Court Summons by LDJam user 364744

[raw]
made by LDJam user 364744 for Ludum Dare 55 (COMPO)

game.png

Court Summons

this is a light arcade game about delivering court summons to imps of the underworld. it should take about 15 minutes to fully complete

controls: mouse

about

i used godot, blender, and some synths and drum machines.

do note that there is a colorblind accessibility option. it's not the ideal implementation, but it should help the game be playable for those that need it!

if you want to see the end of the game but are struggling, you can press "M" to clear a round! (may result in some glitchy behavior)

Ratings

Overall 46th 3.98⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 81th 3.74⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 112th 3.6⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 105th 3.88⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 51th 4.14⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 38th 3.9⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 46th 3.833⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 99th 3.625⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

ollie_d
15. Apr 2024 · 03:39 UTC
Excellent soundtrack, and the assets are very effective for this style of game. I'm fairly sleep deprived so I was pretty bad at it haha
LDJam user 388431
15. Apr 2024 · 03:48 UTC
I love the graphics a lot! The gameplay is fun, and I like the ways that you change things up and keep it interesting. If anything I think it's a little too easy, you can build up a really high timer pretty quickly. Still, awesome job! Good luck!
TheMaskedMan
18. Apr 2024 · 16:10 UTC
Hey you should put some screens up!
The game's audio, visuals, gameplay & UX are all dandy, is a cozy chill "find-em", certainly deserves more attention!

![NewCanvas3.png](///raw/416/e5/z/64573.png)
![NewCanvas2.png](///raw/416/e5/z/64572.png)
🎤 LDJam user 364744
19. Apr 2024 · 01:54 UTC
@ollie-d thank you for playing, i'm glad you think the assets worked well :)

@warren-fisher argh, I committed the cardinal sin of not adjusting the difficulty correctly! thank you!

@themaskedman thank you for the recommendation! i've been totally burnt out post-jam, so i'm finally getting around to doing anything with it haha.
Gus Goucher
19. Apr 2024 · 02:54 UTC
I'm a sucker for anything Wii so I love this take on Find Mii! Super well executed and the graphics are clean and clear. Nice work, one of my favs so far!
Azure Drake
19. Apr 2024 · 02:58 UTC
Neat idea, but some of the clue eventually got really hard to tell, like the movement speed was hard as some of them were getting stuck in a corner not really moving.
DavidD
19. Apr 2024 · 03:27 UTC
Great job with the graphics. UI was fun and the little guys are well done. Mechanically wasn't for me and I did find the "Speedy guys" really frustrating, a couple times they would either get stuck pushing against a group of guys or in a corner not really moving. Solid work overall!
🎤 LDJam user 364744
19. Apr 2024 · 04:03 UTC
@gus-goucher glad you enjoyed it!

@azure-drake totally agree! proper AI navigation would have fixed this but it was a bit too much of a time sink

@davidd thanks for giving it a try!
🎤 LDJam user 364744
19. Apr 2024 · 04:03 UTC
[double post]
Linky439
19. Apr 2024 · 16:51 UTC
Wow, very very good! And that's a Compo game ?!?

The game is very fun, very good idea of that court summoning. I almost failed Act IV but managed to survive with a dozen seconds left with some super quick and lucky final summonings :D
The graphics are very good, the audio is fine too (if a little low on volume for the music) and it plays very very well. The dark city stages are super tough, sometimes you need to find the correct ear or eye shape and these little buggers simply would not turn to face the camera ^^

Very fun game, I had a very good time. Congrats!
CodeRaurus
20. Apr 2024 · 08:48 UTC
Very polished game, again! I like all the visuals and sounds you've done, they fit together perfectly.
The different stages give nice variance.

EDIT: Adding accessibility option for a jam game is always appreciated.

Good work!
Flying Dog Fish
21. Apr 2024 · 21:33 UTC
Great to see someone going the "court summons" route. The game looks great and very polished. I wish there were other distinguishing features beside color and horns, as some of the darker colors were hard to tell apart. I also didn't like playing in a tiny window on my 4k screen. A fullscreen option or some kind of scaling would be great.
asatrain
21. Apr 2024 · 21:38 UTC
Nice high quality game, really enjoyed it!

I'm interested how the direction of AI movement is chosen for each NPC. If the direction is random, I would suggest to try to manually design routes of NPCs in open spaces, closing all movement into a cycle (for example), so you could make more complex situations that the player has to detect. Because right now NPCs collide with each other and stare at walls randomly. An NPC staring at wall is a part of puzzle, of course, but it seems to me that you should try to take control of the puzzle to be able to create more complex and interesting levels.

Anyways, congrats and good luck on this project!
🎤 LDJam user 364744
21. Apr 2024 · 21:41 UTC
@linky439 thank you! hehe, mixed the music a little low since i was a bit disappointed in how it turned out.

@coderaurus thank you for playing and noting the accessibility option!

@flying-dog-fish yeah, totally understand the small window thing. i intentionally designed the game at a lower resolution, and halfway through the compo i was like "wait a minute this is way better suited for higher resolution". thanks for playing!

