LudumData

Cut Through by ZungryWare

[raw]
made by ZungryWare for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

Cut through the noise in this audio transcription game! Hear the story of three friends trying to escape a totalitarian state--and a man with strange hobbies indeed--all while trying to raise the signal to noise ratio.

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This is the most down to the wire I have ever been on a Ludum Dare mostly because I vastly underestimated how long the audio editing would take. But it is a complete game, so hopefully you find it interesting!

Credits: - Programming, Design, Writing, Graphics, Audio Editing, Music - ZungryWare - Audio Editing - Wubby - Piano - June O'Malley

Voice Acting: - Mikael Guerra - Roman (reiwedem_boiz on insta) - London Lewis - Wubby - Reggie Stevens - ZungryWare - Vincent Lagrange - Antonio Jimenez - Unidentified Female - Fe Villanueva - General Young, Judge Winters - Joe Martinez - Daniel Myers - @groverburger - Tutorial Guy - Alex Martinez - Officer Jacob Greenwood - Ben Chadda - Officer Michael Erland - @domenixius - Gas Station Cashier - Xander Levitt

A huge thanks to all my friends who contributed voice work for this game!

Post-jam fixes: - Massively compressed audio files. - Fixed tape player rewinding incorrectly if it's at the end of the tape. - Added a timer on title screen to prevent accidentally clicking through it too quickly.

Link http://zungrysoft.github.io/ld59
Link https://github.com/Zungrysoft/ld59
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/cut-through

Ratings

Overall 314th 3.737⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 307th 3.556⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 13th 4.395⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 181th 4.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 530th 3.526⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 5th 4.553⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 277th 3.889⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 26🗳️ 12🗨️

Feedback

Domenixius
Apr 21st · 18:24 UTC
This is super impressive stuff! The amount of VA and the quality of it is really off the charts amazing! The story is super intriguing but I do feel like the gameplay is standing in it's way a little bit. I had the feeling I had some transcriptions down pretty well and they were not accepted. Maybe you could have made the gaps in the transcriptions smaller? Just single words not whole sentences missing?

I also did not always know who was talking and thus in what part of the transcription it should be? Maybe you could have added changing colors based on the speaker just to help the player a little bit more?

You should really keep it up with the storytelling and the audio work it is really amazing!
rta228
Apr 23rd · 20:26 UTC
Impresive work. It is quite difficult to catch at first but wow... Great stuff my dude <3
Zamizmi
Apr 24th · 05:31 UTC
Woaah this is super interesting! Reminds me of the Wire!
Really nice job with turning audio signal into a game mechanic, inspiring!
Lyssa
Apr 26th · 02:14 UTC
The sheer simplicity and snappy-ness of the visuals and audio do so much to elevate this experience I loved playing this
Ryrumeli
Apr 26th · 03:16 UTC
Amazing audio work, the theme in this Ludum did give raise to some great audio connected games. The VA work is great, you guys should consider at least podcasting hahah, I did enjoy the voices. Not a single bad voice in my honest opinion. Transcriptioning sometimes was a bit hard, maybe it should have had a bit more of tolerance for some words, I feel some very close ones weren't accepted. But still great idea and innovative concept, and always support games decrying the issues of totalitarian states.
atmospherium
Apr 28th · 03:34 UTC
This is an incredibly impressive game. VA, audio editing, the whole audio effects pipeline, the node connection system... So much of the design requires complicated interactions, but you gave the player as simple an interface as possible to manage the chaos. And as someone who's lost a huge chunk time doing VA editing for Ludum Dares over the years, I can commiserate with just how much work goes into getting things sliced and diced effectively. Excellent work.

I only got partway through the game on this pass, but I will DEFINITELY be coming back and revisiting this.
VenomousMouse
Apr 28th · 13:40 UTC
It's a very nice idea and solid game mechanic. Very cool and nicely done.
Tobius
Apr 30th · 02:44 UTC
This game is a super cool idea, the voice acting and audio editing is such a great play on the theme.

I unfortunately couldn't figure out how the audio editing worked, so I couldn't get through the 2nd tape. :(

Could definitely use more explanation, even on the LD page to help people like me that don't know how that works.
zhangzhimu
May 03rd · 13:30 UTC
I think the setting is very interesting! The gameplay is also very fun. However, if the visuals could be more differentiated, that would be great. Haha. I feel like my eyes start to get blurry after a while.
okkolobr
May 03rd · 14:50 UTC
Got a cool "her story" vibe while playing. Really dig the graphics and the concept ! i'll definitly be back to finish the story
Asieke
May 04th · 02:37 UTC
Pretty interesting concept. Unfortunately, I never quite figured out how to properly apply the filters. Tried experimenting with them in a bunch of different ways, but all they ever seemed to do for me was raise or lower the volume of the entire recording. No doubt I was doing something wrong. In the end, I mostly just brute forced it by hooking directly to the speaker and letting my ears do the filtering. That got me through most of the first page of tape records.

You did an amazing job with the UI design. I feel like with this kind of game, the UI could easily get out of control, but the way you set it up felt really intuitive and easy to pick up. Also, having a large cast of voice acting for a game jam game is really impressive. I think this is the first time I've seen this much voice acting in a game jam.

All in all, impressive entry. Thanks for the game!
nathmate
May 04th · 08:33 UTC
A bit difficult, but great concept and execution. One UI complaint is it would've been nice to be able to scrub back and forth through the tapes a bit more smoothly, for example when trying to get the right filtering for Reggie's reply in Reggie 9/3/99.