Thunder Rally by smilewood

[raw]
made by smilewood for Ludum Dare 47 (COMPO)

Manage a team of racers as they try and survive the Thunder Rally. As your racers loop around the track they are pelted by spikeballs from the cannons lining the track, trying to put them out of commission. You get money for each half-lap that your cars complete, and that amount increases as they complete more without breaking down, so upgrade them as they go to reach the end of round ten and win the golden cup!

Upgrades.png

Created in Unity, using Aseprite for the art and Audacity for sound effects. Fonts used are Laila and World Conflict, free fonts I got from 1001freefonts.com. Unfortunately I did not get around to making background music for this Jam, the art continues to always take more time then I expect it to.

This was a nice chill jam for me, it seems that I am finally figuring out how to scope a project that I can complete in the time. I still would have liked to add different cars and some background music, but I am happy with how this came out considering that I did not spend every waking moment on this over the weekend.

Thanks for playing!

Ratings

Overall 382th 3.293⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 341th 3.207⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 423th 3.034⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 118th 4⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 350th 3.293⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 287th 3.121⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 143th 3.154⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 457th 2.833⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

madbookstudios
05. Oct 2020 · 01:27 UTC
Great work - played it right through to the end. There was something just really satisfying about watching the cars go round and round... Awesome stuff!
Nick Barrash
05. Oct 2020 · 01:34 UTC
Yeah agree with @madbookstudios really zen. Nice job!
rhoff95
05. Oct 2020 · 01:35 UTC
Great game! really liked the art. would like to see some gameplay mechanic to earn money. As is it does not seem like it really matters what I do.
tulipekoni
05. Oct 2020 · 01:38 UTC
OP tactic is to buy some speed, no bullet can catch you!
Xenon27
05. Oct 2020 · 01:39 UTC
Nice job! I enjoyed the sound effects
FireGamer3
05. Oct 2020 · 01:39 UTC
The sound of the car made me laugh, great job!
superunknown
05. Oct 2020 · 01:39 UTC
Took me a minute to figure out that I needed to upgrade right away...after that..I was hooked for a bit...well done!
neonjeff
05. Oct 2020 · 01:41 UTC
Nice! At first I thought it was going to be more tower defense feeling but it ended up feeling like a clicker. I was wanting more upgrades and insanity by the end! :)
🎤 smilewood
05. Oct 2020 · 02:04 UTC
@madbookstudios @nick-barrash Yeah, during the final testing phase of the jam I got sucked into just watching the cars go around for longer then I probably should have. Glad you enjoyed it!

@rhoff95 I agree, once you get past a certain point the game plays itself more then I would probably choose if I were to do it again. Glad you liked the art, it is my skill I think was weakest going into this. I am very happy with how it turned out.

@tulipekoni Gotta go fast! the red cannons still tend to get a shot in from time to time, but I agree what is my preferred tactic. Until the car loops around and plows into the shot that just missed it on the next lap :)

@neonjeff I had hoped to have a monster truck as the final car, but... time.

Thanks everyone for playing it!
🎤 smilewood
05. Oct 2020 · 02:08 UTC
@firegamer3 @xenon27 Glad you liked them! Its amazing what you can do with your mouth and some effect filters!

Thanks for playing!
Pizzasgood
05. Oct 2020 · 02:14 UTC
Vrrrrmmmmm! Hahaha this was fun. Does the symbol atop the cars mean anything, or is it just a cool design?
Silvae
05. Oct 2020 · 02:40 UTC
Nice work! Originally I was a bit confused and was trying to control the car itself but once I figured out it was about upgrading I managed to get all the cars on the track!
🎤 smilewood
05. Oct 2020 · 02:50 UTC
@pizzasgood Symbol is just a symbol. When I was looking at rally cars for reference they often had a logo of some sort on the top, and I had about 10 pixels across the top of my cars to put something.

