subsage 2021-10-05 03:29
I fell in the vat and died lol
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Glown-Up
By very-dark-lord, fluffyou, Raimonds Vanags, Jamal, a_door and Jorvd
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 435 | 3.74 | 29 | |
| Fun | 302 | 3.81 | 29 | |
| Innovation | 547 | 3.50 | 29 | |
| Theme | 286 | 4.01 | 29 | |
| Graphics | 779 | 3.57 | 29 | |
| Audio | 399 | 3.61 | 29 | |
| Humor | 221 | 3.79 | 29 | |
| Mood | 268 | 3.87 | 29 |
I fell in the vat and died lol
Woah, such a cool and novel idea!
Pretty good title! Lot of thought and attention to detail in your entry and your game mechanics lend itself really nicely overall to the game.
Wow, nice game! I liked the grim mood of the music and green glow and people becoming crazy when exposed to too much radiation. I got to day 21. I wasn't sure if there was a way to cure workers or to avoid radiation poisoning, or was it only inevitable. I didn't get many upgrades though because I had to buy new workers as they all got mutated after awhile.
Very interesting concept and use of the theme as in addition to the reactor, the people begin to become unstable too.
Thanks a lot for the feedback! :)
@subsage the "die in vat" soft lock has been fixed by now. When it happens (and it does, to all of us) the "hire new staff" screen will open as it should.
@tomssuli we didn't get around to adding a win condition, but I think day 21 would have triggered it. :D Well done, and indeed there's no cure (only a "permanent" "cure", ahem). Avoiding radiation happens via a) high resilience characters, b) iodine intake (machine can be bought), c) clean reactor upgrade, and d) generally spending little time near glowing things. But even then this only delays the ultimate fate of turning unstable. Glad you enjoyed it!
@very-dark-lord I played it some more, for an hour or so and reached day 60-something. First I was struggling for very long but then at day 50 I got lizard skin and it got much easier when I didn't die to radiation all the time... But when I got big money, I hired about 6 workers (none with low intelligence) and they just started to throw cells in the reactor without cooling it. I tried to keep pace throwing water in, but couldn't cope with them and someone also threw some people to the reactor so I had meltdown which I couldn't stop in any way even when everything should have been great at that point... So there's some flaws in the AI 😄
Also, was there something to point out how far you are losing your stability and at which places you get radiation poisoning, or is it just everywhere? And I didn't know how far in the hole I had to bury the waste, does it radiate everywhere or just near it etc. I would have liked clearer indicators for the radiation mechanics.
Anyway, this is the game I've spent most of the time and got most out of in this jam so far 😊 ...I wish you made a more polished and balanced post-jam version but I understand if you didn't, since it's much work if you're not planning to make a bigger game out of it.
@tomssuli Wow, that's great to read! :) Yes, the AI is (partially deliberately) imperfect. The characters have an "intelligence" stat, which affects how often they do stupid things. So every now and then it happens that even a sane coworker either wastes time, or does something counterproductive, or even throws another person (or themselves) into the reactor. Or carries you around for no particular reason. I think the extreme unpredictable-ness is part of what makes it fun. But of course the flip side is that sometimes it can be game-ending. :sweat_smile:
Also indeed many things are not very clearly (or not at all) communicated. E.g.: - radiation affects you to a certain radius of green glowing things - waste disposal is almost useless (sorry :D), it's enough to drop things down the shaft and not care about them any further - coffee intake speeds you up for something like 15 seconds (gradually fades away so you don't really notice when it stops) - iodine intake increases your radiation resistance for ~15 seconds - both caffeine and iodine are stackable in principle, but doesn't help much given the cooldown times of the vending machines - how the stats affect workers and AI behavior - every stat has some notable impact
There most definitely will be a post jam version. We've got quite a few ideas of how to improve things and polish it up further. But if you'd like to see anything in particular, let us know and we'll see what we can do. :)
I made it to day 31. Awesome concept:)
It was very engaging, that I was on the verge of losing for basically the whole time. No time to breath. And I failed in the end when a mad co-worker just carried me around for too long.
When the first guy just randomly threw his co-worker carrying a barrel into the reactor, I genuinely laughed out loud :D In general the quirkiness of the always busy co-workers around me really made the game.
I didn't buy many upgrades, since money did not really pile up for some reason… Would have really liked to see how jumping with strong legs looks like!
The music was really cool, but I feel like you could have gone more overboard with the sound effects. For the co-workers, but especially for the emergency situations of the reactor.
