Social Sass by abcdef65g

[raw]
made by abcdef65g for LD32 (JAM)
A young man who wants to become a knight, but who does not excel in old-fashioned sword and shield as much as he does in social networks. Join Sass in his journey to help people, gather followers, and vanquish evil with one of the most unconventional weapons of all time: microblogging!

Update 04/21: I passed out as soon as uploaded the game due to lack of sleep, and as it turns out, there are more bugs than you can shake a stick at! So I'll get those and the WebGL build sorted out in the near future. https://idesigngames.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/my-first-ludum-dare-game-out-except-not/

Update 04/22: Game-breaking bugs were fixed with a bit of overtime after the deadline, but all other bugs and unfinished stuff were left as "features". The game is (hopefully) playable now, so that's a good thing. Also, a Unity Web Player port is out, which is a nice bonus.
Now I can finally play/rate some Ludum Dare games, yay!

Update 04/26: Fixed some of the misc bugs and issues with feedback from our kind commenters, and uploaded improved versions of the game. Please vote on our entry based on the jam version, but check out the post-jam version if you find yourself curious to finish the game and the bugs/issues previously kept you from finishing it!

Ratings

Coolness 57% 3
Overall(Jam) 2.94 749
Fun(Jam) 2.31 972
Graphics(Jam) 3.14 594
Humor(Jam) 3.19 357
Innovation(Jam) 3.47 274
Mood(Jam) 2.47 873
Theme(Jam) 3.69 287

Feedback

Pix3M
21. Apr 2015 路 07:55 UTC
Well, I started this game, I quickly found that there isn't much to what was submitted. I *think* what the game intended was an adventure game where you interact with various NPC's on a story-based adventure, but all I was able to find out of the game was a large map with an entirely hand-drawn background (without map commission logic), few NPC's who all seem to say the same thing.

I like the premise would bet this game can be legitimately interesting if it was finished. I can't picture this being a game that can be finished for a Ludum Dare though, I estimate a game like this would take one solid month if I worked on it full time.
馃帳 abcdef65g
21. Apr 2015 路 20:17 UTC
The game doesn't have nearly the amount of content I expected it to, but it should still be perfectly playable. I think the problem is that my eventing system somehow doesn't work beyond my test build, so all NPC's are triggering the same test routine instead of their intended events... I was sure it was working earlier. orz

I really meant to get a WebGL Unity port out as soon as I figured how to do it, but I guess I'll have to fix the event system bugs first. It's pretty much game-breaking if it doesn't work. Without the events, the game is just a walking simulator, which is even worse than a microblogging game. XD
Nilq
22. Apr 2015 路 04:41 UTC
I like the graphics! :3
馃帳 abcdef65g
22. Apr 2015 路 21:39 UTC
Debugging while you have an ear infection is definitely not something I'd recommend people to try... Ouch.

In any case, I found out the problem why the event system did not trigger. All event data is stored in files, which were then turned into functional events. The issue is that the method of loading files from your project only worked while testing my game in the Unity Editor, and not in an actual build. So I had to rewrite 2 whole classes from scratch in order to make the system work again.

While I'm technically just bug-fixing the build, I realize that I did a lot of code rewriting, which might be considered "working after the deadline". I'm deeply sorry that it had to come to this. I can see now that a lack of testing and a lack of sleep are both difficult issues to deal with, and my inexperience with game jams shows through.

