Phantom of the Malá Strana by maoap

made by maoap for LD 44 (JAM)

You play as a pickpocket in Prague. Your entire life is collecting different currencies from unwary tourists. The thief lives in Malá strana (Lesser Town of Prague) and steals at Malostranské náměstí (Lesser Town Square). He steals at noon and in the afternoon. You are stealing via this minigame: You move by arrows, pick as many different currencies possible and then before the timer depletes you leave the pocket by pressing spacebar. But beware! It takes some time to roll your long hand out. Those black circles are revealed after you are close enough.

Some interesting facts: You can actually see the building we were working at - Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University (on the right). The sound of the square was really recorded at that square.

Controls: - Mouse - clicking on objects - WSAD/arrows - movement of the hand - Spacebar - start rolling your hand back - Escape - back to main menu

Team: - maoap - teamleading, programming, game design - Bee Sundance - art, level design, thief voice - Cyrdach - programming, UI design - Standaaad - sound, screenplay

Special thanks for people at the MFF site for voices of other characters.

HTML5 (web)	https://maoap.itch.io/phantom-of-the-mala-strana
Windows	https://maoap.itch.io/phantom-of-the-mala-strana
Source code	https://github.com/maoap1/Phantom-of-the-Mala-Strana
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/phantom-of-the-mala-strana

Ratings

Given

12🗳️

14🗨️

Feedback

Jiri Hysek

29. Apr 2019 · 23:35 UTC

Lol! Special point for the humour and voiceovers altough I'm not sure whether it will be appreciated worldwide :) Anyway, cool entry :)

29. Apr 2019 · 23:53 UTC

Funny voiceovers. Also controls are hard to get.

🎤 maoap

30. Apr 2019 · 07:35 UTC

@jiri-hysek Thanks, we wanted to make it as humorous as we liked it :) And in my opinion, it is better, when the game has a good specific humour, than average humour for all. We hope there wouldn't be much haters =D

@Anonymous Thanks, voiceovers are really important aspect of our game. To the controls, we wanted to make the game harder than a simple snake, so we hope we were succesful :)

GastricSparrow

30. Apr 2019 · 14:54 UTC

Really interesting game. Looks great. I think the fact that the "head" of the "snake" is on the wrist makes it hard to get right. You can make games hard, but it's better if the difficulty is challenging, rather than annoying.

Quagga

30. Apr 2019 · 15:13 UTC

Best crime story ) Gameplay + voice = fun+succes

syudzius

30. Apr 2019 · 15:34 UTC

very entertaining game :D voices are good

JOrbits

30. Apr 2019 · 22:02 UTC

Had much fun playing this game. You maybe could have added a shop to level up some skills. (Timer, Speed, etc.)

🎤 maoap

01. May 2019 · 09:56 UTC

@gastricsparrow Thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry that it annoys you, it had to be just unusual movement :) And in fact, I still think that the stretching hand would be moving exactly as we implemented =D

@quagga Thanks, we hoped that this equation would work :)

@syudzius Thanks. In my opinion, voices make up more than 60 % of the fun in the game :)

@jorbits Of course, it would be great :) At least buying more time for the timer. However, would be more speed of your hand a positive or negative? =D

Tamail

01. May 2019 · 16:11 UTC

I love this game so much - and not just because I am voicing one of the passersby in the game :P Seriously, I love the game mechanics, the art, the idea, it's visuals and everything else. Great work!

Evgeniya Zapolnova

01. May 2019 · 16:13 UTC

Awesome game! Idea, gameplay, sounds and art - all is perfect! But I don't think that fits the theme.
Anyway I really enjoyed. I was in Praga for 1 week some time ago and I was happy to have this "Praga taste"! Thank you for this game

🎤 maoap

01. May 2019 · 16:56 UTC

@tamail Thanks, we tried our best :)

@evgeniya-zapolnova Thanks, I'm glad we resembled your memories :) Well, to the theme, at least in czech language we say that "your life is something", if you live for it, if it's your goal, etc. And our phantom lives for collecting foreign currencies :)

iceflakeftw

04. May 2019 · 07:14 UTC

Very interesting interpretation of 'life is currency'. Especially when its not about the amount, but the types of currencies that the phantom is interested in. It shows his addiction to currency. Brilliant! Also the voice overs and background sound puts the player in Paris. There is a thrill in rolling back your hand before time runs out. There is great potential in this game. Good job.

Ransom

04. May 2019 · 07:40 UTC

I like the very bendy arm; it's funny. I found it hard to steer though, because the pivot point seems to be pretty far behind the hand. I also had junk items appear right in front of the hand a lot.

Fun idea though. This could be engaging if expanded upon further.

🎤 maoap

04. May 2019 · 07:44 UTC

@iceflakeftw Thanks! By the way, not Paris but Prague =D Yes, the thrill in rolling back your hand was for us an important gameplay feature :)

Weine

04. May 2019 · 09:23 UTC

Interesting game with some well implemented mechanics. The need to balance the risk of "just one more" with the rollback timing adds to the gameplay. I found the game overall fun - even enough for me to keep going until I won.

Well done!

gonutz

04. May 2019 · 11:35 UTC

Hey, great game, really funny! :-)

I love the snake-like main character, this is hillarious :-) I wonder why nobody suspects him to be the thief...

I especially love the improvised background city noise. Nice touch and I always love when you see programmer art like that.

The graphics are really cute and funny as well. Prague looks cool, I remember seeing your initial background post. That was why I followed you initially and your game turned out great!

Overall a very good entry, keep up the good word, I am looking forward to your next LDs!

🎤 maoap

05. May 2019 · 10:58 UTC

@ransom Thanks for the feedback :) We know about all these things since they were intended.

@weine Thanks and congrats for winning :) Yes, I also like the risk of "just one more" =D

@gonutz Thanks for your positive feedback a lot :)

Le Slo

05. May 2019 · 11:15 UTC

This is pretty great! I really like the sounds and the gameplay, not being able to see what is in the pocket unless you are close enough is a great idea. However, the control of the snake hand is a bit awkward, since the corners are made on the wrist and not on the end of the hand. In general the personality of this game is huge, very good work on that!