LudumData

Surviving Christmas by JohnnyO

[raw]
made by JohnnyO for LD 40 (JAM)

It is Christmas time again, oh what a lovely time :) Everyone is throwing their presents at you, but beware, some haters just gave rocks to you D:

The game is physics based with simple controls you have to escape a pit full of stuff, climb it to survive.

How to play

Reach the button on the upper left, that's it ;) You can "walljump" on obstacles and also on snow (but be careful ;))

Controls:

Left/Right: A / D

Jump: W / Space

Restart Level: R

Pause Game: Escape

Credits

  • Unity Engine
  • Asset store
  • sfxr for sounds
  • bensound.com for background music

How it all went

The game was programmed by me alone, sadly on Sunday evening I was too tired to replace some assets with self made things so I couldn't apply for the compo :( I put about 24 hours into this, with 16 of them being on Sunday since Saturday and Monday were rather busy.

Also this was my first Ludum Dare, it was fun, but also exhausting, and my girlfriend wasn't too happy either, might do it again ;)

Things that didn't make it in the game

Originally I planned to drop in powerups, but time ran out and I didn't want to throw in a unfinished one :(

Feedback

Feel free too leave your feedback in a constructive way and I won't be mad or give you a bad rating in return.

Comments to feedback so far

  • The Deathtimer was annoying
    • Sry for that, will make it skipable next time around
  • Ball should be a Teddy
    • Could work out, but I like my Ball :)
  • The "bucket" should be smaller
    • I tried to vary the playground a little and squeeze out some seconds of playtime
  • Whats with those rocks and christmas?
    • The original plan didn't involve christmas and I could not find a good looking christmas tree in time :(
  • Player controls are kinda meh
    • yeah sorry :( physics based controls are tricky
Windows https://johnnyo91.itch.io/surviving-christmas
Windows https://johnnyo91.itch.io/surviving-christmas
Windows https://www.dropbox.com/s/zejj7spr7ljbax9/Final.zip?dl=0
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/surviving-christmas

Ratings

Overall 778th 3.214⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 762th 3.089⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 747th 2.982⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 557th 3.464⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 947th 2.714⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 582th 2.82⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 691th 2.692⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 866th 2.885⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 33🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

Move127
04. Dec 2017 · 18:57 UTC
## Praise

Congrats on your first LD entry. It's a nice idea for the theme. I also like the christmas theme. After the first level I was really surprised when presents started falling in the second level.

## Suggestions

The 3 second timer to restart a level was kind of annoying. It also wasn't clear what I was supposed to do when the game first started.

If you want to avoid making your girlfriend angry, have her join you for the next jam.
lautregars
04. Dec 2017 · 18:59 UTC
Little game, mostly fun, Interesting way to use 3D and physics. Maybe the ball could be less slippery and/or helium-balloon-like ? I ended up dying a load of times because i was mashing space ont he snow like a retard.

Anyway, the ambiance is mostly nice, and there's a neat number of levels. I laughed when i saw my red ball bleeding off because of a rock, maybe if you replaced it with your 3d teddy bear model it would be even more appealing :P
🎤 JohnnyO
04. Dec 2017 · 19:01 UTC
I felt like having a direct restart wasnt smooth, maybe I should add a button to restart directly during message.
The first level is kinda supposed to do exactly this, so you can try out the basic controls :)
mrthee
04. Dec 2017 · 23:32 UTC
The game may benefit from having a narrower bucket-space to wait for filling-up-and-ascending. I'm also not entirely sure where killer mossy-stones come up in your seasonal holidays, but having debris that kills you was a fun little touch to the game once i reached them :)
steven-pinto
05. Dec 2017 · 13:15 UTC
Yay! Christmas<3
At first I dint have a clue how to play but once I got a hang of it, it was pretty fun :)
It gets really hard when the rocks start to fall and is bit frustrating there :p But idk maybe i am just a bad gamer xD
Overall loved the Christmas setting and guess I can say thank you for making me prepared to survive Christmas xD
All the best!
Pls feel free to play and rate my game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/split
sovogirl
05. Dec 2017 · 13:53 UTC
Very holiday game. Nice job!
Netherlab
05. Dec 2017 · 14:13 UTC
Well done on combining the theme with the theme we are in IRL, props! Was fun. Just a minor glitch, I was able to multiple jump my way to the button if I pressed the spacebar quickly enough.
Schu
05. Dec 2017 · 14:17 UTC
Nice work! Love the theme!
meanmon13
05. Dec 2017 · 14:19 UTC
Way to tie in the theme with the Christmas season. Took me a bit to figure out how to play but once I got it, I was able to make it it past a few stages. The rocks did me in though.
🎤 JohnnyO
05. Dec 2017 · 14:19 UTC
@netherlab I just realised I forgot to catch that on "walljumps"(with objects and snow) :upside_down: for normal jumps this should not occur ^^
Burgee
05. Dec 2017 · 14:20 UTC
Definitely nailed the theme here!

