The Mailman by Castitatis
(If the html version doesn't work on LD, try the itch.io link)
The woman you love has been kidnapped, use all your mailman skills to save her in this beat'em up.
Reload your mail stack by stealing from mailboxes. Ride on scooters to run over enemies.

Controls:
Movement: WASD/Dpad
Interact: E (with things with white outlines)
Punch: J
Throw mail: K
Block: L
| Link | https://castitatis.itch.io/the-mailman |
| Link | https://castitatis.itch.io/the-mailman |
| Link | https://castitatis.itch.io/the-mailman |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/the-mailman |
Ratings
| Overall | 86th | 3.871⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 119th | 3.69⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 253th | 3.161⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 227th | 3.784⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 47th | 4.224⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 104th | 3.621⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 54th | 3.731⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 160th | 3.473⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 46🗳️ | 92🗨️ |
1. You can advance into new waves without killing the last ones plus save the girl without even fighting a single enemy
2. It was annoying everytime I die having to go through the title screen and controls, story and such. So maybe have the retry button start you from the start of the gameplay?
How many people did you say kidnapped her? I was fighting so many people, I'm not surprised she was taken!
Had a lot of buttons to remember what each did, but really cool graphics and gameplay
Good job regardless!
I never managed to completely defeat everyone on the street, but I got really close. My final superstrat was to block near a scooter, draw them in until everyone was there and then run them all over. That worked extremely well! The combat feels very good in this game, the animation when throwing mail, scooter knocking them all out, that all feels super fun. The animations are very expressive and cute too, especially the dogs. All in all a great beat'em up! Very well done!
- I like the aesthetics, I'm always a sucker for low poly / pixel art games
- Colors are chill to the eye, I like it as well
- Variety of enemies
- Variety of smack ass possibilities (wish there was a AOE letter throw)
- Actual difficulty is quite good
- Audio / SFX in Compo is always a +
Not sure if I've found it anywhere but would be cool to have any sort of healing aid, or maybe I missed it completely?
Anyway, great entry. Enjoyed it a lot!
I know that this is a game jam but it was still extremely short! If there were multiple levels it would be much better but i guess you ran out of time. There was also a bug where you could just run past everyone without fighting which made the already short game even shorter. Good luck on your future projects!
I really like the variety of enemies while stil being polished. Great work!
And it took a try till I figured out how strong and necessary mail throwing is. Usually if a "consumable" can be hoarded, I hoard it. This time I had to die to realise that I can't hoard this. :D
Gorgeous art by the way, cheers! :)
The font choice, the enemy variety, the little doggie halos - so much fun!
Lore was cute, and the title screen gave me a good chuckle.
I'm shocked this was compo! Very well polished, and a joy to play.
Thanks!
I don't have much more to say. It's a simple, tried and true concept, but aside from the low difficulty (or rather _easily circumvented_ difficulty, since a low difficulty isn't in an of itself bad of course), very well executed.
(Oh almost forgot; The entire game is played on keyboard, but the menu's are mouse only. Bit of a pet-peeve of mine.)
Great little game !
I like action game so much,and all character design and animations are quite well,very nice work
Art, sfx and music were really nice!
My one tiny wish would be that the menu/tutorial would be skippable by keyboard, but no biggie.
I think this would have been a little better if you either had more means of crowd control looking at the number of enemies you throw at the player, or you reduced the number of enemies a player faces at a time. The mail works nicely as projectile weapons, but doesn't really help much again with dealing with so many enemies. The scooter also could have used a visual timer or something to show how long it would be active while you were riding it.
But the presentation is great. Love the different animations and enemy types. Some good feedback when you hit an enemy as well. Cool entry
I really liked the in-game graphics and the beat'em up take on the theme.
There were a few little nitpicks like the stylistic inconsistencies with the font vs pixel art, though in a jam context I can totally understand. I appreciate that you released a completable game with increasing difficulty and actual music and SFX, great job there. The music was simple but didn't overstay its welcome in the length of my playthrough. Regarding gameplay, I think that the animations / interactions were a little bit rigid, encouraging a repetitive approach to fighting based on "stunlocking" enemies in groups. I would have loved to see some combos or knock-back to make dealing with groups a little bit more dynamic. Elements like throwing letters for dealing with the soldiers were a good start in this direction, so a bit more of that diversity forcing player decision making would have been perfect.
All in all, a solid entry. Thanks for sharing :)
I never went for a beat'em up in jam because I feel it too ambitious.
Anyway, the game is well polished with good looking graphics and animations.
It was super enjoyable to play!