Hit 'em harder by Jonas Michael

made by Jonas Michael for LD 41 (JAM)

The theme

For the theme, we decided to combine the almost incompatible genres of beat 'em up / fighting with a text-based controlling system. That means that you have to be quick on the keyboard!

The gameplay

You control your character by telling him, how to block and how to hit your enemy. There are five regions in total, H(ead) L(eft), H(ead) R(ight), B(ody) L(eft) , B(ody) R(ight), and the legs. Each of These regions can be combined with a "hit" or a "block" command (except from the legs). The legs are targeted with "kick", the defense is "jump". In addition, head hits can be avoided by "duck"ing. Always first write the action, then [enter], then the region! But there are not only plain commands you can use. You also unlock a variety of Cards that improve your damage, decrease you opponents defense or give you cool (and slightly stereotypical) extra boni. Combos and Combo Cards lead to a variety of ways to kill your Opponent- the only important Thing is that you can type and think at the same time: because that is what you will be generally lacking. The combos are: - hit hl, hit hl - hit hl, hit hr - hit bl, hit br, kick - kick, hit hr

Note: For combo cards, first play the Card (by writing "play card" + number of the card in one line), then do the offensive part, THEN the defensive part. That is due to the way, combos are registered!

Also, don't send a command when the blue bar is recharging, or you will lose the current combo!

For a detailed tutorial, check out the tutorial video mentioned in the comments (for some reason the links can no longer be embedded / added).

The first link provides you with an LD, and an Post-LD version, where we updated some of the graphics to be more handmade. We recommend for the web version to play it fullscreen, because the canvas is too big for the screen. For that go to Options and check the fullscreen option. Have fun!

Contact

If you have questions, need help or want to report a bug, do so at moretolooseteam[at]gmail[dot]com

SPOILER ALERT:

If you want to take a shortcut, unlock all cards by typing "gimmeall" in the command line in one of your fights! After ending the fight you have unlocked all Cards. Don't be confused if you get no feedback, we didn't add that. If you still want to feel the joy of unlocking the cards, write "reset" into the command box.

We recommend these otions for rating purposes, because it takes some time (approximately 10 fights) to unlock all cards.

Note: The reset only works in the web version!

Windows	https://moretoloose.itch.io/hit-em-harder
HTML5 (web)	https://moretoloose.itch.io/hit-em-harder-web-version
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hit-em-harder

Ratings

Overall	1177^th	2.447⭐	21🧑‍⚖️
Fun	1159^th	2.342⭐	21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	932^th	2.921⭐	21🧑‍⚖️
Theme	771^th	3.333⭐	20🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	1071^th	2.158⭐	21🧑‍⚖️
Audio	587^th	2.921⭐	21🧑‍⚖️
Humor	771^th	2.559⭐	19🧑‍⚖️
Mood	1093^th	2.361⭐	20🧑‍⚖️
Given		27🗳️	5🗨️

Feedback

shrinjoy_fox

24. Apr 2018 · 01:14 UTC

Lololol cool game

🎤 Jonas Michael

25. Apr 2018 · 13:12 UTC

Post-LD update coming soon, updating a lot of the artwork.

- Jonas Michael.

gatinmnsok

28. Apr 2018 · 14:05 UTC

I think that unfortunately, this game proofs that these two genres are incompatible :D
Perhaps some polishing of the commands could make it a bit easier to play because now you have to play with the manual next to you.

MZA

01. May 2018 · 10:31 UTC

I was quite confused on what to write in the command line. I'd suggest creating a tutorial that goes over what to write. I know you wrote it in your description page - but that is a lot to take in and hard to understand and not many gamers like reading. I definately see the idea though.

szabe

01. May 2018 · 13:46 UTC

Alright, this is a tough one. Some kind of tutorial is really necessary, it's very difficult to figure out what is even happening on screen. Maybe a few text screens with some context would be fine too. I like the concept of this game a lot more than the execution. The way the game feels now, is just not very fun, and I can't really point to a single issue, rather it's a combination of the presentation, graphics and overall gameplay. It simply needs a lot more polish, clear indicators of what is happening and when, what we can equip and how and when they work. The artwork has to be more cohesive too.

