LudumData

GLÜBOP by kristinamay

[raw]
made by kristinamay for Ludum Dare 58 (JAM)

IMOBBA UBA GLÜBUL GLÜBOP!

NOTE: the embedding isn't working, but it's embedded and running fine over on my itch.io page!

https://kristinamay.itch.io/glubop

Screenshot 2025-10-06 174647.png

Your spaceship has crash-landed on an alien planet.

As far as you can tell, the only thing these aliens really care about is...

...playing a card game??

You are able to glean, through lots of pointing and gestures, that the king of the aliens will help to fix your spaceship, but only if you can collect all of the cards and defeat him in (card) battle.

After this page, almost nothing you encounter will be in English. Get a pen and paper and ready yourself to be immersed in the confusing, cutthroat world of GLÜBOP!

PS: if it's too tough or you need a hint, check out the ??? button in-game (small hints) or the bottom of the itch.io page (big hints).

TECHNICAL NOTES

This is my very first game in Godot, I usually work in Love2D. Holy cow, it's different! I meant to get everything done for the compo (I did follow all compo rules save for timing), but I just didn't have time. I spent so long hunting down weird bugs. There are probably still some left - I'm sorry! And some unicode characters aren't showing up properly. If a missing character is making it impossible for you to figure something out, please just let me know and I can help!

This is also one of the first times that I've made a game for myself. That is, I made a game that I would really, really like to play. It's probably pretty niche, but if you like games like The Gostak or Chants of Sennaar, you will possibly like this one!

With more time, I would have implemented much more world-building and dialogue (I have a dialogue system built out (kinda), but no time to write it!).

THANKS

Thank you to Fletcher for doing everything around the house while I worked on this, and for playing the game while it was written on little index cards.

Thank you to Matt for playtesting an early and very bad build, encouraging me to give it another day before submitting to Ludum Dare.

Thank you to Ben for playtesting a later build and sending me his whole page of notes on the game!

SUGGESTION

I wasn't able to include music this time, but might I suggest listening to the Hollow Knight soundtrack while you play? That's what I did while I was building it. Good vibes.

itch.io https://kristinamay.itch.io/glubop
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/glubop

Ratings

Overall 558th 3.286⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 664th 2.833⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 47th 4.024⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 603th 3.262⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 482th 3.476⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 215th 3.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 591th 3.214⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 10🗳️ 26🗨️

Feedback

Automathan
Oct 07th · 14:04 UTC
Fantastic! Love the layers of learning both a language and rules simultaneously!
LDJam user 282870
Oct 07th · 14:07 UTC
Sorry brother but when you have to fight the documentation and then the in game help is written in scribble then I just couldn't play the game.

There are hundreds of games to play and the average player spends maybe 10 minutes tops playing a game. The minute I have to start messing with the documentation of the controls then I move on.
🎤 kristinamay
Oct 07th · 14:14 UTC
@automathan thank you!!

@beebster-games Not sure what "documentation of the controls" means but thanks for the feedback! I'm aware that a game like this is quite niche but thanks for giving it a shot.
Divarium
Oct 07th · 14:15 UTC
Very original game. Is this easy to master, hard to learn ? Thanks for the various hints, i was feeling stupid :p
EricNS
Oct 07th · 14:23 UTC
It's a cool game, but i had a really hard time understanding it at first (i mean that's kinda the point isn't it)
anaticula
Oct 07th · 14:43 UTC
That's very interesting! I loved the idea and i guess I've never played such genre with deciphering before. I managed somehow to win first round but need more attempts to figure it out and beat the next one, definitely coming back to crack it!
🎤 kristinamay
Oct 07th · 15:40 UTC
@divarium @ericns it's definitely meant to be difficult! I might have made it too difficult, but I decided to stick to my guns and just provide lots of hints below if it was too opaque. Playtesters were able to figure out the gist without hints, but they know me so were more willing to give it more time. :) Thank you for playing!
ElenaMisuBean
Oct 07th · 16:24 UTC
I love the concept of this game! Perhaps I am not patient enough though.
Rionisse
Oct 07th · 16:32 UTC
Love the idea. After a few minutes I noticed that I started to understand a few words! I think I will come back to this game from time to time. Love these kinds of puzzles.
6Knowledge
Oct 07th · 19:44 UTC
If I had a nickle for every person who made games in a language they invented, I would have two, which isn't a lot but it is weird it has happened twice. Me not knowing how to actually play is a major skill-issue but won't rate based on that fact. A simple but sweet game, nothing major to complain about.
Fravinci
Oct 07th · 20:55 UTC
What a wild idea!
Ueighti
Oct 08th · 00:36 UTC
I don’t mind if the game has its own language or is tough, but players really need solid feedback to help them figure things out. I didn’t really feel that here, but still a cool idea! Nice entry!
Ciphereo
Oct 08th · 14:32 UTC
It's very interesting!
🎤 kristinamay
Oct 08th · 15:02 UTC
yeah @ueighti I agree, it was really hard to get that level of polish in this time frame. I think even some sounds indicating things one way or the other would have helped, but not enough time :crying_cat_face:. Oh well, better to be ambitious and fail, right? :D
Yorsh
Oct 09th · 23:28 UTC
I like your initial idea! I tried something like this in a past jam, and it's super hard in a jam cause 3 things: You have little time to polish it (and it needs a lot of polish), players will only be spending minutes on the game, and players that wouldn't normally be interested in this sort of game will try it. This is why I think you went for something too hard/complicated even if you managed to polish it exactly as you wanted.

Here, what I think would have helped: Rely less on understanding text (learning 2 things at once is hard and confusing). Starts with matches with one card, so players have a chance to figure out what cards are better than others, then move on to two cards etc. Don't hide the board after match end, so players try to figure out why they won/lost.

That said, it's well made, looks cool and clearly a lot of thoughts went into it. Congrats!
Amande_dooce
Oct 10th · 18:10 UTC
I'm sad, I was really excited to try out this game for wich I really like the concept, but there is a weird screen ratio issue wich make it impossibe to click on the game buttons :( perhaps that's me not understanding that it's also a game mechanic ? anyways, I really dig this game's concept and wish I could have played it correctly !
🎤 kristinamay
Oct 11th · 22:49 UTC
I appreciate all the feedback, y'all! @amande-dooce could you please send me a screenshot of the issue? In all my playtesting I haven't come across that issue at all and would love to fix it for you.
APDT
Oct 22nd · 16:20 UTC
I watched your game about a week ago, but I didn't understand anything. Now I've decided to go back and try to figure it out and rate it.

I think I'm starting to get it... you're crazy! In a good way.
Yes, I also turned on the Hollow Knight soundtrack and got the hang of it.

Thank for work, best wishes!
digital bacon
Oct 24th · 11:48 UTC
Very interesting game: I like the "try to figure out the rules while also trying to win". Good work!