don't dead it by drprettypatty

[raw]
made by drprettypatty for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

a short game made for ludum dare 46 - 'keep it alive'

screen0.png

screen1.png

controls

point and click

bars at edges of screen are for navigation

button under clock returns to it

space skips messages

screen2.png

description

i wanted to make an art project that was also kind of a game. it's basically a tamagotchi -- feed it different types of food and wait a few minutes to see what it grows into. there is a different adult stage for each kind of food!

originally intended for this to also be a dragon-based mmo (not science-based, i'm not crazy). but i decided to try polishing a project for once, instead of cramming in async multiplayer. would have been cool though, i wanted to make it have a lifespan of hours instead of minutes, and let anyone playing feed everyone else's pets c:

screen3.png

tips

don't underfeed or overfeed it unless you're trying to kill it. in which case, you monster.

to feed it, click the picture of the food in the menu that pops up when you click on it. sorry, it's not super intuitive

credit

tools

krita for art

fl studio, serum, blue yeti microphone, cheap guitar, various random objects around my house for sound

unity and related packages, like cinemachine and gamepeanutbutters, for code

animal crossing lofi hiphop for inspiration and joy

gamepeanutbutters

this is a set of basecode that i made last year to gather together boilerplate and features that i was reimplementing every LD. this was my first trial run actually using it in a project, and it actually went pretty well, aside from losing a few hours to an unexpected bug that turned out to be in the base code, and not sticking to the architecture very well. i think i'll elaborate on it in a blog post

Ratings

Overall 550th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 784th 2.95⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 658th 3.125⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 619th 3.575⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 19th 4.475⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 69th 3.925⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 418th 2.974⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 299th 3.5⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

JCMonkey
20. Apr 2020 · 02:53 UTC
the game had a bunch of glitches, the visuals didnt look right, and it became unresponsive after awhile. though the music is nice and kinda catchy
Pavel Ivanov
20. Apr 2020 · 04:05 UTC
Pretty nice. Very confusing tho. The controls are also a bit weird I found. Overall, loved the sounds and the graphics
sayumeki
20. Apr 2020 · 04:48 UTC
I like the isometric styling mixed with the charming art! the overall UI feels very polished and contributes to a cohesive theme.

since it's a tamogatchi-style game, I spent a lot of time wondering if I should be doing more with the creature or expecting it to prompt me for things. as a small blob, it basically just sat there while I fed it.

I did think the gathering mechanics were good and simple and fitting with the mouse controls (same thoughts with the navigation), and the "return to egg" button was a huge timesaver.

looking forward to seeing what my bat blob becomes. good work!
Ioan Pop
20. Apr 2020 · 04:54 UTC
I liked the music and art! Did you draw it on paper or with some kind of software? My one issue with it is that the direction was not very clear.
Sergei
20. Apr 2020 · 04:58 UTC
I wanted to see the cute Juvi, so I fed him gently. Took me a while but I saw his transformation at last! = ) Nice graphics and sounds! Found camera movement with buttons not very intuitive for me but quickly adapted to it.
sneakycocoon
20. Apr 2020 · 05:22 UTC
Love the art style. It's a relaxing game that i can imagine going back to after LD. I've tried to feed it everything i found but it has yet to die :D
🎤 drprettypatty
20. Apr 2020 · 06:02 UTC
@jcmonkey what kind of hardware and os were you running on, if you don't mind me asking? i hadn't seen the unresponsiveness issue, but i think everyone i've showed this to so far has run it on gaming pcs

@pavel-ivanov thanks, and yeah i wanted to try something different control-wise, with just a point and click interface that would work on a mobile device, but the nav especially turned out bad and i didn't have time to go back and fix it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

@sayumeki thank you for the great feedback! yeah, i had plans to do a lot more in terms of interactions and animations (as we all do in LD, ha). but i ended up cutting off the scope so that it didn't end up completely broken. this is a project that i actually do kind of want to extend, and add more things like growth stages and types and colors and stuff, along with longer real-time lifecycles and a finished map. also, don't wait too long on the bat! he is actually in the adult stage and will have to either die and be reborn, or you can reload the game (or open another tab lol) to try to get one of the other kinds

@ioan-pop thanks! i use [krita](https://krita.org/en/). i don't have a drawing tablet, so i just use my mouse set to low sensitivity, and i also turn on the brush weighting feature in krita. it was actually my first time drawing a full game in this kind of adventure time/hand drawn style. i took a lot of inspiration from that as well as this mobile game called [CatStar](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.owlogue.catstar) (i'm not endorsing the game, i just like its art style ha)

and yeah, i also think more guidance on how to interact with the pet would be good. i realized that right at the end when i had my brother play it, and only had time to add a few text popups unfortunately

@sergei haha nice, and thanks. i agree, the camera controls are not great, and i'd like to revisit them if i take this project further

