Dr. Needles and the Nightclub by funemaker | LudumData

Dr. Needles and the Nightclub by funemaker

made by funemaker for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

You've been stuck by Dr. Needles! Injected with his death serum, you have little time to find your cousin, a pharmaceutical genius, who is the only one with the antidote. You can find him in the notorious nightclub/hotel known as The Loop. needles1`.PNG

NOTE: I believe I have some bugs fixed related to not being able to push the start/quit buttons on different monitor sizes fixed at this point. Will appreciate a comment letting me know if something like that is still not working.

Last Update: fixed collision issues

Youtube	https://funemaker.itch.io/dr-needles-and-the-nightclub
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/dr-needles-and-the-nightclub

Ratings

Overall	1317^th	3.114⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Fun	1507^th	2.557⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	1426^th	2.648⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Theme	1293^th	3.058⭐	45🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	653^th	3.734⭐	49🧑‍⚖️
Audio	663^th	3.341⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Humor	490^th	3.114⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Mood	817^th	3.375⭐	46🧑‍⚖️
Given		45🗳️	64🗨️

Feedback

03. Oct 2020 · 18:05 UTC

Be on the lookout for
![Title.png](///raw/bb1/43/z/34ef6.png)

05. Oct 2020 · 16:03 UTC

Reminds me of Katana Zero with of course not the gameplay, but instead we have to most mortal hide and seek I've play !

05. Oct 2020 · 16:09 UTC

Thanks for checking it out!

05. Oct 2020 · 16:21 UTC

The concepts certainly there, and the art is charming. However it maybe would've been better to get clues on the whereabouts of the doctor so it feels more like a game rather than a job. Apart from that great job 😀

05. Oct 2020 · 16:23 UTC

I love the graphics and the concept but i agree with @barney25052 it felt a bit like a chore to go around- there should've been better clues.

05. Oct 2020 · 16:27 UTC

Thanks very much for the feedback. I believe we agree with that assessment!

05. Oct 2020 · 17:50 UTC

Reminds me a little bit of earthbound/undertale feel. Super impressive that you did this on an home made engine. I feel I did need some indicators to help me through the game. Felt like I was guessing the entire way through

05. Oct 2020 · 18:07 UTC

Thank you. I'm very happy the engine seems to be viable so far.

Charlotte Raymond

05. Oct 2020 · 23:44 UTC

Awesome job, really enjoyed this one! Great graphics!

05. Oct 2020 · 23:47 UTC

Thanks!

06. Oct 2020 · 02:41 UTC

i was a little bit lazy to download 250 mb, but it was worth it

06. Oct 2020 · 02:47 UTC

@gumemura Ha, thank you for having faith! The size is definitely not optimized at this point....I'll look into ways to trim anything not necessary and see if I can get it down.

06. Oct 2020 · 04:33 UTC

This was fun to play, i haven't beat it though. I really enjoyed vibe

06. Oct 2020 · 07:03 UTC

Nice setting, graphics and music. Maybe it needs a little more work on the gameplay.

06. Oct 2020 · 09:11 UTC

Incredible graphics, like others have already said it did feel like a chore to complete the game with a lack of clues but I honestly think there is something unique about this game. Great job, you should be proud :D

06. Oct 2020 · 12:28 UTC

@radgegames @gonzalol @cz46 Thanks for the comments! We totally agree about the game play. We were happy with what we made but it needs to be more interesting/fun to play.

06. Oct 2020 · 12:42 UTC

I'm amazed by the quantity of things you did in such a short time, the game is really fun, i think it was well paced and made, i loved the graphism too
on my first two attempt i was too lucky and found the dude really fast, so i tried a third time and i could enjoy fully your level design, good work !

06. Oct 2020 · 13:00 UTC

@tori Awesome, thank you! Indeed @melon-spirit made an enormous amount of art for us. We didn't have any level design tool so connecting up that map was quite tedious!

07. Oct 2020 · 00:23 UTC

very cool. The graphics and sounds were cool, and the story was pretty funny. I like the idea of finding somebody before time runs out, but you feel to slow to make it exciting. I found him my first try, but I would have like if you find hints to get to him, because it felt like wandering around without any clue of were I'm going.

07. Oct 2020 · 00:29 UTC

@some45bucks Thanks very much for the feedback. Agreed, and we think hints and/or maybe some other distraction or interactions will make it more fun.

07. Oct 2020 · 02:09 UTC

So much fun with the story I have found myself many times in the situation of having to find someone like that haha, level design and music are pretty good aswell. Good job, great entry!

07. Oct 2020 · 03:09 UTC

Amazing art!!!

07. Oct 2020 · 03:17 UTC

@Eugenik Thanks! Congrats to @melon-spirit

07. Oct 2020 · 03:20 UTC

@aless Thanks very much for checking it out!

07. Oct 2020 · 03:39 UTC

Would love to see a mac or web port for this game!

