Dumbulance by Juice Lizard

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

An ambulance runs to the hospital to save lives. But the driver is drunk. Help some animals on the road to avoid the mad vehicle. Dumbulance LDJAM.gif

Use only UP and DOWN to play. You control the animals, not the ambulance.

This game is supposed to run on a Gamebuino Meta, the french open source handheld console.

To play without the Gamebuino Meta, just take the .bin file here: https://github.com/JuiceLizard/Dumbulance and put it here: http://games.aoneill.com/meta-emulator/ or here: http://games.aoneill.com/wasm-proto/

Dumbulance dans Gamebuino émulateur (petit).jpg

It is my first game jam. I re-use a lot of assets and lines of code from my previous game "Square Nose Color".

See my paintings and drawings here: http://www.juicelizard.com/

Ratings

Overall 1764th 3.258⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1753th 3.069⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1755th 3.017⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Theme 975th 3.767⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1111th 3.71⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Humor 827th 3.19⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1776th 3.052⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 38🗳️ 42🗨️

Feedback

knarf
21. Apr 2020 · 09:37 UTC
Cool tiny game :) I didn't know about this Gamebuino Meta thing, looks interesting :) I was a bit confused at first as I stoped reading right after "But the driver is drunk" that triggered me to laugh and instantly to try this.
Congrats! Cheers!
hadesfury
21. Apr 2020 · 09:59 UTC
I didn’t manage to get it works :(
Tobias Bodewig
21. Apr 2020 · 11:10 UTC
Fun little game. It took a bit to figure out how the controls work.
🎤 Juice Lizard
21. Apr 2020 · 11:29 UTC
@hadesfury To play, download the binarie file here: https://github.com/JuiceLizard/Dumbulance
and then drap and drop it here: http://games.aoneill.com/meta-emulator/ You won't have sound on that online emulator, but you will be able to play with UP and DOWN arrows.
marcusnystrand
22. Apr 2020 · 12:54 UTC
I love the art and style!
TheCze
22. Apr 2020 · 13:01 UTC
Great art style, loved that the frog jumped over the ambulance :)
Gorypixels
22. Apr 2020 · 14:48 UTC
I loved the idea of controling the obstacles instead of what you could presume was the "Main character"!
zubspace
23. Apr 2020 · 21:45 UTC
First and foremost: The title and concept of this game is hilarious! What a nice little game. The animations are cute. I like that you can see the progress below. And you did a great job with the ending animation. Good job!
uberardy
25. Apr 2020 · 00:48 UTC
Really cool minimalistic graphics, I quite like the art style!
The progress bar is a nice detail and definitely helps to motivate people to try again.
Took me a while to figure out the different movement types of the different animals, but that concept is pretty cool as well, not sure how best to communicate that.
Also, TIL about Gamebuino Meta, interesting project!
GOD COLO
25. Apr 2020 · 13:22 UTC
The game is really amusing! I loved the concept of controlling the obstacles instead of the ambulance!
Greato Jobu! :smile:
ProdigalSon
25. Apr 2020 · 22:26 UTC
Nice twist on the gameplay making the player control what would otherwise appear to be obstacles in you way. Feels a little weird that once you commit to a direction you are set but I suppose the game would be too easy otherwise :D
Duke
27. Apr 2020 · 17:35 UTC
Interesting concept and nice clean pixel art. Wasn't a big fan of the actual implementation though. The difficulty was a bit random due to the sinus nature of the ambulance movement and how fast the animals were moving towards the car (at least some of them). In some cases, there was basically no time to react or move out of the way without hitting the car. Couldn't get much enjoyment out of it, I'm afraid. The missing sounds and music didn't help either to sell the concept.
The core game play needs some re imagining to be fun, I think. Just dodging an immovable object, that goes up and down in a un-car-like fashion isn't enough to keep the player interested for more than a few seconds.

Keep it up! Hope I'll get to see your next game in the next jam :)
Aurel300
27. Apr 2020 · 17:55 UTC
Fun concept! The gameplay is a little bit lacklustre, but at least the game is kept rather short. The graphics were nice and simple, though I wasn't sure what the red thing + the brown ball were? Great title also :)
FinnThePirate
27. Apr 2020 · 17:59 UTC
artwork is so cute and the mechanic is brilliant good job. I really like your other artworks
🎤 Juice Lizard
27. Apr 2020 · 19:13 UTC
@duke Thank you. It's my first game jam. I am already happy to manage to make a new playable game in only three days. I want to do others. (Maybe with Pico-8?)
@aurel300 Thank you. The red thing is "Squiddy" from Aphrodite, a cool one button game on Pico-8. It is the only thing I took from an other game. The brown ball is supposed to be Square Nose the squarrel, in ball.
@finnthepirate Thank you! You saw my blog? I am making a new painting inspired by this game "Dumbulance".
Madbarron
28. Apr 2020 · 16:13 UTC
Clever twist on a driving game to fit the theme! I had a hard time with it, but I like the graphics :)
Convg
28. Apr 2020 · 17:19 UTC
Nice idea. I never heard of gamebuino meta(although i have used arduino) before trying this game. I like that you control the animal rather than the vehicle. It's fun and unexpected. Cool game, controls could be a little bit smoother but overall nice job!
ChipperSwitch
29. Apr 2020 · 10:01 UTC
This game is a really fun concept and the pixel art is very charming.
I was a bit confused when there were two obstacle on screen as to which one would move when I pressed the arrow keys.
Thanks for posting it!
I think PICO8 could be a good fit for you, if you don't want to code within the inbuilt IDE, I think you can code PICO8 in outside editors as well.
Frozen Stick
29. Apr 2020 · 18:33 UTC
Nice little game .I really like the graphics :)
Remco
03. May 2020 · 20:41 UTC
Can't have been easy to develop for a limited system, so props for that! It's challenging but certainly not impossible.

I'm not sure how easy it would be to put sound in the format you used, but it would've helped a lot (you can use generators like [BFXR](https://www.bfxr.net/) (warning: flash)).

It seems that you can only initiate an action; if you press up or down, you cannot do so a second time for the same animal (or ball). IS this intentional?
🎤 Juice Lizard
04. May 2020 · 08:53 UTC
@remco I started coding for Arduboy, Kitco and Gamebuino Meta, and I like simple and fat pixels games, so it is easier for me to do that way.
Sound is not supported in the emulator version. I made some sounds in the real Gamebuino Meta version of my game, but they are very simple. Just one or two bips when you jump with frog, when you hit an animal with the ambulance and when an animal passes succesfully at the left of the vehicle. But I need to imporve my sounds works.
You can only initiate an action, it is intentional. I feel the gameplay and difficulty are better like that. And maybe the game plays better with emulator versions.