Having travelled across London, 1v1-ed in the rain and engaged in intense afternoon of coffee-fuelled coding, I HAVEN'T collapsed in exhaustion but instead present you with this:
'Lovers on a Park Bench' is essentially a typing game following the story of a square, his ex-girlfriend and a series of intense and very-confusing-at-times metaphors and allusions (they're pretty obvious). All of this is topped with narration by award-winning robot voice, Stephen Hawking (or whatever Audacity can do to emulate it).
All instructions are in-game but here they are if you miss them:
Type the red text as it appears. Attack (becomes enabled half-way through the game): Space / Click Change Attack: 1,2 Enable and Disable Narration: F2
Heads up - shooting is random (it's all part of the convoluted metaphor).
There are 3 possible endings.
And finally, a disclaimer.
DISCLAIMER: I'm only 14 and therefore haven't actually been in a romantic relationship before (life is short); I hope this will be an insight into how opera and television have contorted my view of life in general. Thank you and enjoy :P
Software Used: Unity, Photoshop, Visual Studio, Audacity, SFXR, Kawai CA 95 Keyboard, 2nd Speech Centre, Good Old Notepad ;)
Trippy game with good atmosphere. I ended up killing my ex. Oops! I enjoyed the first part of the game the most. The combat part that followed felt disconnected from the first part.
An interesting mashup between a typing game and something with heavy narrative. Good writing. Music was too loud and it was often difficult to hear the voice, especially at the end. I'm really impressed by this given your age.
Oh man "Stephen Hawking" pronounces it as Ludlum Dahrey. The game is quite good, the story was a bit on "Indian drama" side. I loved the use of the theme.
Nice experiment with the typing "thoughts" turning into speech! It was a bit hard to figure out who was the monster and why the shooting came in. The music was great, though a bit loud and I couldn't hear the end voiceover properly. Great job!
"Do you love me, JOHN!?!?" haha The game is so weirdly funny... the first time I played I thought it was a serious game quite beautifully done. Then I spammed meteors and killed my ex and now I am really confused what to make of it. What is it all about? And I think I killed the blue guy but it says I killed my ex. How do I get the third ending?
Nice job for so little time and for such a young developer. Love the music even though the volume is bit too high and cover the voices, also love the synthesized voice. The problem i'm having is that there isn't much gameplay, all is good until the black cloud appears and at that point I'm lost and don't know what to do, yes I can shoot but can't direct it and don't know what I'm shooting at. Theme adherence is not really there since there isn't much gameplay, well there is until the black cloud appears. Was another theme, this could be a winner. So keep up with the good work and don't get disappointed, you have great potential!
I love this, being a Dave I found it really enjoyable. You really captured a mood and I instantly wanted to know more about the story. I hope this entry does really well.
I would prefer some more precise typing rules (proper timing, etc.) to make it harder, but in general it's very interesting. Also making mistakes could alter the story etc. This is very nice idea. Great job.
Lol what I like most is that at some point if you get annoyed you just kill the ex randomly haha I like the innovation and mood, though kinda annoying to both shoot, read instructions and read the plot.
I wasn't clear on exactly why I needed to kill the ex, as his existence didn't seem to affect my score, nor was I clear on the effect or nature of my attacks.
All that aside, it was a pleasant aesthetic experience. I enjoyed the music and prose. For some reason, reminded me of Einstein on the Beach (Philip Glass, not Counting Crows).
It was a little hard at first, but this gave me good vibes of happiness. The music was a little loud but this was a great game, visually and with the story. Good job.
I'm a little confused. Also drat, I killed my ex. Guess that's a bummer. Had me laughing, but the narration had an entirely different mood from the game, which was confusing. Well put together, background is beautiful, music is great.
I really enjoyed playing this. To be honest, I didn't really understand the shooting element on my first playthrough, but I felt that the game was fine without it. Quite beautiful, really. :-)
Oh man, i really enjoyed the style of this one! haha. Overall pretty fun game, but the music was bit louder than the voice, making it difficult to hear what the narrator said.
Nice atmosphere you've got there, and I really liked the concept, although the typing part felt slightly disconnected even if the words were actually related.
I loved this. Couldn't figure out how to aim, but the mechanic of revealing the story and the thomas-was-alone-esque lover action was really interesting. Well done!
Very creative. I tried a few times, but ended up killing my ex every time- Apparently I wasn't good at the combat part. The writing was great, and I liked the mood of the game. Nice job!
This is hilarious and I cannot recommend this highly enough. The "twist" so to speak is pretty great and the overwrought dialogue with the voice synthesizer is just the icing on the cake. Terrific job here!
Nice writing, I started pretty silly I thought, with the robot voices, but then I got kinda moody by the story. Too much started happening at once when the shadow appeared, so I got a little lost there of what it meant. There was no text in the narrative at the end, and due to the music volume I couldn't discern what was said. Awesome music, really sets the atmosphere. I think you really got a knack for writing, nice work!
Just tried the windows link and it says the file no longer exists. Web still works though so was able to play it through that. This game was really well done, nicely executed and felt really polished. Played it all the way through and got the "best" ending. The dialogue is great and can't find any fault in this. Impressed at your age and this is now on my list of favourite games this Ludum Dare. Oh yeah, before I forget the music worked really well in setting the mood.
This is so confusing, I feel like it's a joke that wasn't intended, or an accidental art piece, but it is wha it is, and it a different thing to whoever interacts with it I guess :)
No aiming to the attack, so you just spam it? No point to the score? No real point to the story?
