LudumData

Synthetic Nano-Organic Web-Manipulating Agent Network by ZNCatlaw

[raw]
made by ZNCatlaw for LD31 (JAM)
Programming by @nomoon & @arrogantgamer

Design, arrangement, and pixels by @clangmuir

Works on Windows machines, Macs, and Linux!

----Gameplay----

LEFT CLICK TO SEND THE ENGINEER

RIGHT CLICK TO SEND THE CTO

Engineer fixes damage, CTO fixes malfunction. If a crew member is at their station when an event occurs, it doesn't hurt your ship. Crew members become bored easily and go to their quarters and download stuff that damages you, the AI of the ship. Send the CTO to the computers to fix you.

You have ship health, malfunctions, and corruption (the AI's health). Preserve them all! Survive as long as you can!

You are the S.N.O.W.M.A.N. !

We believe in you!

In ☃ we trust.

----Other Controls----
Escape / P - Pause menu
F10 - Quit
Space / Enter - Crash! (Don't worry, it didn't do anything important anyway)

----More Shouts----

Title music
2 bit hank - Roygbiv Boards of Canada cover -
https://soundcloud.com/2-bit-hank/roygbiv-boards-of-canada-chiptune

Gameplay music
Kalter krieg - Pulselooper - http://pulselooper.bandcamp.com/track/kalter-krieg

UI assets adapted from Buch at opengameart.org/users/buch

Special thanks to RPG Maker VX and it's very active tile/sprite making community. Whatever tilesets we used were very difficult to determine the creator, so whoever originally made them, THANK YOU.

Written with love in LÖVE2D

----Plugs----

If you like our work and want to see a post-jam build, check us out at

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ZNCatlaw
Twitter - https://twitter.com/ZNCatlaw
Gamejolt - http://gamejolt.com/profile/zigs-nomoon-clang-at-law/326728/
Windows https://s3.amazonaws.com/zncatlaw/ld31/SNOWMAN-v1.0-win32.zip
OS/X https://s3.amazonaws.com/zncatlaw/ld31/SNOWMAN-v1.0-osx.zip
Linux https://s3.amazonaws.com/zncatlaw/ld31/SNOWMAN-v1.0.love
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=42407

Ratings

Coolness 73% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.35 375
Audio(Jam) 2.97 403
Fun(Jam) 2.91 607
Graphics(Jam) 4.05 148
Humor(Jam) 3.14 249
Innovation(Jam) 3.26 358
Mood(Jam) 3.42 240
Theme(Jam) 3.68 379

Feedback

Grindstorm
09. Dec 2014 · 03:53 UTC
Looks great! Like really great! Took me a second to figure out who to send where, but then I got a hang of it.
Indieindio
09. Dec 2014 · 04:24 UTC
nice !

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=46736 check out our game
JavadocMD
09. Dec 2014 · 22:30 UTC
Cute concept and well executed! There's a lot that's unexplained but you do get the hang of it after the first try, so that's not a huge impediment. I loved the little things the crew runs around saying. :)

Perhaps some audio clues would have helped with the gameplay -- a warning when a new system breaks or is corrupted, for instance. Otherwise you're just kind of randomly scanning the whole ship looking for problems and you miss out on some of the ambience.

I would like more strategic depth to the game -- maybe patterns in the system damage/infection, or systems get worse the longer you leave them broken. If any of those sorts of mechanics are present I wasn't able to notice them in the chaos.
Leaghorn
10. Dec 2014 · 04:24 UTC
Really interesting. Awesome graphics.
I get some error in game that force closes the game.
attempt to index field UI or something like that
tcarter
10. Dec 2014 · 04:35 UTC
I loved the graphics! It seemed like there were so many messages happening at the same time that I didn't know what to do.
sP0CkEr2
10. Dec 2014 · 04:40 UTC
Nice, but I just could not figure out how to play it - maybe a short tutorial would be nice. Adding it to my play again list.
p1x3lruckus
10. Dec 2014 · 04:41 UTC
Really really hard, well done, but hard. It was hard to tell what the different icons meant, and there was a lot happening on screen every moment, but I suppose that was purposeful. Good art and the music was alright, but I think sound effects and some particles would of made it much easier to tell what events were happening and where the player should be paying attention..
BMacIntosh
10. Dec 2014 · 04:41 UTC
There was so much going on here, I think it captured the feeling well. It also took me a round to figure out what the heck was going on, but I got it. During my second game I took my hand off the mouse for several minutes but didn't lose.

If the art is all from OGA and RPGMaker you should opt out of the art category.
🎤 ZNCatlaw
10. Dec 2014 · 05:10 UTC
@JavadocMD, @BMacIntosh, @p1x3lruckus: thank you all so much! Great feedback!

To the folks saying audio cues would be nice: yes, definitely that is on our list. I wish I'd been able to/thought of just taking an hour to grab a bunch of noise from bfxr and plugging that in. Would have been great.

