Ludum Dare #42compo

The Last Robot

by siimer

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.13

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.69

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.92

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.78

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.94

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.50

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.06

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.47

You are a robot that wakes up in a cave. You quickly discover that your movement module is bugged and due to that you are slowly leaking memory. The goal is to stop the memory leak before you run out of memory space and die. There are different upgrades that can be found throughout the cave system. Some upgrades will also limit your maximum memory so you will have to choose between them. Ancient technology containing potentially harmful viruses and other dangers are also present.
Terminals can be found in the cave that reveal useful information.

Legends tell that there is a way to stop the leaks somewhere at the top of the cave only reachable to those with good jumping upgrades.

Controls:
Left/Right arrow keys - move
Up / Space - jump
hold Down arrow - dance(unintended bug that is now a feature)
Z and X - interact

Heavily inspired by Broken Cave Robot.

CHANGELOG:

v1.0.0:
* Initial release

v1.1.0:
* First web build
* Light shape around player is no longer dependent on aspect ratio (always a circle now)
* Fixed terminal text being closed automatically and immediately when interacted with
* Fixed main menu background not covering the whole screen

v1.1.1:
* Added version number to main menu
* Added icon to .exe file

v1.2.0:
* Fixed dying multiple times after the initial death being possible

v1.2.1:
* Fixed end toilet being the wrong color and thus blending with the background

v1.3.0:
* Fixed the death dialogue being unskippable

Comments26

Albin13 Aug 2018, 11:18

Really cool and challenging game! I love the unintentional dancing feature lol

2games2easy14 Aug 2018, 10:56

Didn´t understand the goal of the game. Died too many times just by falling on some slug..Overall not so enjoyable as I thought it would be.

Michael Wingfield14 Aug 2018, 18:58

The goal of the game was a little hard to grasp at the beginning. The little tool tips that would occasionally show up helped a lot. I actually really wanted to finish this game because of the death sequence. But it was unfortunately just a little too hard for me. I just kept dying to stuff that I didn't know was there, like running into the slug, running into spikes, falling on spikes, etc. The music and the writing created a great atmosphere though. Well done!

shp14 Aug 2018, 19:07

I wish the dying/restarting was way faster! that way I wouldn't mind making mistakes so often

siimerauthor14 Aug 2018, 19:09

@michael-wingfield I agree with you that the game is too hard or even unfair at times (you don't know where you will land after jumping). I planned to add some torches or candles throughout the level so the player could get a sense where it is safe but sadly I couldn't get the shader for additional lights to work :(. And then the day after the deadline I stumbled upon an article that explained the very thing I was trying to make... but adding this now wouldn't be right by the rules.

Maybe I should just put up a video for players who can't reach the ending? Or maybe I should leave the ending as a bonus for players who successfully complete it?

Aterlamia14 Aug 2018, 19:12

Not realy sure what the goal of the game was and unfortunately it crashed when pushing z in a console not really sure what happened there. For the rest what i could see the art looks cool

siimerauthor14 Aug 2018, 19:13

@shp Near the deadline I also thought that the death dialogue was too long but I didn't get around to making it skippable. Do you think I could add it now?

siimerauthor14 Aug 2018, 19:14

@aterlamia Could you explain more what you were doing in the console when it crashed? I can get a fix in I think.

Thanks for the feedback though.

coomzy14 Aug 2018, 19:16

Wasn't really sure the point of the game but I liked the jumping around physics and the game looked cool.

I don't think you need to link every hotfix version in the description TBH just a Jam & Post Jam version.

siimerauthor14 Aug 2018, 19:20

@coomzy Thanks for the feedback! The point of the game was to find a way to stop the memory from slowly running out. It can be accomplished by doing a hard jump near the top-left of the map.

Also it isn't too hard for me to release links for every hotfix because I have to update the link anyway :D

Aterlamia14 Aug 2018, 19:21

@siimer THat is the thing not really sure i pressed z and moved my mouse around had it 2 times. Tried to repoduce it now to give you a better description and now of course it does not happen anymore so just leave it at pebkac.

Leeloo14 Aug 2018, 19:40

I love the looks and the sound and the overall mood.
But I agree that the restarting should be faster and the game needs a reset option. I got stuck in the right corner and couldn't get up again, neither could I die or restart the game anyhow.

siimerauthor14 Aug 2018, 19:50

@leeloo Thank you for the feedback. I will look into adding a restart option

DrEvilBrain15 Aug 2018, 18:13

Really cool concept. Would like to see something like this fully fleshed out. It could honestly be a roguelike metroidvania almost. You would have the whole get killed by anything in one hit thing, but also have a randomly generated map where you need certain upgrades to access certain areas.

siimerauthor15 Aug 2018, 18:17

@drevilbrain Thanks! I had some plans for generating random maps each run at the beginning but after some time of searching how to generate maps reliably that have all the rooms connected I decided that it would take too much time to implement.

souperstrawer24 Aug 2018, 10:58

Really nice atmosphere and cool shader effects.
Audio was also quite neat and it didn't get annoying like in many other games.
I think the main problem with this game is that it feels really unfair sometimes. It's a bit frustrating when I drop down a ledge and then suddenly I die because of some spikes I couldn't see before.
The upgrade system seems interesting, but I never managed to run out of space :wink:
Overall it's not bad for a compo entry. I really liked the atmosphere.

Blinkenlights1 Sep 2018, 11:41

Wish I could play, HTML5/Linux only I'm afraid :(

PavelDlouhy1 Sep 2018, 11:55

@blinkenlights Firstly I overlooked it too but there is web version: the one with "from v1.1.0 onwards". - My comment to this game: This is one of the best entries we played so far. There is great atmosphere, music is very good (did you composed this during 48 hours?) and good story. Good job! ;-)

Blinkenlights1 Sep 2018, 12:25

@paveldlouhy I see! Thanks for the heads-up!

Blinkenlights1 Sep 2018, 12:31

I found it very difficult and mildly confusing, although I did enjoy the music and the artwork. It also seems to be a fitting entry.

siimerauthor1 Sep 2018, 14:46

@blinkenlights , thanks for the feedback.

siimerauthor1 Sep 2018, 14:47

@paveldlouhy , Thanks for the feedback. To answer your question: I did compose this during the 48 hours (actually during the last 2 hours before the deadline :D).

bradur1 Sep 2018, 15:37

There's a very good atmosphere in this game. Getting killed by touching any enemies is very annoying because it's hard to see around you. Interesting game.

masterkrepta1 Sep 2018, 16:20

I loved the music and over all feel of this game. managing your upgrades is a fun mechanic. I think the visual effect is fun and adds to the challenge, even though it does make it too easy to die. I think it could be balanced better if you had more health, so you dont die right away so you can better learn from your mistakes.

CristiHKJ1 Sep 2018, 16:39

Great game! Very cool and interesting! :D

drikdrok1 Sep 2018, 17:44

Interesting concept, I enjoyed it. Although i died a lot and having to restart from the beginning was kind of annoying. I also really enjoyed the music!

All in all solid entry!

Other games by @siimer

★3.95

★3.81

co-authored

★3.60

co-authored