Darwin's Booby Snatch by Wampus

made by Wampus for LD24 (COMPO)

Controls should be obvious (although irritating). You have to mouse click (or poke) at a location to move there. Lay down traps to lure birds into them then collect them once they're caught. Don't scare the birds off!

If anyone is interested the map is roughly meant to be the Galapagos islands. Well, parts of them anyway. To save time I reduced the bird images to three with hue shifts. Originally I wanted 12 that were all based on birds found on the Galapagos islands. There are a lot of other things I wanted to include. A lot! Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.

Windows	http://www.livingmidnight.com/temp/DarwinBoobySnatchWin.zip
OS/X	http://www.livingmidnight.com/temp/DarwinsBoobySnatchOSX.zip
Linux	http://www.livingmidnight.com/temp/DarwinsBoobySnatchLinux.zip
Source	http://www.livingmidnight.com/temp/LudumDare24source.zip
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-24/?action=preview&uid=11619

Ratings

Coolness	41%	706
Overall	2.86	434

Audio	2.05	485
Fun	2.67	438
Graphics	3.38	200
Humor	2.94	132
Innovation	3.19	224
Mood	2.33	523
Theme	2.76	426

Feedback

geekygenius

27. Aug 2012 · 06:30 UTC

Pretty fun I liked looking for all the different birds. The only negative I have, is that the "Place Trap button was a little annoying to click. Maybe right click instead?

🎤 Wampus

28. Aug 2012 · 06:49 UTC

Right click trap placement was a feature at one point. Arrow key control over Darwin was too. I disabled them because I was experimenting with a touchscreen friendly control scheme. Bit dumb really, since I haven't compiled for Android yet and the majority of people who play the game will play a desktop version. *rolls eyes*

Zoomyzoom

28. Aug 2012 · 18:10 UTC

I like the lighting in the water :D

cakemonitor

31. Aug 2012 · 23:33 UTC

I'm not sure if this is still quite unfinished or whether I just missed an essential element of the gameplay but there didn't seem to be much to do other than place traps then get birds out of them - I saw no threat or challenge to this goal and no apparent endgame? But still, it shows good potential and I like the graphical style, the sound is ok but I found the chirping a bit shrill/loud ;)

Edd Morgan

31. Aug 2012 · 23:38 UTC

Fairly good graphics, in the sense of applying the lighting and the application of the top-down perspective. Nice idea, too, and I found myself playing it for longer than I thought I would. Good job.

🎤 Wampus

31. Aug 2012 · 23:53 UTC

@cakemonitor originally I wanted to have enemies, e.g. rival naturalists who would attack Darwin, mess with his traps and place their own trap. Unfortunately I ran out of time before I could finish that. It could have been worse. I wondered whether I was going to get more than just birds flying around with nothing to actually play. I was going to suggest if you watched them long enough they would evolve in realistic real time.

DaviDeMo

01. Sep 2012 · 00:41 UTC

Is this old sir going to eat all this birds at the end? :-P
Shame it's not finished :-( what I see really few games got fully finished.

5n4k3

01. Sep 2012 · 00:58 UTC

I like it, but just as geekygenius said, the Place Trap button could be the right click.

yettatore

01. Sep 2012 · 01:05 UTC

The Darwin's animation is AWESOME! Good work with the path finding!

ggiraldez

01. Sep 2012 · 01:45 UTC

Pretty fun game :) I like the graphics a lot and the interpretation of the theme is... well, bizarre, which is a good thing! I love the exploration aspect (it's one of the things I look for in games) but I found the limited actions a bit disappointing. Controls are a bit clunky. Sometimes a trap was placed with the pointer not even close to the button, but sure why.

zazery

01. Sep 2012 · 04:31 UTC

Catching birds isn't a mechanic I've seen in the games I've rated so far. It's interesting but like other people have said there needs to be a point to it. I was expecting to die of starvation without eating birds, then I thought it was about matching birds like catching 6 of a kind.

Animations are nice but the sound effects are a bit annoying. Sounds like sfxr. Try selecting a Sin wave for a softer chirp and running it through the equalization filter in Audacity. I'm not an audio expert though.

Jeremias

01. Sep 2012 · 20:52 UTC

Interesting idea, but needs some variation in gameplay over time as well as a proper competition for the player.

Respective the controls: Sometimes nothing happens if you click on the trap-button. Moving should be possible by using arrow keys, too.

pighead10

02. Sep 2012 · 12:06 UTC

Very clunky controls. Why does he have to finish his movement before you being able to click to move him again? There wasn't any challenge, but the idea and graphics were nice (esp. graphics!).

Petzi

02. Sep 2012 · 21:35 UTC

The graphics were nice, but it's not really fun. This game needs some actual gameplay. Not much else to say, really.

BMacIntosh

05. Sep 2012 · 03:12 UTC

I like your animation style. The character walking animation was funny, but the birds hopping around and flying blended quite well. Obvious issues have been pointed out already.