To the folks who love the graphics/how crowded the game feels: I'm so glad you got it! The game feels crowded and hectic, like a space-ship under the constant strain of an ignorant crew. That's for sure what we were going for (I was saying "juicy" but I think crowded/busy is probably more accurate).

More strategic depth: YES YES YES! We literally only worked on the gameplay programming for about 6 - 12 hours... the rest of the time was all graphics and basic game engine stuff like pathing. @clang, our game designer, has a great vision for this project, and the three of us will probably touch this up in January.

I'm making trello cards for all the feedback, so please keep it coming: peers are the best playtesters.
🎤 ZNCatlaw
10. Dec 2014 · 05:12 UTC
@BMacIntosh, hadn't thought of that... the art and sound are all arranged by @clang, and there is no category for "level design". Maybe opting out of sound/music would be a good idea, since "mood" covers what we did with that, but I would like to believe that the art of arranging tiles into a functional whole is at least as worthy of praise as the art of arranging individual pixels into a whole.

I'm glad for the feedback though!
A Flat Miner Studios
10. Dec 2014 · 06:21 UTC
Artwork and crew sayings are excellent. A key as to what repairs looked like would have been helpful. I saw a lightning bolt, a scream face, and exclamation point...but didn't know what they meant ever! Would help my initial confusion. Still, great job!
ZeronSix
10. Dec 2014 · 09:40 UTC
Something that looks like SS13 is already awesome! I definately had some fun playing this game.
P.S. Why does the game crash when I press Space?
JJEvil
10. Dec 2014 · 16:41 UTC
Good looking game here.
goodbadokay
10. Dec 2014 · 16:47 UTC
Awesome graphics!
A bit confusing with all those messages
But the game looks very solid
🎤 ZNCatlaw
10. Dec 2014 · 17:29 UTC
A ha ha, @ZeronSix yes the game crashes if you push space or enter. That's a feature! #wontfix
d3garcia
10. Dec 2014 · 17:34 UTC
Excellent game! couldnt find instructions but thats alright I guess. Awesome job
5k0d
11. Dec 2014 · 17:01 UTC
nice graphics and pretty good idea but some indicators for damaged stuff would be helpful
Gemberkoekje
11. Dec 2014 · 17:06 UTC
This was... too complicated for me. I had no idea what I was doing, or how this game should be played. It looked good, and it seemed functional, but a bit more guidance or at least a bit less hectic start with a bit of a tutorial would've been nice. Also, the sounds seemed a bit loud, but that might've been me.
Miziziziz
11. Dec 2014 · 21:12 UTC
Pretty cool little game; is it possible to win?
I was really confused at first, but I figured out the controls eventually and managed to stay operational for a while. Eventually the music stopped playing.
the artistic side is very well put together
Gaspard_
12. Dec 2014 · 12:47 UTC
I liked the crazy music, too sad it didn't loop :(
On one play, I was wondering if you can survive for ever after a while, and then my asplode!
Cool music!
Lasty
13. Dec 2014 · 07:29 UTC
There's never enough engineers!

Nicely executed, interesting idea. Could have done with a bit more feedback (but I understand time constraints in these jams). Took me a few goes to figure out what the hell I was doing.
vinull
13. Dec 2014 · 15:46 UTC
Reminds me a lot of FTL - I spent a good bit of time playing (the song stops after a bit) and though everything is in chaos I never lost the ship or a room. Can that happen? Would be cool in a later version to have to control more of the crew and keep the stations manned.
nomoon
13. Dec 2014 · 20:49 UTC
Hi! I'm one of the people that made this. I'm sad the music didn't loop too. Sadly, that's a weird bug I wasn't able to solve in the down-to-the-wire panic. Will totally be fixed in the post-jam version, though, along with plenty of other wonderful fixed/new/better things!

Thanks everyone for playing!
semdog
14. Dec 2014 · 13:17 UTC
Daaaamn, those graphics are impressive :o and everything else as well! Here, take my five stars :)
peterthehe
14. Dec 2014 · 17:59 UTC
Great graphics and audio. Gets intense at points :3

(PS. I've fixed a Linux build for Coded Universe if you wanna check it out :) )
nassi
18. Dec 2014 · 00:09 UTC
I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and when I finally tought I figured it out I started doing even worse than before! Managed to survive quite a long time, too bad the broadcast system of the ship went silent (the song didn't loop) so the atmosphere was somewhat lacking for the most part. Cool idea and the execution is also passable given that it's a jam game!
Jupiter_Hadley
21. Dec 2014 · 22:53 UTC
Bit confusing to play in a minute, but cool game! I Included it in part 14 of my Ludum Dare 31 compilation video series, if you would like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/3dnkCRJktbw
voxel
22. Dec 2014 · 13:12 UTC
Excellent presentation. Some in-game audio would have been nice, but you can't have everything in a jam game, right? Quite chaotic, and I really liked the in-room representation of problems on the screens etc.