For my first Ludum Dare, I choose to interpret the theme.
"Beneath the surface" can refer to things that are hidden from the public, to lies, hypocrisy and to things that are Beneath surfaces of the appearances.
So I treated this theme with the background storie of a dictator who try to hide crimes to the internationnal community. The gameplay also reflect this theme since you have to find an informant and hide his assassination from journalists.
Hope you enjoy and be indulgent since it's my first Ludum Dare.
Since the difficulty to find the informant is a recurring problem, I will give a hint: To know what is beneath the surface of somebody, don't look at their appearance, but at their behaviors.
P.s. You need to install java 1.7 or 1.8 instead of 1.6 to run the game correctly or else it will show a "could not fin main class" error.
Your web link is actually a Jar, inside a Zip, inside newsgrounds?! Well, I think your idea is pretty good and very innovative, but you didn't provided exactly a game. You could think in complete gameplay mechanic for this, I mean, even after ludum dare, I would love play such game.
Yeah sorry. I'm new at this so I don't know how to make compatible with everything and embed in a browser. I will do my best to solve these problems for the next Ludum Dare.
For the gameplay my intention was to make a game that is fast to play for Ludum Dare. Something more story driven and based on the ambiance and less on pure scoring.
I couldn't quite figure out how to play. It wasn't clear to me who had the information and who didn't. I suggest providing some more detailed instructions.
That being said, the game looks amazing. The controls are good, and the ambience is really good. Great job for 48h, it's really impressive. A great concept.
This game has a lot of potential. I can see where you were going with it, but the instructions were somewhat unclear in telling you how to identify who has a note. It was a cool take on a stealth game!
Well I wanted it to be part of the game concept to make you use your brain to identify something that is hidden from the sight. It's a kind of a puzzle so I will not tell you but there is a way to identify it.
Couldn't quite figure out how to play. I got a few different newspaper titles. No audio sadly. The rest is pretty ok. Good job, and congratulations on finishing! :)
Another game that only support wasd, to the dismay of AZERTY users like me. The game is simple and unoriginal. The start and game-over screens are full of grammatical and spelling errors. Well, then it's hard to make a 48hr game, and don't mean to be mean. Kudos for managing for having managed to release a playable game, and thanks for your participation.
I really like the mission select screen. This is the most well developed backstory I've seen so far. I understand what you're saying about wanting the player to figure out things for themselves without telling them anything. I'm not sure if I didn't experiment long enough, but it seemed that there were no clues to be gained outside of trial and error, which makes it difficult to complete. Great job with the theme.
For the audio I recorded a rain sound (lucky it was raining during Ludum Dare)but I had trouble importing it. So I decided to focus on visual.
Oups, I didn't think of azerty keyboard. I will solve this problem for next Ludum Dare.
Sorry for the errors,I tried to correct as much as possible, but my primary language is not English so it's harder for me.
For the lack of originality and simplicity. I think it's a question of taste. Some found it original and hard to identify the informant. I think once you figured out how to identify the informant, the game becomes very simple. Maybe I should find a balance next time.
I didn't understand exactly what I had to do, but I had fun not doing it! :) The idea is very cool, would like to see it completed with some more gameplay mechanisms! Graphics were awesome!
Hmm It seem it's harder than I thought to find the informant so I will give a hint in the commentary.
For the bug "Could not find the main class: Starter. Program will exit." I don't know what cause it. If a pro can give me a hint I can fix it for the next Ludum Dare.
Great concept and art. Particularly love the use of theme. The instructions are a bit unclear, though. And there's a typo on the first screen: perpreting instead of perpetrating, I'm guessing.
Yes! Awesome take on the theme :) Puzzle is tricky, I still can't identify the informer. The sprites are the same, they seem to behave the same way, I've even started to speculate if they pass the documents on to each other... could you give a hint? or is that cheating? :) I also did a puzzle for this LD, although I tested it on a couple of people, and I had to simplify the whole thing. Turns out that people are still having trouble with it, yet not nearly as tricky as yours :D congrats, I'll continue to try and find a pattern!!
Yes! They can pass the document to each other, I wrote it on the yellow note on starting screen. I accept that my game may be difficult to understand and hard to solve and I will try to take care of this problem next time, but if people doesn't read the instructions, it's a problem I can't solve. :)
I like the concept but I'm not so sure about the execution. It was hard to find out what I actually had to do. But, that being said, you made a very good job in 48h and for your first time. A music could really set the mood right up. And you nailed the use of theme. Keep working, man!
Very nice interpretation of the theme. I enjoyed the visuals, as well as the news clippings/post-it notes/etc of the menus and game over screens. I found it very difficult to find the informants however. Nice job overall :)
Comments37
For the gameplay my intention was to make a game that is fast to play for Ludum Dare. Something more story driven and based on the ambiance and less on pure scoring.
I couldn't quite figure out how to play. It wasn't clear to me who had the information and who didn't. I suggest providing some more detailed instructions.
That being said, the game looks amazing. The controls are good, and the ambience is really good. Great job for 48h, it's really impressive. A great concept.
Thanks for your comments!
Oups, I didn't think of azerty keyboard. I will solve this problem for next Ludum Dare.
Sorry for the errors,I tried to correct as much as possible, but my primary language is not English so it's harder for me.
For the lack of originality and simplicity. I think it's a question of taste. Some found it original and hard to identify the informant. I think once you figured out how to identify the informant, the game becomes very simple. Maybe I should find a balance next time.
Thanks for your comments, it helps me improve.
Graphics were awesome!
As for the game, I really liked idea and theme interpretation. Gameplay is unpolished, but still fun.
For the bug "Could not find the main class: Starter. Program will exit." I don't know what cause it. If a pro can give me a hint I can fix it for the next Ludum Dare.