Level 1: Man this game's easy what is this?

Level 2: This seems like level 1 - OH MY GOD WHATS HAPPENING!

It ramps up QUICK! The physics were neat and the difficulty level was high but I reached that freakin button finally.

It took me a long time to realize that shadows appeared where the presents were going to drop and that made things quite a bit easier once I started paying attention. I liked this game!
zblah
05. Dec 2017 · 14:21 UTC
Funny concept, but i don't get the "christmas theme" x). Good job by the way ;)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-darkest-light
Maximiliam Berggren
05. Dec 2017 · 14:25 UTC
Just played your game, very neat indeed. The game is very intresting both when it comes to art (the mix of 3d in 2d space) and gameplay. I will make sure to give a good rating. It is nice to see others having the christmas spirit so to say. I also made a Christmas, physics based (kind of ) game. Anyway props to you. Cheers!
IndieImpala
05. Dec 2017 · 14:26 UTC
I Agree with whats been said. Theme is good, difficulty curve is steep but not unbearable :)
Well done on your first LD, next time get your GF to join in!
Maximiliam Berggren
05. Dec 2017 · 14:26 UTC
By the way, when the snow is at the same level as the player I could just spam jump the wall, but I don't know if that is a feature or not ;)
Christian Koch
05. Dec 2017 · 14:29 UTC
I never thought that I would get mad seeing presents falling from the sky. But wow :D This game is fun. I really liked the idea, although the snow allowed me some cheap victories :D Keep it up :)
Grahamliphts
05. Dec 2017 · 14:33 UTC
Nice little game ! And presents falling from the sky are always a good thing ^^
Camcam_S5
05. Dec 2017 · 14:53 UTC
He reminds me chrismas :gift: ! The concept is simple but it's good ! :)
Mags
05. Dec 2017 · 22:59 UTC
I didn't read the instructions at first, so I didn't know I could do a wall jump so I just played with the snow. I thought that if enough of snow falls down I'll climb it to the button. :D And then I read the instructions. :)

It seems well balanced (first few levels that I played) it wasn't too hard nor too easy. Good job!
btw. I couldn't figure out the rocks in the context of Christmas? :p
Skyward
06. Dec 2017 · 02:33 UTC
Very interesting idea! I didn't really like having to wait 3 seconds when I failed, but it's fine. Also the controls for the ball seemed a bit slow but that's probably more personal preference. Good job!
Team Infernus
09. Dec 2017 · 16:40 UTC
Simple concept, but well developed. It was a bit too hard for my personal preference, but I enjoyed it.
MewSoul
09. Dec 2017 · 20:35 UTC
Congrats for your first LD and completing it! The idea suits the theme and pretty well implemented :)
One thing that could be improved is the movement of the cameras when the player moves too much out of the camera field, it was a bit too shaky. I took a look at your code, as you move your ball with physics, you should just handle the input in Update() and apply the physics in FixedUpdate(), and as for your camera you should move what you have in Update() to LateUpdate() so you're sure to have the correct position of the player when it is called. :)
🎤 JohnnyO
11. Dec 2017 · 11:34 UTC
@MewSoul thanks for the feedback, I was actually thinking about doing the controls the way you described it, but that was after the competition :( I'll remember the LateUpdate, I realized that the camera movement wasn't too smooth but decided to ignore it as it's fine during the most time^^