Pedestrian Mining Corps by mildmojo

[raw]
made by mildmojo for LD32 (JAM)
==> BABY EARTH NEEDS ASTEROIDS

Baby Earth is small. Baby Earth needs asteroids to survive! The Pedestrian Mining Corps is ready to help! Deploy pedestrians—average schmoes—into the Milky Way to bring rocks home for harvest.

Made with Unity 5, Inkscape, Audacity, and bfxr. Premade assets listed in credits.

==> HOW TO PLAY

Tap the screen to fling a pedestrian at the asteroid field. If your timing's right, the pedestrian will smack into the asteroid and begin the WHOLLY SCIENTIFIC PROCESS of JUMPING UP AND DOWN to push the asteroid back to Baby Earth for processing.

==> CONTROLS

Keyboard: space bar, enter
Mouse: left click
Gamepad: any button
Touch: tap screen

==> CURRENT DEVELOPER HIGH SCORE

1100 T

==> CREDITS

. Design, code, art, sound effects: @mildmojo (mildmojo.com, twitter.com/mildmojo)

. Additional art (pedestrian models): Mike Judge
... Mini Mike's Metro Minis - Core Collection
... https://mikelovesrobots.github.io/mmmm/
... Used under CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

. Music: "Pursue the Truth" by Rainbow Kitten (Thanks so much, @viTekiM!)
... http://rainbowkitten.bandcamp.com/album/glad-thing
... Used with permission: https://twitter.com/viTekiM/status/589507504477962240

. Additional sounds (asteroid processing, cheering): Sonniss sound effects library (Thank you, Sonniss!!)
... http://www.sonniss.com/sound-effects/free-download-game-audio/

Ratings

Coolness 73% 3
Overall(Jam) 2.98 725
Fun(Jam) 2.73 738
Graphics(Jam) 3.29 525
Humor(Jam) 2.95 473
Innovation(Jam) 3.12 498
Mood(Jam) 2.67 785
Theme(Jam) 2.92 797

Feedback

Kaijuu
21. Apr 2015 · 08:34 UTC
I like graphics and music
highlyinteractive
21. Apr 2015 · 09:26 UTC
It's pretty good fun - the gravity simulation works well
Druid
21. Apr 2015 · 09:26 UTC
Interesting idea. But after a while, little boring.
koredozo
21. Apr 2015 · 09:27 UTC
Agreed, concept doesn't feel like it has much longevity, but great graphics and music. Five minutes well spent.
phi
21. Apr 2015 · 09:27 UTC
I like the simplicity, but the kind of sluggish movements make it feel a bit weird, I find. Nice combination of 2D and 3D graphics, awesome main menu!
Big Cow
21. Apr 2015 · 09:44 UTC
I really liked the miner models. Gameplay was an interesting idea; would benefit from being developed more so there were more strategy or skill to it.
ss64games
21. Apr 2015 · 15:03 UTC
Haha, I had a lot of fun with this. The animated texts and animations are really well done and look great. It would have been nice if you found a voxel model of earth and the asteroids as the graphics didn't mesh too well together. I also think a few less asteroids spawning would have freed up some space and made the challenge more interesting (only once or twice did I get to see a civilian flung deep into space to be caught in orbit by one of the asteroid's gravity fields). Great work!
🎤 mildmojo
21. Apr 2015 · 16:56 UTC
You all are quick! Thanks for the feedback so far. I had plans for more: progressive waves with different asteroid patterns, a finer-grained resource accumulation system with different-looking asteroids with different compositions, alien attacks, multiplayer, pedestrians shouting their random names when they launch... So much was scrapped for time. Happens every time I work alone. =P

@phi The launch and gravity forces probably need tuning. I didn't have much time to playtest. Too much launch force or too little gravity and the little people whiz past the asteroids instead of orbiting.

@Big Cow, the pedestrians are from Mini Mike's Mini Metros (https://mikelovesrobots.github.io/mmmm/). I'm using 70+ of the people for variety, but the pack has a lot more stuff like vehicles and buildings. Great resource. It inspired the game, actually.

