May I help you? by flavio

[raw]
made by flavio for LD29 (JAM)
I am GEORGE, a respected butler. Working in great houses, my job is to satisfy other people desires, and never complain.
But I am getting tired of this life : it is time to show the world my true nature.

Use the mouse for the dialogues and WASD/ZQSD to move George.

This game was made by Paul Fruchet, Maxime Labate et Flavio Perez for the Ludum Dare 29 in april 2014. Please let us know if you find any bug or issues. We are not professional gamemakers: any feedback is welcome!

Stay tuned for updates!
We will add a new character soon and improve the overall graphic interface.


FAQ

- Are the links provided the version made during the Compo?
NO. It's the updated version with small fixes post-compo.
Here are the links to the Original Compo Version (1.0):
Windows : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3488654/LD29_May_I_Help_You/MayIHelpYou.zip
Mac : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3488654/LD29_May_I_Help_You/MayIHelpYou_v1.0_Mac.zip

- Can't I visit the rooms?
No, you can't go inside the private rooms.

- Is Tim, Tim Schafer ?
Any resemblance to real events and/or to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental

- Can I see your work in progress posts during the game jam?
Yes, you can find them all here : http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/tag/may-i-help-you/

-Is the game working on Windows 8?
Nop, sorry, no windows 8 around to compile a version. Hopefully soon!



RELEASE NOTES

v1.1 : gameplay fixes 2014-05-08
- We rebalanced how the NPC moves from a place to another and we improved how fast they move.
- We added a NPC character to balance the level (it was created during the Jam but not included)
- The camera focus on the spoted corpse if you loose (so you know how and why you've lost)
- The trust bar is now working!
- We improved the GUI
- We added new killing dialogues as people liked them!
- And finally tiny improvements here and there

v1.0 : Compo version 2014-04-28

Ratings

Coolness 76% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.59 133
Audio(Jam) 3.43 203
Fun(Jam) 3.48 122
Graphics(Jam) 3.37 375
Humor(Jam) 3.94 28
Innovation(Jam) 3.68 98
Mood(Jam) 3.54 171
Theme(Jam) 3.27 316

Feedback

kbm
28. Apr 2014 · 20:57 UTC
Really awesome art style! Great job, reminded me a bit of Hotline Miami! :)
caryoscelus
29. Apr 2014 · 10:34 UTC
Looks fun. It's a pity i can't run it.
devince
29. Apr 2014 · 10:38 UTC
Nice idea
Hermes
29. Apr 2014 · 11:12 UTC
Very awesome!
I love it!
Maniulo
29. Apr 2014 · 12:03 UTC
Nice! Would love to play a full version.
okkolobr
29. Apr 2014 · 12:26 UTC
May I help you ?
Armanky
29. Apr 2014 · 19:52 UTC
Probably the most original idea I've seen so far! And I even got to kill Tim Schafer!

It does feel a little bit like you don't have much control over the situation. Maybe a minimap would help so you have a better idea of who's about to run into a body? It's also extremely difficult NOT to bump into people, which can get really annoying when you're just trying to move to another location.
lightsoda
30. Apr 2014 · 06:22 UTC
Fun idea, talking to people didn't seem to do much, they went on their merry way. Unless I chose the kill option, of course.

Kind of annoying to have the dialogue pop up as soon as someone gets near, you can't really mind your own business and just see where people go, an interact button would've been preferable I think.

Graphics are fine, so is the sound.
lightsoda
30. Apr 2014 · 06:23 UTC
Also thanks for the WebGL tip on my project, I did export a version for that ;)
dsoft20
30. Apr 2014 · 07:52 UTC
Great idea!
If expanded it could be a great game :D
GrooveMan
30. Apr 2014 · 17:45 UTC
Hah, being the murderous butler is a lot of fun. Trying to juggle all the residents is pretty difficult at your walking speed, the ability to run (at the cost of the trust meter, maybe) would be a good way to build upon this.
CluelessGames
01. May 2014 · 11:00 UTC
Very cool like it alot
Nichii
01. May 2014 · 11:03 UTC
Nice game, I killed everyone with speed :D
Nanolotl
01. May 2014 · 13:00 UTC
Really great idea, executed really nicely.
I liked the floor-plan style graphics.
One of my favorite entries so far, well done.
Gameness Monster
01. May 2014 · 13:54 UTC
This is a great idea! I got stuck some times, I think it needs a lot of work as it is a big project that cannot be complete in a jam's time. I' d really love to see it finished!
Hob623
01. May 2014 · 14:21 UTC
Got a bit annoying to keep track of everyone since there isn't a minimap or anything. Although I guess that adds to the challenge more. Nice music and sprites.
crocantidepollo
01. May 2014 · 16:14 UTC
It's always the butler :D Good fun! And lovely music!
Ken Ichi
01. May 2014 · 16:19 UTC
It´s an great game =]
Linus Lindberg
01. May 2014 · 18:44 UTC
Woow the art looks amazing, I'll play it as soon as I get to a computer!:D
Jod
01. May 2014 · 19:00 UTC
Great entry! The music really makes this. Lovely!
solkar
01. May 2014 · 19:00 UTC
Why is not working in Mavericks?
GresponApps
01. May 2014 · 19:06 UTC
Too bad.. I have Windows 8..
🎤 flavio
01. May 2014 · 19:26 UTC
Thanks everyone for your feedback and comments !

