Relay by Jon Reid

[raw]
made by Jon Reid for LD34 (JAM)
Ludum Dare 34 entry - Two button controls

This game is about being a telegraph technician in the 5 days prior to christmas day, 1914, the year of the famous christmas truce.

You have to relay messages from the front line back to base using morse code. As each day passes, troops die, and food gets eaten. Send the right messages back to get more troops and resources to make it to christmas day.

Use [F] to send dots, and [J] to send dashes.

Ratings

Coolness 47% 1468
Overall(Jam) 4.24 19
Fun(Jam) 3.68 141
Graphics(Jam) 4.36 81
Humor(Jam) 3.13 272
Innovation(Jam) 3.96 53
Mood(Jam) 4.46 6
Theme(Jam) 4.24 79

Feedback

brinkhousegames
14. Dec 2015 · 02:34 UTC
Fantastic art direction, overall tone is great and I enjoyed the gameplay quite a bit as well. Congrats!
tinykidtoo
14. Dec 2015 · 03:28 UTC
The graphics look great I love the stop watch being the timer.
silentknight77
14. Dec 2015 · 03:34 UTC
The graphic's are amazing. Not only that, but this was a really good idea as well.
JanGames
14. Dec 2015 · 03:45 UTC
Great mood and idea, the only thing i didnt like is that the I in the book looks weird. But great game overall.
ShadedVertex
14. Dec 2015 · 04:12 UTC
This is amazing! It's a really cool concept and pretty realistic. Realistically challenging, that is :D
FuzzyWuzzie
14. Dec 2015 · 04:26 UTC
This is REALLY impressive. So simple and yet SO effective! Incredibly well done! I think I actually picked up a decent amount of morse code playing this and had fun doing so. In a depressing way. Especially with those bombs. Damn. Great job with this!
gabriel_pnc
14. Dec 2015 · 05:47 UTC
I love it! the art and sound are really fantastic and beautiful, the game is really simple and effective, holds you on it. its really fun!
Elenesski
14. Dec 2015 · 07:31 UTC
Good mood and graphics. Good concept. Didn't find it as fun. Sometimes the timing of the buttons made it hard to send the message ... not sure what message the troops got from me.
DivineOmega
14. Dec 2015 · 09:39 UTC
​Really clever LDJAM entry. Great audio, graphics and concept!
pzeronow
14. Dec 2015 · 11:36 UTC
Loved it!
GAFBlizzard
15. Dec 2015 · 10:33 UTC
Greetings fellow Morse game creator. :) Some messages seemed to repeat or be trivial, but the overall mood was well done. I played through to the end, and felt like I might be learning Morse in the process.
Spyboy
15. Dec 2015 · 13:54 UTC
I was truly happy to memorise the alphabet as I played. In the end i wasn't even looking at the note, great feeling!
chunkybrewster
15. Dec 2015 · 19:12 UTC
Love the mood this sets. Also a great way to learn Morse code!
tompudding
15. Dec 2015 · 22:49 UTC
Yay another morse game! Wonderful mood and quite fun to play, and the repetition is actually useful as you can see you much better you get. Great work.
qkerguelen
15. Dec 2015 · 23:24 UTC
This a the new level of type-games and i'm glad it exists. The mood is great and I learned some morse and that's cool!
amras0000
15. Dec 2015 · 23:40 UTC
Great idea, great execution, great atmosphere. The last day put a smile on my face.

Main issue I had was that no matter how well I performed there never seemed to be enough troops and supplies coming in to cover the losses. It was really hard to tell how much my abilities actually influenced the course of battle. It makes sense that the available troops have to be redistributed by HQ and not a technician, but my actions felt a bit meaningless.
I wasn't able to see any punishment for failing letters, either.

As a complete nitpick, I started out waiting for the sfx of the dashes and dots to finish playing before sending the next symbol, but the ended up with me failing the letter. I had to mash the combination, which ended up with some of the dashes merging together in audio? It worked fine, though, no big issue there.

Great audio design, too. I realize the music's not yours, but the contrast between that and the military noises really lent a unique mood to the game.
arzi
17. Dec 2015 · 07:21 UTC
Perfectly scoped, enormously moody, good and innovative gameplay. This is one of those games you just look at in awe. Great work!
Jupiter_Hadley
18. Dec 2015 · 00:34 UTC
Really neat concept! I included it in my Ludum Dare 34 compilation video series, if you’d like to check it out :) https://youtu.be/7EMaRu1rC0U
Tutti Ankka
18. Dec 2015 · 16:11 UTC
Amazing graphics and mood, idea was very brilliant for two button controls. I love it!
Geckoo1337
01. Jan 2016 · 13:06 UTC
Nice concept and really freaking. I am a noob with telegraph and it is really frustrating that I cannot send a clear message. Music is great like mood. Thumbs up ++
Blobby101
01. Jan 2016 · 13:20 UTC
Brilliant entry! Great to see a really original idea like this, and it was pretty challenging too.
WhiteLightning
11. Jan 2016 · 20:50 UTC
I love this game. Will it be possible to download whole Unity Project? I'm dreaming about playing modified version, where is only one button, and much more words to enter.