Poser by PeachTreeOath

Instructions
Mrs. Doubtfire meets Mean Girls in this high school popularity juggling experience!
- Wear different outfits to mingle with people and raise your reputation with that matching clique
- Don't get caught in the wrong outfit with the wrong crowd or you'll lose reputation and be labeled a poser!



Credits (sorted by SLOC, the ultimate determinator)
- gswong: Code
- Zetafactor: Code
- DoubleDragonBimmy: Code
- elykyevrah : Code
- PeachTreeOath: Code
- Dcarter599 : Code
- evedoll: Art
- Watashi: Art
- Allenia Lee: Art
- deadlytoothpick : Design
| HTML5 (web) | https://peachtreeoath.itch.io/poser |
| Other (document) | https://soundcloud.com/doubledragonbimmy/sets/poser-ost |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/poser |
Ratings
| Overall | 584th | 3.441⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 694th | 3.175⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 171th | 3.69⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 501th | 3.508⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 784th | 3.1⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 368th | 3.36⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 415th | 3.25⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 689th | 3.138⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 78🗳️ | 93🗨️ |
I also like how each clique had a unique mechanic. That being said there's only so much enjoyment I can get from standing next to people while avoiding others.
To end on a high note, the art was also quite nice and there were plenty of assets despite the short time period.
Overall this is definitely one of the more unique games I've played this jam.
Gamified the feeling of scool cliques well.
I liked that there were different songs and mechanics for each clique.
Who knew furries were a clique.
Love that skater melody! Great job on the project!
The Tutorial was really good and explained the whole game.
In Total it was a pretty good game, In only expected a bit more of such a big team.
Well Done
Firstly the mechanics could easily have been as confusing as heck, but they were minimally explained and then tutorialized just the right amount. This was well designed!
Next, I had transparency into the underlying system. When making friends, not only did the bar go up, but the green circle visibly expanded as well. This later had gameplay implications when I was being a poser, but it also reinforced the learning phase and kept things totally clear throughout. The bar alone might have been trickier to see, for example when learning to be the skater, I wasn't sure if just being near was enough, or if there was some spacebar mechanic I had to use - but nope, I passed by another skater and saw the circle expand and knew what to do.
The separate mechanics for each clique are of course the showcase feature. And they are key to it all working. I enjoyed the skater the most, because I'm a fan of unusual movement systems. But the difference in move speed between the furry and the jock was also quite significant, and the ability to hold hands and take a furry with you away from trouble, or to flee danger but use the ball toss to beckon a jock with you, this all mattered in the later stages. The strategy I settled on was to do the furriest first while there was nothing to lose, and then convert to skater because while they are fast they are a little awkward and need room to maneuver. I finished with the jock, who has the fast but simple movement, and the ability to beckon another jock away from trouble, so they were good at cleaning up last.
I don't know what it is, but maybe there is some insight that can make me change up my approach. Once I got decent, I would always switch, do that entire set, and then move on to the next and never come back. It may have been fun to be force to switch more, and hammered the thematic message of being a poser home even harder. Given that my approach was the same once I'd learned the rules, I was glad the game wasn't any longer.
But my favorite detail of all was one I didn't even notice at first. And that is the ghostly normal student which you can only half see. These sub-humans are not in the social cliques I am interested in, and so they hardly even exist! That was a really great small supporting detail to include.
And of course I shouldn't neglect to mention the fun music and how it switched between cliques to reinforce the identity shifting.
It's amazing to me that your crew can make games in such a large group! I still remember enjoying Meteor Jam, and looking back at it I notice there is much but not full overlap on the team members. Makes me curious about your backstory.
Anyway, congrats on an intriguing entry that clearly had a lot of thought and care put in!
My goal is pretty simple. Any gaming friend I have I try to bring into gamedev because I know everyone has great ideas in their head and would love to take a crack at it regardless of their skillsets. Some people are already veterans of their craft, and others I'll teach Unity/art/music/design so they can contribute somehow. Despite what some people think, this is a terrible idea for optimal game quality, as it is super chaotic coordinating everything at once. Regardless, this makes for a really fun environment and we are also forced to churn out some pretty crazy ideas in order to satisfy the entire group. I'm constantly growing the crew, and usually if they're missing from the roster it's only because of scheduling conflicts. Thanks for asking!
Most importantly, it's mechanics were the best. Just switching suits and avoiding the "enemies" would have been enough to make the game into an interesting stealth game, but actually adding different movements and skills to each clique made it far more tactical. For me, going for skater, then jock, then furry worked out the best, although I kinda thing that leaving Jocks for last would have been more optimal.
Also, I couldn't help but to notice that this entry is one with the largest teams I've seen so far. Most entries are 3 or 4 people tops. How did you manage to organize a team of that size? That's quite impressive, and possibly worth a post in the main site.
Well, once again, congratulations on making a game with such deepness. [In behalf of my team](twitter.com/whalesandgames), we're looking forward to seeing your future projects. Kudos! :whale:
Good job!
I enjoyed that there was a learning curve before throwing all 3 types at the same time, but even then, with the help of the different mechanics I had some fun trying to avoid the wrong crowd.
I think you managed to create a very well balanced game and a really original experience.
Congratulations!
The graphics were OK, it would be nice if the movement animations only played while you were actually moving. It might be nice if the level design was more interconnected too, so you could take different paths to get around. The music was good but did get repetitive quickly.
I also liked how I got to practice with easy type before trying out getting everyone happy.
Now I might not have figured out how you were to throw that ball, but it was very tedious to get the individual jocks to appreciate me. And skaters moderately hard. So it basically took too long. I would instead suggest making it easier to get popular, still retaining the differences in how you interact with the distinct groups. But if that isn't difficult enough. I would have everyone slowly loose their status over time too. I think that would be a better way to balance and make the challenge fun and rewarding.
Well done!