The One - A Tale of Bliss or Sorrow by ploogle

[raw]
made by ploogle for LD28 (COMPO)
In a relaxing world of hot air balloons and clouds, you have 80 years to find your one and only soulmate before you die old and alone.

Featuring an infinite procedural cloud generation system and an original ukulele score.

(Known bugs: Occasional cloud pop-in, extra NPC balloon duplication.)

Media:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP0-AR3OUes
https://vine.co/v/h2dmTEWVxxJ
https://vine.co/v/h2wrpBVhUWD
https://vine.co/v/h2FWq9lKDjw

Ratings

Coolness 59% 3
Overall 3.25 306
Audio 3.79 24
Fun 2.31 851
Graphics 3.55 212
Humor 2.12 555
Innovation 3.09 368
Mood 4.00 17
Theme 3.68 92

Feedback

louis.denizet
16. Dec 2013 · 11:35 UTC
So nice game, found my soulmate at 75yo left
great experience!
Steve [tacospice]
16. Dec 2013 · 17:35 UTC
Sweet.

Very relaxing scenario & soundtrack.

No challenge or real gameplay, but then again, it's not trying to be that kind of game, so that's cool.

The music's great, and swooshing around in the air is pretty nice. Clouds sometimes pop in/out which breaks immersion a bit. Same for balloons. It'd be even greater with that fixed.

Overall 4/5 for great mood!
Rahazan
16. Dec 2013 · 17:37 UTC
Very pretty game, a test of patience (much like finding your soulmate in real life I suppose), but in the end I found my soulmate.
0x0961h
16. Dec 2013 · 17:55 UTC
Very meditative, very deep, and music is a perfect match for graphics! :)
bitslap_
16. Dec 2013 · 18:33 UTC
I think i found 3 soulmates at once. Not sure if possible but i bumped all of them. Good job on the clouds =)
sharpcoder
16. Dec 2013 · 18:58 UTC
I didn't find my soulmate, much like real-life. Awesome ambiance and very existential :)
MrTedders
16. Dec 2013 · 19:20 UTC
A very calming and peaceful game. Very open ended interpretation of it. Good work
Coblynau
16. Dec 2013 · 19:27 UTC
Really beautiful to play after playing so many other games; lovely song and relaxing. :)
iamwhosiam
16. Dec 2013 · 19:31 UTC
i like it, but the controls seems a bit floaty to me ;)
xrm0
16. Dec 2013 · 19:33 UTC
Great mood, love the art style.
There were some "solid" ballons I could crash into.
lubos
16. Dec 2013 · 19:34 UTC
Found the one! Great take on the theme(unlike me). Nice relaxing experience.
Elforama
16. Dec 2013 · 20:21 UTC
Nice game, the music really matched the soothing gameplay and visuals. I did not find my soul mate sadly though. =[
Hypnohustla
16. Dec 2013 · 20:40 UTC
Such a nice and relaxing game. Loved the ukulele. :) The balloons popped in randomly on the screen but I didn't let that bother me too much. :)
PaperBlurt
16. Dec 2013 · 20:44 UTC
So great. My dad flew hot air ballooons so I flown quite a bit. This takes me back!
Webravenz
16. Dec 2013 · 21:22 UTC
nice mood and very relaxing game, great job !
milugames
16. Dec 2013 · 21:29 UTC
That was absolutely lovely! Great ambience with the music and overall atmosphere. Great graphics, great bendy balloon rope physics. Awesome creation!
soy_yuma
16. Dec 2013 · 22:20 UTC
Nice atmosphere!
jillytot
16. Dec 2013 · 22:21 UTC
Nice ambiance. I sadly wasn't able to find my soulmate after quite some time, but it was still an enjoyable experience. Keep it up dood!
primaerfunktion
16. Dec 2013 · 22:25 UTC
That music is beautiful! Although I found that popping to be a little bit annoying, it was a great experience.
Brainless Games
16. Dec 2013 · 22:41 UTC
Nice relaxing game, found my soulmate with 66 years left.
Donutttt
16. Dec 2013 · 22:50 UTC
I like the idea, though I think that I wasn't laying it quite right. The physics on the balloons are awesome
Sheep
16. Dec 2013 · 23:15 UTC
That was.. interesting. I felt a bit pointless on the other hand, but it was calming. I stopped searching after 5 year though.
Pixelbear
17. Dec 2013 · 17:43 UTC
Didn't find my soul mate, mostly because I found something much more awesome to do. Screw soul mates when you can do FLIPS in a BALLOON. FLIPS. That soul mate should be finding ME.
So yeah I found it quite fun, even if the main thing didn't entice me too much. Loved the audio though, really set a nice mood. :)
Jellycakes
17. Dec 2013 · 19:04 UTC
Really nice entry! I found 'The One' at about 65 years. I really liked the Art and I think the game's strong selling point was how relaxing it was and the strong meaning behind it. Really well done, nice work.
Atmospherium
17. Dec 2013 · 19:12 UTC
I really like the mood of this game. The art, the music, and the slow pacing were all super effective at making it feel like it was an accomplishment to find the one. Great work.
Jezzamon
17. Dec 2013 · 22:43 UTC
I like it! Great mood!

