Friendly Fire by very dark lord
Welcome to a magical world full of mystery and wonder. Dive in and explore the world of "Friendly Fire" and meet all its inhabitants in a quest to save the world from an unknown destiny. What dark secrets does this twisted world hold?
"Friendly Fire" is a small 2d platform adventure game with handcrafted pixel art, an original soundtrack and lots of love put into the creation of the characters and dialogs. We hope you have a good time! Feedback and Ratings are very much appreciated. Our team is very keen on reading every comment and we will definitely return the favor.
Have fun!
Controls WASD / Arrow keys to move, Space bar to jump, e to interact. 1 and 2 will be needed occasionally.
Platform Gameplay happens in your browser (we suggest Chrome or Firefox), so no additional download is required.
NOTE: Please use Chrome or Firefox to play this game for now. Other browsers may not fully support the game, or not run it at all. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Ratings
| Overall | 130th | 4.1⭐ | 197🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 194th | 3.928⭐ | 197🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1196th | 3.302⭐ | 196🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 874th | 3.807⭐ | 196🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 499th | 4.121⭐ | 196🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 263th | 3.889⭐ | 195🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 64th | 4.189⭐ | 195🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 315th | 3.93⭐ | 194🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 277🗳️ | 367🗨️ |
Couldn't figure out what i had to do after i had the pinecone though. Nice Jam!
- made sure to disable one dialog initially that players could trigger prematurely, and only enable it once all necessary preconditions are met
- one issue in the final sequence where players could softlock the game
Perhaps my only critique is that the pace is a little slow, and some of the dialogue becomes unnecessary and obsolete after getting past an action. But beyond that, you lot made something very cool and you should be proud!
Can I find your game also on indiexpo website? The channel is linked with them.
One of my favourite games so far!
Also thanks everybody else for playing and for all the great feedback. We might push a further update later on where the dance games are less difficult, as it might stop people who are 99% through the game to see the final sequence, which would be sad. We'll keep you updated!
https://youtu.be/xrNbSOYqlos
I'm really bad at rhythm games so I was not able to finish it. So maybe make it easier after 10 tries or just make you fail and something happens then. I noticed it getting red after some tries but then it got white again.
Well done!
We now pushed another fix, as we realized the final dance sequence was basically impossible to beat with certain keyboards that for some reason don't recognize 1 and 2 keys being pressed at the exact same time. With the fix, hopefully even people with unfortunate hardware will be able to see the end. Sorry to everyone who went through such frustration!
This game is amazing, btw!!!
Very well polished! The game felt complete, even if a tiny bit predictable in terms of the "stacked" fetch quests. Mini rhythm games were unexpected, but welcome. (Nit pick: the rhythm game music playing at the end mixed a bit weirdly with the final music.)
The game was great, the humour and story was fantastically laid out, and I liked the 'dance battle' minigame. It was well paced and I liked the gradual introduction of the mechanics. Also the art style was classic, but it was well executed and consistent, so nice job. I appreciate the effort that went into the multiple conversation paths. Game-wise, the only criticism I had would be that without a death mechanic, there is nothing really pushing you forwards - but that is a minor complaint! Great jam entry & great teamwork!
- Impressive amount of content in the game, very Terraria Like
- I love the ground and grass tiles
- Eerie music adds to the mood and atmosphere
- Love how the protagonist initially has a "don't care" attitude and then builds up
Yeah, 9 people in jam sound pretty rough, and we initially thought about splitting up and make two teams, but a lot of people were not around for the whole jam (+ some unexpected drops due to illness), so that was not a feasible option. I'd say we had a core team of about ~4 people that were involved with development at all times. As soon as an additional member was available, some workload could be delegated depending on what was important and/or what the member was able to do efficiently (e.g development / art / story / sound). The uncertainty of (wo)manpower was an issue regarding the scope though, but we were mostly able to keep all of our initial plans.
http://shellfishgames.com/games/sickbusiness_postjam/
http://shellfishgames.com/games/graveheart/
This game surprised me! I didn't expect so much story i a platformer, I didn't expect a guitar hero in a platformem either, and I didn't expect the ending. Well done, sirs and/or madams! I really enjoyed this game.
What I didn't like was the music at the end and the fact that with multijump you could easily bump into invisible walls at the edges of the area - breaking the illusion. Some impassable mountain there or something would be nice instead.
I just played both, really nice games
For the hospital one I reached the second level and after giving an organ the game got stuck for some reason.
too many bodies xD
Overall great work!
And I agree with the comment on the story for Friendly Fire, its a lot for a jam, how did you guys pull it off xD
I too made a 2d platformer and with a good story by a friend but there wasnt enough time to implement the whole story during the jam time xD
Great effort, good job!!!
