randompickle13 2023-05-01 09:11
Very funny and good gameplay. Works fine on Linux with Wine.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD53 → Holding Out
By jeremy-ryan
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 6 | 4.39 | 59 | |
| Fun | 15 | 4.26 | 59 | |
| Innovation | 97 | 3.70 | 59 | |
| Theme | 47 | 4.28 | 59 | |
| Graphics | 4 | 4.65 | 59 | |
| Audio | 8 | 4.39 | 58 | |
| Humor | 1 | 4.66 | 59 | |
| Mood | 14 | 4.31 | 59 |
Very funny and good gameplay. Works fine on Linux with Wine.
That's a solid entry. I love the graphics style, it's really amazing. The mechanics are good. I would have probably preferred a bit slower pace in the beginning. I run out of ammo during quite quickly before I could manage to get the first delivery. And then I was already swamped by enemies and out of ammo again in no time. Maybe it's just me not being able to drive the enemies away from the phone.
The character sprites are sooo cute! I love this entry. Overall reminds me a lot of Enter the Gungeon. The game is very polished too, the dynamic music is a nice touch. Excellent work for only 48 hours.
Great humour and really cute sprite art, smooth controls and plays really well. Loved the dialogue and the end game. I agree with Tanis that it can be a bit tricky to drive the enemies away from the phone, but still a really great experience.
Very humorous entry. The graphics are splendid! Had lots of fun, one of the best compos!
Amazing game! I loved the premise and the dialogue - Gary was really funny. The graphics were awesome, and I loved the phone-on-hold music, very authentic. I liked the gameplay as well, and the core concept of having to "defend" the phone and talk on it while fighting zombies was very cool. I felt like some of the upgrades were a bit unbalanced though (which makes sense given it's a compo game).
In my first run, I died due to running out of ammo while zombies swarmed the phone. In my second run, I got Cricket (I think, the ability which gave you higher damage in exchange for reduced fire rate) as my first upgrade, and it felt way too powerful. It allowed me to one-hit all the zombies (even the stronger variant), making ammo pretty much a non-issue. Afterwards, I got a mix of Green (the ammo refund one) and Flourish (shooting when dashing), which had a pretty broken synergy together (probably a bug, but still): Flourish only cost 1 ammo, but Green refunded each shot separately, which very quickly led to basically infinite ammo, and made the rest of the game a cakewalk.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed it! Great entry!
@randompickle13 @tanis @matthewdrake @rhewid Thanks for playing everyone!
@hacktic Had a lot of fun putting together the layered music, glad it paid off. And Gungeon was definitely a major influence (included it in the Special Thanks section of the game page).
@frogman Love to hear about the broken combos --- I was definitely aware that certain upgrades were more strong, or more strong in combination! I actually developed the "fix" that made the bullets from Deadly Dodge not count toward refund chance for Green, then undid it because clever players deserve a broken build every now and then. :slight_smile:
Great entry! Beat it on my 2nd try. The concept is clever, the dialogue is hilarious, the art is adorable, and the music is fitting. Awesome job!
Great game! The delivery theme is on point, the art is really pretty good, the hold music is hold music, and the spin makes the combat itself interesting. I also really appreciate the cat ears on absolutely everything. I really liked the combat when it was there, but due to the ammo limitations the gameplay 80% of the time was waiting near a wall to draw the crowd away from the phone without shooting. The upgrades also have a huge spread in usefulness where Cricket and 50% extra ammo just means you can entirely clear the waves whereas in my first playthrough I just got dodge upgrades. The "pick two" system does help with that at least, so overall it was always still pretty fun.
YOOOO THIS GAME IS AMAZING!!! Super honored to be an "inspiration" for such an awesome entry! I love the cute little dude and the cute zombies as well. Very well-crafted and smooth pixel animations. I love the hold music as well, puts you in the false atmosphere as if I weren't in a room full of zombies. JUICY camera shake, but one thing to make it even JUICIER is perhaps a louder and more splashy zombie death sound. The customer service guy is also really funny and accurate to real-life customer services :laughing:
As for the theme, this game takes it very interestingly and unique, yet it still fits so perfectly. For something made in 48 hours AND solo, balance might not be something that comes to mind at first when creating the game, especially of this quality, but can really be felt while playing the game... It's understandable tho. The previous comment has also mentioned it, cricket and extra ammo are the most important upgrades, and sometimes it comes down to luck, also sometimes either the ammo is too little or the hold times are too long... But hey again, totally understandable.
But when it comes to the gameplay... This was definitely very innovative and creative. There is a mix between strategy of trying to save ammo, trying to talk on the phone, and not dying. Enemies are pretty easy to kill, and so the twinstick shooter elements are not really the main selling point, but rather the unique phone call system.
Overall, really great game... Amazing work!
i like gary, hes a great character. the art and animations are nice and smooth. it makes it feel more fun.
cat ears.png
Absolute A+ Game
Gosh this game is such a joy to play. Everything feels so polished and considered. Absolutely adorable art and animation work. Gary made me laugh out loud many times, and the gameplay loop of trying to make enough space to speedread dialogue is genius. Covering a jazz standard is a really slick way to get great music into your game quickly. Games like this are what I aspire to create in these LD jams.
Oh god that was really fun. Good incorporation of the theme, too!
@waffleworksgames @wiredoverload @jcmonkey @ordineu @qusk2 Thanks for playing!
@no-whone Haha, awesome that you ran into this entry after I linked your game! Glad to hear you enjoyed it and definitely very useful feedback on balance and SFX.
@jdeedubs Thanks for playing! The music is original (not a cover), just drew inspiration from familiar jazz/bossa nova tunes. :slight_smile:
I absolutely love this game. Like, what a brilliant twist on the theme too! Your embedded control help was beautiful. I really appreciate the work you put into your artwork and humorous dialog. I just love having to stay on hold as the foil for trying to survive a zombie apocalypse.
You made the controls really simple to use and I feel like the balancing of having ammo and staying on hold was perfectly timed. I don't know how you did it, but it resulted in really smooth gameplay that still felt like a fun challenge.
I appreciate your hold music as well. That's a good representation!
Thanks for making this, I'm definitely going to be keeping this one around.
Oh my goodness I played it again and I won! I won't give anything away, but that is the perfect touch.
Please put your zip contents in an appropriately named folder, thanks ;)
Anyways, this game is AWESOME. The polish is really incredible, and most importantly, it's on top of a simple and fun gameplay loop. Shooting zombies is fun. You have a constant objective and progression to keep going.
Is it me or is the shooting a little off sometimes? It could be because of the seeking upgrade later, or maybe the cursor image isn't properly aligned with the true cursor position, or it could be me going crazy!
The polish is really cool especially for pygame, way to represent. The camera has weight, moves with cursor.. really good camera system. I love that when I walk into the phone I don't stop, I get pathed around it. Not really sure how that happens, but I noticed it and love it (are you.. using.. circular hitboxes in pygame..?) The customer support dialogue is top notch as well. Very good voicing.
Also thanks for including an "end game", even though unfortunately it doesn't last long with lag. My new favorite entry, congrats. I won't bother including what would have made it better, because I think it's obvious and it's 48 hours.
Edit: oh I also forgot to compliment the enemy collisions! Very cool to see them push around dead bodies, almost seems like physics
Really a show of creativity and competence. Totally finished! Other than that the gameplay is pretty easy. Saving ammo is hard, but harder is having patience with attendants. I thought this was a problem only here in Brazil, but it seems to be widespread. Everything Excellent. Congratulations!
@pyspher9 Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed the little endgame mode. :slight_smile:
@qooorti There is a ~5 degree spread on your gun, so it doesn't always land exactly on the cursor. This might not have been a great decision in hindsight with the default fire rate; it's not really fast enough to get a sense for the spread right away... and it's especially painful with "Cricket" when the difference between hitting and missing an enemy is very significant.
> unfortunately it doesn’t last long with lag
Very aware of this, but decided it was still more entertaining to leave it in! I think a lot of the lag is coming from the zombie corpses and poorly-optimized bullet and enemy collision code that scales poorly with large numbers of enemies. There's no batching, for one. Hard to optimize for performance in 48 hours, especially since I only added the endgame mode in the last hour or two!
> are you.. using.. circular hitboxes in pygame..?
Yes. In the words of Gary... they're easier to code.
Thanks for playing!
Awesome art and mechanic! Game so smooth, I like it.
Love the art, great take on humor Gary sounds just like your average customer support guy :joy: Very polished, I enjoyed, congrats for the entry!
Absolutely amazing. I loved every aspect of it: the sprites, the music, gameplay and of course the humor. I don't have any tips or criticism :) Well done!
Pretty fun, and plot is really fun. The gameplay might not be so original but it's juicy and feels really good.
Really fun entry! Great job!
Your game feels so polished, I'm impressed. I love enter the Enter the Gungeon, so I cannot stop playing your game. Plus the art style and music are awesome.
This is a really really strong entry. And bonus point for using python and pygame. Also thanks for the "Pdelivery" :wink:
Well done :thumbsup:
Arg Gary won't stop talking!
The game is really funny, I really love the idea! Writing is great too, and graphics are amazing for a compo. Those screenshakes feels perfect.
The only issue is balancing (tho it makes sense that it's the lowest priority in compo). The name of the game is amo and that's it. I feel like I'm missing a slow and/or hard way to kill enemies for free, so when I'm in control I can save amo (and only use them in critical situations).
Good job, great entry!
PS: The end is also really fun, I played until my fps died.
Pretty art and animations, nice controls
One of the best ones I've played so far on this Jam. Love the overally character design, cute and goofy as they come :D - The music is also excellent and very fitting for the theme, gives the game a lot of charm and that kept me playing. And finally, the gameplay is simple but super satisfying. I'm a big fan of games like this and I thoroughly enjoyed this (Though it does get hard after the third delivery, haven't finished it yet). Thanks for making this!
Beautiful entry. Mood perfect fits reality and dialogues were hillarious! The game mechanics feel good and are finely tuned.
Screenshot 2023-05-04 170746.png
Just getting started on my games rating sweep and had to start with the illustrious Jeremy Ryan AKA plasmastarfish!
Solid entry dude! The pic is from my first attempt, guessing there is no end game? It was frustrating to have to wait on hold (of course!) but I thought your spin on the delivery theme was pretty unique! I am a HUGE fan of Enter the Gungeon so as soon as I saw your entry I knew I had to give it a try.
Impressive balancing from what I could see too! Definitely going to play again and see if I can beat this score (also, I think I've figured out the strat but I won't spoil it hehe).
As far as the cat ears on inanimate objects I could find: the reticle, the coffee mug, the phone, the headphones, nametag, window, and floor tile... I guess I'm missing just one!
Game seems super polished from the perspective of movement, kinesthetics, sound effects, varying music track and simple controls that have the tutorial lying on the floor, how creative! I know this is a compo entry so the only thing I have to critique is that I wish there was more!
Great job again, excited to see how you rank up this time around. Peace out :sunglasses:
Sick game! Good balance of action and planning out your ammo usage. Game feels great, it's pretty damn funny as well. Great job!
Oh god, you've combined two of my biggest fears with this one - zombies and contacting customer support! This is such a solid and innovative game, the graphics are so clean and simple, the gameplay is great (although I will say the pacing is a bit tricky, as it ramps in waves much faster than I could get ammo from the supply center), and the audio is well done - the hold music is fantastic and I love how you integrated it into the game! Well done!
As a big fan of Gungeon, I loved this. Funny, tight shooting, great graphics. The only fault I can give is that there isn't more, I want more! Nice to see PyGame represented too.
I love those cats. I'm not very good at this game though...and it gave me ptsd of long customer service calls LOL.
This was so cool! I loved all the dialogue and also how you always get one more message when you interrupt the dialogue. Really well done! The game looks and feels great and the whole premise is just amazing!
I had fun with this! I think the idea was very novel, and I think the dialogue between you and the customer service operator was engaging and funny. The gameplay felt a little too easy for too long, but that may be related to the powerups I got. Woulda liked if there were bits with higher spawn rate maybe with enemies that forced you to use your roll. Really good entry overall ^o.o^
Hihihhi, I played your game on streaaam! If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1814621596?t=5h0m27s Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D 💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
@honest-dan Already thanked you on stream, but thanks again for playing!
Gameplay could definitely stand to be more interesting... Definitely a tricky balance trying to get enemies that are threatening while still being able to talk on the phone with them on screen. It was one of those jams that I frontloaded the art/audio and ran out of time for fine-tuning.
@elysiagriffin Thanks for playing! Congratulations on finding all of the cat ears and the super secret ~~playtesting shortcut~~ **cheat code.**
Was thinking about submitting to your queue earlier this week but your description said web games only. I hope my buttons were up to your standards!
A recurring theme I'm noticing in streams --- players sometimes don't notice they're supposed to interact with the phone again (happened your first run, which is why you were short on ammo). It probably would have been smart to add a very obvious indicator somewhere other than just the hold music going away --- one of those things that you only catch from live feedback!
Great and polished game! Graphics were cute and plot was funny, sounds were good and there were no bugs.
Only thing I would have hoped was some more challenge. The enemies came frequently enough for you to get off the phone from time to time, but I didn't feel the need for the upgrades after the damage upgrade and didn't have to use the dodge roll for more than once when a cyan zombie was right next to me while picking the next upgrade. I think some rare special zombies that would do a charge or maybe explode for example, would mix up the gameplay enough for you to feel actually threatened.
Otherwise the game felt good, gameplay was solid and mood was there. Nice work!
