Playground Mayhem

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.45
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.21
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.43
Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.88
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.17
Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.74
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.54
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.46
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★57%
NOTE: I disabled the embed, because there were problems with the game receiving key presses in some browsers. Use the web link below.

Controls
A:Left
D:Right
W:Aim Up
S:Aim Down
I:Inventory
Space: Fire
Enter: Jump
Tab: Switch Child
1-6: Select Weapon

My first Ludum Dare. Didn't get time to do much polish and there may be a few bugs. Created with LibGDX.

You play a team of school children. You cobble together £4.36 between the 5 of you, head to the school shop and buy things to make an unconventional weapon for the playground war.

Single Player not implemented. That means you can only play hotseat, but you should still be able to get the general idea.

Options/Team Editor not implemented.

My studio is at http://explosive.ninja, feel free to take a look!

Changelog since submission (It's amazing how incompetent one becomes when one is coding in ones sleep):

Fixed a bug in web version that should have caused it not to work at all (although it strangely worked on some machines). For this I blame computers.

Fixed a bug in shop that meant you can buy stuff even when you ran out of money. For this I blame lack of sleep.

Fixed a performance issue that caused massive load times and crashes on some machines. For this I can only blame myself.

Fixed a bug causing throwing tomatoes to crash the game, due to a reference to non existent sound. (Removed reference)

Assets are under CC-BY license and can be found at Open Game Art (link below)

screenshot

Comments22

Borkleby20 Apr 2015, 14:20
I couldn't seem to play single player at all. Is it just me...?
Franklin's Ghost
Franklin's Ghost20 Apr 2015, 14:35
Seemed to get stuck for me in the shop for a minute but then loaded the playground. Then the controls didn't seem to work so I couldn't actually play. Will come back and try again later.
qapn20 Apr 2015, 14:35
Congrats on your first Ludum Dare entry! A lot like worms, but with school kids. I think you're let down by lots of bugs. It says you've fixed these issues but I still could buy indefinitely (into negative money).

The physics seemed a bit weird, it was hard to gain momentum at times.

But I think this is a remarkably ambitious first Ludum Dare compo game, I certainly wouldn't have attempted a game this complicated myself.
colludium20 Apr 2015, 14:37
I couldn't get single player to work either. I tried 2 player but it locked up the browser tab as well (web version).
badlydrawnrod20 Apr 2015, 14:37
It seemed to crash after I'd finished in the shop.
explosiveninjaauthor20 Apr 2015, 14:38
Team Editor, Options and Single Player were never implemented because I ran out of time :( I was also hoping to add custom maps to the desktop version. If people like the concept enough, I'm happy to implement those features.
explosiveninjaauthor20 Apr 2015, 14:55
I'm looking into what I can do about the crash after shop.
geckojsc20 Apr 2015, 15:02
Cool idea combining worms mechanics with a crafting system! I liked the whole scenario, it's a good interpretation of the theme. :)

The whole game feels pretty rough around the edges. Movement is quite difficult, players can struggle to walk even on a simple slope. The game crashed when I tried to use a tomato.

The interface is a little messy too, some simple labels / instructions for each weapon would be nice (e.g. I tried to use cola+mints and ended up damaging myself)
lanza20 Apr 2015, 16:00
I couldn't play. The single player button didn't work, and when I tried with 2 players, the screen went black.
explosiveninjaauthor20 Apr 2015, 16:16
Thanks geckojsc. Yes it is very rough around the edges. I think I picked an idea that was too complex for my first LD attempt, but it was the best idea I had so I just ran with it. Re: cola+mints, holding spacebar will increase how far you throw it.
explosiveninjaauthor20 Apr 2015, 16:34
I did SFX/Foley at 12pm (2 hours before deadline) and missed the tomato splat sound (zzzzz) which was referenced in code. Uploading a fix now with the reference removed.
vandriver20 Apr 2015, 23:08
allowing crafting weapons is great. i think the time limit for a turn is too lenient - even with how difficult it is to move around.

however, the controls are extremely difficult to use. and there's not a lot of feedback on some of the attacks to know what's going on. the easiest craft is barely visible on screen.

additionally, if you didn't buy something for someone, they should start with some weak default weapon so people don't have to craft/stock up for each character.
maunovaha21 Apr 2015, 08:44
I struggled with the controls, but liked the concept. good job
uber21 Apr 2015, 12:37
Could not go through the menus : (. Single player would not work at all and multiplayer left me with black screen.
explosiveninjaauthor21 Apr 2015, 12:50
Single Player didn't get implemented because I ran out of time. If you scroll down are there any kind of error messages? If you use developer tools in your browser and switch to console are there any errors there?
43iscoding
43iscoding21 Apr 2015, 15:02
The first thing that came into my mind: you tried to make a huuuge game. I was pretty lost and devastated in that shop menu, but finally I managed to get it on my own. Anyway that's a great entry for you first time! Hope to see you at LD33 :)
aeklad
aeklad22 Apr 2015, 02:26
That music is going to haunt my dreams. Very cool game. Ambitious concept. I'm certain I didn't play it correctly. Just wandered around confused feeling like I was in Lord of the Flies.
bace100023 Apr 2015, 07:05
The single player option didn't work, so I chose 2 player. The game wasn't very good and littered with bugs and the controls were difficult, but since it's your first LD, don't worry. I'm sure these things will come with time! Good work ;)
Jajo
Jajo25 Apr 2015, 18:04
Beautiful music, good idea, decent graphics, however the collision detection was awful...
jojocanard
jojocanard6 May 2015, 22:24
It is very hard tu understand what is going on within the crafting system. I tried many combinations and finally created something but I had no idea what and how.
MegaBrutal8 May 2015, 01:22
Hehe, reminds me of Worms! :)

Good game, though it's kind of buggy as of yet. The movements are really problematic, e.g. that I can't move while I'm jumping. Also, some of the children got stuck.

Thanks for being cross-platform! :) As a Linux user, I have a hard time finding games those I can play easily.
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