LudumData

Limited Larry and the Lost Intern by Achiru

[raw]
made by Achiru for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

The year is 2033. After multiple reforms and a pair of civil wars, the legal retirement age is now 95. The peaceful citizens of Neo Tourcoing are finally enjoying some peace after years of privation and suffering. The city is slowly getting rebuilt, and it seems like the good times might just be back.

However, not all is well: Pascal Pala, a very promising intern serving as a canine stylist at the Jazzy Jaws Grooming Salon has vanished without leaving a trace. Limited Larry, an 87 years old Alzheimer ridden police inspector is sent to investigate. Help Larry manage his very limited memory to solve this case. What matters more? A potential hint or the names of your grandchildren? Your call!

splash.png

We produced all the assets and wrote the story and dialogues with our pudgy little fingers. :heart:

This project uses the interactive story backend Dialogic by Emilio Coppola.

~~NB: the game is extremely buggy at the moment. We are striving to release a stable version soon. The fixed version will be stamped "postjam".~~
The game is now stable (but may contain minor bugs)

NB2: all graphic assets were produced using stable diffusion. Having spent a considerable amount of time oritenting the generation and then retouching the rendering, we entered the Graphics category.

Walkthrough

Here is the solution to get all different endings:

Blame the president

  1. Move to lobby
  2. Talk about id to receptionist
  3. Learn intern and talk about it
  4. Learn affair

Blame Princesse

  1. Move to lobby
  2. Talk about id to receptionist
  3. Learn intern
  4. Move to grooming room
  5. Talk to the customer and learn stress
  6. Talk about stress to customer
  7. Learn bite to death

Blame the janitor

  1. Move to president's office
  2. Talk to president and learn night
  3. Move to grooming room
  4. Talk about night to groomer and learn kennel
  5. Move to lobby
  6. Talk about kennel to receptionist
  7. Learn dispute

Hair traffic suspicion

  1. Move to lobby
  2. Talk to receptionist and learn knitting
  3. Talk about knitting to receptionist and learn hair
  4. Move to grooming room
  5. Talk about hair to customer
  6. Learn hair traffic

Hair traffic + scared off

  1. Follow Hair traffic suspicion section
  2. Move to president's office
  3. Talk to the president and learn about night
  4. Talk about night to the president and spend the night
  5. Move to grooming room
  6. Talk about hair traffic to the groomer
  7. Learn scared off

Setup for Best and Worst endings

  1. Move to president's office
  2. Talk to the president and learn about night
  3. Talk about night to the president and spend the night
  4. Forget ID
  5. Move to lobby
  6. Move to kennel

Best ending - Meat traffic

  1. Move to meatshop

Worst ending - Corned beef

  1. Forget Phone number
  2. Move to meatshop
Link https://antbrl.itch.io/ld54
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/limited-larry-and-the-lost-intern

Ratings

Overall 1071th 2.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1061th 2.625⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 612th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 558th 3.65⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 937th 2.705⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 611th 2.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 438th 3.167⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 885th 3.071⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

Steffo
04. Oct 2023 · 18:03 UTC
Fiyah concept!

A bit slow to play, though, and the absence of a tracker to mark what you've already read makes things much more difficult...

I'd recommend adding a guide to allow LD Jam raters to get through the whole game after they've gotten one ending so that they're able to properly rate you in everything!
Wakobu
05. Oct 2023 · 01:51 UTC
Hey @steffo!
Thank you for playing and thank you for recommendations. We didn't had any time to QA the game, so we guess that it can be very confusing. We will probably add such guide :wink:
Martta
08. Oct 2023 · 12:19 UTC
Very confusing and I quickly forgot what I was doing and got stuck and was unable to proceed. Maybe I forgot something useful information that prevented me from progressing?

