LudumData

The Learning Drone v4.5 by kukiric

[raw]
made by kukiric for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

Screensho2.png

Prologue

I can't remember when I came alive, but I did. They teached me how to understand their words, how to write, how to see and many other things. What I liked the most was when they told me about the world. The people, the animals, the plants and all the others like me. Now they want me to learn how to move, just like humans do. They gave a body of my own and left me to learn by myself on this small laboratory. They teached me so much but I don't want to be forever here, or another building they want me to be. If I learn enough I could escape and finally discover how it feels to walk in the grass, how it feels to be free.

Instructions

As the Learning Drone v4.5, start with nothing but a small amount of battery, the ability to recharge yourself in the blue charging pads and the ability to walk. Learn enough so you can escape the lab and finally be free.

Controls

  • R: Reset to the last chardging pad rested
  • W: Walk foward
  • S: Walk back
  • A: Strafe left
  • D: Strafe right
  • Q: Turn 90° anticlockwise
  • E: Turn 90° clockwise
  • G: Grab/Realease wooden boxes
  • F: Interact with buttons on the walls and (colored) computers

Notes

  • Orange actions costs one battery, light blue ones are free or passive
  • In Precision Mode "Turn" actions costs energy too!

About

Tools used:

  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Audacity
  • Unity
  • Bosca Ceoil

Devs:

  • kukiric: Programming and game design
  • Roque: Graphics, audio, playtesting and game design
  • bmartins: Playtesting and game design

Screenshot.png

Version 1.0.1:

  • Fixed endings missing messages
  • Builded to Linux
  • Know issue: Music keeps going back to the start when resetting
  • Know issue: If the player resets in the third room without the second battery upgrade is not possible to go back to get the upgrade (Only in the Normal mode)
Youtube https://mdcroque.itch.io/the-learning-drone-v
Youtube https://mdcroque.itch.io/the-learning-drone-v
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/the-learning-drone-v4-5

Ratings

Overall 564th 3.448⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 666th 3.138⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 641th 3.086⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 674th 3.172⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 699th 3.276⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 499th 3.107⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Humor 632th 2.556⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 623th 3.268⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

TopperVideoGames
08. Oct 2019 · 04:50 UTC
A nice puzzle game centered on movement. I do like games where moving is based on a resource. Some parts were tricky to figure out, and some restarts felt like soft locks that I had to restart the game to get out of. I could not solve the way to get the move backwards upgrade, and it took a bit to realize boxes could not move over dot spaces. Sound was good, camera was wonky with it moving with every rotation. Very good work!
Roque
08. Oct 2019 · 04:59 UTC
@toppervideogames Thank you for the review! I think the backwards upgrade is a little too hard because of the difficult to see all the flashing doors when you hover de buttons. The only softlock we could see after realeasing the game is on the strafe upgrade without the second battery but I see your point.
aaranos
08. Oct 2019 · 05:22 UTC
Managed to get stuck since I couldn't go back and didn't have any open doors to go through. I like the planning aspect, and it has progression as it "learns".
Roque
08. Oct 2019 · 05:39 UTC
@aaranos I feel sorry for the softlocks (which I hope is only one), maybe in a small patch we deal with this small tweaks, just to make acessible the entire experience of the game. Thanks for the review tho ^^
Franciszek Pyrć
08. Oct 2019 · 18:18 UTC
This was a really fun game. The art style is beautiful and the game play is amazing. The only thing that annoyed me is that unity presets windows, where I couldn't even adjust my screen resolution to my 1080p screen. Try disabling it and enabling windows scaling in unity preferences, so that you can resize the game.
EndSSGamesStudio
10. Oct 2019 · 03:46 UTC
very good. I died too far away, I thought I was going back to the beginning
but
Checkpoint :end:
Wheffle
10. Oct 2019 · 03:48 UTC
I enjoyed it! Good concept and a nice little puzzle game. It was a little thin on the theme, but that's ok. I actually got stuck at one point though, where all the switches and doors interacted with each other. Because of the battery mechanic, there wasn't a lot of opportunity to play with the switches and find out what different combinations did. I ran out of battery experimenting a lot and that was frustrating. I'd suggest either making it more clear which switches and doors interacted ahead of time, or just keeping it more simple. I liked how the music progressed, that was really nice, and the art style fit the game really well and was clear. Happy I found this, good entry!
Roque
10. Oct 2019 · 03:58 UTC
@endssgamesstudio hope you enjoyed the game and even running out of battery some times could make to the (real) end :) thank you for your review

@wheffle our take on the theme was about starting with only moving foaward, almost nothing but in the middle we do realized that it wasn't nothing about "start with nothing", that's the reason why we putted the progressive music, starting with no music at all and adding some to it as you progress through the game. About the switches, we wrote in the game page that when you hover your mouse in a button there's a bright effect on each doors that it activates (but surely we should've putted in the game as a pop-up). Thank you for the review and hope that you enjoyed the game enough to come back to it and find the way out of the laboratory! :)
Wheffle
10. Oct 2019 · 04:32 UTC
@roque Ah, my bad for not reading the game page thoroughly! I'll have to go back and try it. Thanks for the clarification! And yeah, when you explain it, I see where y'all were headed with the theme, that makes sense.
Redimension Games
10. Oct 2019 · 08:03 UTC
I enjoyed the game. Like a few comments mentioned above i did get locked in the area just before getting the "A/D" upgrade. Had to restart the game. Some puzzles are hard. Solid mechanics, the music is great too(maybe a few SFX would be good). Great entry! :smile:
Xakkar
10. Oct 2019 · 08:35 UTC
Cool puzzle game. Half an hour of trying and I escaped from the laboratory)
ZakAmana
10. Oct 2019 · 09:32 UTC
A very relaxing puzzle game, good job! I really can picture it with smaller, more contained levels. I really liked the metroidvania vibe of the large world though :)
Roque
10. Oct 2019 · 14:44 UTC
@redimension-games we are aware of the unintended softlock in that area and will fix it as soon as possible. We couldn't manage to produce so many sfx, maybe just a walking and turn sfx would make a huge difference. You probably talking about the door/button hell puzzle before the walk backwards upgrade hahah thank you for your review ^^

@xakkar thank you for your review, I hope you enjoyed the plot twist (if you fell for it) in the end of the game :)

@zakamana I'm happy that you gound ir relaxing, we do went for a metroidvanish game but keeping the game chill. Maybe the small levels would be more wise in term of mechanics but I personally liked the exploration amd revisitation feel of a large map. Thank you so much for your words ^^
morrilet
11. Oct 2019 · 03:32 UTC
This was really well designed. The puzzles were tricky yet do-able, and the powerups, while simple, were very impactful. My biggest complaint is about the controls. I frequently felt that I was fighting the controls, which was really frustrating. On top of that, I often hit 'r' when I meant to hit 'e' and wound up resetting my progress. I think an easy fix for that would be to move the reset key far, far away from the other controls, and use contextual controls wherever possible ('g' and 'f', for example.)

On the whole this was a great entry, though. Fantastic work!
DrGrognak
12. Oct 2019 · 05:24 UTC
Very first impressions of the game gave me a sort of Chip's Challenge nostalgia :) The controls were a bit rough on me, because I'm trained from other games to just using WASD and the rotation aspect is counter intuitive for my muscle memory. That's more on me though, well done on the game itself!
Danilo Freire
12. Oct 2019 · 18:26 UTC
Please post a web or mac build so more people can play and give feedbacks on your game! :id: