Ludum Dare 56 by Mantsje
Kinder Guardin'
- Colorful custom pixel-art!
- Grim social commentary
- Chaotic, fast-paced fun!
Description
Little Timmy has a fascination with the power outlets, and tiny Debra left the lid of the class-snake open. It’s not easy to keep a full classroom in check at this kindergarten, and even harder since the children copy the behavior of others nearby!
Wrangle, and herd this class together to try and keep most of the little rascals alive. Use your whole bag of tricks as a teacher. Including throwing candies, and chucking chalk!
The better you do, the less funding you will get as a teacher (since apparently you don’t need it ;p), and the fuller your classrooms become. Beat this game before you get a burn-out! Or snap, and leave the tiny creatures to their own fates.
Goal and Theme of the game
The goal is to keep all the children in your class alive for the course of the schoolday. You as a hard-working teacher will let nothing happen to these tiny creatures under your care... or will you?
Use everything in your power to keep them engaged with puppys, candy, or when the carrot doesn't try the stick and chug a piece of chalk at them, or scare them with homework it's your call!
Keyboard & Mouse Controls
THERE IS ALSO A SIMPLE IN-GAME TUTORIAL - W A S D -> Control your character - 1 2 3 4 5 6 -> Select/Cast skill - Mouse -> Target your selected skill - Escape -> Pause the game and navigate menus
About us
We are a team of friends from the Netherlands who love making games and programming. We wanted to make as much of the game on our own as we could. Just how much we did you can see below. We hope you all enjoy our little game, and maybe, just maybe, if you enjoy our game leave a like/comment. We also love to hear (constructive) feedback! :)
General details about our game
- Built with Unity.
- All textures are fully custom made, huge shoutout to @joost and jorn!!
- Sounds, tracks and other audio effects are taken from other (open) sources. We do not own the rights to the songs we play and we do not intend to use any of this in any commercial form and ask our players to do the same. By playing and downloading our game you agree to these terms :)
Thanks for playing!
If you encounter any bugs feel free to let us know! Check out our Itch.io page as well!
Installation and Tips
Play it right here in your browser using the WebGL build! (if the Ludum Dare link does not work try out our itch.io entry!
When running on macOS or Linux (if available) you may run into some trouble getting started. At least for the linux build you might have to add executable rights to the main executable.
To do this on linux run the following command: chmod +x ./KinderGuardin.x86_64
To do this on MacOS run the following command: chmod +x ./KinderGuardin\ MacOS.app/Contents/MacOS/KinderGuardin\ \(TM\)
and then open the game with ctrl+click > open
Changelog & Bugfixes
- Fix the last introduced bug breaking the tutorial explaining the UI
Ratings
| Overall | 485th | 3.607⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 563th | 3.384⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 162th | 3.802⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 197th | 4.093⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 346th | 3.965⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 26th | 4.279⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 333th | 3.779⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 29🗨️ |
The concept if fun and graphics are great (:
Also there is a tutorial!! Awesome!!!
I really like the fun concept and the way you interpreted the LD theme :grin:
The game is very chaotic very fast but plays well enough so that you can keep up if you dare!
I also like the visuals and the sounds. Everything fits together and is implemented well!
"Let me see what you have!"
"A knife!"
"NO!"
Yeah, this game is basically that clip, but add in window climbing, snakes, and several counts of OSHA violations as well. The contrast between the cheery music and the cute art against the subject matter and dark humor are also a good fit.
At first I thought the teacher was moving too quickly and was a bit hard to control, but after getting to the level with like 25 kids? Yeah I could see why the speed is that way. You need it to keep the little tykes in control.
By the way, I think I may have gotten stuck in the tutorial once (right in this spot), but I restarted it and it was okay. I did feel like the tutorial font was a little bit too small and a bit hard to read, but it did do its job in explaining the game well.
Now that this review is done, I've got to---TIMMY NO THATS A LIVE WIRE---
My favorite child was the one with sunglasses. 😎
The news is even more hilarious. 😂
I think it might a bit easier to handle if there were fewer kids and/or hazards at the start.
Well done, I appreciate the effort you've put in to the UI to explain what each of the abilities do :raised_hands:
Good job!
I love the vibe and concept! :smile: Even if it's hard AF. :flushed: :cold_sweat:
I just can never keep these dang kids alive. After a while, I just started playing with the snake because I love that animation so much.
I loved this unique take on the theme!!
Lolly was the one i used the most tho!
Cool graphics and nice simple music, congratz of finishing the project!
See ya on the next one!
Awesome!
Should you want to polish it a bit more, then I feel like going through readability of items and interactables could be helpful; what's the range of electric discharge, better feedback when the healing is happening improved, timers on candies or homework etc.
Newspaper headlines are genius, but during the game, players might have too little time to pay attention to them. How about you showcase them in more detail once the shift ends? Successfully or otherwise.
Great that you included some of that social commentary in form of parody into your game.
Overall, very solid entry :heart:
Sure, some more polish and quality of life changes could make this even better, but the chaotic gameplay loop kept me hooked throughout the entire game, and it was one of the best executions on similar ideas I have seen in this jam.
For some reason couldn't get the web build to work on Ludum Dare, but the downloads were fine.
A very, very solid entry!
Well done!
I feel like in theory it should be possible to use just the lollypop, dog and an occasional hand to keep all the children fenced in, but couldn't make it work. Great humor and I really like the graphics, although there seems to be some tearing for me (on Firefox), as if not all parts of the map/walls are redrawn at the same moment.
Instead of being thrown into the deep end after one big tutorial, it might have been helpful to ease in by unlocking one skill at a time. It was a lot to figure out while children were dying horrible deaths all around me. But the panic definitely enhances the mood!