The walking speed is indeed something, that needs to be tweaked. I'd love to add a running function with additional animations, but we'll see how much time we can invest in the post-jam version. The minimal solution would be to just increase the base walking speed to allow for faster travelling around the map. Thanks for playing anyway! (You're game is awesome, btw. Anyone reading this, go play it!)
Btw on my first try, I fell off the map.
I especially appreciated the tone, humour and score, which create a wonderful atmosphere for the experience. The DA and colors are perfect. Nice game in such a short time ! Congratulations !
The storytelling is well done and i liked the friendly fire that turned out not so friendly at the end
@feingehacktes quite some attention to detail! As we had no new dialogs for them, I had simply deactivated all their lines once the final sequence started, to make sure they didn't say unrelated confusing stuff. Would make sense to have them comment on stuff though, although we hoped to convey a feeling of urgency and panic, and didn't expect players to just walk around and talk to the other guys. :D (unless of course you didn't know what to do like a few other people who didn't see the clouds, in that case some guidance really would make sense - yeah, I guess we'll add that to post jam).
@lorwon Ohhh unfortunate, sorry about that, first time I'm hearing of a crash. Which browser were you using? And can you tell us anything more, did the game simply freeze? Or did it crash your whole browser?
@trigueiro yes! More hints for the player are on our little post jam roadmap. Happened to a few players that they went through the dialogs and didn't pay full attention as it was a little unclear what was just random banter (which there's a lot of obviously) and what's actually relevant for story progression.
@natasza Thanks a lot! Can you tell us more about where/when/how you managed to fall off the map?
@farbeyond-studio Sorry about the ending! There appear three clouds above the fire which you can dance on, so the rain will shrink it down again. If you'd like to see the ending, we provided a playthrough video above in the download section. Regarding the huge team, about 4 of us were ~full time involved along the three days, and the others had some other obligatoins throughout the weekend. Except the initial brainstorming phase, we had usually 4-7 people coworking at once, communicating over discord and sometimes pairing up sharing screens. Worked out surprisingly well. 3 of us were mosly focusing on art and level design, one on music, and the other ones on coding.
@joamd thanks for checking out our other games as well. :) I would have played your game, but am on a linux machine unfortunately.
@boboman Thanks a lot for the feedback! English is not our first language, so it's not all that surprising a few grammar errors survived. We'll ensure to have a native speaker check our dialogs for the post jam version just to be sure.
Really liked the way you realized it, it's such a great take on the theme!
The way it changes according to the story! And that pixel art make me go YES!
GREATO JOBU! :smile:
@bubbadubc Thanks for your feedback! Are you referring to the dance music being hard to hear due to the loud primary track? Or is the primary track itself the issue?
@god-colo Your comment makes me go YES! :P Thank you!
In the boss battle, I think the two pieces of music playing together are clashing. I'd rather one of the music muted and the other played normally. Other than that, I think it's great! Well done! :smile:
Thanks for not making this a difficult platformer so I got to experience all of it :)
The only thing I noticed, in this otherwise super nicely polished game, is some stumbling sometimes when walking on uphill slopes (hitbox issue?). Thank you for the experience :smile:
Art is beautiful, songs and dialog funny and engaging. I hope to see more from you! :)
Cheers!
bahahaha i loved this! really enjoyable, jumping felt good, dancing part was brilliant, nice!
The camera moving over to the goal & hinting the path was a really nice touch!
It must take lot of time to work on it (But I see you are a very big team. It help, even if it should not be easy to organize the project I guess, so you managed it very well ^^). Camera management and Direction en scene : Perfect! I like the humor. Dancing for a tree. Haha ^^ The idea to help tree to procreate before having some wood is very cool. The pixel art is so nice with varied moods. Love all the characters. ( Taking the stone master was awesome! A floating stone. Haha) Humor (Flying multi jump) Dancing for the water. And the end is fabulous and make a lot of sense with the theme! No bugs found. It is only difficult to stop the fire, because the stressing music is covered the rhythm of the other one. And for me The jump sound is too present. But it's a perfect entry ! Congratulation to the team! Nice job!
I also loved the menu's & animation.
I had some trouble with the double-jump (not the infinite one) though, while getting through the game was no problem (though the hitboxes on the moving clouds in the mountains could stand to be a bit more wide), I could somehow not make it work when I was on the highest tree (though it was nice to realise you could 'climb' the trees). Oh, I also could still hear the jumping sound on the end-screen when I pressed jump.
Loved the dancing parts!
