably be digged (pun not intended) !

hilvon 2021-04-26 13:22

@littlegamer - Yes... the sounds are really my nemesis. Really should teach myself how to add them to the game.

I am aware of the possibility of soft locking if you dig outside the facility and don't leave yourself some ground to climb back. But that was left kind of intentionally, so people can dig to their heart's content after finding all the miners. And when you give a player freedom to do anything they wish, you can't stop them from locking themselves out.

the-g 2021-04-26 14:44

I liked the game, although I feel like some music and some more environment props would have really sold the atmosphere. The digging was also a little slow in my opinion.

noobhereo 2021-04-26 14:48

This game was almost a bit scary because of the silence and the dimmed lighting everywhere. Felt very compact and and spooky but i do wish there was sounds in the game. I like the low poly count textures for the miners, they looked a lot like spacesuits which I felt like added to the mystery of the entire game as one whole thing. good efforts!

neon 2021-04-26 14:55

The digging didn't quite happen at the center of the screen, which made it a little hard in some places. In the end, I got stuck in a deep hole I dug myself, and couldn't get up. The marching cubes -system is very cool, if maybe a little slow to experiment with, considering the digging speed.

glitchman 2021-04-26 14:58

Wow cool game! Good luck in compo!

Cool screenshot 8))

2021-04-26_175635.png

ruslanch 2021-04-26 15:00

Я знаю что ты поймешь меня. мне нравится твоя игра

hilvon 2021-04-26 15:17

@the-g Yeah. When I imagined the game it had more environment props. Also I had larger map in mind, and a couple enemy types (One spider-like fast moving, that you need to hit with your zapper - left buttin, and another slow golem like that would crumble into pieces if you hit it with dig gun), physics-base puzzles and much more. Unfortunatelly the comfined timeframe forced me to cut most of those features.

@noobhereo I am glad you liket the art style of the game. My early prototypes of marching cubes resulted in some pretty blocky dirt meshes, so I decided that a low-poly character models for miners would fit well with it. Also you are right. Those are space suit, or rather "Hazardous Environment" suits (like hev-suit from HalfLife). Specifically fot that reason I left the head as cube - to rienfoce the inpression that this is a helmet.

@neon A Pro tip (I totally forgot to mention in controls tutorial). If you hold Shift you cet the mouse poinetr back and both your weapons will use mouse cursor rather than center of screen for targeting.

@glitchman Based on the absense of residual dirt in the hole, I recon the dirt mesh generation didn't work for you. Was that screensho taken from web build? Or some standalone builds also fail to display ground?

@ruslanch Ага. Понимаю. Рад что игра понравилась. :smile:

andykswong 2021-04-26 18:20

This is a really cool game! The digging mechanics is cool! I also like the graphics and atmosphere. Would be even better with some background ambient music

pohko 2021-04-26 18:56

Very cool, I really enjoyed the digging mechanic and the world you created to explore and find the miners. Awesome submission.

kroltan 2021-04-26 19:35

That's some serious dedication, implementing marching cubes on a jam! And a great idea for a game.

Some annoyances, though:

- Digging is verry slow. I see you mentioned mesh rebuild frequency, maybe you could get away with using multiple disconnected volumes, and reducing the resolution a bit? That way frequent rebuilds would hurt less and the digging could be sped up. (also, hey, it's a jam game, don't beat yourself up for performance!) - Mouse sensitivity was wayyyy too high. - The door to the room with the broken floor got stuck half-open, leading me to go down first and try to dig verry far trying to find an alternate entrance, but that got me nowhere either. When I returned upstairs, the door was open.

Also, a jump button would be greatly appreciated! It was a bit frustrating to trip and get stuck on the minor clumps of dirt resulting from two full blasts of the digger.

hilvon 2021-04-26 19:50

@andykswong, @pohko I am glad you liked the game. Yes, the sound is sorely missed.

