Starving Symbiosis by Lasty
TL;DR Instructions:
=============
* You control two separate players -- press Tab to change between them.
* Get Coins from UnderWorld.
* Buy Food in OverWorld.
* Use Shared Portal to transfer items.
* Left click: Eat, Right Click: Throw, 1-5 select item.
Instructions
============
You and a friend have found yourself in a predicament.
You are both hungry, and need to buy food.
However, one person has all the shops, and one person has all the coins.
You must share items using the portal to survive.
Running Issues
==========
If Windows8 is giving you a "Windows Protected Your PC" message,
click "More info" then "Run Anyway".
If MACOSX gives you an "Untrusted Developer" warning, Control-RightClick the app, and choose Open, then click Open.
If Linux complains about missing libraries, just run this (for Ubuntu 14.04)
$ sudo apt-get install libsdl2-2.0-0 libsdl2-image-2.0-0 libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0 libfreetype6
Regrets
=======
Yeah, I ran out of time.
I was planning to have weapons, and some sort of zombie wave / tower defence on the overworld, using metal ores mined in the underworld.
But yeah... No time :( There's always next Ludum Dare.
Patch 1
=======
Small patch fixing some bugs:
* Coins now respawn on the underworld when picked up
* Adjusted value of Potato Salad (was too expensive per food than the others)
* Food gives you health (equal to its food value). Can't believe I missed that.
And fixing some minor issues:
* Adjusted starting hunger values (More time to get used to the game)
* Changed text on shop/portal to make it more obvious what to do
* Added pickup text (Shows name of the item when picked up)
* Increased font size for Health/Hunger
=============
* You control two separate players -- press Tab to change between them.
* Get Coins from UnderWorld.
* Buy Food in OverWorld.
* Use Shared Portal to transfer items.
* Left click: Eat, Right Click: Throw, 1-5 select item.
Instructions
============
You and a friend have found yourself in a predicament.
You are both hungry, and need to buy food.
However, one person has all the shops, and one person has all the coins.
You must share items using the portal to survive.
Running Issues
==========
If Windows8 is giving you a "Windows Protected Your PC" message,
click "More info" then "Run Anyway".
If MACOSX gives you an "Untrusted Developer" warning, Control-RightClick the app, and choose Open, then click Open.
If Linux complains about missing libraries, just run this (for Ubuntu 14.04)
$ sudo apt-get install libsdl2-2.0-0 libsdl2-image-2.0-0 libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0 libfreetype6
Regrets
=======
Yeah, I ran out of time.
I was planning to have weapons, and some sort of zombie wave / tower defence on the overworld, using metal ores mined in the underworld.
But yeah... No time :( There's always next Ludum Dare.
Patch 1
=======
Small patch fixing some bugs:
* Coins now respawn on the underworld when picked up
* Adjusted value of Potato Salad (was too expensive per food than the others)
* Food gives you health (equal to its food value). Can't believe I missed that.
And fixing some minor issues:
* Adjusted starting hunger values (More time to get used to the game)
* Changed text on shop/portal to make it more obvious what to do
* Added pickup text (Shows name of the item when picked up)
* Increased font size for Health/Hunger
Ratings
| Coolness | 62% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.30 | 454 |
| Audio | 2.53 | 658 |
| Fun | 3.13 | 477 |
| Graphics | 3.16 | 509 |
| Humor | 2.26 | 595 |
| Innovation | 3.42 | 360 |
| Mood | 2.83 | 690 |
| Theme | 3.68 | 239 |
The guy moves around very slipperily, so it was hard to get the coins. Also switching between the worlds I always ran out of time. I am probably just bad at it.
The graphics are pretty good, and sound effects are decent, though there is no music. This could possibly go somewhere with more work.
I would have really liked to have actually seen no money _at all_ in the surface world to make the two worlds truely symbiotic. As in my first play it was fairly easy to keep the surface player alive, and it was only the underworld player that truly had a dependency on the other for food supplies. This sort of makes the relationship seem more parasitic than symbiotic, but the abundancy of the money underworld does make up for this well enough to still express the themes you were going for.
The controls and general feel was a little slidey but they were good enough to express this key thing that you were getting at with the game which was this co-dependency and shared portal mechanic. I think however the general control experience is what I would put a lot of focus into if you do decide to take this concept further, and I hope that you do!
I really really like what you're exploring with this game, and even though you say you had much more you wanted to add (didn't we all!) I think you get the essential message across reasonably well! A lot of potential and a cool use of the theme.
I realise it was a bit harsh to start the players with low hunger at first.. Probably should have bumped that up more... But If I had, they would have no immediate goal, and it would become a bit boring.
I should have made a better intro/tutorial screen, but.. ran out of time and lack of sleep so yeah. I tried to put some intro screens at the last minute, but I had no infrastructure in place for it, so it was poor planning on my part.
The physics, yes I couldn't quite get the player right.. I had simulated friction on the player, but he kept the same velocity when you stopped input. I couldn't get the friction right, somehow. I figured it was good enough and could tweak it later. Might use a library like Box2D next time.
As for coins on the overworld, I didn't even think of removing them all, facepalm ensues.
Also, controls are slippery. Yuck. =(
A few details that stood out to me. First, instructions in game. Not needing to switch windows to see how to play was refreshing. Also, frantically trying to aim items at the portal when one of the guys was starving would have been hilarious had I not been on the edge of my seat, well, frantically trying to aim items at the portal when one of the guys was starving!
Thanks for tripling the happiness of my evening :)
"ld30 cannot be opened because of a problem."
Useful error message!
Would love to see more of this game - very interesting start :)
The unhelpful error message is OSX's I think, not mine :( If you could click on "Report..." then copy the text there into a pastebin, I can try and fix it. (Then click don't send)