07. Oct 2020 · 03:49 UTC

@snowinn Don't worry we are working on getting the mac version available.

ghost-in-the-toast

07. Oct 2020 · 07:47 UTC

Wow I loved the game! Art is amazing, music is good! You managed to pack a lot into this for the timeframe! Great job!

07. Oct 2020 · 07:54 UTC

I liked your game my congratulations, I also did one if you want to know, and give me your feedback I am very grateful, this is the link https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/resurrection

07. Oct 2020 · 08:16 UTC

Awesome art and sound. Didn't manage to find my cousin in the first two rounds tho :)

Vivien Fargette

07. Oct 2020 · 12:27 UTC

Really nice graphics and pretty cool music, as said in other comments, the game could use some hints to make it feels more like a game. Giving the ability to sprint would also add to the game as I felt th character was kind of slow (maybe at the expense of the venom killing you faster to compensate for being able to find your cousin faster by sprinting). I really liked the small details such as the character going greener as he becomes more infected and nice voice acting

07. Oct 2020 · 12:37 UTC

@ghost-in-the-toast @etrealjunior @raigo-k @vivien-fargette
Thanks for the comments and suggestions! I like the sprint idea. We really wanted to have more interaction, like being able to have dialog with characters to get clues, or fighting deterrents off, etc, but didn't have the time.
We'll try Resurrection today sometime!

07. Oct 2020 · 15:40 UTC

The graphics are fantastic! The sound is good too. I found the game fun. The gameplay is cool. I was a little confused at first about how to play, but it worked out! Congratulations.

07. Oct 2020 · 15:44 UTC

@vphyre Great, thank you for your comments!

07. Oct 2020 · 17:28 UTC

Weirdly, I couldn't get it to run. I tried both downloads, with and without JRE, and neither did anything when I double clicked the exe.

07. Oct 2020 · 17:43 UTC

have no idea what to do, just talk to someone and win? But really like the graphic and music.

07. Oct 2020 · 17:52 UTC

@natpat Thanks for letting me know. If you have any patience to help troubleshoot, could you try to run the game from a cmd prompt....(open a cmd prompt, navigate to the folder where the exe is, and type the name of the exe and hit enter). I think you should see any errors generated if you do that...it might help me to fix whatever it is if I can know the error.

07. Oct 2020 · 17:53 UTC

@nolife-m Thanks for the comment...probably a little unclear, but you have to find the guy with the antidote for the poison before your time runs out.

SpaceStrawberriesStudio

07. Oct 2020 · 19:24 UTC

cool graphics nice music cool gameplay

07. Oct 2020 · 19:31 UTC

@spacestrawberriesstudio Thank you!

07. Oct 2020 · 19:44 UTC

Cheers all around! Really like the idea/art style, good job gang!

07. Oct 2020 · 19:45 UTC

@clemonades Thank you!

07. Oct 2020 · 20:31 UTC

Really good entry! Amazing work you got there, good ambiance and artistic feel. I feel like it was perhaps a bit too difficult to beat as clues of what direction to go were sparse.
Great game!

07. Oct 2020 · 20:38 UTC

@alejandrodlsp Thanks for the feedback! Agreed about the clues.

07. Oct 2020 · 20:41 UTC

I found the hippie at the last second. That bassline was super catchy, well done!

07. Oct 2020 · 20:44 UTC

@hank-ather Thank you!

07. Oct 2020 · 21:10 UTC

Art is quite good, but main character is very simmilar to Chara from Undertale. Colission of player are very confusing - there shouldn't on whole character. I don't find any audio control.

Version with JRE, are not starting withous JRE installed

07. Oct 2020 · 21:21 UTC

@szatku Thanks for the feedback! Yes, the collision is extremely basic and not correct...it is a limitation due to using my own engine which is just barely opertational at this point....so more work to do in my engine's collision! The artist @melon-spirit complained a lot about that too!

08. Oct 2020 · 12:51 UTC

Nice job ! I was a bit confused at the beginning what I had to do but it's an interesting concept :) I only would say that there are sometimes frustrating colliders ^^
Well done

08. Oct 2020 · 13:01 UTC

This was very nice to play. Loved the artwork and music, was all very fitting for the mood.
Also love the character designs. And nice voice acting. I always like it if this extra effort is made.
Some interactions with charactes would be nice, but that would increase the scope beyond a gamejam.

Good work!

08. Oct 2020 · 13:09 UTC

@sharked @fachscahfttf Thank you for the feedback!

Peace Of Cake Games

09. Oct 2020 · 04:00 UTC

What are the menu controls? Using the newest version I can't get past the menu.

09. Oct 2020 · 12:34 UTC

@peace-of-cake-games Hmm, sorry about that. Thanks for letting me know. Can you let me know what you desktop screen resolution is, or if you have your display scaled or anything. Does the game come up running fullscreen? This is most likely the fault of my not-fully-formed engine.