@sneakycocoon that's really nice to say, thank you. and well, i guess you win! :D
JCMonkey
20. Apr 2020 · 06:07 UTC
ive got a pretty good pc, but the issue might be that im using linux.
microwerx
22. Apr 2020 · 03:15 UTC
This game was pretty awesome. Definitely one of my favorites this year. Great job. I really liked the music and the aesthetics. I thought it was funny when I overfed it.
RiccaStudio
23. Apr 2020 · 16:04 UTC
I liked the graphics and the idea.
A few things that i would have done:
- world border
- multiple clicks on the "speach bubble" possible
- i would rotate the grip 45°, it feels more natural

I would like to play an updated version
Dylan Fries
23. Apr 2020 · 16:17 UTC
I opened this up and heard "I hear cute noises" from my girlfriend in the other room. 20 minutes later she had 200 cookies. Very cool ambient game idea. Very great start to a game. Art was very cute and impressive you did it without a tablet. You should definitely try to expand on this. I really didn't like the camera motion and perhaps an option to pan with arrow keys or otherwise smooth out the motion would help. It also seemed to be a little sluggish on the browser so you may want to look into some optimization. Extra lighting, too many textures etc. Make sure you are using prefabs and batching assets. Another minor detail is the blueberry bushes don't have berries on them to start. Some rocks or something in the prairies might help as well. We assumed it was the edge of the map the first time and stopped. The next time we traveled for a long time into the void at the edge of the map just in case. Obviously all not problems to work on for LD but maybe a good place to start. Also, I'm not sure what monitor resolution you are working on but I found the font extremely small and hard to read on both the browser and in game. I hope you keep on it, it is a great start.
Benji Kershenbaum
23. Apr 2020 · 16:22 UTC
Great graphics, would be cool to have a randomly generated or changing environment. Great job!
omaskery
23. Apr 2020 · 16:38 UTC
Hi, lovely little game, nice art and music.

I think... I killed my first one by over-feeding it, but I'm not sure, the game just seemed to get stuck?

My second dragon was a Tough One :sunglasses:

I'm not really sure what to do next, exploring the world was fun for a while, too :)
🎤 drprettypatty
29. Apr 2020 · 00:19 UTC
@microwerx thank you! that's really nice to hear. except about overfeeding it, you monster

@riccastudio thanks for the feedback! yeah, it definitely needs some kind of border. i didn't think of doing multiple clicks, i will definitely look at doing that if i extend this

@dylan-fries haha that's sweet, and thanks a lot for the detailed feedback. i agree that the camera should be improved. i wanted to avoid early optimization for the compo, but i'll definitely run some profiling for the next version -- i'm not as familiar with unity's 2d toolsets, so i'm not sure what was causing your slowdowns.. i don't think it's anything on the code side (0 lights, everything was prefab instances, sounds are lazy loaded, pooled fx objects), but i didn't do much as far as sprite packing or optimization or anything, so that might be it. yeah the blueberry thing is just a plain bug. sorry for accidentally leading you to the void! will definitely be mindful of that when designing the map in the next version, if i keep going with it. will also check more resolutions -- thanks again!

@benji-kershenbaum thanks, and i actually did want to do that! unfortunately that feature was one of the things that was smashed by the big hammer of scope management. but i will look at it for the next version if i continue

@omaskery thank you! sorry it wasn't clear, after you MURDERED your pet it remains dead for a minute or two, and then it grows back into a plant, which you can click on to spawn an egg. you made it through a full game loop, all there really is to do currently is explore the world and grow the thing into the 3 different types :)
jspacek
07. May 2020 · 07:09 UTC
So!!!! Cute!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Augh!

What a resounding success on every front it went for. Execution of the concept is basically perfect. The art style is the biggest draw of course, but then the gameplay loop is so solid I couldn't Not see my fella through to its final growth stage.

EDIT: i spent about 20 minutes feeding it and waiting for another evolution past its "adult form"... oops xD I guess that speaks to how compelling I found the design!!

Lots of love for this submission. Great work ^^
Pete
11. May 2020 · 23:54 UTC
The drawing style is really nice, both for the sprites and the UI. I was a bit confused as to why there was an empty white speech bubble in the beginning, but figured it out. Would also have been nice to move around using the arrow keys or something. Overall the art and sound effects come together well.
sohakes
12. May 2020 · 01:30 UTC
I liked it. I really liked how everything sounded, the clicks on everything and the music. I sadly exploded it, though.
Mark A Pressler
12. May 2020 · 01:38 UTC
Interesting concept! I would've loved to have more gameplay progression—as such it felt mostly just like gathering some food, waiting for fullness to decrease, feeiding food to the blob, and watching the 3 stats go up. If, for example, as you fed more cookies and the chub counter went up, the blob got fatter, that would be very enjoyable. This is a good start though!