LudumData

Provide by RedHermit

[raw]
made by RedHermit for LD 44 (JAM)

Provide - An experience.. of life.. family, and the choices you make.

A game of life, made for Ludum Dare 44, with "Your life is the currency" as the theme. A short story simulation of life in general, providing, or not providing, for your loved ones. Created in 72 hours (really 48 if you count the first game I built and threw away). Cut short, with a lot of content never making it in for the deadline, but here it is!!

CONTROLS: Click text options with your mouse pointer.

Thank you to Pixel Prophecy https://www.youtube.com/pixelprophecy for the inspiration and motivation to participate in Ludum Dare. If you haven't seen his videos, go take a look; amazing talent with all creations, especially video.

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provide.PNG

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I removed myself from the graphics voting category, as I used assets used for human characters: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/humanoids/low-poly-business-people-130313 | Went the asset route as the first model I worked on.. for almost 24 hours, had an extra cloven hoof thing every time I exported from Blender, so I burned him to the ground. At that point I gave up on the jam/compo.. but Pixel Prophecy and friends provided the motivation to get going again; knowing I couldn't do much in the time remaining, I pulled in the asset to help me move along, and have fun with the project! burnItDown.gif

Windows https://www.atlasfragments.com/LD44/Provide_v001.zip
HTML5 (web) https://redhermit.itch.io/provide-ld44
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/provide

Ratings

Given 18🗳️ 32🗨️

Feedback

Black Potion
30. Apr 2019 · 04:31 UTC
I found balance!
🎤 RedHermit
30. Apr 2019 · 04:34 UTC
@black-potion Thank you for being the first to play the game, glad you got the 'good ending' on your first go!
Cenoon
30. Apr 2019 · 04:47 UTC
Haha I also got balance on my first go! Nice game :smile: I also played through once more to be as hard working as possible
Ryan Westby
30. Apr 2019 · 04:52 UTC
I loved the mood that the audio added to this. Great work there. Although there wasn't a ton of gameplay in this, I enjoyed the theme and message you presented and your take on the theme. Great job pulling through and getting this published.
🎤 RedHermit
30. Apr 2019 · 05:34 UTC
@ryan-westby Thanks for playing and the feedback, and seeing through the acute amount of content/gameplay for what I was going for :)

@cenoon Thanks for trying a couple play through options!
Préda
30. Apr 2019 · 12:25 UTC
Very cool game! But it took me a bit of time to figure out that I have to click on the texts :smile:
🎤 RedHermit
30. Apr 2019 · 15:20 UTC
@preda Excellent point.. developer blindness. I had my wife try, unfortunately after submission hour ended.. and same thing for her. I definitely needed a better way to guide the player into the controls, and will make sure my next game highlights that in an improved fashion... and having others do play testing before submission hour :)
Yngvarr
30. Apr 2019 · 16:16 UTC
Balance is found! =) I like the mood you built in your game. You really nailed it with music and colors.

This game would benefit from more UI clues e.g. highlighting active text labels when pointer runs over it. And sure, more events and variation would serve well. Hope to see a post-jame version. =)
🎤 RedHermit
30. Apr 2019 · 16:35 UTC
@yngvarr Thanks for playing and the feedback, I completely agree with the features that you're recommending... it hadn't even occurred to me to highlight the text during development actually, which I bet I could have squeezed in easily with the time I had.. so thank you for that recommendation!
SpaceMonkey
30. Apr 2019 · 16:47 UTC
I had a nice moment playing your game! Loving the visual style. I know it's mostly downloaded assets, but it's only part of the job, and you really nailed the composition and colors. I especially enjoyed the mood of the game. It's a quick but well designed emotional journey through work, family, and unicorns. The music fits perfectly and I really felt the pressure increase when the pitch changed! Excellent work :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Rombus
01. May 2019 · 00:18 UTC
I found balance! Super cool how the player's hair got white during work hours xD
Congrats on the entry!
Eclahn
01. May 2019 · 17:21 UTC
I only ever got one choice other than working, whether to read a bedtime story or not. The choice "Grumble and be negative about life" felt... judgy to me, as if there was no other option than working hard or be negative.

I really like the idea of the game though! I just feel like you should have devoted less time to animate the office and more to offer more choice, more options - even if it meant having the character and one single asset in front of a white background, that would have worked fine here. The two other characters seen on the title screen (aside from the main char and the child) are never seen, unless I missed something. I think they deserved some screen time ;) There is a lot of potential in this game, I hope you feel like expanding on it.
🎤 RedHermit
01. May 2019 · 18:55 UTC
@eclahn Thank you so much for playing and the feedback! I completely agree with all of your statements.. I learned some valuable lessons this LD, like how prioritizing my scope and work is quite important.. I spent probably 4 hours working on a clock that hung on the wall and sped up.... which was 4 hours I could have easily used for setting up some of my other story elements and choice paths. - Again, my thanks for the candid feedback; noted and taken to heart for future projects :)
Silas Reinagel
01. May 2019 · 21:30 UTC
This is a great concept, but it feels like it would be nice to have more decision points. I didn't feel like I got to choose many things, and I don't feel that I deserved to get the good ending.

