LudumData

The Pointy Stick Hypothesis by peterthehe

[raw]
made by peterthehe for LD 40 (COMPO)

After a year-long hiatus from Ludum Dare on account of "coming of age issues", I make my return to the jam with more alcohol and less WiFi than ever (yep, the single broadband outage in 3 years happens to occur on the weekend of Ludum Dare - thanks BT).

The Pointy Stick Hypothesis is a profoundly profound game about a bunch of rectangles and circles who live around a magical and suspiciously phallic-shaped tree. Teeming with allusions, thinly-veiled dick jokes and clichés, the poorly-written script will blow your mind while at the same time give you an insight into the thought processes of the inhabitants around the tree of life as they tackle such modern problems as shape-phobia, overpopulation (that's where the theme comes in) and an arms race (again, that's where the theme comes in).

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Meet an endearing host of quadrilaterals including Mark (your character, a morally-ambiguous white rectangle), Yellow (a wildly shape-phobic rectangle) and Wise Green (a wise old scientists who may or may not be safe around children).

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There's something for everyone in this game. Mad for Maths? No problem.

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Crazy for Chemistry? We've got that too!

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In short, PLAY THIS GAME.

Yeah... That was the alcohol typing, not moi. I shall be headed to sleep now. Will upload a timelapse as and when I wake up. Night Night!

Controls

Movement - Left/Right Arrows

Interact - Enter

Change Option in Dialogue - Left/Right Arrows

Select Option in Dialogue - Enter

Source code https://drive.google.com/open?id=1_6c1io_mmQT69D0Hd_9fSrqT-lGEfnuA
Windows https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T_lFNUhSqiPXsjbfbIdtZn8GGjGdYLzt
HTML5 (web) https://peterthehe.itch.io/the-pointy-stick-hypothesis
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-pointy-stick-hypothesis

Ratings

Overall 121th 3.763⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Fun 433th 3.092⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 242th 3.365⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Theme 486th 3.074⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 114th 3.908⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Audio 34th 3.944⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Humor 3th 4.414⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Mood 14th 4.149⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

wsKilljoy
04. Dec 2017 · 11:25 UTC
Your web link is broken.
🎤 peterthehe
04. Dec 2017 · 11:28 UTC
Nice catch @wskilljoy :smile: All is fine now.
Noa Calice
04. Dec 2017 · 11:35 UTC
I really loved the music, calming , smooth ! Simple and appealing art style :) ! I also liked the concept of shaped phobia !
Scott R Howell
04. Dec 2017 · 11:50 UTC
I ran full force into the circle and did the quadrilateral equivalent of flying to the moon
Rature
05. Dec 2017 · 15:53 UTC
nice idea and good graphs but I flied to the moon too :)
TheTopHatNoob
05. Dec 2017 · 16:17 UTC
The music was nice and graphically it was pleasing and fit the theme. The gameplay felt smooth and the dialog trees were really nice to use. I liked how you had an overarching story going on and overall I enjoyed this game. I also did fly to the moon as well but found out if you hold [A] you can fall back to the earth and once there just press [ENTER] and you will continue the game.
Valentin4311
05. Dec 2017 · 16:18 UTC
Flied to the moon. Too bad the game was really nice and I would love to finish it.
Gris
05. Dec 2017 · 16:21 UTC
Really good mood and excellent graphics! Congrats!
roNtz
05. Dec 2017 · 16:29 UTC
Nice ideas, and nice music! It is fun to try all the possibilities, and the story is well chosen. It shows the most basic human problems, you can really identify with those poor squares. Well done!
HDtv
05. Dec 2017 · 16:30 UTC
Very well written. This game had me laughing all the way through. The graphics, especially when you get out of the tent, looks great.
Xarras
05. Dec 2017 · 16:45 UTC
[ spoiler ] Who knew that science could be so mathematically consistent? Quadrilateral equivalent of a middle finger. The creativity of the developer gods must be weaning.[ / spoiler ] I could go on like this forever! Great game, nice story, clever dialogue, very well made!!!
Willbl3pic
05. Dec 2017 · 17:31 UTC
Nice! I like it!

# The good stuff:

- Funny
- Good music

# The bad stuff:

- The character moves _so slowly_
Zorg
05. Dec 2017 · 18:05 UTC
I like the mood you created with the soothing music and the simple but very effective artstyle. Nice writing, too. Fun game! :)
Filipe Leal
05. Dec 2017 · 20:00 UTC
I loved the fire and the music. A little bit too much text for my taste, but it was funny. Good job!
wowa
05. Dec 2017 · 21:03 UTC
this is great written! i had definitely good time :)
Bocodillo
05. Dec 2017 · 23:59 UTC
The audio & graphics were very nice, and the dialog was hilarious at parts. It did feel a little long winded in places but I still really enjoyed it. The idea fitted the theme well and was, overall a really good game.
tvance
06. Dec 2017 · 15:05 UTC
This is one of the most immersive entries I've played. Great job on the art and audio. It'd be nice if you could speed up the speech sections by holding enter.
Ambeurk
06. Dec 2017 · 20:23 UTC
The "Oh hi Mark" line killed me xD

Great atmosphere and funny dialogs, I loved it!
Sand-Gardeners
06. Dec 2017 · 20:24 UTC
Great job, just would have made the text going from left to right instead of being center because it's quite hard to read! <3
07. Dec 2017 · 14:01 UTC
I wanted to enjoy this, but really it seemed a "pressing enter" simulator. It was less of a game just a medium for the player to read your humour. There was very little for the player to do.
Potti
08. Dec 2017 · 21:14 UTC
An interesting atmospheric game. The writing is funny. A solid game.
cerno-b
18. Dec 2017 · 09:46 UTC
Awesome game! Full marks on mood. I especially love the music and the writing. The tree of life animation was very well designed for a minimalist choice of graphisc.

Great job overall. Unfortunately the ending was a bit sudden.

Some minor issues: The text did not fit entirely on the screen sometimes. It was still readable, but it felt a bit weird. The outside movement could have been a tad faster to make exploring a bit snappier.

A note about the music: Maybe you could have created the music in a way that it loops better. As it is there is a short moment where the player notices that the track restarts. But that's a minor nitpick.

Overall I would say it's one of the most atmospheric games I have played so far, great job!