The idea is very innovative and impressive, but maybe bit too ambitious for game jams. But I respect the effort!
Wakobu
09. Oct 2023 · 02:27 UTC
Thank you for your feedback @martta!
We actually spent a lot of time writing the story and dialogs, and debugging the game itself, but we frankly did not have any time to test in-game if everything was self-explaining and logical.
In theory, you are not supposed to be able to soft-lock yourself, even when forgetting everything, but we surely missed some cases...
Thus, I'm not surprised by your saying. Thank you for playing :heart:
LDJam user 206001
09. Oct 2023 · 06:10 UTC
At this point, after dozens of plays and feedbacks followed at a hard pace, the visuals look good, but I don't have the patience to go through very long dialogues. I clicked a lot but the dialogs never finished. Well, I guess it's a dialogue game. I don't know where I would fit the topic. I thought the graph was AI, then I read it and saw that it was. Well executed art management in AI.
Wakobu
09. Oct 2023 · 06:16 UTC
@lincolnsalles thank you for review man!
MetaGen
09. Oct 2023 · 09:08 UTC
Great visual novel implementing the theme. I didn't thought this kind of game before.
Flying Dog Fish
10. Oct 2023 · 22:38 UTC
This game is rather confusing and too time consuming to figure out while many other games wait for some attention. Also: you can only get 1 stars from me for AI-generated images.
Wakobu
11. Oct 2023 · 00:14 UTC
@metagen @flying-dog-fish Thank you for playing and for your reviews guys :smile:

@flying-dog-fish In my opinion, if you dispise our art because it is AI generated, which I can understand, you should rather **leave art category empty** than putting 1 star to the category.
Also, just be aware that we spent a large amount of time to fine-tune images (by hand and via SD) to obtain graphically consistent results. Using an art generator was actually far from a quick win :slight_smile:
🎤 Achiru
11. Oct 2023 · 00:54 UTC
@flying-dog-fish Could you elaborate on the "confusing" part?
Was the UI confusing? The story? The concept of memory management? Do you have hints on how to solve this issue?
For me, leaving comments on ldjam is mostly to give constructive feedback and trying to elevate everybody. Right now the only thing we can get from yours is that you didn't like what we wade (which doesn't really need any comment).

And please, if you don't have time to review a narrative game instead of a quick arcade game, by all means don't review it, as you said many others are waiting for reviews.

On the subject of AI art, the rules allow it. I don't think here is the place for an AI or dataset-sourcing debate. You can of course leave one star, but I don't think this is fair for the part of our team that spent time on the UI, the one that took the AI art and fixed it manually with conventional brushes... We were upfront about the initial source of the images, but this kind of comment will just motivate people using image models to pretend they did everything themselves.
zaykin_timofey
11. Oct 2023 · 08:43 UTC
Interesting idea, I had a lot of fun with the voice acting
Flying Dog Fish
11. Oct 2023 · 14:56 UTC
@wakobu @achiru While the rules might allow you to use AI to generate images, I don't have to like it. I find AI generated images generic, derivative and frankly, soulless and boring. I'd much rather see stick figures than AI generated stuff. You didn't opt out of graphics rating so you're getting a graphics rating and as I see it, you didn't show any graphics skills at all. Graphics rating is for graphics skills, not for interaction with AI. And don't get me started on the ethic issues.

I find every bit of feedback useful, except the totally general ones like "Nice game." or "I don't really like your game". If you know your game is confusing to some people, you can try to make it clearer next time, by explaining the game better or something. Often people only get a general feeling about a game and not a clear solution so it's up to you to find it.
LDJam user 306251
15. Oct 2023 · 22:07 UTC
I love the idea for the game, but I think it's prone to walking dead scenarios. I think I've gotten into them as I seem to hit a figurative wall in my progress. If the team takes care to avoid those scenarios, I can see a kick ass adventure game being made!

I'll admit I don't know much about AI art, so I might be clueless, but I impressed with how consistent it all is. It doesn't look like a bunch of random assets shoved into a game.
Wakobu
16. Oct 2023 · 03:03 UTC
Hey @killerb, thank you for your feedback! :wink:
I'm not sure to understand what you mean by a *walking dead scenario*. Can you explain it to me?
blobo
16. Oct 2023 · 18:16 UTC
Really good story telling, and I love the use of the theme. Sacrificing memories in order to further the plot is a really interesting mechanic!