I really like the general simulation presentation. The passage of time was very well done!

It would be awesome to see a further refinement or evolution on this concept!
petsanah
01. May 2019 · 22:17 UTC
Makes one think :angel:
Nice idea and graphics.
Check out our game
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/provide
360
01. May 2019 · 22:56 UTC
Great. Could be a potential life simulator, few UI tips, highlight text on mouseover
also we wanted to give you 5 stars on graphics, no reason to opt out
Julien Noel
02. May 2019 · 01:16 UTC
I absolutely agree with @eclahn's analysis, and I also think there's a great potential, as I quite enjoyed the general mood and feel of your game.

I tried it three times. I found balance the first, then went overachiever, and then tried it a third time in slacker mode, expecting an other scene than the twilight to appear. I guess it got cut on account of the deadline ? Out of curiosity, how would you have symbolised this third path ?
🎤 RedHermit
02. May 2019 · 03:09 UTC
@julien-noel Thank you for trying all 3 paths. I originally planned to show a visited grave with flowers, well maintained for the hard working path, but the worst path show a broken down grave that appears no one visited.. but I only had time to change the text on the tombstone and description.. I also originally story-boarded a 4th option, which was a "passion" path.. abandoning the 9-5 work life, and pursuing your dreams.. which was to be initiated by clicking events around the scenes.. like a bird at the window, or taking time to water your desk plant, and then becoming an arborist or something.. anyways, yes.. lot's hit the cutting room floor to make the deadline, but thank you for your question curiosity :)
Nava
02. May 2019 · 03:30 UTC
Great concept, and I also found balance on my first try. :)

I think it's more like an experiment than a game at this stage, but the idea has a lot of potential.
INCD021
02. May 2019 · 06:48 UTC
Nice story :) Others already pointed this out but, text highlight on hover would be a good feedback to the player. I was clicking on the text when telling story to my kid, and guess it doesn't do anything ;)
I did find balance. :D
Frank Gevaerts
03. May 2019 · 17:12 UTC
I enjoyed the general mood and audio, but I would have appreciated more choices at some points. I got the impression that the key to achieving balance was mostly appreciating the unicorns (which is not a bad life lesson!)
SassyKeys
03. May 2019 · 23:42 UTC
Very enjoyable, quite depressing, but in a good way as that gives it feel. Such are the harsh realities of life successfully conveyed in a video game format, I really enjoyed that aspect.
DeathStorm
04. May 2019 · 01:20 UTC
A Cool small game with a deep story and a greate idea.
I loved the idea and the concept so much, that I wished there where more than just 4 posibilities to choose.
But in general a really good game.

Well done
Jiri Hysek
05. May 2019 · 09:18 UTC
Nice little game about life :) I tried to find all endings (two?) but it was so hard to tell that little guy I won't read him a book, so I almost didn't find the worse ending. It's nice when game about life ends positively :) I like overal mood of the game, nice fitting music and visuals. Good work, it's great you have finished it!
Drauthius
05. May 2019 · 17:42 UTC
Interesting concept, and how the time passed by and people walking against walls was fun to see.
🎤 RedHermit
05. May 2019 · 18:08 UTC
@nava Indeed - it is essentially an experiment, thank you for playing and the feedback :)
@frank-gevaerts Thank you, I too would have appreciated being able to get more choices in, I'm glad you found the true meaning to life (unicorns) during the play :)
@sassykeys Thank you for playing and your feedback.. I agree.. the idea came from a depressing place when I gave up on LD44 24 hours in and originally it was much darker in my mind.. but as the game dev community cheered me up, the game lightened up a bit too as I worked towards completing it :)
@deathstorm Thank you for playing and the feedback! Yes.. I fell super short on the story variances.. they were in my mind, but never made it in by the deadline :(
@jiri-hysek Thank you for trying to get to the different endings, and your nice comments. There were 3 endings total.. but 2 were the tombstone, just with different text.. one says you were a great provider and worked hard.. the other says you're just 'meh.. skated through life, no one really cared you're gone'
@drauthius Haha, thanks - glad someone appreciated that bug.. I did too, so I decided to not spend much time on trying to fix it ;)
Jiri Hysek
05. May 2019 · 19:01 UTC
@redhermit yeah, you're right, I actually never tried slacking off at work, work at home and be negative about life.. Now I finally see the third ending.