Most of the instructions are contained within the game. Feel free to press 'm' to mute all sounds.
Orphans work better in teams, by trying to head out alone, they are slow, and likely to be caught by the fuzz.
More of a proof of concept than a finished game. Hope you enjoy.
Some people have expressed difficulty in learning the controls ( my bad! Sorry! ) so I thought I'd quickly explain them here :
On the main screen (image 2) you have two options, on the left, is your Orphan list, Use this to look at your current Orphan Roster, and to Buy new Orphans. On the right, is your District Map. Use this to select which district you would like to go to.
Once in a district, use WASD to move your character around. Your orphans will follow.
To send your orphans off to steal, mouse over your avatar, then click and drag out the path you wish your orphans to follow. Release the mouse to stop drawing the path. Then, press and hold space to select the number of Orphans you wish to follow that particular path. Release space to send the orphans on their way.
At any time, you can flick your mousewheel to recall *all* orphans from every path. They should stop what they are doing and head straight back to you. This is pretty useful to avoid cops and the likes.
The presentation of the first screen is beautiful, but a bit too ambitious. It would have been better to spend that time on the actual game.
It did take me a while to figure out how to get into the game from the first screen.
At one point some of my orphans ignored the path I set up for them and ran straight towards the policeman, which was a bit annoying.
It was also kind of annoying that the game leaves the district you're playing as soon as an orphan brings back enough money. Each time that happened, some of my orphans still had money in their pockets which was lost.
Cheers Dan, Yes, In hindsight, I should have given slightly better instructions, as well as giving an 'Enough money acquired, exit the district when ready' option.
Sucks about the Orphan running up to the cop. Hopefully he got arrested for being the little snitch that he was.
Neat, really lovely idea! The menu screen had me baffled until I figured out how to enter the game. The sounds effect are too loud compared to the music. Other than that, very solid and polished entry.
Well that was fun :) Great concept, feels like something that could be developed further into something quite special! I wasn't especially good at it once the police got involved though, these little ruffians don't run very fast...
Interesting idea, suiting to the theme and has a lot of room to grow as a game. Need something to distract the cops.. It felts like I was constantly being chased in the last scene. Also sometimes the orphan teams split up?
I liked the game, though I felt that by going together it was more dangerous for the orphans to get caught. Maybe I didn't grok all there was to this game - the menu screen was a bit confusing (but I did see all the useful info ;)). I adore the music and I love the Oliver-Twist-kinda setting. Good job.
The spacebar to control group size bit was a tad unintuitive, may be better if that was also mouse controlled with buttons to select number and send the group.
The presentation of the first screen is beautiful, but a bit too ambitious. It would have been better to spend that time on the actual game.
It did take me a while to figure out how to get into the game from the first screen.
At one point some of my orphans ignored the path I set up for them and ran straight towards the policeman, which was a bit annoying.
It was also kind of annoying that the game leaves the district you're playing as soon as an orphan brings back enough money. Each time that happened, some of my orphans still had money in their pockets which was lost.