LudumData

Un-stabled by Shaggy

[raw]
made by Shaggy for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

Welcome to our Ludum Dare 49 submission and to Un-stabled.

An unstable farmer comes home to his house in the wild west. The farmer is clearly unstable. Greger Carl Gustaf is drunk and is having psychotic thoughts. One day the farmer decides to put the horse down. Horse now has to escape the stable and the farmer into an unstable world…!

All graphics except horse and chicken are created during the jam. Source:
https://opengameart.org/content/animated-horse
https://opengameart.org/node/11629

CRT shader is from:
https://www.shadertoy.com/view/XsjSzR

The game is made with our own custom OpenGL engine, written in C++.

UPDATE 21-10-05 Made it possible to skip intro by pressing ESC as some comments suggested. Also fixed a minor chicken power-up bug.

Screenshot 2021-10-04 235550(Custom).pngScreenshot 2021-10-04 235550 (Custom).png

Github source code https://github.com/Praccen/LudumDare49/releases/tag/v1.1.1
Windows binary https://github.com/Praccen/LudumDare49/releases/tag/v1.1.1
Linux binary https://github.com/Praccen/LudumDare49/releases/tag/v1.1.1
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/un-stabled-5

Ratings

Overall 1361th 2.969⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1323th 2.813⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1415th 2.531⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Theme 902th 3.379⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1096th 3.188⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Humor 619th 3.15⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1027th 3.152⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 59🗳️ 51🗨️

Feedback

Michael Faragher
04. Oct 2021 · 23:57 UTC
1. Please don't have escape auto-quit the application. 2. Please don't have an unskippable cutscene every death.
MrChippy
05. Oct 2021 · 00:03 UTC
I scored 6953. Congratulations on using the theme in three separate ways. This was fun. It had a weird vibe to it. The background looked really good.
Denhette
05. Oct 2021 · 06:47 UTC
6115 was my best score! Takes a bit of time to get used to such a floaty horse tho.
Skippable cutscene might be nice tho :smiley:

Kind regards from your namesake!
LDJam user 0
05. Oct 2021 · 14:28 UTC
Very good mood, nice work. Partly match the theme, maybe next time it will be better.. Not too horiblle art but next time try invest time more into art. Overall I think this game is good, and I think, next time you will create as good game as this is, or maybe better, so good job.
jabsatz
05. Oct 2021 · 20:10 UTC
it's quite engaging honestly, though the physics felt a bit off for me (too "floaty"). the chickens were a bit hard to understand the first couple of runs, and using [space] to dash was a bit weird too (I would've thought [space] would be used to jump).

It'd be nice also to have some music with it, but gameplay-wise it was pretty engrossing. I managed to score around 12000 points
🎤 Shaggy
05. Oct 2021 · 20:54 UTC
@jabsatz Well done that's a pretty high score! We were going for an arcadey feel but maybe the floating was a bit too much, thanks!
LDJam user 233347
06. Oct 2021 · 17:35 UTC
Quite an interesting, simple platformer. You get quite far by simply keeping "w" down and occasionally dash if you fall in between 2 pieces of ground.
Is there a reason as to why you can destroy tiles if you dash into them?
As mentioned in our game, text was scaled for 1920x1080, I am assuming, as the instructional text in the beginning was rather small on 4k.
🎤 Shaggy
06. Oct 2021 · 17:56 UTC
@xparker Thanks for playing! We had plans on implementing more obstacles which would force you to dash through them, and we wanted a mechanic that could help you recover a bit from falling. Indeed the game was mainly developed on lower res screens, will have to think about that for the next jam!
Praccen
06. Oct 2021 · 17:58 UTC
@xparker Thanks for playing! The amount of tiles that move up or down increase as you get further and it gets more challanging (at least for us :sweat_smile:). We made the dash destroy tiles so that the player wouldn't get blocked in and feel like there was no way of getting out of that situation. Furthermore, the destroying of blocks gave the dash a bit more depth as you have to time it properly depending on if you use it to destroy an obsticle that is blocking your path, or if you use it to reach a platform to land on. You are absolutely correct about the text. The game was only played on 1920x1080 displays during our testing and we did not think about higher resolution displays, great point!
LDJam user 233347
06. Oct 2021 · 18:04 UTC
@shaggy @praccen We have the same issue (resolution) if played on a "not" 16:9 screen, for example, on mobile... you can actually see the end of the sprites used :laughing:

I though as much in relation to the destruction mechanism, quite like it in fact.
hope you had fun developing the game :wink:
🎤 Shaggy
06. Oct 2021 · 18:26 UTC
@xparker Cant think of it all ;)

Sure did! First game jam of hopefully many more to come, see you out there!
Alex Chertilin
06. Oct 2021 · 18:42 UTC
I like coloring so much. Thank you for the update
UglySwedishFish
06. Oct 2021 · 18:47 UTC
Really cool to see other games made in C++ with custom engines :smile:

I liked this a lot, the CRT shader adds a lot and the intro cinematic is really cool and well made.

