Dissuasion by good.enough

[raw]
made by good.enough for LD 44 (JAM)

Lol, Every Ludum Dare I tell myself that this time, I won't dream too big. Aaaannnd every Ludum Dare, I dream too big again.

This time was no different, though I did get my father, brother, and sister to help me. Still, the game is not half what we wanted to make, but at least the code was pretty clean. I can't write spaghetti code unfortunately for me, so it always takes forever to write anything..

Now, on to Dissuasion.

Humanity has discovered the technology to manipulate the lifetimes of people and creatures, and it is in years, days, hours, and minutes that goods and services are traded. However, all is not well. A monolithic world government called the Order tightly controls this currency, and the world is not well.

As an operative for the resistance, you infiltrate businesses and organizations, and spread propaganda from posts on the hypernet, the only safe haven for resistance communications. Can you get in and get out, making an impact and avoiding the Order police force?

..I wish... we only ended up getting the bare minimum done, but it was a really interesting jam anyway! Leave a comment, and I'll definitely play and rate your games!

How To Play

So.. after watching some of my siblings play-test this, I realized that I really need to put a quick overview of how NetCrawler works. NetCrawler is the app that you, as an operative, use to propagandize the organization you have infiltrated. Using a company connection to the hypernet, it pulls in posts and articles that its AI thinks might be relevant. Then, it's up to you to read them and decide whether or not they would serve as good propaganda tools. If so, press the Send button, and if not, the Reject button. It takes a bit of time to make its way around the company, and longer posts will take longer. However, the shorter posts potentially have less convincing power, so choose wisely. You can send several posts at a time, but they will build up in the queue, and only send one at a time. The personel markers at the lower right hand side of the NetCrawler app will turn green when you have influenced them. How many can you influence before you run out of time?

Oh, and if you get stuck trying to find the password, it is sometimes written backwards; the whole string, the individual letters, or both. It is never shuffled though, so just try it forwards and backwards.

See: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/dissuasion/oh-the-madness for my post on the making of this game.

Ratings

Given 25🗳️ 34🗨️

Feedback

🎤 good.enough
30. Apr 2019 · 02:24 UTC
Source code coming soon... It and the other releases are on my Gamejolt page.
Black Potion
30. Apr 2019 · 17:24 UTC
This guy is not hiding it's password well enought
sylvie
01. May 2019 · 00:38 UTC
A button to skip the really long intro sequence would be nice. I only got to play for a minute or so before I did something wrong and the game ended, and I didn't have the patience to try again.
🎤 good.enough
01. May 2019 · 01:29 UTC
@sylvie Right, I was just past the deadline, and I hadn't even gotten a build out yet, so I just patched it together so that it was barely playable.

Thanks for playing it at all though!
Team-on
01. May 2019 · 01:33 UTC
webgl build doest loading(
🎤 good.enough
01. May 2019 · 01:38 UTC
@team-on Sorry about that, it was the best webgl build I've ever made though, thanks I think to Unity's new modular system, as well as my using mostly svg files. I don't know why you didn't get it to load though... The only thing I found wrong with it was that it didn't really seem to fit in GameJolt's player window or something. The download is only twenty something megs if you have Windows, and then you can play it full screen.
JestemStefan
01. May 2019 · 14:39 UTC
Hi! I played your game and It isn't clear what message is right or wrong. I read them in hurry and some of them seems correct, but turn out wrong.

I think it will be better to monitor screen on full screen.

But good job! You made a game!
🎤 good.enough
01. May 2019 · 15:18 UTC
@jestemstefan You're right. It is not easy to know what message is going to influence somebody, and that is part of this game. It is up to you to read the messages and try to think what kind of effect it would have on somebody from the other side.

