Department Of Demise by LDJam user 235388

NOTE: if you have issues with audio/lag please download and play or try the Chrome browser over others. Thanks!
:skull: Department of Demise :skull:
A plate-spinning style game where you, a junior Grim Reaper associate, are in charge of adjusting and maintaining the clocks of the soon-to-be-deceased in your purview. :clock:
A ticker of information tells you what your clients have been up to, and how much it adds to or subtracts from their personal clock. You will adjust the clocks accordingly and MUST strike the death sentence when it is time (use given Employee Scythe to this purpose). If you don’t, your error is counted against you and stored in your personnel file. Four slip-ups and you're fired. :x:

You have a limited number of clients, and the ‘powers that be’ know what your schedule is supposed to look like. If your death-days don’t reconcile, you’re demoted! As you progress, the incoming information increases its speed. You will be periodically prompted to confirm your adjustments. :calendar_spiral:
Their time is YOUR time. :hourglass:


https://youtu.be/q2geinZYPjE


https://www.sleepydonut.com/
Jeremy - Audio Lead, Voice Actor, Writer
Alexa - Composer, Voice Actor, Writer
Sean - Composer, Voice Actor, Writer
And a big thank you to all our playtesters! (Chris P., Oma Croq', Latchii)
NOTE: The Mac and Linux builds of this game are untested. (We're struggling with Apple's new security features, which are great for pretty much everything but this.)
Add more content to it for your friends! Head to the Google form to ADD YOUR OWN lines!
NOTE: if you have issues with audio/lag please download and play or try the Chrome browser over others. Thanks!
Ratings
| Given | 70🗳️ | 108🗨️ |
Took me some tries to understand how to play correctly, but it is really interesting.
Great job!
The absolute only thing I could possibly fault it on is that the death/scythe mechanic feels a tiny bit unintuitive. I was expecting to have to monitor the clocks myself for their death time, but I guess it's a small mercy that I didn't have to since I was already way over my head.
I seriously will be unsurprised if this wins the jam, and will be disappointed for you if it doesn't at least score top 10.
In terms of actual feedback, I think it'd be really cool to hotkey everything. If the ports were bound to numpad keys, submit to spacebar, and scything by holding shift + the port's numpad, I could see myself just watching an endless stream of events and manipulating everyone's clocks in a streamlined way. Gotta improve the workplace efficiency!
Overall fantastic little game :)
EDIT: OMG I just saw the submission link! I sent one :P
Had some trouble figuring out the mechanics, even with the nice infograph. I quit the game before I ran out of lives, as it felt like I was not working towards anything. In a full game perhaps you could break up the gameplay into work-days of 10 rounds?

Constructive feedback: I felt that the + and - buttons should have been switched around. It felt weird to make the number go up by hitting the button on the right (or D).
Awesome for the time allotted!!!
This is one of the most polished games I have ever seen in a Ludum Dare!
And this has the best audio of any LD game I have ever played!
Definetly very strong overall!
Fantastic graphics, gameplay and storytelling. And the sound and music! Amazing. I love everything about it and the elevator music style death march *chef's kiss*. Big congrats to the whole team!
This is a game I will come back to!

The only confusing part for me was not being able to unplug the device until you reaped a dead with the scythe.
Enjoyed the social commentary with the time loss/gain logs and the overall ramp of intensity.
The reasons to win or lose time are also funny and I had a great time plaaying the game.
Good job ! :ok_hand:
Other than that, the skill displayed was impressive. Good job!
To the game itself, the voice acting (if the people on the team who did this jam were actual VAs, then this probably was an advantage) is smooth and world-class (to steal a phrase I've been hearing), the remarks on the statements of the humans on their actions, and the narration (how can one gain three days of their life by participating in a Ludum Dare?) are quite darkly funny. Though I'll admit, one of them I noticed was a bit distasteful, namely the vaccination reference. **Cut that out. No politics.**
The art design is high-quality and fit the game's macabre humorous tone pretty well. The whole vibe of the game reminded me a bit of the micromanagement described in *The Screwtape Letters*. The theme is also well-integrated here, with a twist: the player is literally a footsoldier of the absolute inevitable itself, so in a way, it's less the player delaying the inevitable than the NPCs they're tasked to deal with doing that, or not.
Gameplay-wise, it starts off pretty easy, and the rise in difficulty wasn't sudden. It hit the happy medium.
Now for the critiques: The controls, though easy to understand in the description, when I did play the game the first few times, I had no clue what to do. Though the narration told the player how to get started, a tutorial might have been a bit helpful. One instance where I had trouble was when someone died, and I couldn't figure out where to drag the scythe, and I couldn't pull out the dongle. I dragged the scythe to the dongle, which did nothing. After a third go, I realized I had to drag the scythe to the clock itself. Maybe you could highlight the clock when the scythe is hovering over it. Another was in the beginning, where I was pressing the control to add and take life, and nothing happened. I learned by replaying it that I had to drag the dongle to a selected clock before taking (or lengthening) lifespans.
Critiques aside, this was one of the better games I've played! Terrfic work to the team! :thumbsup:
Thank you for sharing your game with me on Twitch (MsMiaChar). Please feel free to check out my feedback at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450602258?t=00h05m11s
tl;dr Overall 10/10 game, just struggled at first
I had a couple other feedbacks and comments on stream too (ignore my embarrassingly bad first playthrough xD):
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1458309860?t=3h19m20s
https://www.mybkexperience.one/
https://www.livetheorangelife.net/