Gameplay overall is fairly simple but the story and humor (and dancing!) gave it flavor along with the amazing and well put together art.
From the start I suspected the fire could be on to something but still wanted to play the nice guy part...
I reeeeaaaaallly liked the atmosphere, humor, and tone of this whole experience. The way everything was woven together into one cohesive package made me stick with it all the way to the end, and I'm glad I did!
The writing was clever enough to feel like an enjoyable reward upon completing a mission, and the level itself was super low-stakes in terms of dangers, which just made things extra enjoyable for me.
Well done, you guys! This is one of my favorites! :heart:
* Good expansion of mechanics throughout the game
* Good reuse of dance mechanics (also, total surprise they were added!)
* Well polished, with good graphics and some great music throughout the game and stages
It was a nice little story which didn't overstay it's welcome and wrapped up within an enjoyable amount of time. Friendly Fire was pretty easy to pick up and get started, I even spent a little time after I got one of the later mechanics to explore as much as I could.
The only drawback was sometimes I wanted to press E to skip through the conversation and close the dialog box (right at the very end) but I don't think I could, I had to wait for a timer to trigger.
Short but fun, beautiful and I loved the plot.
Nice use of the theme :)
You did a very good job with the hints (signs and camera targeting). Many teams have a problem with this part of the game.
The game looks complete and complete. Only the character controller could have been a little better.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/614058301
1. Text is shaking when you move.
2. Feedback is not enough when you miss button while dancing: it is not clear how this affects the result.
3. Screen is shaking when you move into vertical wall.
4. Moving down on diagonal surface is not smooth: feels like you are bouncing.
Google Chrome 81.0.4044.138 here. All the best!
@weeping-rupee Thank you, that's super helpful! You're surprisingly patient, and sorry you had to go through everything twice because of that "lost the pine cone dialog after having already planted it" bug, this is the first time I've seen that, laughed pretty hard when that newly spawned pine cone just drifted away to the side. :D Will fix that part. There are quite many different game states and dialogs in this game, it seems despite our best efforts we messed up a few combinations where you can have conversations that make little sense in the given context, or lead to problems as the one you experienced. Or such as talking to the wing "upgrade" in the clouds during the final part of the game. Goes on our list as well. And we already planned to make the whole stone "arc" of the story a bit more clear to the player. Thanks again, really cool that we could watch your whole playthrough.
@halflemonstudios @tropos @rewzu @ultrabill @frederika @zerohbeat @nickavv @nathalia-hohl Thank you all! Glad you enjoyed the game. :)
@kjscott Indeed you're right, there's a brief timeout after the dialogs to prevent players from accidentally skipping lines without having had the chance to read their options. You're certainly right the current implementation isn't ideal and sometimes feels unresponsive. Not sure what the best approach is in that case, possibly applying these timeouts to player options only and not while NPCs are talking... might update that for a post-jam version. Thanks for the detailed feedback!
@coleslaughter Thank you! During development we weren't quite sure whether the "dangerless nature" of the game was a good idea, or whether we should add some challenge/time pressure to spice things up. Decided to keep it that way though, and I also feel like it works well in the end. So thanks for pointing that out!
I'm still playing.
Parei apenas para colocar a imagem (para dizer que seria bacana ela ser mais vertical um pouco, ao menos nesta parte) para eu ver esse personagem inteiro enquanto converso com ele.
I stopped just to put the image (to say that it would be nice if it was a little more vertical, at least in this part) so that I could see this whole character while talking to him.
Hahahahah. ^^'
1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo:
Gostei muito do seu jogo plataforma com muitos pontos em comum com o estilo metroidvania.
Outra mecânica interessante foi a mecânica de dança (que tem algum bug para começar a dançar, nos primeiros passos de cada nova tentativa).
Senti falta de condições de derrota (cheguei a morrer afogado uma vez). Isso demandaria check-points (creio), nem sei se eles foram implementados porque eu morri apenas antes (ao tentar ir contra o fluxo normal do jogo).
Aprender a jogar foi muito fácil e intuitivo, além das explicações (muitas em divertida metalinguagem) dentro do próprio jogo.
O esquema de conversas e diálogos também foi bastante divertido (também gostei da referência ao He-Man).
O fluxo de jogo deixa a desejar pela falta de desafio, mas a narrativa é muito divertida e interessante (eu diria que poderia haver combate para aumentar a sensação de aventura, mas creio não ter sido a escolha da equipe por conta do tempo de game jam, ou pelo simples fato narrativo escolhido).
Talvez em uma continuidade do projeto caberiam combates, inteligências diversas, jogo dentro da água, subterrâneo e outras interações.
