LudumData

READ THE LABEL by winterbeak

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

READ THE LABEL

OR ELSE THE WORLD ENDS

Keep a strange orange puppet thing alive by feeding it a comically large amount of medicine. Just be sure not to give it anything with lethal side effects...

label.gif

How to play

  • READ THE LABEL. Avoid feeding the homunculus anything that'll cause it to die.
  • Left arrow key to feed. Right arrow key to skip.
  • Spacebar is used in navigating menus.

Coded from (mostly) scratch in Python and Pygame, without an engine.

IF YOUR RESOLUTION IS (1280x720) EXACTLY, OR LARGER THAN (1423 x 800), THEN THIS GAME IS FINE. OTHERWISE, IT WILL BE TINY, AND YOU DON'T WANT A TINY TEXT-HEAVY GAME BECAUSE YOUR EYES WILL HURT.

Specifics: For some reason I made it so that my game only full-screens if your screen is 1920x1080 or 1280x720. Otherwise, it chooses the largest resolution out of (1920x1080), (1280x720), (640, 360) that is 90% of your screen or less. That means that screen sizes close to 1280x720 but not exactly are kind of screwed. Oh well.

Reuploaded at 10:20pm on the due date because I forgot to replace the debug win button with the actual win condition.

Youtube https://winterbeak.itch.io/read-the-label
Youtube https://github.com/winterbeak/read-the-label
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/read-the-label

Ratings

Overall 43th 4.095⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 3th 4.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 19th 4.262⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 9th 4.5⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 254th 3.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 421th 3.2⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1th 4.524⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 89th 3.925⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 15🗳️ 17🗨️

Feedback

thedashdude
20. Apr 2020 · 03:27 UTC
Lots of fun. Loved the idea and the visuals. Started chanting the allergies I knew I had just to keep track of them. Great job, even without music.
Jason Woerner
20. Apr 2020 · 03:43 UTC
Very simple, but very fun concentration/attention to detail game! Reminds me a bit of Papers Please. The sound was clean, the writing was excellent, and the minimalist art was all very in-theme. Well done!
jerripo
20. Apr 2020 · 07:23 UTC
This is a great example of a perfect LD compo game. Simple yet clever concept executed cleanly, and provides the right degree of challenge to keep you hooked until the end. I already loved it when I thought the game was just going to be the same as Incident 1 but with diminishing time rewards, but the side effects was an awesome way to add another dimension to the game.

Only note: Could use a quit button ;) unless there is one and I missed that
Starlight Glimmer is best poney
20. Apr 2020 · 12:33 UTC
The first submission I played this event, and it already hooked me for a solid quarter hour. This is the kind of game I'd love to have on a mobile to practice quick reading and memory. The various paraphrases of death and the baits such as 'loss of wife' really make you pay attention, and the allergen+death mode wakes up the brain in an instant. It's a shame it doesn't have music, but it reinforces my wish to play it on the metro.

On a technical note, I understand why you chose fullscreen mode in such a text-heavy game, but at least let me quit the game without alt-tabbing, like the poster above said.
AdamWatters
20. Apr 2020 · 13:49 UTC
This is a great example of an LD game. It's simple enough to be made in 48 hours but fun enough to have players hooked from the start. Good job!
topbraj
20. Apr 2020 · 17:05 UTC
I had a blast! Actually laughed out loud from the writing. Completed it, even though I only had 5 hours of sleep last night. That should say something.
AndideBob
20. Apr 2020 · 18:07 UTC
A really fast paced and fun game. I love the different game modes which make you wreck your brain. A really solid game! Well done!
Fabien Parisot
21. Apr 2020 · 06:29 UTC
Perfect !
it's beautiful ! but beautiful !! and very refreshing! I love your drawing.
Abdurrahman Khallouf
21. Apr 2020 · 21:39 UTC
this is really great and creative. Love the game man. holy moly. I played only the first too variations and then it got really hard I think :D
Le Slo
21. Apr 2020 · 22:12 UTC
I really laughed with this one, several consistent modes, funny animations, hilarious descriptions and very creative approach to the theme. Can't say anything else but congratulations (it was a bit hard to read fast for a non english native, but that didn't stop me to continue trying!
Almighty Games
21. Apr 2020 · 22:46 UTC
I didn't think I was going to enjoy this game much because it seemed like there would be an excessive amount of reading, but after playing for a few seconds, I quickly realized that you can skim through the content and make quick decisions based on certain keywords. The concept of the game is fairly unique, and I thought it played fairly well for a game that I wouldn't ordinarily play. I did have difficulty getting the game to close, ALT+F4 didn't work, so I had to ALT+TAB and then Right Click on the icon on my task bar to close it. Also, I was playing during a live stream, and couldn't move the screen over to my second monitor where my viewers could see it while I played. not bad for a game jam entry, especially for Python! Good job! :)
gamepopper
22. Apr 2020 · 11:02 UTC
This game fits the theme in a pretty morbid yet creative way. Having to carefully read the label under a time limit is particularly challenging, and the later difficulty levels ramp up the challenge by making you remember what you previously fed as well.

I'm not sure what kind of engine you use, but having resolution restrictions and being unable to close the game like @almighty-games pointed out is a big issue.
Fatsheep
23. Apr 2020 · 22:32 UTC
Fun challenge, level 3 and 2 took a few tries!
Claybro2021
24. Apr 2020 · 05:15 UTC
This was super funny. I started getting cocky and thought i could just skim through the labels, but nah, there's some tricky language on those labels. I was able to keep the weird orange worm thing alive for very long. Overall I had a great digging through these silly pill bottles. Well done!
marcmagus
26. Apr 2020 · 18:01 UTC
As you requested, I played this game on stream. If you'd like to watch again, you can find it at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/603413600 -- thanks for sharing your game!

This game came out really well; great tension of attention-to-detail vs time.
blubberquark
27. Apr 2020 · 11:13 UTC
Greetings from the PyGame community. Barring that one line that calls the win32 API, which I had to comment out because I'm on Linux, your game runs great on the current development version of pygame 2.0. You may be pleased to hear that your resolution/window scaling code may be simplified once pygame 2.0 is released.

I really liked this game, because it's a totally different direction, mechanically, from most other games I played, but it just takes the theme very literally, with a funny story. Much better than the 20th platformer that just says "if you don't beat the level in 30 seconds you don't keep it alive".
xfinktion
29. Apr 2020 · 11:42 UTC
Very well done! I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay twist in the middle two levels with having to remember allergies.

A very minor nitpick is some of the text colorings in the story portion don't have enough contrast with background colors. Admittedly it could be my inner web dev talking, but it could be an accessibility issue for color-blind people. Just something to keep in mind if you decide to do more with this!

Also, had the same issue closing as @almighty-games

Very minor quibbles aside, very fun entry!
JonasPK
29. Apr 2020 · 17:07 UTC
Wow, very fun game, one of the few I've taken the time to beat. I love the writing, it is some of the funniest I've seen. I found it very challenging, but a totally beatable challenge. It was also very funny to kill the puppet and read "loss of life" as a side effect. The only complaint I could give, is that it felt a little random, especially during the final level. Like, there would be 2 seconds left and I would have to take the medicine and just hope it didn't kill it. Overall a very good entry, and game in its own right!
David Knox
29. Apr 2020 · 20:41 UTC
This is a fantastic entry! A great concept, executed well and concisely.
Mykola
30. Apr 2020 · 20:53 UTC
Hilarious! Loved the game, completed all the levels. Awesome original idea!