@asatrain the answer is "not very intelligently" ;) there is basically no pathfinding, hence all the collisions. would have loved to add it with time. thank you!
LDJam user 387002
21. Apr 2024 · 22:29 UTC
Reminded of my old Where's Waldos as a kid. Very fun matching system here. The humor really shown through. Great accomplishment in just 48-hours, well done <3
Yorsh
21. Apr 2024 · 22:32 UTC
The different mini games based on the "where wally" is a great idea and works with the theme, plus there is a mini story going along! Act IV is a really nice addition, it's probably easy-ish to make but adds a lot to the experience by ending on a high/surprising note (so that's really worth the dev time probably). Congrats on this very complete game!
Wendel Scardua
21. Apr 2024 · 22:58 UTC
This game felt very polished, fun, and funny :) One small thing I found missing is that the game over screen on endless mode doesn't show our final score.
Eric Nguyen
22. Apr 2024 · 01:07 UTC
Very impressive adding accessibility settings in a game jam, big kudos there. Some proper chaos once the dudes started to walk around haha. Love this style of games and the art style is really cute. Great sound effects and music too. Great submission!
P.S. Just curious, are the models randomly generated through code?
🎤 LDJam user 364744
22. Apr 2024 · 05:37 UTC
@digitaliliad thanks for playing it on stream! you're doing a great service to the community

@yorsh glad you liked act 4!! thanks for playing :)

@wendel-scardua good catch!! i totally forgot to add that

@eric-nguyen thanks for the praise!! there's a couple base models, a texture atlas for the albedo and eyes, and randomized horns. so the models are randomized through code but pretty naively.
LCStark
25. Apr 2024 · 16:10 UTC
Cool compo entry! :)

There were some problems with loading the web build. At first, the progress bar went to full, got replaced by the loading circle animation and got stuck there, repeatedly printing in the console:
```
still waiting on run dependencies:
dependency: wasm-instantiate
(end of list)
```

After a few refreshes, it added another error before those:
```
Loading failed for the \<script\> with source "https://dishwand.github.io/dishwand/LD55/main.js"
```

Fortunately, after 10 or so refreshes it suddenly loaded. Not sure what went wrong there, I guess it's just one of those issues caused by Godot 4 not fully supporting HTML exports yet. After that, it worked well for several playthroughs.

Really impressive work you've done there. While the concept itself is pretty simple, you've added a lot of variation to the types of levels and targets to find. Mixing them both makes the gameplay never feel boring and it keeps you interested for the whole duration of the game.

I've done pretty good with the first act, but started getting some difficulties on the second and had to restart it twice. For the second time I've enabled the colorblind mode (which is an awesome thing to add, thanks! :D) and I've managed to finish the game with it. One thing I'd like is to have a way to restart the game without having to reload the whole thing, but it's a small issue, as the game loads pretty quickly. Letting you skip through the dialogue is also a fantastic thing, it's pretty easy to miss and leave the player having to wait through it all, especially on repeated playthroughs.

The graphics look pretty cool. I liked the little variations in imps looks, the shapes of their eyes, ears or horns. It made later acts more difficult, as having to quickly find three imps of the same type gets really tough when everybody is constantly moving. One thing that sometimes felt unnecessarily difficult is when an imp stayed turned away from the camera for a really long time, it might be nice to add something like a "nudge" mechanic with the mouse to force them to move. Also, while the colorblind assist really did help, I think it really should stay always oriented towards the camera. Quite often I found imps irritatingly moving sideways, so I couldn't see the numbers at all :P. Oh, and I also enjoyed all the little descriptions on the summoning orders, quite funny and - again - quite a large number of them, so they don't get boring. :)

The audio side is pretty well done too! All actions give good feedback with their own sounds, and the music track is a good background for the gameplay without being too attention-grabbing.

For a 48h game jam, it's a really impressive game. Well done!
PoppyMacaroon
26. Apr 2024 · 21:42 UTC
I SEE THEM. 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND:)![IMPS.jpg](///raw/fe5/06/z/64d3a.jpg)
PieRo_PBeS_studio
30. Apr 2024 · 18:22 UTC
beautiful little one searches and finds well done for so little time, I appreciate the research to vary the way of playing as we progress
henk
30. Apr 2024 · 19:38 UTC
I love the music and sound effects, probably the best quality I've seen so far in a compo submission. I also tried "colorblind" mode to see how it was different, and it felt a bit like enabling easy mode :P. The numbers above the imps' heads should probably rotate towards the camera, though: sometimes they end up facing backwards or sideways, which I think maybe increases the difficulty unintentionally.

I was also hoping for a secret ending if I refused to summon myself, but instead I got to summon a coworker, I guess.
🎤 LDJam user 364744
01. May 2024 · 04:13 UTC
@lcstark thank you for such detailed feedback! omg, then nudge mechanic is the *perfect* low-time-commitment solution to this problem. wish i would have thought of it!

@poppymacaroon thank you for playing, and the meme!

@piero-pbes-studio thank you!!

@henk omg, that's a clever thought about a secret ending. you get props for trying ahha. thanks for playing!
fnelix
01. May 2024 · 21:43 UTC
Very nice, fun game and feels very complete for a compo game, you managed to put a lot of things in there. I like the art style and humour. UI and audio, too. Totally ok for me that our games share a few similarities ;)