We are thinking of some improvements soon, let's see if we can work on it next week end share that we you :)

We are going to add the faces in the dialogues to help to choose and remember who is who. But we won't probably add a map as it's interesting to have a look at the house before to understand the layout, don't you think ?
But if we add the map it could be for an easy version of the game.

@lightsoda : so far with the dialogues you can send the people to other rooms. We didn't had time to finish the "May I help you" option dialogue, which is, indeed, useless, but we had things planned. Let's see if we can put them in the update :)
We'll think about a better way to interact with the people, thanks for the feedback.

@solkar It's not working on macOs 10.9 because of Game Maker, the soft we used to build that game. On mavericks there is nothing displayed. On the bugs tracking system of the app it has been fixed but it looks like the fix is not released yet. I'm sorry, because I'm also on Mavericks and I can't show the game to friends... It's very frustrating. We are looking for the update and will share a working version as soon as possible.

@GresponApps I think next week we'll have a windows 8 version. None of the team has the last windows to compile the game so far.
Anny
01. May 2014 · 19:30 UTC
Loved this game! It was really fun and the graphics were cute :D
cageinabird
01. May 2014 · 19:47 UTC
The kill text options made this. Hilarious!
pinkmonkeyhead
01. May 2014 · 19:50 UTC
this looks so good! too bad im on mavericks... ill try to find a windows computer to play
BuKaneerz
01. May 2014 · 20:08 UTC
Great work !
The graphics are so cool,
and the concept to interesting !(:
iambored2006
01. May 2014 · 20:27 UTC
It worked for me on Windows 8. Good game!
🎤 flavio
01. May 2014 · 20:40 UTC
@iambored2006 : What ? How come ? Did you turn any options or something ? Because usually the camera is locked, the menus does work, and the sprites are all fucked up. Do you have any specific version/config ?
asotelo94
02. May 2014 · 00:16 UTC
One of the best! Nice!
🎤 flavio
02. May 2014 · 06:59 UTC
UPDATE : Mavericks is working now !
Let's say that we thought we had the last version of Game Maker.
Remember : Assumption is the mother of all fuckups !
sharpcoder
02. May 2014 · 15:07 UTC
Fantastic game, I had a lot of fun with this one. It's a hilarious premise. Nice job!
solkar
02. May 2014 · 17:16 UTC
Killed everyone on Mavericks! Kudos!
xdegtyarev
02. May 2014 · 20:04 UTC
Love this game! neat artwork and the idea is cool!
mortus
03. May 2014 · 12:30 UTC
Really enjoyed the game. I couldn't understand when do they believe me and when not though. My two theories are that some of them are more trustful and some are less or that they will only go if I say a specific person is waiting for them. I've tried to prove any of those theories but lost too soon most of the times. Great concept and solid execution overall!
GreatBigJerk
03. May 2014 · 16:52 UTC
The character art and music were great! I was a little unsure how to actually kill people without getting caught. It seems like every time a person sees a dead body, you get a game over.
Alex Rose
05. May 2014 · 00:19 UTC
I WIN! ALL DEAD!

Rofl, my friend was like "Come on, order Domino's", and I was like NOT UNTIL I WIIIIN.

At first I was confused that I couldn't go in some rooms, then I realised how it works.

This game is ingenius, the music is great, I love it. Obvs if you did a full version there'd be space to flesh out the "do a favour" feature, but I could really honestly see this forming the basis of a full game that could be really fun and great.

My friend just added, "Yeah the music was really good actually, I enjoyed it". I could see this having some cool multiplayer element to it too somehow, though off the top of my head I dunno, maybe something like The Ship except racing to kill people, or working together or something.

It's really scary at the start, but I like how there's the difficulty curve that you end up using some of your rooms, and there's less trust, so it doesn't get easier even though there's less people.

Perhaps my favourite game of LD48 so far.
ninjacharlie
05. May 2014 · 21:55 UTC
Huh. Looks like the application is damaged for Mac. I'm on OS X 10.9 (Maverick)
mortus
09. May 2014 · 07:29 UTC
You know, that's not very nice and definitely against the rules to change your game after almost two weeks when the jam was only 72 hours.
🎤 flavio
09. May 2014 · 10:42 UTC
Hi Mortus
We only have made small fixes as it's allowed by the rules, the game didn't changed. Play both versions and you won't see a big difference. It's about balancing little things. And the main thing added, an "NPC", was there during the jam, but our very small playsession back then pushed us to remove it. We think now we were wrong.
Not mentioning the fact that we didn't have 72 hours.

Those changes are clearly listed above. We have left the links for the original Compo version in the game description and we will not touch them of course. We are completely transparent with this and we did some changes according to the feedback we had.
If we had time to add features (during the votes or later) we will also cleary specify any changes.
We thought people playing that entry will enjoy an little bit better balanced game.
There is no new levels or stuff that could trick the players about what we've done during the jam, it's not the point of the update. Sorry if you feel it like that.


Cheers !

BTW, we really loved your game.
Lama
15. May 2014 · 06:14 UTC
funny that our games share the same goal :)
nice mood and audio