Stay Afloat by Fredrik Rosell
My Jam entry (first real game jam ever!) is called Stay Afloat*
You are a robot of last years model. Your manufacturer wants to sell new robots, so they send out updates that drain your battery. Your only chance is to get to the last point on Earth with no Internet connection - the tropical island of Nowifi. Unfortunately your plane crashed just before getting there. Jump between floating (but sinking) debris, and manage your power usage so you don't run out of battery.
The game can be played on Unity Play: https://play.unity.com/mg/other/stayaloatfinal
It's a steaming pile of dung. But it's MY steaming pile of dung.
- Well, actually the title was supposed to be named Planned Obsolescence ("a business strategy in which the obsolescence (the process of becoming obsolete, that is, unfashionable or no longer usable) of a product is planned and built into it from its conception, by the manufacturer) but I couldn't get that to look nice on the Title screen...
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/stay-afloat |
Ratings
| Overall | 816th | 3.441⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 792th | 3.284⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 942th | 3.043⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 803th | 3.56⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 758th | 3.56⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 495th | 3.255⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 959th | 3.236⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 53🗳️ | 101🗨️ |
This could turn into a really cool full platformer with that mechanic if you decide to continue developing
@dean-isseyegh Thank you - really appreciate the feedback!
@deylinia Thank you! I had to cut the scope a lot so I never got to really play around with the power management. Your feedback inspired me to keep tinkering with this. Thank you!
@althasor Thank you!!
Sometimes the spacebar would not register, but that is alright, the levels where short and sweet so it didn't really matter for me. Also, I had one platform in the third level that was jumping all over the place, was that on purpose? It was challenging to jump on that one :-)
I was mesmerized by the water graphics btw
P.s. I forgot about the power distibution, the game is beatable without changing the default settings
>Sometimes the spacebar would not register.
Thank you! The code is horrible, so I will rejoice at the fact that it DID register sometimes then.
>Also, I had one platform in the third level that was jumping all over the place, was that on purpose? It was challenging to jump on that one :-)
That was in fact on purpose. Started out as a mistake, but realized it was a fun challenge.
>P.s. I forgot about the power distibution, the game is beatable without changing the default settings
Yeah, I cut the scope, and then cut it some more. And then some more. So I never got around to making levels that required the use of that.
@hexyvexy Great minds etc
@lichead-studio Thank you - much appreciated!
@dennis-magnusson Thank you, and definitely agree on your feedback about the power distribution mechanic - I simply had to cut that from the scope.
Anyways, lovely jam entry, great job!
"trying to spot them through water isn’t that fun" - agreed. I wanted it to be an additional chanllenge, but I should have tweaked that a bit, e.g. maybe makign the water more transparent.
"I didn’t really see the point of controlling energy distribution, managed to finish the game without using it at all". Correct, I added the system for it, but never got around to building levels that actually required you to use it...poor time management.
Thank you again!
On that note, weirdly, I could see a longer version of this sort of game getting a bit of attention from people who enjoy speedrunning because of the chaotic but repeatable physics interactions.
Even though it didn't affect me in-game, I enjoyed the planned obsolescence theme. The updates at the beginning of each level made me chuckle.
Nice work!
About the third stage, the board was out of control and it was difficult to get on top of it. I laughed a little.
I enjoyed it very much!
The narrative was so heartbreaking, nice graphics, cute robot, awesome tunes.
The ending was just :sob: :sob: :sob:
Touched my heart so congrats on a well built game!
Well, that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me :)
Thank you for your comments!
Very valid question. That there was no way to escape the planned obsolescence was the inevitable part, even after "winning". Thank you for your nice feedback!
"About the third stage, the board was out of control and it was difficult to get on top of it"
Well, it's a good thing then that you didn't get to play the level where I made alomost all the platforms like that :)
"I didn’t really find that the reduced battery power affected me at all, but that’s maybe because I was playing as if I was going to get scored for my completion time"
Yeah, I didn't get to that part...cut scope, cut scope.....cut some more.
however, the mechanic is not used at all during this game, you can beat the game by just jumping and running at max power.
and this is prolly my fault but i didn't know there was sound at first because it's muted by default haha.
anyways solid entry! 👍
> i could say that during those “now updating” dialogues the platforms would still lower,
That's a darn good idea. I should change that.
And regarding power distribution, true!
...aaaaand regarding the audio, yeah it appears to work like that in Unity Play. A lot of people have mentioned that. Using Unity Play was probably not my best idea...
It wasn't always possible to see submerged blocks that you needed to jump too. This meant that initially it didn't seem possible to get across certain gaps.
All in all, a fun game. Well done!
Good job!