@kroltan, Thank you for your very detailed feedback. Regarding the suggested optimization - this one is one of the first optimisation I implemented. On top of it, some of the calculations that are not main thread critical are offloaded to a secondary thread (in theory multiple threads, but alas the calculations get bottleneked by the mainthread critical bits), and a queue manager is added to the volume refresh requests prioritising refreshing the volumes based on their relevance by proximity to the player and some more caching magic tricks... I did really spend almost a full day trying to optimize the damned thing. Mouse sensitivity - yes. It I am aware that it sometimes happens. I am planning to look into fixing it and probably put a fixed version sometime between rating other games and dayjob. But unfortunatelly the problem does not show up on my laptop so it is kind of hard to debug it. :cry: The door actually is working as intended. It is controlled by 4 buttons and only 2 of those are on the top floor. Basically you need to clear the stair down, put the button there. Backtrack up, go through the door and then go down throught the crack in the floor.

A jump button - honestly I was going to implement it, but somehow got caught up in other fixes and then just got used to clearing the map wihtout is and forgot to actually add this one line of code...

slimabob 2021-04-26 20:56

Wow! Very creative! The voxel digging was very impressive and I liked the premise- great job :D

kevin-s 2021-04-26 21:58

Very cool game! I like the destructible terrain. I think you are on to something with this idea!

48 hours isn't enough time to make a game but you did well!

Keep up the good work!

hilvon 2021-04-27 05:59

@slimabob @kevin-s I am glad you liked the digging mechanic. It really was the core idea for the game.

aret24 2021-04-27 09:35

rtdesgsdgsdg.png I like to imagine that in this hole a giant work mutant hides.

Game is very cool, I adore the digging mechanic!

ilyas-aqil 2021-04-27 11:27

Very cool game! The digging was pretty fun to play around with, and there's some very nice puzzles with solutions that balance being evident and challenging at the same time. I think, however, the laser mechanic is a bit unnecessary and the buttons for the doors could have simply been buttons. Overall, a very cool concept well executed.

hilvon 2021-04-27 11:38

@aret24 Glad you liked the "Free digging" area beyond the facility. :smile:

@ilyas-aqil Thank you for playing. I am really happy with how puzzles turned out. Like the multi-button door. You open one segment right away. then you get the second button in the room across the hallway and as you turn to exit the hallway you can see that there are 2 segments open ow and this should give you the idea that you ned 2 more buttons to open the door. :smile:

Making a "Shoot the button" mechanic was a choice make when I still had plans for enemies you need to kill by zapping them with the same gun you use to power doors. Plus having the ability to zapp buttons from afar opened the opportunity for some tricks like a button on the ceiling, or one away in the yet inaccesible room. And to aleviate the problem with aiming the gun, I added the mechanic of precision tageting (hold shift) but them kind of forgot to mention it in the tutorials... oops...

ilyas-aqil 2021-04-27 11:42

@hilvon Yes, I really enjoyed the puzzles! It reminded me of some of the best parts of portal 2. I guess I've warmed up to the shoot the button!

yamzho 2021-04-27 19:53

Nice game; Digging felt a bit slow to me (but as I understand, it was a deliberate choice). Good job overall !

lorwon 2021-04-28 16:23

Very good entry for the compo ! The destructible terrain is well done ! It would be better with more sound design but it's a compo entry and that's actually a really good entry ! Well done :)

chiyeon 2021-04-29 03:03

Pretty cool take on the theme! As everyone keeps saying, the digging aspect of the game (whether or not someone thought it had some flaws) was super cool and well done, especially considering this game is a compo entry.

If the web version doesn't reflect your true vision, it might be prudent to take it down until then. I would count fixing whatever errors as within the LD rules (even though some time has passed).

Overall, well done!

hilvon 2021-04-29 05:40

@chiyeon Thank you for the feedback.

I am in fact working on trying to restore the digable ground mechanic into the web version. I believe the root problem turned out that the Threading is not allowed for WebGL and since the actual mesh generation was offloaded into a thread to save performance, it didn't work. I have now abstracted out the Asynchronous computations and handlers, so I can provide a class with either threading or Coroutine version of Asynchronous handler. Hopefully this will help. If it does - I will update the web version with this fix.

hilvon 2021-04-29 10:17

@firellon - I have finally managed to cram the working marching cubes terrain into the Web version so you should now be able to check it out.

kromeboy 2021-04-29 14:33

Great digging mechanic and level destruction. The mouse view controll may need some work: they where too fast for me

healthire 2021-05-12 15:59

Cool mechanics and level design. A few paper cuts in the gameplay and performance wasn't great. Good job though doing destructible 3D terrain in a game jam is impressive!