This Is Just A Game by Convg

made by Convg for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

This Is Just A Game is a normal, perfectly fine survival game. If you happen to see green virus spiders and game errors, don't mind it! It's all a process of gaming, nothing is wrong. - If you find any mysterious spiders, don't ask anything, we cannot help with that.

Okay, being serious, this game involves the inevitable end due to viruses (spiders), and your task is to delay the eventual crash and protect the games code by using the resources around you! Use your trusty pickaxe to mine resources, and craft guns to hopelessly defend the game's existance!

Your controls are easy to learn, - Tab to open crafting - Left Click to mine resources with pickaxe / shoot with guns - WASD to move up down left and right

This game is a collaboration between Convg and Brainboy. - Convg behind the coding - Brainboy behind the art and sound.

Hope you enjoy!

CHANGELOG 5/4/2022 Attempted fix of game-breaking restart bug, failed.

CHANGELOG 6/4/2022 Successful fix of bug

Link	https://convg.itch.io/just-a-game
Link	https://convg.itch.io/just-a-game
Link	https://convg.itch.io/just-a-game
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/this-is-just-a-game

Ratings

Overall	1043^th	3.24⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Fun	936^th	3.16⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	1047^th	2.9⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Theme	775^th	3.58⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	558^th	3.82⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Audio	872^th	2.717⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Humor	409^th	3.435⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Mood	1071^th	3.104⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Given		14🗳️	25🗨️

Feedback

Marianoa213

05. Apr 2022 · 00:47 UTC

Nice game!

OnlinE_Play

05. Apr 2022 · 18:02 UTC

I didn't understand what's going on but luckly I read your description - overall funny game :D

LDJam user 280189

05. Apr 2022 · 18:03 UTC

Cool game! I really liked the error windows dropping into the earth :D.

Feedback:
- Make the resource gathering give you resources for each hit you do instead of everything at the end. Because right now there comes a point in the game where you have to keep running from spiders and you can't sit in one spot to mine.
- Make escape not close the game because that's a very common button for pausing the game.

Legolula

05. Apr 2022 · 18:03 UTC

Fun twist on the theme, I didn't read your description at first so really enjoyed the surprise :D

kickononnell

05. Apr 2022 · 18:05 UTC

A cool idea, but a bit confusing at first because there isn't much feedback to player actions. Overall a great entry nonetheless!

Arthur Mairs

05. Apr 2022 · 18:06 UTC

Not many times have i been a caveman with a gun, always a fun experience, and this was one of those times! i didn't realise how to harvest stuff at first, but i figured it out pretty quickly and i was off to shooting bugs. Nice entry!

🎤 Convg

05. Apr 2022 · 19:42 UTC

@marianoa213 @online-play @legolula Glad you enjoyed it!

@kazuren Thanks for the feedback! Was a serious facepalm moment when I realised my mistake with the escape key lol

@kickononnell Thanks. I should definitely have added better feedback to mining etc. Game idea was too ambitious, had little time for polish sadly

@arthur-mairs Thanks for commenting. I remember your LD46 game! I actually replayed it recently. Cool to see you're still jamming :D

Ausstein

05. Apr 2022 · 22:08 UTC

Really cool game :)

I would have loved some sort of score or timer, so that you could compete for highscores or something :D

Also when I hit restart the game freezes and crashes :(

coggoid

05. Apr 2022 · 22:19 UTC

So... I didn't actually read the instructions until after playing it and didn't realize there was a button to open up the crafting menu. I feel like it might be better that way.... Nah, it was decent with the crafting too.

Absolutely love the pixel art. Very well done. Great job!

benskca

05. Apr 2022 · 22:24 UTC

I had a great time with this! Love the concept and the art is lovely (the trees in particular are beautiful). I think the core systems you guys have in place are really fun and I think you guys have set it up with a tonne of potential for future features. Great stuff!

