Ludum Dare Simulator 2019 by samboyer276
:astonished: Those positions are insane!!! Thank you SO much to eveyrone who played and rated this. For 99% of the jam I was more worried about even finishing the game, having entire minigames to make with hours to go... but I'm so happy that it paid off and resulted in a game you all enjoyed. Thanks again, and I'll see y'all in December :tada:
Incorporating decades of research into the perplexing field, a vast team of scientists from around the globe (jk just me) have been able to distill the experience of making a small prototype game into 7 minigames.
In this alternate reality where Jam Games can be created through playing minigames, your job is to score as high as possible in the Ludum Dares of the future. Performing well in each of the 7 minigames will boost certain grade categories - but remember to pay attention to your Game Disk space and Energy meter!
Features - 7(!) Minigames that capture the essence of making a complete game. Perform well in each of the Code, Art, Dialogue, Physics, Music, Effects and Debug mingames to result in a higher-graded result game! - 5 rigorous grading categories that indicate the victories and shortcomings of your produced game, and an overall position in the Ludum Dare leaderboard. - Hyper-realistic energy system - Ludum Dare Simulator 2019 simulates actual fatigue and encourages you to take a short break to recover. A lesson we could all learn from. - Infinite gameplay - Ludum Dare Simulator 2019 uses a complex Deep Learning algorithm to simulate Ludum Dare jams from the future! /s - Brilliant soundtrack from Mitch Murder and Waterflame! - Really bad pixel art (as per usual)! - 4 entire instrument samples! - A cute robot!
Instructions/Controls
Once you've entered a Jam, click on any of the Code, Art, Dialogue, Physics, Music, Effects, Break or Final Polish buttons to move to that room.
Code - Click and drag instructions to get the robot to its destination tile.
Art - Click and drag over the canvas to replicate the source image.
Dialogue - Type any of the words before they disappear.
Physics - Move the mouse to control the racquet and deflect as many balls as possible.
Music - Use the number keys to reproduce the drum loop as accurately as possible.
Effects - Click on the crosshairs before they disappear.
Break - Do nothing while you recharge your Energy meter.
Debug - Click or press Space to fire hasty-code-patch bullets at the bugs.
Final Polish - Click 'Finish' to fill the rest of your Game Disk with juice and clean-ups.
In some of the games you'll find golden items - interact with these to get an extra second in the Debug minigame.
Credits (because I didn't have time to put it in-game)
Music by Mitch Murder - https://mitchmurder.bandcamp.com/
Music by Waterflame - https://www.youtube.com/user/waterflame89
Some sound effects from freesound.org by jacklilley, Soughtaftersounds, cabled_mess, _stubb, Splice Sound, beerre, soundscalpel.com, cgeffex, studiomandragore.
Disclaimer
Since we (I) have aimed to produce the most accurate game jam simulation possible, the game can sometimes incur relatively traumatic flashbacks to impending deadlines, spaghetti code, lack of sleep, writer's block, terrible pixel art drawing, bad theme decisions and/or submission website outages. If these do occur, we are not liable for any mental or physical injury caused from playing this game.
| Windows | https://samboyer.itch.io/ludum-dare-simulator-2019 |
| macOS | https://samboyer.itch.io/ludum-dare-simulator-2019 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/ludum-dare-simulator-2019 |
Ratings
| Overall | 3th | 4.481⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 2th | 4.423⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 7th | 4.231⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 688th | 3.385⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 94th | 4.327⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 23th | 4.188⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 12th | 4.292⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 34🗳️ | 6🗨️ |
The game is hilarious! Every mechanic outside of some of the more basic puzzles made me laugh out loud. My favorite moment was when I clicked art and the game wanted me to draw the scream with a mouse in <15 seconds. The tasks definitely overwhelmed me, nothing was completed, I ran out of energy too much, debugging was impossible, and at the end the struggle amounted to a lukewarm rating at best. The simulation was too accurate :(
The cheesey 90s workout montage music fit perfectly, and the artstyle was clean and polished, though nothing to write home about. The real hero is the humor and gameplay.
Fantastic game, cannot recommend enough!
The art section was hilarious. It was so fun frantically drawing abominations and hoping it would measure up to the mona lisa (my friends and I laughed really hard when we'd get a check mark for drawing a circle with black hair for mona lisa).
The theme aspect did feel a little forced, in that it was basically just a timer. That said, the concept itself is so innovative and fun, it was so great to be surprised by each minigame my first time through.
The game also felt very polished; The art and interfaces were very sharp and easy to use. To be honest, some of the minigames could probably compete with fully fledged LD games (the robot minigame was particularly fun).
This is one of my favorite games so far! Great job!
@not-the-real-mark-zhang oh dear, sorry about that! Guessed it slipped through my 2 minute playtest .-. It'd be an easy fix but doubt it warrants a new build after the jam, hopefully it doesn't catch many people out. Thanks for checking the game out and letting me know!
While the theme is reflected in the fact the player is running out of space and energy, I feel like it could've been incorporated a bit more or in a bit more of an interesting way, maybe in the minigames themselves as opposed to just resources which are running out.
I also feel as though the concept of a minigame collection isn't the most innovative and it could've had some more management aspects; or rather the ones that seemed to be there already could've been fleshed out a bit or communicated a bit clearer (for example I wasn't sure if the theme affected which categories one should try to fill up most or whether it was just there for flavor)
Also, very very nice polish.
I wonder if anyone managed to reach first place with this limited space disk though ^^ Funny idea, good graphics and sound, good gameplay... Congrats! :)
@linky439 you could certainly try! I've scored in top 100 once but not that much higher. You'd be best to close and re-open after LD42 as the number of participants increases in each jam... good luck ;)
@darenn actually I did, need my Zs xD I worked it out earlier, think it was 45/72 hours spent on it? But at this point programming for C#/Unity isn't a problem so most of the time was spent on art/design/architecture...
Also, some parts display badly on a 16:10 aspect monitor - unfortunately including the art!
@radical-dog glad somebody got the warioware inspiration :D yeah I played around with the Music game pause between the CPU and the player, originally it was immediate which had a nice rhythm but made it impossible to hit the notes on beat 1... perhaps an extra beat in the middle or have it start automatically when the player presses a key would be better? I'll have another go at it for the remake.
And yeah I bet it's messed up on 16:10, my bad D: I told Unity to only allow 16:9 but then I also stupidly made it fullscreen by default... hopefully most people are on 16:9 for it to be ignored by most and I'll put the resolution dialog back where it belongs in the next build! :P
@ana I'm just glad all the minigames got finished at all xD yeah you're not the only one with the code blocks, maybe a dotted outline square as a placeholder for the next instruction would be adequate? and should be easy enough to put in. Thanks for the feedback, best of luck with yours!
Mini game are so interesting.But the mini game "Music" is a little difficult for me~