LudumData

missingBrainHeartbeat by grandtheftmarmot

[raw]
made by grandtheftmarmot for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

Art 1.png

40 SECOND TRAILER: https://youtu.be/uKq5o2KpTp8

DEV COMMENTARY AND PLAYTHROUGH (SPOILERS!): https://youtu.be/7IzDT-tBdI0

SUMMARY:

Find three robots on a small island using only the sound of their broken hearts. Synchronize their waveforms to wake them up. Grab them all. Launch. <3

Audio required. Headphones highly recommended.

night.png

This is a game that largely focuses on audio -- stereo directional identification, and pitch changes. (You can't play this game in mono, for example, and will have a rough time playing on laptop speakers.)

I originally made this for HTML5 so people could play it more easily, but I learned that audio is really really dodgy in HTML5 and for an audio game that could mean a lot of pain for somebody trying to play it, so, just PC now. I am thinking about stripping all but the necessary audio and making a pitch/volume-only based system for an alternate post jam version (no stereo spatial imaging).

woods1.png

Download the zip. Unzip the three files in the same directory. Double click the executable.

KNOWN BUGS:

  • My character got stuck twice while testing when a dialogue box popped up when my character was in mid-collision with a tile, so, avoid running into walls I guess
  • The sound sliders do not control all the sounds because I ran out of time. I don't know if I feel like fixing this.

robuts1.png

CREDITS:

Brian Peters - Everything but art

I wish I could say 0% of the art is mine but there are a couple ms paint jobs in there that somebody has to take the blame for. But any art that doesn't look like it was made by a second grader is either a free marketplace asset, or from the yoyo rpg tileset. All music written and recorded during the jam. All sounds recorded during the jam (except the crickets, which I recorded, but not during the jam.) All coding done during the jam, with the exception of Aura 2.0 Lighting and ezMenu.

robot1.png

Youtube https://grandtheftmarmot.itch.io/missingbrainheartbeat-ld46-version
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/missingbrainheartbeat

Ratings

Overall 427th 3.85⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1056th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 81th 4.1⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1349th 3.6⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 47th 4.275⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 841th 3.175⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 561th 3.75⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 17🗨️

Feedback

Quillwerth
24. Apr 2020 · 00:12 UTC
This was interesting! I was a bit confused what "synchronized" meant, but I eventually figured that part out. You may want to spell out that you're talking about same pitch / volume combination for all of them. Nice idea and interested what else could be done with it.
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
24. Apr 2020 · 00:57 UTC
@quillwerth Wow! Thank you for playing through the game! Yeah, in hindsight that's maybe not the most helpful word for figuring it out. I had a lot more dialogue boxes in the game hinting at each mechanic a little more, but took out about half of them near the end cause I felt like they were tedious, so it's great to know that one could use with a bit more instruction.
congusbongus
25. Apr 2020 · 03:52 UTC
Very innovative minigame! I feel like it'll be a cool puzzle in an RPG or something. Maybe beats going slower/faster would have worked better than pitch though. A bit more polish and this would have been even better!
instanti8
25. Apr 2020 · 03:58 UTC
Wow, overall that was a really cool game. The beginning part where I was trying to find the robots was kind of annoying, but the end part where I was syncing them was AWESOME! Love the concept. And the music was great!
Monish Vyas
25. Apr 2020 · 06:57 UTC
Loved the graphics and overall feel. Flashlight effect was really nice although I played in day(easy). Nice concept. Fun game.
despdair
25. Apr 2020 · 14:41 UTC
nice work, I am sad that game got that low review though. I could not played due to medical problems but watched the rest from playthorugh, you may want to add an accessibility option which helps player a bit maybe by allowing a mono support or some guidance arrows. Maybe a hearing device to hear a direction can be cool with controls you made for flashlight.
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
25. Apr 2020 · 16:52 UTC
@congusbongus Thanks! I had thought briefly about phase system for a short sound repeating at ~1Hz, but the closer you get, the longer it takes to figure out if you're actually in sync (a little bit off will only fall out of sync after 10-20 seconds). Plus you'd probably have to restart all the sounds (zero the trig phase) upon every player x,y movement, so it'd have to be a tool you'd pull out that wouldn't let you move or something while listening, or just a sonar pulse type thing where you get the pings back. I instead just decided a 400 Hz signal would alleviate the need for resetting the phase -- but I'm actually more interested in making something with a lower frequency "sonar ping" mechanic for a future project, so I'm glad to hear that you think (if that's what you're saying) that a low frequency alternative might work better. :)
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
25. Apr 2020 · 16:55 UTC
@instanti8 Thanks! I'm glad you liked the syncing part at the end (which was the big mechanic that was kind of the genesis of the game.) Out of curiosity, what was the most annoying stuff about finding the robots at the beginning? The directional sound mechanic? The level design and collision? It might try to make that more enjoyable for the post-jam version. :)
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
25. Apr 2020 · 16:57 UTC
@monish-vyas Thanks! Out of curiosity, did you turn the nighttime off mid-game after getting frustrated, or did you just start it off like that? Somebody else mentioned in here that they didn't like the beginning stage of finding the robots, so I'm interested in finding out if there's an element to it that's frustrating.
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
25. Apr 2020 · 16:58 UTC
@despdair Thanks! I'm glad the playthrough was of some use. I like the idea of the directional listening device a lot as an accessibility option!
Monish Vyas
25. Apr 2020 · 18:34 UTC
@grandtheftmarmot I started with night time and was able to find 2 robots. But for some reason couldn't find the third one. But I wasn't frustrated, the thing annoyed me was the controls. I feel along with WASD you should have assigned the arrow keys as well. Because other controls and shift were all in left hand side, so movement in right side feels comfortable (In my opinion).