I love the funny conversations with Gary, they (and the many cat ears everywhere) give an extra charm to the game, which already had some of it on the art and animations :)
It's a really neat idea to have to balance between killing the zombies and holding a conversation on the phone. I think the actual shooting/dodging gameplay could be a bit more interesting, but this is a great start!
I wanted to let you know, so maybe you could look into it, that on my first attempt the game crashed; I'm not sure what I did wrong? The error seems pretty vague: holding_out_crash.png
Really cool game, I love humor and mechanics. At the beginning spawn of zombies could be a bit quicker but playing it gave me ans insight to what is wrong with my twin-stick shooter :D
Great entry! I really liked the contrast between waiting for a customer service versus having to survive. It creates a fun story. Every element in the game seems to have been studied, for instance the tutorial nicely fits into the level design. This creates a coherent and immersive world.
One thing I would change might be the pacing of the game. It is really slow at first and then quickly becomes difficult.
Very polished, well made game. I included it in my Ludum Dare 53 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. https://youtu.be/Q3lvQ8g3OHA
The game was great fun. Great design, great concept. The contrast between the zombie and the queue is exasperatingly humorous and ingenious. gameover.png I could have played longer :D
Really funny & fun entry! Loved the onboarding and gary is great. At the end becomes very hard and my approach consisted in luring all the zombies around rather than killing them and then it stopped being as fun as at the beginning, but it was a very nice entry congratulations!
This was amazing! I really enjoyed play this game. Everything is on point, art, animation, gameplay, humor. The best game I played this LD!
Very nice idea.
I hate Gary! Where is my ammo Gary! Please Gary stop eating your fucking donut. Give me the delivery! lol
Geat game and I really appreciate the way it's written. I wish there was more difficulty to it though. The game starts very slow and never really gets hard. If the difficulty ramped up faster and there was more of the game it would be awesome! And with some scoring system. But right now it's already great, the graphics gameplay and sfx are all very well done.
This was pretty great! I absolutely love the art style! The wobbly animations are adorable, and the cat ear motif around gary's equipment is charming!
The dialogue is *dumb*, and I mean that as the greatest compliment I can give. I loved every line that I had the chance to read, which reminds me of a comment I have once received on a humorous game. The dialogue is hilarious, yet I know for a fact I was missing comedy gold, because my priorities were staying alive > reading the funny. Good humor shouldn't be missed as a means to meet an objective.
I think after the package arrives, you should have a large arrow pointing to the phone, to tell the player that they gotta ask for another package. Once I got an upgrade, my instincts were to immediately give it a try and see how it works! It's very easy to overlook calling him back for a second package.
Anyway, I loved the heck out of this, and I recorded my gameplay to provide even more feedback!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0Vkb_IgtE4
@100th-coin Hey, thanks for playing! I was 100% aware of the phone issue and had an arrow/indicator as the top thing in my priorities checklist that didn't make the 48 hour cut.
Good point on players potentially missing the jokes. Definitely a little disheartening to see the mechanic actively discourage you from reading the voice lines during your playthrough.
Thanks for playing and for the video! Live feedback is always the most valuable.
Really fun, the zombies were satisfying to kill, and seemed quiet harmless until I had to start waiting for the dialogue to be delivered. It felt like it was very hard to win with some upgrades compared to others, and I didn't really feel like I needed to use dodge that much. That said, I really loved the ending!
Very fun game, loved the idea! I played earlier on stream if you wanted to watch initial thoughts (timestamps in the description to jump to your game!) [youtube link](youtu.be/VWB4DGknN6k)
Wow what an expertly crafted entry! Amazing amount of polish and a satisfying gameplay loop! I'm struggling to find anything to critique but I suppose after the 3rd or 4th delivery I started to feel like the math just wasn't there in terms of how many bullets I had vs. how many zombies I needed to clear to use the phone. Great core loop, though, and I definitely felt myself wanting to play again instead of continuing on my final play/review cycle.
Geez, this was good! Very nice, addicting. 2 things only (I would tweak a bit): 1) The *phone call* is sometimes a bit too slow / can feel; I would suppose that if it was very fast - like 0.5-1.0s this would add to a *frenzy feeling* and make the game feel even more dynamic ; I know this is a game mechanic, so that player should be taking the risk while on the phone, but that could be compensated by just having several more lines (which go rapidly but go for the same amount of time in total)
2) Sure, as others noted, it's a bit intimidating and it feels like maybe too hard; what about giving players another power or a way to *survive* while on the phone? :)
Overal, very *fun* and *funny* / *hilarious* *polished* game with a *solid core loop*. Thank you!
@jeremy-ryan congrats on your placement!!!!!