Plastic Patch Cleanup by Lars-Erik

made by Lars-Erik for LD 42 (COMPO)

The year is 2018.

Humans have littered the oceans with plastic. There is a huge plastic patch building up in the Pacific. It's up to you to clean it up. The governments will pay you cents for your efforts so you can upgrade and get better.

Codewise the game is sadly a big mess. I wanted to do a JS build script and some proper unit testing, but I realised JavaScript is as broken as ever with new processes since a quarter ago. In any case, I had loads of fun building it, and I hope it can raise some awareness about that pesky plastic patch.

Built with Three JS for GFX library. Used SFXR for sounds. Sprites are hand drawn with Clip Studio Paint (Formerly Anime Studio). I almost managed to squeeze in an hour or two for music, but then I realised I hadn't reinstalled Live etc. since the last cleaning of my basement box.

Big thanks to my wife for putting up with me prioritizing this over family this week-end. :)

Hope you enjoy it.

If you like this subject, then you should check out this other entry which is so much more beautiful and on the same note:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/polar-bear-ballads

HTML5 (web)	https://lars-erik.github.io/PlasticPatchGame/PlasticPatch.Web/
Source code	https://github.com/lars-erik/PlasticPatchGame/
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/plastic-patch-cleanup

Ratings

Overall	643^th	2.797⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Fun	632^th	2.625⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	563^th	2.774⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Theme	583^th	3.048⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	648^th	2.406⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Audio	516^th	2.339⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Humor	403^th	2.188⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Mood	472^th	2.707⭐	31🧑‍⚖️
Given		32🗳️	23🗨️

Feedback

Tiberiusuciu

13. Aug 2018 · 03:06 UTC

At first I was telling myself: "Heh, this game is too easy!" only to face a massive wall of plastic bits and there was no way I could catch them all hahaha!

If you ever work on it some more, I'd like to see some more upgrades, like more speed for the boat. Otherwise I enjoyed it, fun little arcade game to remind us our impending doom of our society due to plastic wastes hahaha!

🎤 Lars-Erik

13. Aug 2018 · 10:13 UTC

Thanks. Yeah, I need to balance the start vs. finish a bit more. Gotta tweak some numbers. I doubt it will get more features, but it should "start" faster.

GuardHei

13. Aug 2018 · 13:37 UTC

I like the ending, a good satire. And I also agree on @tiberiusuciu the balance is certainly a place to focus on. Finally, the trigger area to dump the garbage is a bit buggy. Sometimes, the little ship gets stuck and fail to dump, wasting the time. Overall, nice work!

🎤 Lars-Erik

13. Aug 2018 · 19:32 UTC

Balanced a wee bit. Should be faster to panic / reach point of game now.

Rob Parker

13. Aug 2018 · 20:11 UTC

I enjoyed playing this game! Couple of things i noticed: Music is incredibly quiet, i didn't notice it playing in background for ages. Pace is a tiny bit slow, the game definitely picks up later when you hit the wall of plastic coming but it takes a while to get there. Otherwise gameeplay mechanic is very smooth and i didn't encounter any bugs while playing.

Noxalus

13. Aug 2018 · 20:14 UTC

I killed all the fishes and birds :astonished:

Whereas I only let 200 plastics pass :stuck_out_tongue:

Hilvon

13. Aug 2018 · 20:17 UTC

The hitbox for handing the Plastic over is a wee bit too small. Sometimes unloading plastic is harder than catching it.
Some plastic bits are too narrow and hard to notice / easy to miss.
Not entirely sure what is the connection between Wildlifa and plastic lost. I mean it is clear that lost plastic up = wildlife down, but they don't seem to be 1 to 1. And what is the point of Wildlife anyway? In the game I mean.

But a gool little game for a little fun :smile:

🎤 Lars-Erik

13. Aug 2018 · 20:18 UTC

@Noxalus I had to make the plasic higly toxic, huge, radio active and pretty nasty to kill enough animals in the 5 minutes you're supposed to play the game. Soz. :)

Blinkenlights

13. Aug 2018 · 20:18 UTC

Found it a little boring I'm afraid to say, but it is very hard making a game using such basic tools. I liked the fact that it takes real-world problems as an inspiration.

🎤 Lars-Erik

13. Aug 2018 · 20:21 UTC

@rob-parker There's no music, only an effect when new plastic is thrown in the sea. But it makes kind of a rythm, so music-ish. :)

Suchista

14. Aug 2018 · 18:50 UTC

Cool narrative! Maybe it needs some more polishing and/or better graphics, but it's a fun little game.

Emanuele

14. Aug 2018 · 20:25 UTC

oh man…. you make me cry!!

quicklyer

14. Aug 2018 · 21:12 UTC

Something really satisfying about sweeping through dense pockets of the plastic debris and picking up hundreds of pieces in a stretch. Enjoyed it, nicely done!

diesdas

15. Aug 2018 · 13:33 UTC

Great topic for a game. Fun mechanics, especially the possibility to upgrade. Controls are a bit rough and frustrating. Starts out too easy then quickly gets to hard, could be more balanced! Overall good game

chaitae

15. Aug 2018 · 19:00 UTC

I'm surprised how addicted I was to this game. I was so satisfied cleaning up the ocean. I'd recommend keeping everything in perspective. The house being drawn sideways made me think i was a spaceship.

🎤 Lars-Erik

15. Aug 2018 · 19:55 UTC

Thanks @chaitae. The house was thrown in in place if a black box saturday night. I agree it should be birdies instead. Next time! 😊

Stefan Jovanovic

19. Aug 2018 · 18:44 UTC

Idea is nice and gameplay is challenging and fun! Keep up the good work! :smile:

big-cow

19. Aug 2018 · 19:13 UTC

nice use of theme, i like that it had an environmental message as well :) collecting rubbish was quite meditative and relaxing. i also liked how the trash was so varied in shape and colour. I think it might be an improvement if the upgrades scaled exponentially rather than in a linear way, would make the progression more addictive i think.

Kobrar

19. Aug 2018 · 19:14 UTC

So we are theme bros I see! That's nice.

I would love to see more upgrade possibilities. Loss is inevitable and that's the point, but for the sake of fun I would love to upgrade the net size somewhat, etc etc. This game could go places, borrowing from td genre and more.

Predominant

20. Aug 2018 · 03:41 UTC

Great theme adaptation, and a fun game in the end. Like a couple of others this JAM< I ended up playing for a little longer than I thought I would. Engaging and awesome!

silkworm_sweatshop

24. Aug 2018 · 23:30 UTC

Interesting take on the theme. I like the way the garbage looks and moves. Is the game fun? Well.. no. But that's not really the point with this entry I feel.

Jupiter_Hadley

31. Aug 2018 · 19:38 UTC

Cool game! I included it in my compilation video series of the Ludum Dare 42 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/sgI7Z7NA6tk

🎤 Lars-Erik

31. Aug 2018 · 22:23 UTC

Thanks a lot, @jupiter-hadley. You've been retweeted. ;)