However I forgot to mention in earlier comment that after finding all 3 robots I wasn't sure where to that beacon. I had to watch the youtube video for that, because I felt stuck and I wanted to complete the game.

Apart from this and me being critical I enjoyed the game. It was fun experience.
instanti8
29. Apr 2020 · 18:48 UTC
@grandtheftmarmot Part of it was user error. I found the first robot early but was hitting the wrong key. The most frustrating part about finding them was not realizing that there was a patch of ground that I could walk on on the right side of the map that led around the cliffs between the water and the cliffs. Perhaps a little wider path there would have helped or maybe making the water only in the middle and putting a more obvious barrier on the edges like cliffs.

It also wasn't clear what water I could walk on and which may have just been some interaction with the beam of the flashlight. The other thing that happened was that I thought the syncing was something that I had to do early instead of just finding the robots kind of early so I kept toggling them on and off and trying to match them up with background music, but I think having the option to toggle them on and off in the beginning wasn't that useful.
Mister Collette
11. May 2020 · 00:14 UTC
Creative use of audio. A little bit tedious to run back to robots at end, but the end music & scenery change made it worth it ♥
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
11. May 2020 · 00:22 UTC
@mister-collette Thank you so much for playing! Yeah, I think maybe if I had a door open to the cave or something at the end to speed it up it'd be less tedious. I originally had a countdown to launch to make it more exciting, but I kinda liked the end being a bit more peaceful. But thank you for playing!
magus24
11. May 2020 · 02:13 UTC
good game, really like the use of 2d light and audio, the mechanics are fun and make you want to explore the island
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
11. May 2020 · 05:07 UTC
@magus24 Thank you for playing it!
JonasMumm
11. May 2020 · 07:09 UTC
This is insane! You did a very good job, the game does a great job at conveying the feeling of exploring the environment and figuring out what to do. I especially appreciated the "match-up-the-frequencies" puzzle. Very intuitive overall. I nearly made it to the end myself, up to where I had woken up the robots, but then didn't know what to do now. Thanks to your play through video I realized I had to return to the spaceship. I simply had missed the spaceship at the beginning. This would be my only concern, to try and make the spaceship a bit more obvious at the beginning or explicitly tell the player to return to the ship. Other than that, it's an ace entry :)
🎤 grandtheftmarmot
12. May 2020 · 19:45 UTC
@jonasmumm Wow! Thanks so much for playing it and sticking with it that long, and committed enough to watch the video playthrough to see how to solve it. Feedback from that level of playthrough is super valuable. Yeah, my attempt to draw a spaceship doesn't help matters I'm sure, plus my use of premade graphics assets to simulate wreckage/supplies didn't end up as helpful as I wanted.. There's really not much indication it's a spaceship, plus the entire ending can use a lot more polish and purpose, and not lean exclusively on the "you get to hear the final song yay" idea. But thank you so much!