Play here! https://sean-noonan.itch.io/rebel-call

Amazing game, although a bit too difficult

That audio is terrifying lol. I really liked the way you did the buildings and overall aesthetic. Nicely designed UI!

Fun! Reminds me of a top down assassins creed-like stealth game thing. I'd love to see some more levels. Maybe some easier ones at the start to introduce players before ramping up the difficulty. A minimap would be nice too because if we run through the level once we pretty much know where the citizens are anyway.

But overall I love it and I think if you flesh it out a little more it could be something truly great!

The artwork is extraordinary. I couldn't figure out how to win, but the visuals are top-notch.

Really nice work. Excellent aesthetic and interesting mechanics

Nice game. Good difficulties.

I loved the art and the mood here! This was awesome! I hope you make more levels some day. This would be a good mobile game!

The mood is great, despite the 'simple' graphics. It's pretty difficult. I can't say i really enjoyed it, literally. But it fits the overall theme perfectly.

This game was not too "fun" to play, but audio and UI design was awesome. Also the atmosphere was amazing. Great work!

A very fun and challenging game, even when you haven't played or seen it played before it is very easy to understand the mechanics. Audio and art style are on point too. Nice one.

Liked the concept of the game and the overall presentation, using that parallax to make buildings look taller looked great.

- I think the abstract representation fitted the theme really well.

- The levels were pretty linear, so speedrunning through them felt the natural thing to do. The game's description encouraged me to revisit citizens but that didn't feel like the optimal strategy.

- It was super polished, I didn't find any bugs.

- The core gameplay seemed to need an additional mechanic to feel complete. Could be interesting to take this project and experiment adding new mechanics.

It's a very solid entry.

This is a perfect example of how the best games make you forget that you are only playing a game with simple circles and rectangles. The fact that you managed to imbue a few geometric shapes with such character, and to convey that feeling of fear and tension is mindblowing. I am sorely jealous of your creativity. Loved the sound, loved the look and the overall ... style ... that's the word I'm looking for.

Very impressive. And my wife is leaning over my shoulder telling me just how much this game is an exemplar of "mood", and how she is also jealous of the mind that could come up with something so effective.

I like the simplistic vector art style, super simple and clean! :clap:

The opening animation is awesome! I'm digging the minimalist look as well. I'm not a fan of the mechanic where you have to keep going back to citizens to re-alert them or risk game over. That made it feel more tedious to me but overall great game!

I love how the game has lore to justify the timer mechanic.

That level of polish and thought pretty much extends to every part of the game, from the propaganda poster graphics to the eerily minimalist audio. Honestly a fantastic example of a great, core idea done well in every dimension.

It looks awesome you really nailed the design and atmosphere !
On the other hand with such a strict time limit it is very annoying to have the player 'stick' to other objects . You are really good at making a compelling atmosphere , which pushes players into trying and trying again.

I enjoyed the game! It was something I haven't played before. I like the concept and hope you can add some more levels and maybe a win screen.

This is a really really solid game. The art is very simple but extremely well fitting. I really liked the effect of the stacked locking walls. I am very impressed by the sounds as well. Very Very good job!

Check out my game if you like!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/virus-detected

I love how you are able to create the kind of oppressive atmosphere and immersive setting with such simple minimalist graphics and impactful audio. The timings required to complete the levels are extremely stringent but I suppose that could be part of setting the tone for the game scenario. Great work!

Do check out my game and I'd love to hear your comments: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/riskreward Thanks! ^^

Definitely see what you're hinting at with the visual and auditory design. Unnerving.

I'm not sure if the game bugged out on me or if I misunderstood something, but I kept coming back to the second district after clearing it. One time I did get to the third one, but after clearing that, I went back to the second one. It also seems the game is still active on the screen that tells me to press enter after clearing a district, so I got reported after I had already finished it because I was too slow to press enter and so I had to restart instead. :(

Am I missing content, or is this intentional? Would be happy to play again if you could tell me. c:

I'm not completely sure how it ties into the theme, since there never seems to be more of anything, but overall nice game! Good design/æsthetics! Really liked the layered parallax effect!