As said before, the idea of the game is really interesting, and gamifying a topic like this is quite a challenge, perhaps this text based combat style isn't what best suits this narrative.

🎤 Jonas Michael

01. May 2018 · 14:29 UTC

For those who suggested a tutorial, we do have a video tutorial, going more in-depth on the whole controls of the game. The tutorial parts in the description are just a very broad oberview.

But thanks, the review for your games will come tomorrow evening.

der_finski

01. May 2018 · 20:27 UTC

The Link seems to be buggy so use this one
youtube.com/watch?v=RiPPw3nPAGc&t=1s

Aditya Shukla

02. May 2018 · 19:50 UTC

Kind of difficult to understand at first about what is to be done in this game. But I really like such graphics I dont know why xD and i loved it... Your hard work is visible! Overall, its a good entry! Well done..

Btw if you wanna try out my game too, its here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/memebumps
Cheers!

ZaneDD

03. May 2018 · 17:47 UTC

Decent idea, and I actually find the graphics kind of charming. But even with your explanation, I still couldn't really get the commands to work very well. I also think there was a bug with the "values" thing? I played the rape whistle card, and the only thing that changed was a "." next to my "0" instead of changing it to a 1, which I think was supposed to happen?

Also, I found the "rape wistle" and NORM" cards to be a bit classless. Don't poke fun at things like rape or call things "retarded", even in jest.

Lastly, I don't usually point out typos in things like LD games because we're all rushed and make stupid mistakes, but the English in the game's text was consistently bad enough that it was distracting.

🎤 Jonas Michael

05. May 2018 · 15:48 UTC

Thank you @ZaneDD for playing and commenting. You are right, there are some Bugs with the commands and the values, but they don't result from our Code (as far as I checked), so we guess it has something to do with unity.

Also, in regards to the bad english, you are right. We are all rushed and mistakes can happen. Additionally, english is neither mine nor @der_finski's mother tongue, so there is a high Chance of mistakes just slipping into our game.

Lastly, to comment on your criticism of our Chosen Humor, we are still experimenting around to find the right Kind of Humor to use in our games, and we decided to try a very dark Humor, just to test, how that works. Thank you for your comment on that!

10. May 2018 · 08:57 UTC

well I think the game could be good if there was some kind of tutorial or an explination of what to do ingame ...

🎤 Jonas Michael

10. May 2018 · 09:17 UTC

well, there is a tutorial in the description. There is not much more to do, because a ingame tutorial wouldn't have helped. We decided that a text tutorial made more sense, because you might feel the need to look up the right moves.

der_finski

11. May 2018 · 12:19 UTC

@ZaneDD we thought about the wistle part and went along with the "SWAT 4" game which also included it. Also i dont get your NORM part because the name and also the image are taken from the kids tv show "phineas and ferb" there it it the slightly retardet roboter assistent of dr. dofensmirtz. It was not intendet to mock any human, just an gigantic bad programmed mechanical dude.

12. May 2018 · 21:25 UTC

I don't mean to be cruel, but if you have to have a nearly 10 minute tutorial for your game jam entry, you did something wrong. More to the point, I think you did almost everything wrong. Unintuitive controls, poor feedback, tasteless humor, stolen graphics, possibly buggy code? I couldn't figure out how to do anything besides kick: the cards didn't seem to work at all, and trying to use 'hit' kept asking for a target even though I clearly typed "hit hl", "hitbr", "HIT HR", and any other combo I thought might work.

🎤 Jonas Michael

14. May 2018 · 05:40 UTC

In fact, as explained above, you first have to type the action, then hit enter, then the region. That is why it asks for a target.

Thanks for your feedback!