LudumData

Homos Save the World by atom0520

[raw]
made by atom0520 for LD 42 (JAM)

The world population is growing rapidly, and our little lovely planet is running out of space! All this disaster is due to those heterosexual people who have strong sexual desires, as they have born a lot of children that make our world so crowded!

Therefore, to solve this population crisis we need to control the birth rate, and we can achieve this goal by highly (or even forcefully) promoting homosexuality and reducing as much as possible the number of heterosexuals, which is essentially what you would do in this game.

In this game, you are endowed with the power of changing people's genders, and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make people's genders as unified as possible. You can choose to make our planet either a gay planet or a lesbian one. Once you manage to make all people in the world have the same gender, everybody would be forced to be homosexual and no one would be able to bear more children to deteriorate the population issue any more.

So LD developers, come to try my game and use your gender transformation ability to prevent our world from running out of space!

Operation Instructions and Guide

  • Press W and S Keys to move forward and backward.
  • Press D and A Keys to move rightward and leftward.
  • Move Mouse for Yaw and Pitch rotation, which help you aim at people.
  • Press Left Mouse Button to change the aimed person's gender.
  • Press F1 and F2 Keys to trigger skills.
  • Press ESC Key to quit the game.

Winning Condition: All people on the planet get the same gender and they begin their happy homosexual lives ever after.

Losing Condition: The population reaches the maximum and the planet runs out of space.

Skill 1 - Condom Giveaway: Give away condoms to every man and prevent any couple from producing children for a while.

Skill 2 - One-Child Policy: Implement the One-Child Policy so that every couple can only produce one child for a while.

Tips:

  • Every human takes the same number of seconds to grow up (transform from small to big), and only grown-up humans can bear children.

  • "Condom Giveaway" can buy you some time while "One-Child Policy" can reduce the population. You'd better use them as often as you can but you shouldn't use them at the same time.

  • The start of the game is crucial. You'd better apply "One-Child Policy" before the first "baby boom".

Development Tools

  • Unreal Engine 4.20
  • Blender

Credits

  • Models: Kenny (https://www.kenney.nl/assets)
  • Graphics: Kenny, PSDGraphics (http://psdgraphics.com)
    • "Condom Icon" made by Smashicons from www.flaticon.com
    • "Family Icon" made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com
  • Music: Green Bear Music (https://greenbearmusic.bandcamp.com/)

Screenshots

Screenshot_01.png

Screenshot_03.png

Screenshot_04.png

Screenshot_05.png

Comics.png

Post-Jam Updates:

  • Added Two Skills - "Condom Giveaway" and "One-Child Policy".
  • With the adjusted game parameters like initial human number and the new skills, now the game is not very easy to win at the beginning and nor is it impossible to win at the later stage.
  • Coverted Blueprints to C++ code to improve the game performance.
  • Reduced the game package size.

PS: Can anyone tell me how to type line break in Ludum Dare Markdown? I have tried "carriage return" and "
" but none of them works. 0_0

Windows https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DRrKzEjCk4RooHpbF5Fyt-QcrhdGYXe6/view?usp=sharing
Windows https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wHv2XxcJYijHa2q6l7BRBuVIyWuCU3fr/view?usp=sharing
Windows https://atom0520.itch.io/homos-save-the-world
Source code https://github.com/atom0520/LudumDare42
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/homos-save-the-world

Ratings

Overall 509th 3.46⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 326th 3.5⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 148th 3.739⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 288th 3.848⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 123th 3.625⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 556th 3.167⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 26🗨️

Feedback

Astralore
19. Aug 2018 · 03:49 UTC
I'm not sure how I feel about the concept, but it's certainly unique! If you'd like more people to play it, maybe you should host it on itch.io? People will find it more immediately trustable than a google drive link. :slight_smile:

I found the controls a little difficult, kind of dizzying. I also think it is very much too easy to win at the very beginning, and too difficult at the end. Possibly if the world started with more people and the spawn rate was decreased, it would be more competitive at both ends of the time range?

Otherwise I thought it was well-put-together. Good work!
🎤 atom0520
19. Aug 2018 · 15:48 UTC
@astralore Thank you for playing my game! I find your advices quite helpful! :) I would consider hosting my game on itch.io after making some modifications. I will also increase the initial number of people and give player some special abilities like imposing one-child policy and giving away free condoms to make the game difficulty more consistent throughout the entire game.
glock00
20. Aug 2018 · 08:27 UTC
I like the idea of taking earth's population as an example and I absolutely understand the humorous intent behind the idea. However, if you want to bring this to a bigger audience, be careful with advertising with "eliminating" certain sexual orientations. Do it more subtle. You have some starting points with condoms etc. Not that I take this personally, it's just some advice from a marketing (and a bit moral) perspective!
konsumopfer77
20. Aug 2018 · 10:05 UTC
intresting concept. its a funny idea even thou it fells weird to think that homosexual couples dont wannt to have kids.
the problem with an lesbian planet would be, that they still could use sperm thats "injected" without penetration. and there sure are sperm banks, if there has been at least two biological genders on that planet.
konsumopfer77
20. Aug 2018 · 10:26 UTC
ps had a weird bugg when i tried to run the game on an win10 lapetop of a friend, some kind of error and i had to restart the system. Not sure if its because of the game or because of some problem with stupid windows.
🎤 atom0520
22. Aug 2018 · 05:25 UTC
@glock00 Thank you for your advice! It makes sense. The word “eliminating” does sound a little radical. Although I just wrote that word in a playful way, I think I'd better take it off in case it might irritate some people that do care.
🎤 atom0520
22. Aug 2018 · 05:56 UTC
@konsumopfer77 Thank you for your review! Your thought is interesting! It's possible that some homosexuals do want to get kids by either adoption or resorting to sperm banks. However I think either way homosexuals cannot produce kids by themselves, and they always need at least one person of another gender to produce kids for or with them. Therefore if we can make a world with no man or no woman, then nobody can produce or have kids any more even if some homos may still want to. However I'm not sure if that situation would make human beings evolve to get the Asexual Reproduction ability. If that's the case, our world would be hopeless. >_<

As for the bug, I developed this game using my win10 laptop, and the game runs properly on my laptop. However since I'm not an expert on Unreal Engine, I'm not sure if I have overlooked something that might cause the issue on your friend's laptop. I feel very sorry for that and would let you know if I find the reason later.
Leave
02. Sep 2018 · 16:01 UTC
Cool game, im interested in how you implemented to gravity but i cannot seem to find the source code. Also to reduce the game size, try baking the assets and excluding start pack content. Try removing the extra/Redist and debug .pdb.
🎤 atom0520
02. Sep 2018 · 16:26 UTC
@leave Thank you for your review! I didn't include the source code because I didn't join the COMPO. But I'm fine with being open-source so I've added the source code link. As for the gravity, my solution is to adjust the actor's rotation and apply a gravity force towards the planet center every frame, and once the actor reaches the ground reduce the speed in the gravity direction to zero. Moreover I feel sorry for the game size and I'm still quite new to Unreal Engine. I have excluded the starter content but I didn't know there're still things that can be removed inside the build files. I'll try that later and thank you very much for your advice! :slight_smile:
Leave
02. Sep 2018 · 17:13 UTC
@atom0520 Thank you for posting the source and the explanation, im also new to this and learning from your code. I checked again and I was wrong, your assets.pak is nice and small. And thank you for playing my game!
jordantanner
02. Sep 2018 · 20:01 UTC
Definitely a funny little game-- the concept is definitely unique and interesting, though may bother some folks. The FPS controls felt pretty good, and the gameplay was challenging. Solid entry!
🎤 atom0520
02. Sep 2018 · 20:32 UTC
@jordantanner Thank you for your playing! The game is just a joke. I mean no offence to heterosexuals. :sweat_smile: Just to promote some population awareness.
Gildar76
02. Sep 2018 · 23:48 UTC
Fantastic game, have been thinking about something similar, but that was for a diferent theme. Like that you did it in first person on a planet :)
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 00:52 UTC
@gildar76 Thank you for playing my game! I'm glad you like it. :slight_smile:
Fernando Tonon de Rossi
03. Sep 2018 · 01:13 UTC
It look like a star trek episode... kkkk
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 01:24 UTC
@fernando-tonon-de-rossi Maybe it's the space star skybox that makes you get that feel. :smile:
ohmmus
03. Sep 2018 · 01:40 UTC
Incredible game! I had a smile on my face the entire time!
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 01:58 UTC
@ohmmus Thank you for playing my game! I'm happy to hear that my game feels fun to you and makes you smile! :slight_smile:
the-tophat-demon
03. Sep 2018 · 03:20 UTC
It's disorienting, but silly, and it's pretty good for what it is. You seemed to have addressed most of the game's problems in the update, so I won't reiterate on those. I would recommend finding a way to get rid of that motion blur on the FPS controller; it makes the game even more disorienting. Also, you should look into a tool called "Resource Hacker" to change the icon on your executable. I find the way that the player moves around on a small, spherical ground quite fascinating; I feel a desire to explore that kind of movement further in a future creation.
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 04:00 UTC
@the-tophat-demon Thank you for your review and suggestions! I think the motion blur might have something to do with the camera rotation. I'm considering if it would feel better if I disable the camera rotation or reduce the camera rotation sensitivity. I will try them later. I also like the feeling of walking on a spherical ground and actually that's what I implemented first in this game. But for the performance issue, I would also make the planet much bigger, and that would be even more interesting as then you would feel you are walking on a endless planar surface just like how you feel when walking on earth. Hope you can take some inspirations and come up with something more interesting and innovative in your future creation! :slight_smile:
prajwal
03. Sep 2018 · 06:30 UTC
5 for innovation,awsome,had fun
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 06:39 UTC
@prajwal Thank you for playing my game! I'm glad you like it. Hope my game wouldn't mislead you. :sweat_smile: Good luck!
randomphantom
03. Sep 2018 · 07:19 UTC
Didn't quite understand how to play it. The people seem to transform randomly (I presume its them multiplying, but the effect is really jarring), and its hard to click on them and I'm not sure what to do exactly - do I just reassign all their genders to a specific gender? Interesting concept though and gender assignment seems like a really hilarious idea!
CristiHKJ
03. Sep 2018 · 08:19 UTC
I like the game, but, the idea of homos is kinda against my rules! xD