I was unable to solve the mystery, but I recorded myself playing the game to help provide as much feedback as possible. (though I probably could've balanced the audio a bit better)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTNJNoC_Uzg

I hope this video helps! Cheers!
Agent_Peterson
16. Oct 2023 · 19:21 UTC
really nice concept. Ive never really played these type of games but now im more intrigued about it. I do wish tthere was a greater variaaety in the music and sound design. But the origianl premise of this game is great!
LDJam user 372515
16. Oct 2023 · 21:02 UTC
I really LOVE the idea of the memory system. It is super cheeky, innovative, and fun. One thing I didn't love is that it was impossible to fit "the mission" at all without getting rid of your memories of your wife. So you have to make such a gut wrenching decision without even really playing much of the game yet. I basically got rid of all my previous memories right away, which I think makes it hit less hard than if you're slowly sacrificing them over the course of the game.

It reminded me of disco Elysium, but the mechanic here is actually quite different. I think this core concept here is totally worth exploring

I didn't care much for the writing style, to be honest. I found the jokes didn't land very often, I didn't care too much about what was happening, and I didn't find the characters or mystery to be very compelling. Creepy doctor, hot receptionist, etc, it all felt kind of broad to me.

I understand your stance on AI, but I disagree. I don't like the style, I don't respect AI art, and I'm giving one star for graphics. As an artist, I'm opposed to it on a lot of levels, but mostly, it just doesn't look good. You guys have a pretty big team, I'm sure you could have made something yourself.

Overall, I think you have an absolutely brilliant core concept here, just a lot the execution on that concept is lacking for me. Writing a compelling mystery over the course of a game jam is super difficult, and with that constraint considered, it's a pretty solid attempt. You guys definitely went super ambitious and I respect that. I would love to see this concept expanded with real art, and more refined writing. This could absolutely be the kernel for a larger game - the idea of memories as your inventory is clever af. Keep working at this one!
Hare Software
17. Oct 2023 · 13:41 UTC
Very interesting idea to make a detective with the memory mechanic and even add in a space limitation, certainly impressive for a Ludum Dare entry. Well done!
LDJam user 306251
18. Oct 2023 · 14:10 UTC
@wakobu "Walking dead scenario" is a term used to describe situations in old-school adventure games where decisions made by the player render the game unwinnable without the player knowing. An example of this is in the original King's Quest: There is a goat in a pen that needs to be fed a carrot in order to follow the Sir Graham, player character. If Sir Graham opens the pen without giving the goat a carrot, the goat wanders offscreen and is unable to be found anywhere. There is no message stating the goat is essentially removed from the game, and the player is left to futilely search for the goat unless they reload an earlier save.

I think the mechanics of this game could introduce those situations, so great care would be needed to prevent this from happening in a full-sized game. At its current length, a walking dead scenario is alright because not much progress is lost. That's assuming there even is a walking dead scenario. I might just suck at this game.

Again, I love the idea of this game because of its a fresh take on the inventory management in this genre.
Wakobu
18. Oct 2023 · 14:31 UTC
@100th-coin Thank you for your let's play ! It's awesome :heart:

@agent-peterson Thank you for your feedback, I'm glad you liked the game

@pen-island-games Thank you for your comprehensive feedback ! I understand your point of view about "Mission" implying to sacrifice memories. We did this on purpose to make the player feel the "limited space". However, I understand you can feel confused having to forget memories that could be decisive to finish the game :wink:

@hare-software Thank you for your feedback mate :wink:

@killerb Aaaah now I understand. Actually, we have one identified scenario of such softlock. But in most of time, you can actually always trigger a secondary ending
Wakobu
19. Oct 2023 · 06:09 UTC
@steffo FYI, I finally published the walkthrough :wink:
Squeele
20. Oct 2023 · 21:48 UTC
Bravo pour le taf, l'écriture est top. La musique est bien fichue, et le jeu est très drôle. Très bonne utilisation du thème. Comme d'hab, très couillu comme projet.

Pour le visuel, ça manque de cohérence, et je sais pas encore trop me placer par rapport à l'utilisation de Stable Diffusion. Je suis conscient que c'était une des seules solutions adaptées à votre équipe et au projet, mais il s'en dégage un côté assez artificiel, chaque personnage est généré dans un style différent, c'est trop dommage car y a tellement de cœur dans tout le reste du projet!

Mais félicitations en tous cas, je me suis bien marré en lisant les textes