Haastregt

05. Apr 2022 · 22:27 UTC

This is a really nice game! It was actually fun to play, the corrupting game idea and execution where very well executed, the art was beautiful

Some minor points I found:
- Escape closes the game, this is very unintuitive and it made me close the game halfway through a run when trying to close the crafting menu multiple times
- It is very difficult to see when you get hit, and especially what gives you damage (so sometimes I felt I died very suddenly because I didnt feel like I got hit at all but suddenly my health was down a lot).
- When using the restart button, I am not able to move and need to restart the application.

All in all a very solid entry! Great job!

jivvy

05. Apr 2022 · 23:05 UTC

Fun game. Watched my friend play it on Windows. Can't mine anything on Linux build

Duckwings

05. Apr 2022 · 23:07 UTC

Love the meta idea! The pistol feels a bit underpowered and I felt like I was being swarmed pretty quickly, but maybe I'm just not good at the game yet. The game broke when I restarted and I couldn't move...at first I thought this was a bug, but then I realized it was the spiders' doing. Great job.

Dobryn

05. Apr 2022 · 23:10 UTC

Its pretty awesome, considering it's your first ludum dare you have done a pretty great job :v: , I was fascinated by how well executed the effects are.

Considering the complexity, it would be a cool game for a speed run.

Haven't played something like this for a while, thanks for making it.

player04

06. Apr 2022 · 02:00 UTC

had fun - i want to craft more weapons

woahitsjeff

06. Apr 2022 · 03:40 UTC

To be honest, I just started jamming to that sweet sound of errors popping up 😂

Archangel

06. Apr 2022 · 04:09 UTC

Great work, a lot of fun to be had in this game. My only complaint was when I was crafting I instinctualy hit esc to leave the crafting menu but it just quit the game instantly. Other than that it was great.

Arthur Mairs

06. Apr 2022 · 06:54 UTC

@convg that's awesome to hear! i shall let my team know, that game has actually inspired us to work on a bigger game!

🎤 Convg

06. Apr 2022 · 16:41 UTC

@ausstein Thanks for letting me know. I've fixed the restart bug. I can't believe I didn't think to add a timer lol.

@coggoid Glad you liked the art!

@benskca Thanks for commenting. I also loved the trees :)

@haastregt Thank you for the feedback. I should have put greater consideration into player feedback, that'll be a really important thing for me to consider in future jams

@jivvy Ah, sorry. I only had some old laptop to test the linux build on.

@duckwings Glad you liked it. I'm just gonna pretend it wasn't a bug lmao

@dobryn Thanks :). For me this was my third jam but i'm amazed by the quality of art @brainboy was able to produce... it is his first

@player04 Would've been fun to add if we had more time, we even had plans for them

@woahitsjeff :sunglasses:

@archangel Thank you for commenting. It was so dumb of me to make escape the quit button lol

@arthur-mairs Very cool :eyes:

SAGIII

06. Apr 2022 · 16:56 UTC

Hello! The game is beautiful. The virus is maybe too much.

Black Flag

06. Apr 2022 · 17:02 UTC

I really liked the pixel art graphics and the material gathering and crafting was fun. Its also very impressive how you've managed to do world generation in the space of the jam, it also worked very well and produced some cool maps! I would have liked to have more time to explore the island and gather materials as it feel a bit jarring when the bugs kicked in, however this feature did make it different from other survival games, I feel as though it should have been introduced overtime rather than all at once. Apart from that, I think this game has a lot of potential and I would love to play a post jam version if you release one as the idea of involving the bugs was very cool and unique! And also, the world generation was seriously impressive!

She Wrote

06. Apr 2022 · 23:32 UTC

My game was full of bugs! Spiders to be exactly, but still a good game. Well done!

paulhocker

14. Apr 2022 · 01:50 UTC

this was an interesting game that had really great graphics and some smooth gameplay. i loved the error messages exploding on the screen. great stuff. thanks for making the game.

oillen

21. Apr 2022 · 18:15 UTC

ha haha hahaha ... lol :dvd: :dvd: :dvd:

btw. the social critique is on point