![Capture.PNG](///raw/604/e/z/478c5.png)
Really proud of my score tbh
MrSchlag2
06. Oct 2021 · 18:55 UTC
Thanks for this game ! Like the mood and the TV screen effect, good gob 👌
🎤 Shaggy
06. Oct 2021 · 18:56 UTC
@uglyswedishfish Tack! :wink: Yes I also think the shader added a lot to the mood, full creds to the author Timothy Lottes over at https://www.shadertoy.com/view/XsjSzR. And creds for the sweet intro scene to my fellow developer @praccen!

Great score! Second highest here in the comments :smile:
BridgeFromTV
06. Oct 2021 · 18:56 UTC
I'm obsessed with the background you chose, it's really lovely. Cute game! The physics are hard to get used to at first but I like that the faster the horse runs, the easier and more fun it gets. My biggest complaint is the text is too small. Otherwise, very cute little game!!
JayJack
06. Oct 2021 · 19:02 UTC
I loved the art style! I was thinking about having to deal with someone who was mentally unstable also and I really like the idea, especially when humor is involved. This game reminds me of a game I used to play a lot back in the day where you control a robot unicorn. Great job with the jam!
🎤 Shaggy
06. Oct 2021 · 19:07 UTC
@mrschlag2 Thanks for playing!

@bridgefromtv Thank you :smile: We will take that with us to the next game jam!

@jayjack Robot unicorn attack right? We played that back in the day too and the memories gave us inspiration :smiley:
cromo
06. Oct 2021 · 21:06 UTC
It was fun but very floaty. I'm still not sure what the chickens do. I also managed to fly up from the bottom of the screen sometimes. The visuals were nice and I really felt like I was running off into the sunset. A little confusing, but fun overall!
LucDeligne
06. Oct 2021 · 21:14 UTC
A tad glitchy and -ironically- unstable but still fun to play nontheless. The multiple simultaneous takes on the themes were original and funny and the visuals were very nice to look at.

Overall good job with this game! :)
Hobzone
06. Oct 2021 · 21:25 UTC
It was fun to plya the game, really fit the theme and love the art !
Praccen
06. Oct 2021 · 22:04 UTC
@cromo Thanks for playing! The chickens were added last second and we would have liked to make it more clear what they do. They are a life saver, so the reason you flew up from the bottom of the screen is because you had collected a chicken before. The idea was to have a chicken sit on the back of the horse after being collected and for it to "lift" the horse back up. However, the time just wasn't there to finish it. Thank you for your kind words!
Pixelydian
07. Oct 2021 · 14:43 UTC
Definitely fits the theme of unstable! I like the added mechanic that the chickens were lifesavers for the horse. Controls are a little floaty but the art and concept were engaging. Good job guys!
DeltaMain
08. Oct 2021 · 17:48 UTC
Game is interesting. A little bit strange, but that's ok
Forik
10. Oct 2021 · 02:17 UTC
Cool theme realization and i like mood of this game. Really cool art.
LDJam user 238142
10. Oct 2021 · 16:02 UTC
Pretty cool using your own engine for this. I found the floatiness a bit too much, would have liked things to feel a bit more grounded. My team didn't end up going with the "horses escaping a stable" approach to the theme, but we did have a good laugh discussing a "horse heist" concept, so it's nice to see someone went for it! Congrats!
mar3k
13. Oct 2021 · 17:18 UTC
First of all thank you for including linux version, those are always appreciated. Secondly those graphics are just really cool with the effects you are using, so big thumbs up for that. One thing that I would change is having skippable or even skip the intro on respawn, it gets annoying having to sit through that. But good job!
JPatchZ
16. Oct 2021 · 07:45 UTC
Great game! Very simple controls and it's fast to retry over and over. Fits the theme very well in many form. I missed a hi-score info at the final screen. Amazing you have made it in your own engine.
🎤 Shaggy
18. Oct 2021 · 07:24 UTC
@pixelydian Thanks! We wanted the chickens to sit on the horses back when you picked them up and then fly the horse to safety when it fell down. But adding them was last minute so sadly there was no time.

@deltamain @forik @jpatchz Thanks for playing!

@pat-cleaver Thank you! It was one of our first thoughts and we felt it was too ridiculous to not follow through :smile:

@mar3k We wanted to make it avalible to as many as we could! We sadly dont have access to a mac though. Thansk for playing!