09. Oct 2020 · 12:38 UTC

@peace-of-cake-games On the itch.io link I just now opened up access to the original download that uses a different JRE. If you have the patience, could you try that one and let me know if the behavior is the same? Thanks.

Peace Of Cake Games

09. Oct 2020 · 14:03 UTC

Sure, I'll try it out!

As soon as the game launches, it goes to completely fullscreen. Screen is at normal 100% scaling, screen size is 1366 x 768.

09. Oct 2020 · 15:14 UTC

@peace-of-cake-games Thank very much for the details. I haven't been able to test anything on a monitor smaller than 1920x1080, so most likely that is the cause...I'm really sorry, but it probably won't work for you until I can get a smaller screen to debug on to see what is happening....just setting my monitor resolution lower doesn't seem to cause a problem for me though. This is the peril of using a very newly developed homegrown engine!

Peace Of Cake Games

09. Oct 2020 · 15:30 UTC

I understand! I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a large-screen monitor, because your game looks fantastic!

09. Oct 2020 · 15:54 UTC

@peace-of-cake-games Thank you. For now I'm going to put a note on the game to warn about that and see if I can find a computer to work out the problem on.

Peace Of Cake Games

09. Oct 2020 · 16:00 UTC

Seems like any standard laptop should have a good screen size for testing smaller screens. Good luck!

10. Oct 2020 · 00:32 UTC

Loved the music and the graphics. Very cool mood. Thanks for sharing!

10. Oct 2020 · 02:45 UTC

Thank you very much!

10. Oct 2020 · 20:31 UTC

Good job! Nice pixelart and gameplay!

10. Oct 2020 · 20:59 UTC

Nice concept! I really liked the artstyle and the music :)

It felt a bit short for me because I immediately found the cousin :P

But nevertheless, well done!

10. Oct 2020 · 23:16 UTC

@tvorojok Thanks very much!

10. Oct 2020 · 23:17 UTC

@merpui Thanks a lot! That is definitely one of the weaknesses..you might find him immediately, or struggle and never find him. Would have to improve that to make it more fun I think.

11. Oct 2020 · 15:04 UTC

Love game idea and graphics❤️

11. Oct 2020 · 16:00 UTC

@dak001 Thank you very much!

13. Oct 2020 · 12:35 UTC

The graphics of the game turned out to be very pleasant. The neon glow is especially felt. The music is a little annoying, hits the ears too hard. I was able to complete the game by accident just walking around the rooms in anticipation of death. I have not found a single clue where to go and how to find the antiode. The character also rested on absolutely everything, there was a feeling that the boundaries of the walls were shifted one tile down.

13. Oct 2020 · 12:36 UTC

good gamee , fixe collideers maybe and make it easier to the player to move ?

13. Oct 2020 · 14:35 UTC

@ninjacatz @hicko Thanks very much for the feedback. Agreed on the collision, it was a known limitation of the super basic engine I'm developing - not sure if I'll have time to fix it for this jam but certainly by next jam...also agree about the lack of clues and sort of randomness of finding the antidote.

Peace Of Cake Games

15. Oct 2020 · 21:30 UTC

I'm working on my to-play list today, and hey, your updated version works! Thanks for getting a version that works on smaller screens out! The game was great! I managed to find the cousin right before I died, turns out going into completely random rooms works good. The collisions were weird as lots of other people observed, but this is a homemade engine, so no ratings subtractions for a few weird collisions in a game that you made the engine for! Great job, for both the game and the engine!

16. Oct 2020 · 19:49 UTC

@peace-of-cake-games Thanks very much for coming back and trying it again...I meant to send you a note that I'd updated it with a fix but forgot to! I'm hoping to get the collision updated sometime, but not sure if I'll get to it for this jam though.

Peace Of Cake Games

16. Oct 2020 · 21:04 UTC

It's okay that you didn't let me know! I never kicked this off of my to-play list because I wanted to play this so much. I don't regret waiting! (And I guess it's a good thing that a: I check my notifications often and b: I posted my gamedev email in my profile. Makes it easy for people to get in touch.)

18. Oct 2020 · 14:21 UTC

Nice graphics and the music. I managed to find the cousin at first time yayy!! I agree with comments below that it could have been better if there were clues to find the cousin.

19. Oct 2020 · 03:16 UTC

@amusingfrog Thank you for the comment! I thought I replied to this earlier but my comment seems to be missing somehow.

Future Labs Unlimited

24. Oct 2020 · 11:06 UTC

The intro and general presentation of this is great, so I quite enjoyed it although it was more or less just running around without a clue. :D As others have already said, it would be more interesting if people would talk to you and send you to a specific direction etc. Feels like a solid foundation that just needs some more gameplay.

24. Oct 2020 · 23:51 UTC

@future-labs-unlimited Thanks for the comments and playing the game! We appreciate it and agree as well.