My only criticism is that when you're playing you can't tell how much longer it'll take to find the other balloon, and there's not really any sense that you've progressed, so I was unsure whether I should give up or not... Still I persisted and managed to find it!
havana24
18. Dec 2013 · 08:39 UTC
Really nice mood! I loved the music.
lotusgame
18. Dec 2013 · 10:12 UTC
The flexibility of the elasticity is very pleasant. Sometimes i met groups of balloon stuck to each other. Superb music. Nice start :)
LukeR
18. Dec 2013 · 17:43 UTC
Brilliant!
moop
18. Dec 2013 · 18:29 UTC
Nice concept and the sound and graphics really fit the mood well.
zkenshin
18. Dec 2013 · 21:01 UTC
Lovely atmosphere, great job (:
TinyMoonStudios
18. Dec 2013 · 23:04 UTC
Weird, good weird but still quite strange. Music was great and the visuals are good. It does't have much of a purpose but sometimes it's nice to just have a relaxing float about.
Aaants
19. Dec 2013 · 21:13 UTC
Beautiful
glovecat
19. Dec 2013 · 21:37 UTC
Relaxing. I spent 7 years and some days to find my soulmate. Meanwhile I was thinking of all this year 2013. A year full of changes for my team. Thank you for make this "therapy" game
Cambrian_Man
20. Dec 2013 · 02:58 UTC
Nice and relaxing. The first go-around I did not find The One, but the second time, they were right there when I started. Maybe that means something? Dug the music, as well.
cesisco
20. Dec 2013 · 15:25 UTC
Great mood, art and sound, moving the ballon it's like a therapy, very relaxing.Good work.
almightysuit
21. Dec 2013 · 00:32 UTC
This game is probably the most charming of this Ludum Dare, that is... if you support POLYGAMY and RACISM. Grrrr..

Just kidding Plooglez, it seriously made my heart go awwwwwwwww. Well done!
Keith Evans
21. Dec 2013 · 00:46 UTC
very sweet idea. Loved the art and sfx. Thought the totally lack of direction actually really fit this design. It definitely got your point across. Nice to play a more contemplative game.
chiguireitor
21. Dec 2013 · 00:54 UTC
Amazing mood. Was very relaxing too watch. If NPCs somehow gave you an idea where your SO is would be great, because i didn't have any idea how to find it :(
deadlypear
21. Dec 2013 · 23:41 UTC
Bumping baskets to find the one. At first, I found myself asking the question: How do you know when you've found "the one"? And knowing the answer is: you'll know. Sure enough, found it! Great serene soundtrack; really evokes drifting.
caranha
24. Dec 2013 · 14:54 UTC
I'm getting an error message when trying to unzip your download file :-(

error: attempt to seek before beginning of zipfile
(attempting to re-compensate)
inflating: The One.exe bad CRC 25461c01 (should be 6e60a68a)
🎤 ploogle
24. Dec 2013 · 17:19 UTC
I'll try and re-upload the .zip file, caranha.
mcc
24. Dec 2013 · 23:15 UTC
Super pretty (I LOVED how the clouds looked), good-feeling (movement felt nice, the music was a good fit). I feel like you didn't give me a lot to do-- it was literally "hold any button until the right balloon shows up". I liked some bits of the framing (the very slow countdown measured in "years") and I feel like with some tweaking it could have felt meaningful even if you didn't find "the one" (like, what if time ran out much quicker, and you realized that your experience lasted 80 years and felt beautiful the whole time but you never did find that one special person). As it was tho the problem was after about forty seconds it was like "ok, now what?". I tried making trying to invent my own little "game"s on top of this one to kill time, I kept trying to bounce my basket up on top of my balloon or swing the basket around in circles, I at some point decided my goal was to try to reach the ground (if one existed) and held down. I found a couple minor ways to glitch your physics engine into making the balloon move quicker than it would otherwise… :D none… of this felt like it was really part of the game tho.

As a queer person, I spent most of the game just going "but why CAN'T I date red balloons?!"

What happens if you run out of time completely btw?
SnoringFrog
02. Jan 2014 · 02:33 UTC
Pixelbear's review stated my feelings exactly (I think I found my soulmate! at least in terms of playing this game): "Screw soul mates when you can do FLIPS in a BALLOON. FLIPS. That soul mate should be finding ME. "

I spent most of my time seeing how far I could stretch the ropes on my balloon. I managed to get my basket to go off the top of the screen for a bit. Finding my soul mate otherwise was kinda boring. Also, my soul mate totally interrupted the shoving match I was having with a couple green balloons, so I wasn't entirely thrilled about finding them haha.

Overall, not really my kind of game. I'm find with the calming, do almost nothing kinds of games, but this one just didn't click with me. However, it was well made. Fitting soundtrack, relaxing atmosphere, just not for me.