The Gateway by Congeesetador
Lore: You play as an old military defense robot that has been sitting in a closet for decades watching as new models of robots were made and replaced you, a scientist organization found you and transported you to an underground laboratory for you to help them fight the monsters that would come out of the summoning circles they were preparing. You must use your laser eyes to fend off these creatures during waves of attacks while making sure you are healthy enough to keep going, you know something seems off with the scientist organization seeing how you've never heard of them before despite knowing government secrets. The monsters were heavily researched by the scientists to figure out how deadly they were, if they touch something they deem not worthy to fight they will disappear while slightly damaging the victim. They are a race of strong fighters who will stop at nothing to get what they want, they discovered the laboratory held experiments that were unknown to everyone except the organization. Will you be able to defeat the monsters?
Controls: WASD Movement Click to shoot
PLEASE READ: When you talk to the NPC's stand still once the dialogue starts before leaving, if you run into them again the audio will repeat itself, same with when you go to give them an item just wait for them to be finished before leaving, not doing so will result in both dialogues to play at the same time, I attempted to fix it but couldn't find a way to make it work, thank you for reading
Side Notes: If you're interested in a little more lore there's voice dialogue for both winning and losing! Also all voice lines were voiced by me so I apologize if its sometimes hard to hear them, trying to get my voice to stay at those certain pitches was really difficult for me, not to mention straining to my throat lol
A lot of people were having issues figuring out the NPC item order, so here's the order of who to talk to, remember you have to talk to them once, then back away and talk to them again once they're done talking in order to "give" the item to them, it's a really janky system but it's the only way I could figure out how to do it sadly
Have fun!
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/the-gateway |
Ratings
| Overall | 1113th | 2.971⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1065th | 2.879⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1097th | 2.697⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1087th | 2.864⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1022th | 2.727⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 713th | 2.803⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 544th | 3.076⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1057th | 2.955⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 70🗨️ |
I had difficulty understanding what each person was saying due to the mic quality changing overtime but I enjoyed the game, it could use more enemy varieties and a big bad boss but you can only do so much in a game jam. nice game
And other people have said this before me, but you should *absolutely* be proud of yourself for the voice acting. It may not be very understandable (and I feel terrible saying this, sorry! I don't want to discourage you!), but getting out there and *doing it* is awesome. And the music was good too!
I do love me some expanded lore though.
The long distances between the characters means you need to do a lot of walking, and even more walking if you don't know the order of the characters you need to talk to. The voice lines are funny, but it would have been nice if it was possible to skip them somehow, and that you don't need to wait till the end of the audio before you get the thing they give you. I wasn't sure what to do at the end, other than survive as long as possible.
I appreciate the voice acting effort as it's an underrated craft. Normalizing the audio by paying attention to the peak volume using a program like audacity should help you in the future. Although, for a short game jam like this, it might save you time to go for subtitled text and focus more on the UI and experience for first time players (since every reviewer is a first time player). I think the stoner and drinking character are definitely spot on XD.
I followed the order of talking to people presented by the guide provided in the description, but couldn't progress any further... at first. I didn't realize that I even picked up anything or that I needed to listen to characters talk more than once to acquire or deliver items! I would love to see items/icons pop up in the UI to show what my character is holding, so I know I've acquired the item needed for the next step. It would help if the next character I spoke to was just surprised that I was already holding what they needed, instead of going through their first dialogue, should the occasion arise (more work I know!).
After triggering the most straight forward win state, I was curious.... if I lose or go back down to the lab, would the robots would start killing the scientists. Unfortunately they didn't. That could be an exciting motivation for multiple playthroughs. :)
Well done on following the theme with a futuristic approach and developing a game by yourself. :)
I activated all my ears (unfortunately I only have two) and focused on trying to get what the guys are saying and went between all these scientists to complete their requests.
I like the design of the robot, how he looks overgrown with moss or vines. If in the future you add a little shadow below him, that would be fantastic. All the scientists seem to have their own personality, which is great!
Having two types of gameplay was nice and refreshing. I had fun battling the demons. It wasn't too hard, but not boring (I finished with 50 hp, I believe). Adding a visual effect on demon when it dies will go a long way!
Also, the summoning circles are really colourful and pretty.
WTH the ending T_T Should've left these demons get those humans :')