@ss64games Hey, man! Thanks for trying it out. I didn't even think of going voxel for the planet/asteroids, but should've looked. The 2D spinning sprites looked ridiculous so I just went with it. The aesthetic might be straddling serious/silly too much. Asteroid spawning could definitely be tuned.
OnlySlightly
21. Apr 2015 · 22:28 UTC
Loved the vibe you got going with the music and graphical style. The squishy bouncy animations were great :)
emmelineprufrock
21. Apr 2015 · 22:56 UTC
Loved the graphics + sound + cookies.
GarethIW
22. Apr 2015 · 21:26 UTC
quite fun, music was cool

-CH
lebrokholic
23. Apr 2015 · 05:01 UTC
Did not have a fun for a long period of time, but the idea is clear and I'm fond of these cute flat design planets :D Try to change a little bit your game design ideas and keep going!
6x13
23. Apr 2015 · 05:51 UTC
I really like all the media and implementation is solid but the gameplay is lacking motivation.
TeamCalcium
23. Apr 2015 · 07:24 UTC
Very enjoyable graphics, good audio too. Nice arcade Game!
PaperBlurt
23. Apr 2015 · 09:56 UTC
Oh this was nice.
Impressive gameplay as I feel there's more beneath the surface than first hits the eye. I mean I think I started the game with one idea of what to expect but left with another.

Graphics are smooth and have a calm effect on me.
Fanttum
24. Apr 2015 · 00:27 UTC
The graphics did not mesh very well I thought, but good music if y'all made that, but it does get a bit repetitive. Had to tell if your doing well in that game, but interesting mechanics
Ryusui
25. Apr 2015 · 07:04 UTC
Enjoyed it. Could use some more gameplay depth (maybe different asteroid types worth different amounts?), but I liked it overall. I also loved the little 3D pixel people; the whole game really should've been in that style. XD

My one issue is the way things get confused when you've got an asteroid (or several) near Earth. It's sometimes hard to tell the pedestrians on the asteroids from the one circling the planet ready for launch, and flung pedestrians keep clinging to nearby asteroids when I'm trying to launch them at the "stream."
🎤 mildmojo
25. Apr 2015 · 22:05 UTC
@TeamCalcium, PaperBlurt, thanks!

@Fanttum Maybe one day I'll learn how to texture a cube and have real 3D planets. =) I usually make 2D games, but the voxel assets from Mike's Mini Metros looked too cool not to use. I didn't do the music, it's by Rainbow Kitten (see credits).

@Ryusui Thank you! I had designs for multiple asteroid types and different resources to be collected each wave, but no time. =) The astral bodies are 2D because it looks silly and I can't make 3D assets.

It sure is difficult to escape the gravity well of several asteroids clustered around Earth. Maybe find a way to spread them out? ;) The confusion between "active" pedestrian and "inactive" workers is real, I could've added a highlight to show the one on deck.
jplur
26. Apr 2015 · 00:01 UTC
Gameplay could use a little polish, but it's a great idea and I think you should tweak it a bit for a post compo version!
RobotHoboDanceParty
26. Apr 2015 · 00:20 UTC
Took me a while to figure out that I wasnt firing little spaceships but actual people haha! This was pretty cool, thought the "baby earth" and the asteroids seemed a little out of place with the 3d "pedestrians" but it was a pretty cool and fun game overall! good job!
slowfrog
26. Apr 2015 · 20:07 UTC
Funny, limited, but works well.
Photon
27. Apr 2015 · 00:19 UTC
Cool. Gravity felt a bit wonky at times (particularly when asteroids bunch up behind the earth) but it was kind of fun to try and work around it. The pedestrians dudes were real slick too. Quite the funky entry!
jwin
27. Apr 2015 · 00:25 UTC
Pretty interesting, and now I want a chocolate chip cookie.
Cliff Lee(CL)
27. Apr 2015 · 07:02 UTC
Concept and music is great!
If gamplay's tempo is faster, maybe will be better.
Curial
27. Apr 2015 · 08:42 UTC
Interesting game and nice pedestrians ^^ I would suggest asteroids go make smaller as pedestrians are mining them. That would increase the player's progress sensation.
Jwatt
27. Apr 2015 · 10:35 UTC
Not nearly as dynamic as the quirky presentation would've warranted. No strategy or skill required, just tappity tap tap at roughly the right time and see what happens.
Jeedan
27. Apr 2015 · 12:32 UTC
cool audio and graphics, pretty fun game!
grillaface
27. Apr 2015 · 23:04 UTC
Nice and insane; I love it :)