Overall, great job! :D
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 14:54 UTC
@randomphantom Thank you for playing my game! Your feedback reminds me that I should have given some explanation on how humans transform. Actually each human would take the same number of seconds to grow up (transform from small to big) and humans can only bear children when they are grown-up. Your understanding of the game is correct, the game is bascically about resigning everybody's gender to the same (an extreme way to solve overpopulation). You may find hard to aim at a moving human or a human hiding in the crowd, and that's kind of the point. Naughty humans are easier to cope with when they are standing still or when their population is sparser.
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 14:59 UTC
@cristihkj Thank you for playing my game! I'm glad you like it. Just keep up your rules until our planet runs out of space. :smile:
gustavo.christino
03. Sep 2018 · 18:40 UTC
Evaluation ...

0 - Main Mechanics:
Find specific targets in a set of two types of targets to neutralize them. Fighting against time.

1 - Secondary Mechanics:
I do not think it's fitting to analyze secondary mechanics.

2 - Learning Curve:
It was quick to learn how to play, since they are common commands to computer games and the main mechanic collaborates with the simplicity of the commands.

3 - Flow:
The game starts easy and gets worse with the passage of time (if the person is bad at first). In parts this is because we are learning to play. One suggestion would be to add an additional mechanic (perhaps a powerup to be "touched" in the mouse click) to temporarily paralyze men, women or create some kind of barrier that favors the player a little if he is almost lost (perhaps walk slower, or even walk away from the planet a bit and such). I believe that the flow issue will be favored.

4 - Love Points:
The apparent humor was what most caught my attention. Music is interesting in relation to purpose. Graphic art is nice.

5 - Presentation of the Narrative:
Does not fit very well in the analysis.

6 - Art Polishment:
There is always room for polishing. It was very good considering the time of Ludum Dare.

7 - Monetization Attractiveness:
Out of curiosity many people could download, but it would need to increase a lot with additional mechanics to sell (I believe). Unreal exports very "big" games (in bytes), this complicates monetizing in the sense of making a game for smartphones and selling cheap or even monetizing for advertisements in applications. A last-minute idea would be an MMO based on this game (with people invading the planet of others, throwing plagues and all, hahahahaha).

8 - Community Generation:
I believe that a continuation of this project can easily generate a community if I create a Facebook page, because of the theme and such (invite me to follow the page if I do).

9 - Cultural Dialogue:
The theme "homo" ends up attracting, as well as the theme "super world population", that way culture can bring a lot to your game. On the contrary, the game may lead people to reflect again on the themes and the "solution" presented. With a bigger game (in case of continuity of the project), I believe that more relations between culture and its game can arise.
Sambi
03. Sep 2018 · 18:46 UTC
You say what now? I almost didn't play your game since I was afraid it was commenting negatively on gay people being represented in media or something like that :sweat_smile: .

I liked that you didn't use shooting people as the basic mechanic and instead made something weirder (and better I think). Hard game!
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 19:11 UTC
@gustavo-christino Thank you very much for your detailed review! I really like the idea of multiple plannets, (although I think I'm not gonna make a MMO based on this game XD) and I think a game including multiple planets which you can invade and walk around on would be very interesting. The powerup is also a good idea which may require me to think about what kind of object in reality can be put into this game as a powerup. Unreal games generally have bigger sizes, which are not very suitable for mobile devices. But if I can further reduce the game size and optimize the code to get a more stable FPS, maybe I would consider porting the game to mobile platforms later. Anyway thank you for all your analysis and suggestions! :slight_smile:
🎤 atom0520
03. Sep 2018 · 19:22 UTC
@sambi Haha don't worry. It's a LGBT friendly game. It's also a heterosexual friendly game as no one forces you to be a world-saving hero. You can either make a gay planet or a lesbian one, or just be a good heterosexual and watch our world go out of space with your loved one(s). :slight_smile:
WrenPirate
04. Sep 2018 · 05:15 UTC
I would totally play this if I had a Windows machine. :sob:
🎤 atom0520
04. Sep 2018 · 05:42 UTC
@wrenpirate I'm sorry I just made windows version. 0 0 However here is a game video which can let you know how the game feels like https://youtu.be/WUg6pxxbivQ
WrenPirate
04. Sep 2018 · 05:49 UTC
@atom0520 No, I'm not going to watch what I can't have. That's a tease!
🎤 atom0520
04. Sep 2018 · 05:53 UTC
Haha that's OK. I'm still glad you are willing to play! :sweat_smile:
Lonazen
04. Sep 2018 · 09:10 UTC
Cool idea i enjoyed it ^-^
🎤 atom0520
04. Sep 2018 · 14:21 UTC
@lonazen Thank you for playing my game! I'm happy that you enjoyed my game. ^-^