Lol "good job, you made a game" I know, right? I've been making games for so long, but I've always been far too methodical, and that kills me in game jams. I've only completed three out of the seven or eight Ludum Dare events I've participated in...
JestemStefan
01. May 2019 · 15:25 UTC
@good-enough Finishing is a skill! I made 20+ prototypes and only 3 simple games
Lazertrax
02. May 2019 · 00:57 UTC
This game has a very interesting premise, but I think there should be an option to skip the long text sections. I enjoyed reading the messages and I really think this could be polished up more and become addictive. nice entry! good job :thumbsup:
Nava
02. May 2019 · 00:58 UTC
Good storyline, but I got caught by the Order very quickly 2 times in a row and I didn't have the patience to go throught the intro for the 3rd time.
Please mention my name here if you add an option to skip the intro. I'd like to try this game again. :)
David Greene
02. May 2019 · 12:00 UTC
Great story... music + story really got me into it. At first I was about to just hit close and move on because it was taking too long, but then it hooked me til the end. Speaking of, I love the ending.

Goodbye.
🎤 good.enough
02. May 2019 · 13:20 UTC
@lazertrax, @nava, @david-greene:

Thanks for the comments everyone! Like I mentioned in my 'making of' post, I'm a pretty slow programmer, and I ran out of time to do anything but this. In fact, I went over the time limit by ten or fifteen minutes just trying to get a stable build. That being the case, I really don't want to fix anything else, as I feel it would only be adding insult to injury, so to speak.

About being caught by the Order... Yes, I originally intended to let you live for more levels if you did well on each one, and got out in time, but realistically, that would only be delaying the inevitable. You're going to get caught, it's just a matter of when, and how much of an impact you can make before that.

Thanks for playing!
Tommyflower
02. May 2019 · 15:26 UTC
very interesting game. I liked the idea a lot. Only thing: at first I was put off by the progress bar moving and thought that I had to send or reject immediately, and that made impossible to read everything. Then I saw that messages could be queued and relaxed :) The music is very engaging. The storytelling is great but I would have made the typing a bit quicker, showing more text in one time. Anyway, with the short time you did an incredible job!
🎤 good.enough
02. May 2019 · 15:44 UTC
@tommyflower Thanks for such a positive review, and for getting me up past 19 ratings! (i'm assuming it *was* you..) Yes, the top progress bar is for the loading in of new posts, and the bottom is for the dissemination of sent ones.
schizoid2k
03. May 2019 · 02:00 UTC
I always make bad decisions in games like this :smile: but I found it interesting. It's a cool concept and I encourage you to dive back into development to add all the stuff you wanted before LD time ran out.
🎤 good.enough
03. May 2019 · 13:37 UTC
@schizoid2k yeah... probably not. I have several other apps that I actually use somewhat regularly that need work. Especially one that needs just a couple of days before I can release a big update.

Also, I am not particularly endowed with free time. I'm a handyman, and I keep having to turn down jobs because I just don't have the time. So, yeah, I take every Ludum Dare I can, but I don't have much time for programming apart from that. dang life! :P
szabe
03. May 2019 · 21:50 UTC
Nice worldbuilding and concept, but I found the gameplay to be overly confusing. I was not entirely what I was meant to do, and the messages were just a bit too fast, by the time I grasped the idea.
JLV
03. May 2019 · 22:07 UTC
Nice narrative game ! I loved how you tried to give the player more information about the world through the different messages...and some of them are really on point !

Pros :
- Great mood and world
- Each message is fun to read
- Music is great

Cons :
- Lengthy intro, when your best world-building is found in the game itself
- Unclear mechanics

All in all, great job !
ThatSommeS
04. May 2019 · 10:04 UTC
WebGl build works for me, but can't seem to find the password..
🎤 good.enough
04. May 2019 · 18:14 UTC
@thatsommes In the description:
> Oh, and if you get stuck trying to find the password, it is sometimes written backwards; the whole string, the individual letters, or both. It is never shuffled though, so just try it forwards and backwards.

Also, the location is randomized each time, so if you reload the player, you may have better luck.