The Final Seconds by mikethewayne
For my 14th Ludum Dare, I went for more of a tense take on the theme. You are responsible for defusing all the bombs that rebel forces have planted in your city over the course of a week. You are able to defuse bombs yourself, but you can't get to all the bomb sites in time, so you must send out members of your team. To send them out is to risk their lives, however. And if you don't think they can diffuse the bomb before the timer ticks down to 0, you can choose to sacrifice them. They will immediately stop diffusing the bomb, and attempt to drive it out of the city, resulting in the fewest civilian casualties possible. This will of course sacrifice one of your officers.
Actually managed to get sound for this one! Even if it is just an annoying beep!
I hope you enjoy playing as much as I enjoyed making this one!




Ratings
| Overall | 182th | 3.575⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 146th | 3.525⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 54th | 3.775⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 77th | 4.025⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 339th | 3⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 363th | 2.325⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 266th | 2.667⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 280th | 3.075⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 4🗨️ |
Well done, had a lot´s of fun!
No progress bars was purposeful. You're not meant to know how close your officers are to diffusing the bomb, plus it adds to the tension. If you can clearly see that an officer will diffuse the bomb before the time is up, you won't sacrifice them. The decision to sacrifice isn't supposed to be a logical, calculated decision, it's meant to be an on-the-spot decision. For example, it's 20 seconds till detonation, and you've got a slow officer working on a bomb. They may finish on time, they may not. You have to make the decision, whether to let them finish and potentially succeed, risking the lives of everyone at that location including the officer, or to sacrifice the officer, saving the civilians, but with certainty of sacrificing the officer.
As for the bomb codes, this was a decision I was torn on. It does seem to take away from the game, that you're forced to either memorise or write down letters, but it also adds a bit of realism, and adds purpose to the briefings. In reflection, it would've been better to add a little note in the corner of the screen with the code there, as needing to write down something doesn't add to a game, I appreciate that. For now, I'd recommend just writing the codes down in a text file, or on your phone. Not ideal, I know.
@bastilo I haven't experienced the bomb screen issue, perhaps you're attempting to diffuse a bomb you've already sent an officer to? I've done that on purpose, decision to send an officer to a bomb is a final decision once they reach the bomb. It means you have to think about which officer you're going to send, or even whether you want to send out an officer at all.
Thanks again!
There is one thing I would have changed: Force player to memorize the codes by making them smaller and only showing up during x amount of seconds. Also the codes change from each round to the next so the player is forced to forget all the codes he memorized the previous round and learn the new ones. On the first round you could have only 1 code with 2 letters/numbers and on the 10th round you could have 4 codes with 3 or 4 letters/numbers.
Overall a very good theme idea!
@tanis the officers aren't you, they diffuse the bomb in their own time. You only diffuse the bombs you drive yourself to, perhaps I should've made that a bit clearer, maybe some indication that the other officers are diffusing...
Thanks everyone!
I agree that a progress bar for officers would be a good addition.
One thing I'd suggest changing, is the notes of the beep sounds. It sounds more like pokemon evolving, and not something that kills people. Put the notes 1 semitone apart instead of 2 semitones, like a shark attack; and maybe not use the default TripleOscillator preset.
I often prefer action games, but this happens to be one of my favourites so far. Awesome job!
The game was supposed to be teeth-grindingly difficult, I wanted the bomb diffusal to be as realistic as possible, as in: you mess up, you're dead. Game over. I admit, it's a bit brutal, but it's so there's a big penalty to messing up.
I'm not surprised that the game hanged after day 6, I started to notice the game being a little unstable near the later stages of the game, however I didn't have enough time to fix... It certainly was meant to continue to day 7! I managed to play through to the end myself, but it did start to have trouble in the last couple of days. The beep was very last minute, so I completely agree with you, the use of TripleOscillator should've proven that!
I am extremely pleased I made it onto your favourites this time, thank you!