Haha, what, I was not sure what was going on in the end. Liked it a lot though. Might be nice with some more info on what is happening during the combat :) (Who am I? Who do I want to kill? Did I win or lose when I killed my ex?)
Well done. My life feels a little bit richer after having played this.
Well this is so unbelievably strange and confusing but this didn't stop me thinking it was great. Love the voice synth (or is it a voice synth effect?!).. and the story. And the art style really worked too. I killed my ex (only in your game though)
The voice acting was good but a bit difficult to hear over the music. The visuals were simple but portrait the right amount of emotion needed to tell the story. I really enjoyed this. Great work.
A really original game, telling the story through typing gameplay is something I have not seen before. The voice acting was cool and I dig the visual style. The combat part caught me by surprise though and it was kinda hard for me to focus on both things, the typing and the combat. Overall though, a really nice game!
This was an excellent game. I loved the art style, and microsoft sam was a nice touch! I was curios how the monster theme was going to fit in there and you pulled it off very well. This is probably another one of my favorites in this game jam. :)
Well that took a dark turn! I didn't care for the computerized voice, but the story was engaging and the attacks were fun. Pretty well done game. Good job!
Pretty good! I think it was a bit confusing,, but it kind of adds to the charm there. I found it really funny you can just shoot stuff and end the text typing stuff.
Excellent music and a lovely mood overall! The only thing I can say against it is the time it took to actually get into the game (obligatory 30s ad, followed by unskippable warning)
Great, very experimental and artsy I think :) I loved the narration, and trying to play it differently to see all endings. Backgrounds and particles are nice, and I'm quite impressed by such clever metaphors from a 14 kid. It has a real weird atmosphere, and nice (weird) humor. Sadly i can't kill the guy, i keep on killing "my ex". So i guess I miss one ending, but i'm not jealous about him :) Good work !
Abstract, interesting, artistic, poetic. Experienced two endings one where I didn't kill anything and one where I killed my ex. I like the narrative element and the way it made me imagine this jealous ex lover (yellow box) watching this scene unfolding.
Liked the style. Unique entry that was both amusing and fun to go through! :) Producing this at the age of 14 is quite an achievement - well done! :D I killed my ex :(
Interesting story! I included it in part 22 of my Ludum Dare 33 Compilation video series, if you would like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/CgBnxdy5Yfk
Hey, thought this pretty cool. Those robot voices sure take away the gravity of the situation, making Dave's fireball attacks all the more silly. Thought it was a pretty interesting deconstruction of exes depicted in popular media. I certainly ended up killing the ex, which felt like a deliberate design decision.
I do think proper voice acting would drastically improve the deconstruction part. The typing was a little strange, too.
ooh!! That has an intense mood! ^^ The music, graphics, story and gameplay create an impressive atmosphere. It's pretty different than the other games that I have played on this LD. Besides, the interpretation of the theme is quite interesting. Good entry :D
Please, add the ending subtitnes. I'm a non-native English speaker and it was hard for me to understand the synthesized speech without any accompanying text.
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Comments105
Overall it is a nice game. I can't think of serious problems with it.
I gave this a high rating :)
Voice acting was funny (spoderman, is that you?), but other than that, it was boring.
sweety game, good job!
Interesting idea and I liked the music and the voice :D
The game is so weirdly funny... the first time I played I thought it was a serious game quite beautifully done. Then I spammed meteors and killed my ex and now I am really confused what to make of it. What is it all about?
And I think I killed the blue guy but it says I killed my ex. How do I get the third ending?
@theholychicken The third ending comes when you fail to kill either of them (logical, eh?)
I like the innovation and mood, though kinda annoying to both shoot, read instructions and read the plot.
I wasn't clear on exactly why I needed to kill the ex, as his existence didn't seem to affect my score, nor was I clear on the effect or nature of my attacks.
All that aside, it was a pleasant aesthetic experience. I enjoyed the music and prose. For some reason, reminded me of Einstein on the Beach (Philip Glass, not Counting Crows).
Well done.
Also, you're a genius. Awesome writing, awesome sound, awesome art!
Overall pretty fun game, but the music was bit louder than the voice, making it difficult to hear what the narrator said.
Nice atmosphere you've got there, and I really liked the concept, although the typing part felt slightly disconnected even if the words were actually related.
Great work!!
The writing was great, and I liked the mood of the game. Nice job!
Awesome music, really sets the atmosphere.
I think you really got a knack for writing, nice work!
This is so confusing, I feel like it's a joke that wasn't intended, or an accidental art piece, but it is wha it is, and it a different thing to whoever interacts with it I guess :)
No aiming to the attack, so you just spam it?
No point to the score?
No real point to the story?
Yeah, just like american tv romance, really :)
Good job :)
Well done. My life feels a little bit richer after having played this.
The visuals were simple but portrait the right amount of emotion needed to tell the story.
I really enjoyed this. Great work.
Interestingly weird game which I really enjoyed. Audio needed a bit of fine tuning to get sound levels right but were good none the less.
Nice narrative in the game and nice concept for the control mechanism.
Nice try! i like this game, it's so funny because the dialog is weird.
Cool game :)
Good work !
I do think proper voice acting would drastically improve the deconstruction part. The typing was a little strange, too.
The music, graphics, story and gameplay create an impressive atmosphere. It's pretty different than the other games that I have played on this LD. Besides, the interpretation of the theme is quite interesting. Good entry :D