But at least the game can be played to the end now, and I now have a Unity Player port up. It was a very fun experience overall, and I learned valuable lessons which I plan to expand on in a post-mortem.
ianburnette
23. Apr 2015 路 00:35 UTC
I love the battle mechanic. It's really clever, and all the added hash tags on the battle chirps ... so funny. :)
kabutakogames
23. Apr 2015 路 06:31 UTC
I really liked the concept, though I think it would've taken better to an adventure-style game where your tweets effect the world around you
OccamsRazor
24. Apr 2015 路 20:29 UTC
Really cool idea! Loved the concept and the art style, and the whole battle mechanic seemed cool. The battles did seem a little slow and tedious, but really cool nonetheless!
DKoding
24. Apr 2015 路 21:09 UTC
Innovative and seemed cool but I was unable to enter anything in the chatbox on my Mac.
ConflictiveLabs
24. Apr 2015 路 21:14 UTC
The concept was good but the implementation for me was boring, changing a simple turn based battle where you need to type the name of the enemy, doesn't add fun, it subtract it
lizard455
24. Apr 2015 路 22:07 UTC
Haha, I love it! I've never played anything quite like this. The rechirp system was pretty cool too! If you decide to keep working on this, I could see something like special moves in the form of tags. Great art by the way!
OnlySlightly
24. Apr 2015 路 22:11 UTC
I really liked the concept. And I really enjoyed getting to see the messages of the new followers.
MegaPonies
24. Apr 2015 路 22:17 UTC
I found it quite humorous and original :p A but buggy though..
Was the damage of the chirps just random? A shame we can't see the enemies's hitpoints!
KhaoTom
24. Apr 2015 路 22:32 UTC
Kinda neat idea for the battle system. I think it could be made more user friendly, clicking on an enemy to insert their name for instance. could also be expanded upon by having some known hashtags the player could choose that would do more/less damage vs certain enemies. Cool beans though!
DeadFragment
24. Apr 2015 路 22:33 UTC
Lots of potential in this game! Love the concept and the art style was great, the movement did feel a little slugish though, awesome concept!

-Neith
SayHiBen
25. Apr 2015 路 16:50 UTC
Heads up - the web version of this isn't letting me type @mentions on Firefox, Mac 10.9.5.
sekaru
25. Apr 2015 路 16:52 UTC
I like the graphics and with a bit more time I could see the concept becoming a lot more fleshed out than it currently is.
gil_villarreal
25. Apr 2015 路 16:59 UTC
Interesting concept. Certainly original and good implementation of the theme.
nassi
25. Apr 2015 路 17:36 UTC
Ha, that was a pretty cool adventure actually. Quite funny too. Being able to click the enemies' names similarly to how you could click your followers' names would've been quite useful. The graphics were really great, especially during the battle. I liked the little variations in the enemies too. The combat system was pretty interesting with the rechirps and it was nice that there was some variety to them too (the innkeeper being able to heal you). Even more could've been useful.

Sure it has some bugs and/or problems too: http://imgur.com/a/xFaAw. It was also somewhat annoying to keep switching between keyboard and mouse.

Lots of content for a jam game. Solid entry!
Kaijuu
25. Apr 2015 路 19:01 UTC
Haha cool idea!
MonoS
25. Apr 2015 路 19:40 UTC
I had to quit the game despite the fact that it made me laugh 3-4 times.

The sprite are really good and remember me of Chrono Trigger, very well done.

Some situation are fun, but the slowness of the whole experience is almost unacceptable, walking in tooo frigging slooooooooooow, the same for the battle, two seconds for an attack is really too much, and sometimes the enemies have long, case sensitive, name.

For the next time use a framework you are more familiar with and mostly sleep well, passing out after submission is never good because you always fund last minutes bug.

Made two screenshoot on my adventure
http://abload.de/img/clipboard029wunn.png [after he told me to use open source software]
http://abload.de/img/clipboard03qqump.png [next week i'll make a cosplay with the word "Will Code for Food, play my games" on it, so i had to make this]
steboots
26. Apr 2015 路 11:44 UTC
I really enjoy the concept, definitely a nice corner stone. Some small tweaks would be copy and paste enemy names, hitting enter to tweet. It's clever.
deadbodyoutline
26. Apr 2015 路 20:50 UTC
Hey, I'm Rodrigo Oliveira, from IGDA Curitiba ;)

Quite unusual game here! The idea of social network as an weapon is nice! Damn hashtags, hehe.
Got some movement issues, but not problem to play at all. Also, te web version crashed the first time I tried.
MrShoestore
29. Apr 2015 路 02:46 UTC
I REALLY like some of the graphics. Fun idea. Good thing I remembered how to read for this one.
uber
10. May 2015 路 11:11 UTC
A nicely done game and a cool idea to defeat your enemies using more... literary means. ;D