2 - Gráficos, Áudio e Narrativa:
Os gráficos ficaram muito bonitos e conseguiram passar bem toda a ideia do jogo. Eu talvez gostaria de ver a dança como algo em maior destaque na tela, para ficar mais confortável de fazer.
O áudio ficou muito bom, parabéns.
A narrativa foi o ponto forte, fiquei na dúvida se havia formas diferentes de concluir ou se as ramificações textuais se limitavam a curtir tudo que prepararam em termos de referências e tudo mais.
3 - Cultura:
O jogo tenta nos dar (ao meu ver) diversas reflexões de forma leve e descontraída (lembrei muito de The Messenger).
Creio que seu jogo tenha se mostrado algo muito bom ao reunir metroidvania e tais temas (sem contar a reflexão sobre a própria participação na Ludum Dare, com tal tema, hahahahah).
4 - Monetização:
Creio que o jogo possa ser quebrado em diversos estágios para montar o mesmo desafio, mas com mais conteúdo no meio do percurso.
Creio que o jogo já esteja ao patamar de vender em stores como itch.io e que pode abranger maior escopo que isso, caso seja do interesse da equipe avançar por essa direção.
1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow:
I really enjoyed your platform game with many points in common with the metroidvania style.
Another interesting mechanic was the dance mechanic (which has a bug to start dancing, in the first steps of each new attempt).
I missed defeat conditions (I even drowned once). This would require check-points (I believe), I don't even know if they were implemented because I died just before (when trying to go against the normal flow of the game).
Learning to play was very easy and intuitive, in addition to the explanations (many in fun metalanguage) within the game itself.
The scheme of conversations and dialogues was also quite fun (I also liked the reference to He-Man).
The game flow lacks the lack of challenge, but the narrative is very fun and interesting (I would say that there could be combat to increase the feeling of adventure, but I believe it was not the team's choice due to the time of the game jam , or for the simple chosen narrative fact).
Perhaps in a continuity of the project, combats, diverse intelligences, play in the water, underground and other interactions could fit.
2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative:
The graphics were very beautiful and managed to convey the whole idea of the game. I might like to see dance as something more prominent on the screen, to be more comfortable doing.
The audio was very good, congratulations.
The narrative was the strong point, I was in doubt if there were different ways to conclude or if the textual ramifications were limited to enjoying everything they prepared in terms of references and everything.
3 - Culture:
The game tries to give us (in my view) several reflections in a light and relaxed way (I remembered a lot from The Messenger).
I believe that your game has proved to be something very good in bringing together metroidvania and such themes (not to mention the reflection on your own participation in Ludum Dare, with such a theme, hahahahah).
4 - Monetization:
I believe that the game can be broken in several stages to set up the same challenge, but with more content in the middle of the course.
I believe that the game is already at the level of selling in stores like itch.io and that it can cover a greater scope than that, if it is in the interest of the team to move in that direction.
the Game is awesome. In the first placed I thought there must be more "difficulties" during the Platformer passage but thats now what the game is about.
I loved the twist at the end and in general the game was really funny.
The Graphics and Animation are very good and the Sound is totally suitable.
Awesome Game
Well Done
@red-ash You're right, the dialogs are effectively more linear than they appear. Sometimes you can get different kinds of information out of them, but in the end it comes down to the same actions you need to take to get to the ending. It would be nice to have some more serious variation in story progression, but there really wasn't enough time for that, so in the end the dialog system may actually be a bit gimmicky, but as long as it's entertaining I'd say it meets its purpose. Sorry for the frustration though! And thanks a lot for your feedback.
@pineapple-po @johnfn Glad to hear you liked the ending, as I put a few frantic hours into building it on the final evening of the jam! :D
@lunacyecho "if i could’ve just snapped my fingers at the beginning of ludum dare and had any game i wanted to appear in front of me, this is probably what it would’ve looked like" thanks! Probably one of the coolest compliments we've received, it's really nice to read that. :)
@deathstorm yes indeed, the lack of real challenge (except the dancing parts I guess) was intentional, but we still weren't quite sure whether that was a good decision for some time. We're quite happy with how it turned out however, and I'm glad you were too in the end!
@marcmagus Thank you, you streamers are adding quite some value to Ludum Dare! Haven't watched it yet, but will this evening. Always super interesting to see others play our games. :)
@gustavo-christino Thanks a lot for that super in-depth review. In two languages even. :D Really appreciate it. You're right about the dialogs, the different paths to take don't make that much of a difference and that probably is a little obvious while playing. For this game to be worth money to people, we'd probably have to add quite a bit more content. But we are already evaluating ways to at least get it on a few bigger platforms with the post-jam version. We'll see!