Sofra by dietzribi
Will anyones save these poor rabbits lost in the forest?
Made with Game Maker Studio, Flash, Maschine

| game maker project | https://dietzribi.itch.io/sofra |
| HTML5 (web) | https://dietzribi.itch.io/sofra |
| Windows | https://dietzribi.itch.io/sofra |
| HTML5 (web) | https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/702966 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/sofra |
Ratings
| Overall | 20th | 4.167⭐ | 116🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 62th | 3.93⭐ | 116🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 79th | 3.789⭐ | 116🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 9th | 4.456⭐ | 116🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 55th | 4.113⭐ | 117🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 79th | 3.716⭐ | 113🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 116th | 3.443⭐ | 107🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 65th | 3.732⭐ | 114🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 13🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
maybe change the jump button to SPACE would make game easier to play.
The main mechanic is interesting, unfortunatly there are a lot of little tedious details : you can only drop one rabbit at a time so you need to drop one, move a bit and drop another, but if you're too close to the first you will pick him back up. Also in some level where we are supposed to be quick the speed difference when dropping/picking up bunnies is a bit jarring and caused me many death.
I had to stop at the level with the bird and the cage because it was getting to difficult because of those little details.
Too sum up it's a good game :) but it could use a bit of polish mechanic wise.
Great work!
Although playing on normal feels almost impossible. (talking angry hungry hawk here)
Sure, the difficulty was quite high. And for most part, because of the preciseness required to picking up and/or dropping the bunnies. That's pretty much the
biggest issue in the game overall. Like when you have the babies split up and you rush to get the second batch (which you had to individually drop one by one, on different spots on the ground). When you try to pick them up, you had to be quite pixel perfect to be able to pick them up instead of unintentionally dropping all you had already gathered. Would maybe have been better if there was a dedicated pickup button which you could spam while running past them without fear of dropping the ones you're holding.
After learning the quirks of how to properly handle the babies and getting comfortable with the controls overall, it was pretty smooth. The difficulty was there
but it wasn't really unfair or impossible.
Somehow I think this isn't how this part was supposed to be done:

The visuals were simply amazing! And the music fit there very well also. The overall mechanic was brilliant and worked very well. Good job!
This could be a nice game based on Life in Hell by Matt Groening.
As always your design is outstanding. You truly have a knack for visual humor. My favorites are the the increasing strain on the bunny icon and the way you keep holding more and more rabbits and can't possibly see anything anymore.
The music and sound effects created a soothing and serene atmosphere and were well-made. I assume you recorded the sfx yourself? You make a pretty good vulture impersonation ;)
My main point of criticism would be the controls. It is possible to place rabbits one by one or all at once, but you can only pick up the whole bunch. Also I found it a bit frustrating that I could not put down rabbits one by one at the same location. At some points I had to struggle to fit multiple rabbits on a narrow ledge and space them out enough so I could continue.
I think the following control scheme might have worked better: One button for picking up one rabbit, one button for dropping one. Want to drop off three rabbits? Press drop three times. Pick up two? Press pickup twice. It would make controlling much less tedious I think.
I really loved the graphics and it's pretty well implemented.
The bird is just ridiculous, that makes him hilarious.
(LD has no prize though)
(Also, you do realize that "Sofra" means "Suffer" in Portuguese (and maybe other romance languages), right?)
- Lovely animation
- Lovely music
- Awesome drawings
- The ending is amazing.. :3
xD
Jogo muito bonito e inteligente, gostei da abordagem ao tema! Um ótimo puzzle, parabéns!
Edit: Also worth noting that this was done in 48 hours solo, I can't even imagine...
Gameplay is quite hard, but after some time you get used to it, the game feels really good to play, awesome job!
Brilliant!
One suggestion: don't assign "interact, take bunny, drop bunny" to the same button, distribute it to several buttons. This would make the game a hell easier if you start panicking, just because you can't drop enough bunnies on a small area.