The main graphics are nice to look at and do their job. But I want to single out the mountainous background. It is really beautiful, especially with the parallax effect.
A few notes: - you can throw barrels on top of the reactor building, and they disappear (?). Might be a shortcut for waste clean-up. - I was very disappointed that I couldn't just dump the atomic waste into the water. I thought that is how it's done!? - in my first try, I though the underground waste storage is the reactor, because I didn't explore the map to the left. Maybe a subtle help like a road sign at the start would have been good to direct the player in the correct direction
Really fun and super engaging! A bit more tutorialization at the start would be nice, but once I figured out where everything was and what everything does, it was a blast.
My take on the theme was also an unstable reactor!
the idea is really cool, and the fact that you have other people working just like you makes it feel much more alive, good work!
I honestly lost track of time playing this one, great game. Loved the animations and variety in all the workers. At first I was annoyed by some of the dumb things they were doing but honestly it was hilarious to have them pick me up and take me the wrong way while I was trying to take the urgently needed water to the reactor.
Thanks for Greta!
Nice game!) You can really get stuck in it for a short time. Could you add something like a workers' hospital? I believe that even so, we should try to cure them, rather than throw them into the dump of nuclear waste)
So I was on day 3, living my dreams, keeping things stable, AND I GOT THROWN IN THE REACTOR BY ANOTHER WORKER!?
I'm unsure if this is a bug or a feature, but 10/10 would get tossed in a reactor again hahaha. Overall, the graphics are really cute and I love the little workers running around. Another one also yeeted itself into the reactor and I'm pretty sure I heard a scream >.>
However, it's super fun and overall great job everyone! Super polished and cute experience :3
@simonl Thanks for the thorough feedback! You can indeed throw things onto the outside of the building, but that's not recommended. :D Things don't really disappear, they're just stuck behind a visual foreground layer but still sit around there. The waste still radiates happily, and it will even confuse the AI every now and then because they'll try to pick that item up but won't be able to find a working route there, so they might just start running against a wall (which is arguably an improvement to their regular behavior hehe).
@corbeng you're absolutely right, we're really sad we weren't able to add a tutorial in time. I actually started working on one like 20 minutes before the deadline, but just wasn't quite able to finish, so we left it out and kind of hoped that observing the coworkers initially would be enough to figure out what the most important actions are. It's not ideeal, but things will look better in the postjam version for sure. :)
@aevek thank you! Indeed it wasn't easy to balance the "AI does stupid things that sometimes are really funny" thing, given it could at times just be frustrating. For the postjam version we'll probably add a limit to how long they'll carry you around, or even a "struggle button" to get released earlier.
@montazhnikus Absolutely, for the post jam version we're considering to add ways to cure workers again.
@sarah Definitely a feature! :D Glad you enjoyed being sacrificed to the great reactor. :pray: Thanks for your feedback!
I was really hoping it was a feature haha!
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Ура, 39 дней. Интересно.
borrar.jpg Very good work!! a super addictive and fun game. I found some bugs, such as workers or objects getting stuck on the stairs. I would have liked there to be a bar or indicative of the radioactivity that the workers are having. The idea of "upgrades" in it seemed very good to me, I would like there to be an hospital where I can cure radioactivity xD I had a great time, good game!
@emaigualmc2-art impressive! :D You may be only the second person in existence who managed to unlock all the upgrades. And indeed more nuanced feedback about the radiation level of the workers has been a major point of criticism. We don't have a perfect solution for that yet and don't want to clutter the screen with too many bars, but we'll see what we come up with for the postjam version. Some kind of "hospital" feature is planned as well, although that would shift the game's balancing quite a bit, so we have to see how we deal with that exactly. Thanks a lot for your feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed the game. :)
The game was actualy quite mysterious, but I had fun exploring the little world you constructed and watching the workers do their job. I tried to imitate them but I'm not sure if it was good or bad. Had fun throwing nuclear wastes around anyway :) Good work overall!
@jonathan-lorenz sorry about the mysteriousness! We didn't manage to add a tutorial in time, so were just hoping that things would work out somehow anyway. :sweat_smile: The basic tasks in the game are:
- throwing fuel rods (the bright green bars) into the reactor - throwing water buckets into the reactor - bringing nuclear waste to underground disposal site - occasionally buying upgrades and hiring new workers
In the first minute or so the other workers do this more or less diligently. Afterwards however they fall victim to radiation and turn mentally unstable, at which point they start acting randomly. So at that point they're not great role models anymore. :D
Glad you had some fun despite the lack of clarity!