Ludum Dare #38compo

Don't Make Me Stop This Car!

by unclechris

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.41

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.18

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.41

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.36

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.36

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.46

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.04

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.35

Summer vacations were a blast in the 1970's. You loaded the family into the station wagon, and Dad hit the gas and tried to make as much time as possible, while the kids complained and wanted to see every side trip they could and Mom wanted to get some bargains at Outlet malls along the way.

This is a car driving along the highway, your family in the stationwagon. They was a plan for an irritation meter for dad, mom's bargain meter and kid's frustration meters - but sadly they all had to be cut.

I did get sound and music this time. Everything should be playable in WebGL with other ports as builds are completed. You don't have FULL control of the acceleration, as Dad gets closer to his intended destination he gets more of a lead foot.

SITE: www.uncleintheattic.com/Apps/LudumDare38/index.html

TWITTER: twitter.com/uncleintheattic

SOURCE CODE: http://www.uncleintheattic.com/Apps/LudumDare38/source/LD38DMMSTC.zip

The cars are from a wingding type of font - Oil Crisis.
I fixed a game killing bug and reuploaded fix today 4/25/17.

Tags: #driving, #funny

Genres: simulation

Comments22

picapica26 Apr 2017, 17:53

I like that the game is autobiographical! I actually made it to the other town a couple of times, but that might have been mostly luck, since father won't let any traffic stop his progress. The "restart" after winning didn't work for me (but I could reload the page quickly so it didn't matter much). Too bad you had to cut the features making it more complex, they sound nice.

mrspeaker1 May 2017, 14:45

Cracked me up! "Don't make me stop this car" is a great title. The game play is pretty tough though: hitting a 5 lane traffic jam, and smashing into the back of a car with no place to go seems a little unfair!

Instead of "You won", it should be "have to pull over because someone needs a toilet break" - then on to level 2 xD

epiplon1 May 2017, 22:01

What? The road just ends with some buildings and you lose? How do you win this game?

🎤 UncleChrisauthor2 May 2017, 20:18

If you make it to the buildings at the end, and don't hit another car, you should win.

Just double checked, I was able to win - it took me quite a few times, the car algorithm generates too many much of the time. Your back wheels have to cross the end of the road at the Buildings without hitting another car and you win.

tylerraz4 May 2017, 21:14

Nice idea, try to get those other mechanics in!

wareification4 May 2017, 21:58

Certainly not an easy game. I had to retry a handful of times before making it to the finish line. Personally I struggled a bit with the bounding boxes of the cars.

Great start though! The game wouldn't be right with a station wagon :)

Tat2Tim4 May 2017, 23:08

Cutting features always sucks, but you should be proud for crossing the finish line! Unlike me in your game, I killed too many people in highway accidents :(

schizoid2k5 May 2017, 01:37

Nice take on a classic game. I got to the end and then the next level, the car just sat there... oh well, I guess Dad had to stop the car afterall :grin: Nice graphics too.

Perhaps turn this into an "endless runner" type of game... see how far Dad can drive.

AlextheDev5 May 2017, 10:12

This was quite a fun little game, I managed to win first time then had like 10 plays because I couldn't win again ahah... I really like the simple idea and you can play it quite quickly which is great! There's no sound fx from what I could tell (but I didn't keep my sound on for too long). Love the title too!

Wheerd9 May 2017, 16:36

Nice idea and sad you hat to cut the meters :disappointed_relieved: The game is challenging and it took me a couple of tries to get to the goal. After I restarted, the car didn't move anymore, however. The graphics are nice, but I found the music a bit annyoing after a while. All in all, a fun little game, nicely done!

🎤 UncleChrisauthor9 May 2017, 18:44

Fixed the weird restart bug, seems it was leaving the game in pause mode when it reloaded the scene.

Thanks for info,

Uncle Chris

mwcz11 May 2017, 01:24

Hooray! I WON! The music was toooo much for me. Fun to play!

devpaul11 May 2017, 15:00

The music is nice, but I don't think it matched the mood of the game, also I hear some annoying background noise. The cars are nice, must have taken a while to draw them all, but again its kind of weird how the cars look like line art, the background like pixel art, and the heads like vector art. Also I felt like sometimes the cars in front of me spawned in a way that made it impossible survive. I understand why you had to cut some of the features, my game is simple and a Jam entry, but I run out of time too! Most of the features had to be cut.

🎤 UncleChrisauthor11 May 2017, 16:44

I had trouble with music, and agree it has issues, my first Jam with music/sounds.

Thanks for the feedback on the mixed art styles. Polishing it up would have probably been to pull the art together. The cars were actually a winding font, which made it easier and then colored the main station wagon and procedurally colored the other cars. The background sound was the engine on the car. I wanted to add some variability to it so it had some backfires and such, but sadly didn't get that far along.

Thanks very much for the feedback.

Frodewin11 May 2017, 23:29

I especially like the story of the game and the graphics. The music is repetitive, but that is fine, given that it annotes a highway drive. As far as I understood, I can only change lanes in the game, right? I was wondering if the heads of the the four people in the car are there on the left screen side for a reason? I won the game after playing (and losing) several time. It appears to me that sometimes one is just unlucky, being not able to evade a bulk of cars in front in time.

SecondDimension12 May 2017, 19:08

Well done on getting something completed! I managed to win after about 6 turns, but there were a few times when it was impossible because all the lanes were full! The idea was quite different actually, it was a shame you had to cut the metres as it feels like the game needs something else.

Somnium16 May 2017, 14:27

Fun concept, and interesting take on the theme! I love the title, it fits the game nicely

The graphics were clear, and the gameplay worked rather well, although victory seemed a bit random, with the cars often putting the player in an impossible position.

...although on second thought, that could count as increased realism as well.

>The car is our world,

>as we move towards our goal.

>Dad, are we there yet?

anim_ace16 May 2017, 17:47

pretty simple game. was retrying it a bunch trying to get to the goal.

Baraa Marwan16 May 2017, 17:58

Its a pretty simple game.Great Job!!!

Please rate my game.I don't have any categeory greater than 20 so,plz help!!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/monster-island

dunin16 May 2017, 19:29

I like the car style, but as it is flat, it's hard to judge when we will hit or not a car.

And with the random part, I win or lose more by chance than by skill.

I think smaller hitbox (nearly a line, as shmup have sometimes nearly a point), less random car spawn, and longer levels with slower acceleration (let player to have the time to be stressed...) could improve the fun...

CoderDozer16 May 2017, 22:30

Nice game with simple game play. I would have liked the car to be a little more to the left of screen to make it a little fairer to see the traffic ahead. Also the movements are a little sensitive or maybe its the hit boxes, I ended up in the barriers a few times trying to maneuver around cars.