Perhaps a Friend? by Local Minimum

Set out on a quest. It won't be easy. It will in fact be extremely hard. And you only have CCTV cameras to view through.
A S J K Controls the legs
Space Puts some type of legs in reverse
Return Respawns at current position
R Respawns at last checkpoint
Esc Throws you back to the menu. No questions. All progress lost.
Some legs and some combinations of legs are near impossible to use in any form of controlled manner.
Tip: Put the wheel on one of the back positions. Avoid pistons. Jets are fun but require a bit more of the AI to control.
| Link | https://local_minimum.itch.io/perhaps-a-friend |
| Link | https://github.com/local-minimum/RoboPet |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/perhaps-a-friend |
Ratings
| Overall | 837th | 3.46â | 27đ§ââī¸ |
| Fun | 928th | 3.259â | 29đ§ââī¸ |
| Innovation | 196th | 3.852â | 29đ§ââī¸ |
| Theme | 349th | 3.944â | 29đ§ââī¸ |
| Graphics | 1061th | 3.241â | 29đ§ââī¸ |
| Humor | 233th | 3.78â | 27đ§ââī¸ |
| Mood | 917th | 3.259â | 29đ§ââī¸ |
| Given | 43đŗī¸ | 32đ¨ī¸ |
Fun, odd game
Unfortunately some of the mechanics were either not working, or the movement was Very slow paced and dragging. I never managed to get out. Having a moving camera as your only source of visibility was A) very distracting, B) hard to understand how your construction would really operate.
I would have actually loved to see if there was a way to run it like a simulation of sorts after customising your 'Friend', rather than play yourself, and see how the different combinations give different feels.
As a composer and sound designer, I would've also loved some sound and music. I'm sure there are plenty of composers and sound designers out there who are more than happy to give auditive life to your game(s), especially in these types of jams.
Would you actually mind taking a look at our own game? It's called "King on the Mountain"
Thank you for making your game! It was an absolutely great laugh.
What a bold decision to not have even numbers on the good components. Honestly I'd love to see if someone can figure out a way to make use of the wheel, having only 1 available. I tried a few combos but the fastest (and safest) one I could use was 2 boosters and 2 paddles.
Edit: just found your tips and tried it out. A wheel in the back is indeed very fast, as long as you can control whatever other parts you have equipped. The potential to flip over suddenly grows with that.
Overall, a VERY unique game. I haven't played a qwoplike where you can actually design your own builds. Even though I knew some combos would be a nightmare, I would experiment with it anyways just to see how crazy it would get. Easily the definition of "unstable".
A good job overall, Keep it up!
Very original gamedisign but I thing cctv cameras are too much for so hard game XD
@peachtreeoath thanks for the detailed comment! First I though about giving the player means to cycle back to designing and redesigning as part of the game. And perhaps I should have focused more on that and making sure the player gets to clearly see their contraptions. But then I got sucked into writing a story and it didn't really fit anymore.

I love the minimalist graphics and the CCTV idea is pretty cool, but most of the sweeping cameras were giving me a headache (maybe that was intentional?). Besides that, it was a very lovely game. At the end of the day I'm just happy that even an inventory AI can make a friend if he really tries :slight_smile:
Using PeachTreeOath's suggestion I finally managed to get somewhere, but the camera swaying back and forth eventually made me too nauseous to continue, so that's something worth considering đ
Still definitely think this could be taken places with more testing and polish, it's got QWOP potential!
I agree with some of the above though that the moving camera eventually made it too unpleasant for me to want to continue - it definitely upped the difficulty (good!) but made me nauseous as well.
Keep making incredibly weird stuff, the world needs more of it!
@ava-skoog I agree, I desperately increased the weight of the body quite a lot right before making the final build because it was almost impossible to not constantly flip over before. I need to tweak those parameters better!
@angela-he I also struggle what to call the robot thing :laughing: Glad you liked the dialogue! The world definitely needs much more weird stuff. Though it's been too long since I made something truly weird on my own scale of things.
Your game definitely places in the top tier of games I've played this jam, a creative marvel!