LudumData

A tale about life, death and a looser. by deepnight

[raw]
made by deepnight for LD21 (-)
This game was made within 9 hours (from Sunday 11:30am to 8:30pm) ^_^

I couldn't participate to the whole 48h LD, so I decided to try to make a game in really short time (I had my Sunday free).

Also, I wanted to try to make something complete within one normal business day (8h), just to see what I can achieve, when I really commit to it.

So here it is ! I didn't have time to add any SFX, that was definitely too short for that... I hope you will appreciate this game anyway!

CONTROLS :
C - Continue your life,
ESCAPE - Try to flee the current situation,
ANY KEY - skip current dialog

Hope you'll enjoy it :)

Note : I'm sorry I didn't have time to include the happy ending branch :) The assets where almost ready (they are in the PSD source file), but I was running short on time to include it... Maybe a later version ? Check http://blog.deepnight.net for any update :)

EDIT : timelapse released!
EDIT 2 : changed the hosting (dropbox had some downtimes, sorry about that!)

Play! (flash) http://deepnight.net/games/ld21-looserlife/
Source (Haxe) http://deepnight.net/games/ld21-looserlife/source/source_ld21_deepnight.zip
Source (extra libs) http://deepnight.net/games/ld21-looserlife/source/mt.deepnight.zip
Timelapse http://youtu.be/xMcW-66UDWI
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-21/?action=preview&uid=2982

Ratings

Coolness 1% 311
Overall 3.43 79
Audio 1.06 366
Community 3.42 47
Fun 2.51 287
Graphics 4.49 4
Humor 2.69 93
Innovation 3.42 104
Theme 3.89 28

Feedback

Meedoc
21. Aug 2011 · 20:18 UTC
oh I'm sad :( I thought you were dealing the theme as "Escape from your mother's wombe".

Well I'll still try it later ^^
astrkl
21. Aug 2011 · 20:48 UTC
Very sad story :(
VDOgamez
21. Aug 2011 · 21:20 UTC
So... is there a good ending? I don't have the patience to exhaust the tree.
stoz
21. Aug 2011 · 21:32 UTC
Awesome concept! It's like a choose your own ending novel, though a bit more true to life... since your only options are to try to keep doing what you're already doing, or quit.
ButtercupSaiyan
21. Aug 2011 · 23:07 UTC
That's ... depressing ... =(

I like your pixel art!
Tulrath
22. Aug 2011 · 03:35 UTC
I think I tried pretty much every option, even the really crazy ones. I couldn't always draw the line between choices and their outcome -- like I couldn't figure out exactly how not sleeping with a woman got me fired. Probably just missing something in the conversations, though.

Artwork was great, but it really made me sad :/
madflame991
22. Aug 2011 · 05:16 UTC
Really nice story-game. Please make more after this LD
Jorjon
22. Aug 2011 · 08:41 UTC
Looking forward for the timelapse!
🎤 deepnight
22. Aug 2011 · 09:11 UTC
Timelapse released!
degtyarev
22. Aug 2011 · 10:07 UTC
Pretty depressing. But looks nice.
dseidl
22. Aug 2011 · 10:50 UTC
Very nice game! :)
kevglass
22. Aug 2011 · 12:01 UTC
Emotion reaction was high - has to be good right? Very cool game. Excellent art.
🎤 deepnight
22. Aug 2011 · 12:59 UTC
At first, it should have been a quite fun and positive game. But the lack of time made it quite depressing at the end : didn't have time to include all the subtleties I had in mind, nor the happy ending branches...

Sorry about that ! :)
Benjamin
22. Aug 2011 · 15:07 UTC
The timelapse is great ! Add a depressing piano tune and you'll have a fantastic rival for Noah : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B26asyGKDo
I especially like "the party" picture drawing : "I met myself And I turn out to be a woman !! "

Fantastic game by the way but the dropbox link is down most of the time ( same problem for my entry... )
Pvaiun
22. Aug 2011 · 15:32 UTC
I liked it, great art and interesting concept. However, I didn't read all the way through your post to realize that there was no happy ending. I spent a good 15 minutes exhausting every option only to find that you always die a sad death.
Bogdan6
22. Aug 2011 · 16:35 UTC
funny
Josh @ Dreamland
22. Aug 2011 · 16:44 UTC
Good concept, well executed. The graphics were simple, but you shaded the pixels to make it look deliberate, and that's pretty good. Waiting through the slides is a little annoying--I'd like to quickly gather the jist of what happens and move on. Other than that, pretty good.
lilserf
22. Aug 2011 · 18:43 UTC
I really like the art style. Yeah, kind of all bummer endings right now though :)
Andrew
22. Aug 2011 · 19:01 UTC
Because no matter what you do you still end up in the same place
Winterblood
22. Aug 2011 · 21:56 UTC
Nine hours!? Fantastic. Nice reductionist approach to choice, and (of course) superb art stylings.
James Paige
23. Aug 2011 · 04:23 UTC
Your pixels are fantastic. This game made me laugh out loud, but it also made me sad.

Minor complaint: I had to keep clicking with the mouse to get it to accept my keypresses
nitram_cero
23. Aug 2011 · 04:27 UTC
I played it like 6 times.
Nice artwork!
Too pesimistic story. Funny sometimes, but I don't like the concept of such a linear life and that no matter the choice you always end up a f*ck up.
johanp
23. Aug 2011 · 06:00 UTC
It is quite pretty but a bit too static for my taste. Also the consequences of choices sometimes felt random.
LumdumDareisCool
23. Aug 2011 · 07:06 UTC
I liked your game a lot.
superflat
23. Aug 2011 · 10:55 UTC
Very nice work. I wished for the interactive moments to be better signposted, but otherwise great.
Danik
23. Aug 2011 · 19:11 UTC
It doesn't register my keypress when I press escape. C and "any key" works.
Cirrial
23. Aug 2011 · 20:23 UTC
Nice art, depressing fatalistic storylines, and generally an interesting interpretation of the theme. Personally, though, I didn't find there to be a great deal of interesting gameplay here. This is almost the purest form of narrativism I've found, but I'm only beginning rating, so I might find more. Excellent work given the timescale, though!
matthias_zarzecki
24. Aug 2011 · 15:04 UTC
Neat idea.
jonbro
24. Aug 2011 · 21:10 UTC
nice visual comic book... I wanted to exhaust the tree, but I didn't want to wait for fade ins. I wonder if there is a way to fix that without killing the mood.
Shigor
26. Aug 2011 · 02:19 UTC
Good job, especially for 9 hours wonder :) Not sure if i'd call it a game but anyway, one of the more interesting entries I've encountered (I'm a sucker for emotions it seems :)
KevinWorkman
27. Aug 2011 · 00:25 UTC
This is delightfully depressing. Well done.
DrPetter
28. Aug 2011 · 09:14 UTC
Pretty and sort of charming, but do make it happy next time! At least some funny deaths would have been a nice twist. Maybe just a souvenir item next to the grave could add a sense of needed humor there. Also, time is never too short for sfx, but I suspect token bleeps wouldn't really add to this sort of game. Could be interesting with looped environmental noises that match each situation. Heartbeats, footsteps, ticking clock, creaking bed, etc.
Orz
28. Aug 2011 · 17:07 UTC
It took me a while to warm up to it, but I like it. I kind of wish there were more games out there in this style.