@silvae Glad you figured it out! thanks for playing!
Michael Parrish
05. Oct 2020 · 04:49 UTC
This is cool! It's almost like a reverse tower defense game where you control the things on the track instead of the towers. I could definitely see this being expanded to give each car a couple more upgrade options.

nice job!
Zachary Barbanell
05. Oct 2020 · 09:17 UTC
It's a little annoying that at a certain point you've got nothing to spend money on but the occasional repair, but the game's not even half over.
EvoGenGames
05. Oct 2020 · 10:26 UTC
Congrats on this nice entry, as you said I think you did a great job on the scope! :-)

The game in the end was more about keeping your cars aligned so they wouldn't trigger balls for eachother :smile:
I liked that :-)

Well done and thank you for the game
Masaru
05. Oct 2020 · 10:42 UTC
This game is cool, the one big issue it has is the standard pitfall of "passively upgrading stuff" kind of game : just before the start of round 8, I had everything maxed and therefore the last few rounds were just watching the game playing itself and clicking on a button once in a while, which I personally don't find very fun. Outside of that, I don't really understand how rounds work, is the blue car the only one that actually completes laps ? Do they all count and therefore with 2 cars do they each have to do half of the amount of laps required ? Is there just a timer in the background ? That's the thing that quite confused me. Outside of that, I wasn't sold on the sound with only one car, but with 3, the game sounds super good and the graphisms are great. Good job !
Gevernus
05. Oct 2020 · 12:58 UTC
Web build throw an error((
dracominer
05. Oct 2020 · 13:17 UTC
I really liked this game. The sound effects do get very repetitive, but it had the feel of cars going around a track so that was good. It felt like the optimal strategy is to upgrade the first car's speed and never upgrade again, for many levels, the cannons simply cannot keep up with the speed and having multiple cars is where you get hit. The graphics are pretty good, I loved the animation for the crowds in the stands. I also especially loved you have a Linux version available, using Ubuntu has made my rating and submission job a bit harder since most are just exporting for windows.
Gevernus
05. Oct 2020 · 13:31 UTC
I like this game, i want more upgrades and new mechanics
WongKongPhooey
05. Oct 2020 · 16:33 UTC
Really enjoyed this game! A very original idea and I was hooked long enough to keep playing up until the finish at round 10. Well done!
🎤 smilewood
05. Oct 2020 · 17:28 UTC
@michael-parrish @gevernus Glad you enjoyed it! I too would have liked more upgrade options, but both couldn't think of anything more and wouldn't have had time to add them. I am however always interested in ideas that I can ~~steal~~ keep in mind if I ever try this style of game again. Thanks for the comments!

@zachary-barbanell Yeah, I had a hard time trying to balance how fast you made money, and I think that the scaling that applies to the unlocked cars is a bit steep for income. The current settings are a bit of a compromise, I wanted it to be possible to win. Thank you for the feedback!

@masaru The rounds run on a 35 second timer in the background. I had planned on showing a countdown for each round, but decided to make sound effects instead. Each car makes money each time it crosses one of the lines, but that has no impact on the rounds. I think it would have been better with a more clear indication of that mechanic, but while developing I knew how it worked so didn't put much thought into explaining it. Glad you enjoyed the sounds, they were fun to make!

@dracominer I would tend to agree with your tactic choices. Going fast both makes the car hard to hit and gets money faster. I am glad you enjoyed the art and sounds, I am very happy with how they turned out. I don't understand why anyone developing with Unity wouldn't build the Linux build, it costs a whole five minutes to flip the dropdown and upload the file. I'm glad that helped you!

@evogengames @wongkongphooey Thanks for playing! It's great to hear that you enjoyed it!
joonamo
05. Oct 2020 · 19:22 UTC
Intersting spin on the tower defence genre. Unfortunately I managed to get max all my cars before round 8 and then it was just waiting for my victory. Lack of sleep, spinning cars and loopy sounds gave me a psychedelic last three rounds :race_car:

If I learned something from the game, it's always invest on speed! I'll keep that in mind when getting my own car!
squimmy
06. Oct 2020 · 02:04 UTC
This game is cute!

Maybe it could have done with more upgrade options or more interactivity, but it was fun nonetheless and the graphics and sound were extremely endearing.
HumphreysMedia
06. Oct 2020 · 14:37 UTC
Would love to see this game more expanded upon as I felt like I was just waiting around for the upgrades, however the graphics were cute and it was a nice fit to the theme.
Zepapa
06. Oct 2020 · 18:45 UTC
I enjoyed playing this one! Definitely could use some expansion but as a base game, this is great. I found that there was a clear meta when I played and after a while it was just pressing the repair button. I guess you could say I got stuck in a loop there :D
The sound effects were great and I always enjoy seeing a good builder in the jam mix. Overall, a fun game, great work!
TheCreator
07. Oct 2020 · 13:40 UTC
Really nice game ^^ I ended up getting too much money at round 10 and the tracker vanished :joy:
Ramble House Games
09. Oct 2020 · 23:34 UTC
Very cool. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the whole mechanic is the upgrade system. I enjoyed it.