Home Raider by Rongo Matane

Rob people that have bad eyes and good ears! But be careful, the more you steal, the louder you will be. Don't get caught! Can you manage to get your precious oscar back, in level 3?
Your feedback would be especially interesting for me on these points: * did the levels work for you? * was the sound mechancic clear and balanced? * how did you approach level 3 (if you did)? it is super basic, being created 60 minutes before the finish line * which items did you use, and which not, and why? :)
We'll make sure to play your game too.
Home Raider was programmed in java using libgdx. For the graphics, we used aseprite.

Ratings
| Overall | 130th | 3.912⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 120th | 3.882⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 135th | 3.773⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 84th | 4.147⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 508th | 3.6⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 234th | 3.586⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 368th | 3.344⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 333th | 3.574⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 47🗨️ |
What I really enjoyed:
- The graphics
- The music
- The game mechanics :O
- The simplicity
Every level worked, the sound mechanic was clear and fair but I failed to pass level 3 :/
@fernandxor I guess you mean the "alterness on sight", because the movement otherwise is very static and scripted with waypoints. I totally get that, it also surprised me sometime, though i'm not sure how to improve it ;)
@citsua Yeah, we had a hard time wrapping up, i wasn't able ti implement the loot permanence - but i'll make sure to add it after the jam ends.
But I was in love with the simple controls (like in monaco) and after being stuck for the third level, I see that we can buy items; but items complicate the controls...
Fun gameplay and the levels made sense. The mechanics were self explanatory and the footstep effect worked really well, easy to see what was going on visually. Well done on that, much better than having the player guess whther they were in hearing range.
Minor gripe, the controls feel a little laggy, movement seems to happen a bit too late after input. Making it hard to run away, but I guess this is a stealth game so that's not what you're supposed to do.
Good job team.
Footsteps mechanic works perfectly and audio is great. Very nice job !
@dunin i absolutely agree, 4 buttons for 4 items is not elegant. I'm thinking about limiting the items you choose to 2, thus simplifying controls too. Do you have an idea you like more, on how to use items?
@grentacular i'll add a second of delay until a resident is trying to catch you, as well as an actual line of sight algorithm (right now, it just checks 3 tiles manhattan distance). Does that sound sufficient, or would you prefer an actual line of sight overlay?
@liam-higgo @eldogg I'm not 100% sure what you mean with the controls. The thief moves to full tiles - you hit the key for 0.01s, but the guy will walk the whole tile and only switch direction after that. Were you aware of this and found it frustrating? I ask because i know there is also a small issue with lagginess when just walking in one direction.
@goloso-games I didn't know about mini thief and just checked it out on steam. I think i'm gonna buy it, to see what i like about the design and what not. We thought more about how not the movement could be harder, but your perception of the world gets worse (or the enemies gets better), like less visual feedback the further you progress. The tile map logic existing in libgdx together with the tiled map editor were a great help, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten that far in 3 days.
> did the levels work for you?
Sure! The only thing that I felt took away from the game is that you can farm an easy part of a house over and over. I would prefer the challenge to be to clear an entire house before moving on. The store might not be necessary either but instead maybe have a limited number of the items at your disposal depending on the level.
> was the sound mechancic clear and balanced?
Yes it was pretty easy to grasp, the visual representation helped and it made sense that you would make more sound the more loot you have. It might ramp up a bit too fast, especially if you want to try to clear an entire house. I also hardly used any items and they might be more of a counterbalance than I realized.
> how did you approach level 3 (if you did)? it is super basic, being created 60 minutes before the finish line which items did you use, and which not, and why? :)
I ran in, did 1 smoke + 1 flash. I think a well timed flash would be enough though. I like that it was a bit of a different challenge.
Or maybe options thata auto-activate, to keep the 4 buttons simplicity?
Level 1 was a good introduction to the mechanic that let me get a feel for how everything worked. 2 was fun to plan out how to get in and out and what to grab, but there was so much stuff in that one room (with the safe, pokeball, etc) that it didn't really make sense to go through the rest of the house other than just grabbing what I could on the way out. 3 was a nice way to get me to be meticulous with my item use and a good final challenge to end the game on.
I didn't really like the fact that if I wasted some items and then got caught, I had to farm previous levels with no variation to afford the items again.
> was the sound mechanic clear and balanced?
Yes, the way sound carried between rooms made sense and the graphics represented it well.
> how did you approach level 3 (if you did)? it is super basic, being created 60 minutes before the finish line
First I tried luring them to the other side of the map and stunning them. This didn't work well because only one wanted to chase me and he was faster than me. What worked for me in the end was: run in, flash bang, grab oscar, hide in box while the guards recovered and went back to their normal spots, flash bang, run out.
> which items did you use, and which not, and why? :)
- Smoke - didn't really use. I tried it in house 2 and didn't think it slowed them down enough to be very useful.
- Moss - I tried it once in house 2 to sneak out of the treasure room without the TV watching guy hearing, and it appeared to only cover a few tiles which wasn't what I needed to get out of that room.
- Flash bang - Yes. As currently implemented, they just seem like a better version of smoke with no downside.
- Box - Yes. Good for stopping and getting your bearings or planning the next move. Also good for getting everything in the treasure room in house 2 since TV guy doesn't give you enough time to grab & go before he walks in.
my
god
This game is soo good, presentation was great, the idea has so much to extend upon. Truly a gem.
Only thing I could complain is that the ability to "revisit" previous settlements kind of broke the mood. I really think it should be either:
- An episodic game (cannot revisit previous levels), or
- Permanence result: stolen items do not respawn, broken-in house would have heightened alertness, etc.