Hey great to have you on stream! Your game was awesome :yum:

The eerie 1984/Papers Please oppresive music really put me in the game

I complimented the 3D encorporated buildings in the 2nd level - They looked amazing!

This game would be good with a menu with containing the levels (If this gets taken further I presume there would be a couple more :wink: maybe with a score based on time completed?)

It would also be cool when getting the last citisen in the area seeing an animation of the new blue supporters overcoming the red security forces in the level!

A feature I would add to make the game have an extra dynamic would be putting up posters (these would be ripped down by security forces but inspires people in a range)

Thanks again for creating :relieved: this was great fun!

Hey Sean, really liked your game, great atmosphere. Also loved the stacked solids to imply 3D buildings. If you want to see me spread the message of dissidence you can here: https://youtu.be/BgkQxnrr8sU

Visually this is spot on. Captures the setting perfectly and in a very minimalist manner. Great audio too. And a lot of fun to play. I don't have any quibbles with it at all. Yea this is a really good compo entry. Great stuff.

Top mark! I love the visuals, you got that papery feel that I really like. Honestly, the visuals looked like they were made for a full game. Spot on. Other great part of the game was the audio. I loved the voices and all that. Was that a real language or was it just gibberish? If it is gibberish I love it, achieved the perfect effect. If it was a real language, I don't care, sounded great anyways.

The main thing I thought was a bummer was that there wasn't a ton of different mechanics to it. The two levels didn't seem too different and it seemed a bit thin on mechanics. I'd be really interested to see where this would go in the future.

FYI, your source link is dead. I was wanting to look at what your shaders were.

Very smart and on target, I also love the minimalistic/soviet-style graphics :sunglasses:

Really digging the minimalistic graphical style (with some depth effects, if I'm not mistaken).

Really like this game! One of my favorute in this LD good job! and the art<3

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

I'm aware that the game may not be traditionally "fun" (as some of you have pointed out), but I hope I provided a worthwhile experience. I'll be honest, my primary intention was to create something that felt oppressive, and attempt an interactive constructivist propaganda poster. I feel that I was semi successful.

I had a blast making the audio for this. The voice of the player, the soldiers and the propaganda guy on stage are all me on my microphone. I basically put some text into google translate (Russian), played it backwards, then tried to imitate that in my own voice, reversing some parts and splicing whatever sounded good. I then did the same but using Windows text to speech for the female announcer in level 2. I definitely spent a little too long on audio in some places. I mean, there's even some background music that plays in the alley in level 2... which was cool, because I've never written music before (hence why I hid it in the alley). I'll share a full postmortem some time in the new year.

I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in me extending this idea further - but perhaps it's just better left as an experiment?

Thanks everyone for playing - looking forward to next Ludum Dare :)

Edit: Regarding the source, I'm away for the holidays at the moment I'll upload a fix once I'm back. Regarding shaders, I don't think there are any... the old-sepia effect is just a paper texture I am rotating in 90 degree increments rather rapidly. Expensive, hacky, but it works. If anyone has any questions about how I've done any of this, I could make a tutorial or something. That would be fun :)

Excellent and very atmospheric sound design and art. Even though the visual design is so simple, the detailed audio soundscapes are really immersive and illustrate the dystopian setting well. The only little thing I would suggest would be to have something to indicate which direction a soldier is facing. Since they are symmetrical circles, it was sometimes hard to tell if i was in front of them or behind them. Otherwise, great game!

Oh wow, I really loved this one.

Graphics were simple but effective (and I loved the little details like the parallax buildings). Audio was amazing. I'd say the difficulty was about right, but I'd recommend switching it up a bit by having the influence last longer and balancing it in other ways, like having the guards move in ways that affect what paths you have to take. (There was some of this on the second level, so I know it's already on your radar.)

Weirdest thing for me, and the only thing to actually rise to the status of a complaint, is the circular, unforgiving hitboxes for moving around other characters. I'd often find myself blocked from moving in a direction because I was just barely touching an npc. The trio standing in a small triangle with just enough room to move in and get them all was especially annoying, and I ended up just taking to them individually from outside so I wouldn't get stuck if I accidentally hit up or down on the way out.