I really like the way guy holds all these babies (:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZcya21fCdk
Thanks for being part of the stream :)
This compo game is better than most jam entries of any LD. Bravo. *slow clap*
I've already found a similar mechanic in other games, but the setting made me really invested to try and rescue the bunnies (it reminded me of Shelter to some degree). Besides this, the level design was clever and controls felt very precise, so it all fit wonderfully together.
The music had a cute and melancholic vibe I really liked (and matched the game), and the art was great.
Brilliant job!
Ed: Just finished all the levels. OMG XD
I don't find it cute. It has a cohesive and well put style which goes great with the music.
Very good intro. Controls respond just fine (played on newgrounds). I'm finishing this one hopefully. Congrats!
You are right, the end is not cute lol.
On a serious note, the puzzles are very good. Your interpretation of the theme is pretty cool too, but i gotta say that in the first level with the vulture i raged hard lol but i wanted to see the "not cute" end. The background music was great, and the jump felt great for some reason (when you had no bunnies, of course). I enjoyed this game a lot, good job :).
I thought my game is bad enough. But yours is next level.
But seriously though, great game. I like almost everything about it. Great jumping feel/physics, nice graphics, suits the mood, great concept!
The only problem i feel is the fact that some level are really time based. As in you have to perfectly execute certain movements to complete the level.
And last but not least, as others mentioned, i think it'll be better if there's a separate button for toggle 1 rabbit or toggle all rabbit. I kept overthinking the level when the solution isn't that hard.
Overall, i think this it the best game I've played so far, especially as a compo game. Great job! :thumbsup:
Solid mechanics, cute art & sound design, difficult but fair challenge. . . and and ending that leaves the player feeling something. . .
I think the only thing that could be tightened up at all are the controls. In my opinion:
* Jumps should only trigger when the jump key is pressed, not if being held.
* Switches can be finicky if carrying rabbits. Perhaps make them auto trigger when touching them. It adds interesting complexity or strategy in some levels, but feels more like an flaw with UX than intentional game design.
Again, great entry. This will probably be in the top in at least a few categories.
The art, the feel and the music were honestly spot on and I was enthralled the whole time!
Something I would add for the special folks like me :wink: would be some mechanic test to show I can use x to drop multiple bunnies at once (maybe a weighted pressure plate with a buncha bunnies next to a sign with it) and that tip you gave me in stream about 3 bunnies = the weight of 1 bunny didn't come right away for me - although I felt like a idiot when you told me lol :yum:
Other than that, it was spot on and you had multiple mechanics (switches, doors, buttons, cages, vultures), you saw me keep going and trying and that's what makes an engaging platformer.
You have my kind of humour too so :thumbsup:
I see three main problems with your game:
First, the pick/drop are in the same buttons, so I need to walk a little, drop a rabbit, walk a little more, drop another and so on.
Second, there is no score or something for replayability of your game. For a short game
Third, some "rooms" need too precision on hitbox for beating some challenges. So, without a good hitbox view, some "rooms" may be annoying, like the last challenge.
Anyway, these are small flaws for this amazing compo entry!
Just kidding. Although the moment I saw the conveyor belt I knew this was going to end just like *Can Your Pet?*
I highly appreciate the ghost jumping in this game. Makes the platforming parts a lot easier to deal with.
I did struggle with the drop/pick-up controls. While I highly appreciate the drop-all button, I feel like having a different pick-up and drop button would have worked better. Additionally, I was quite confused when pick-up would sometimes pick-up a bulk of rabbits than just one. I think, though, this only triggered if you used the drop-all button.
While it was a nice touch to give an indication on the upper left-hand corner of carrying rabbits, it would have been nice if a similar visual indicator was provided on the player character itself. That's where the eye is focused on, after all, and I think it would have been easy enough to add a number near the character to indicate how many rabbits they're carrying to better convey why their jumps or speed are being affected. Minor nitpicks, though.
Overall, solid entry.
My heart melted.
Difficulty curve is hella imbalanced, but it's a jam game, and you did give an option to fix it. As discussed on stream, major gripes are that it would be better if drop and pick up buttons were separate.
Funny ending. One of the best I played this LD.
