Zeus Needs Omelettes

by rjhelms
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.83
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.76
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.37
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.87
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.61
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.80
Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.89
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.72
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Zeus needs omelettes!

As the King of Egglandia, that puts you in an awkward spot - the only way to appease him is by sacrificing your own subjects!

Pick up your eggy subjects and toss them in the Holy Frying Pan, but watch out - other eggs won't be happy if they see you carrying their kinfolk to their death.

Luckily, you can buy them off with coins from the royal treasury - for a time.

If either Zeus or your subjects get angry enough, it's game over - how long can you last?

NOTE: Controller support seems broken in the WebGL build in some versions of Chrome, causing buttons to fire repeatedly. This looks like a Chrome bug; some other Unity games I've played this LD seem to have the same issue, as does my last LD game. This was occuring on 2018-12-07 but as of 2018-12-15 seems to no longer occur (at least on my PC). All the same, if you'd like to play with a controller, I'd suggest using Firefox (or another browser with controller support) or the downloadable build.

Controls


Keyboard


* Arrow keys: move
* Z: jump (tap twice to double-jump)
* X: pick up / throw egg
* C: throw coin

Gamepad


* Left stick: move
* A: pick up / throw egg
* B: jump (tap twice to double-jump)
* X: throw coin

Timelapse



screenshot

Comments26

Jay Elbourne
Jay Elbourne3 Dec 2018, 03:50
Very interesting unique and fun game...we have a friend in common and he passed your game on to me.

One note from gameplay, I would have loved to be able to jump a little higher..lol

Great Job, getting it done in time.
planschi3 Dec 2018, 13:06
Super nice polished game! Only thing I would complain about is like jay said to be able to jump a bit higher! OH and that the eggs perhabs stay more often on the platforms -> died often because they all see me on the bottom of the map where they are hiding from me :P
Pyjamaboy
Pyjamaboy4 Dec 2018, 11:42
Neat game you got. The overall feel and atmosphere makes this game really fun and enjoyable. Especially the art which seems to suit this game perfectly. I happened to find a bug where after you throw an egg, it spots you throwing another egg decreasing your score.
BananaBobBert5 Dec 2018, 00:29
Haha, nice game :D works really smooth but the climb was quite hard until i noticed the double jump possibilities ^^
rjhelmsauthor5 Dec 2018, 03:53
Thanks for the great feedback y'all!

@jay-elbourne Yeah, I agree that the jumping isn't perfect - getting jumping right in a platformer is haaaard, so I just fudged it.

@planschi Fair points. Having them congregate at the bottom was partly deliberate - there's a target number of eggs on the level, so you've gotta get down to the bottom to clear it out to get more to spawn on the higher platforms. Like jumping, difficulty balance is tough to get right!

@pyjamaboy Do you mean like when they die? That's a bug for sure - I think I see why it's happening. Good catch!

@bananabobbert Seems like a theme here that the jumping's not right. I'm happy with how the double jump worked out but agree it could be a bit nicer all around.
Kobrar6 Dec 2018, 02:46
I really like the little storytelling of this game :) The whole sneaking concept is very appealing, but wonky platforming drags it down a little bit. I would definitely play more sneaky sacrificing.
Gnarly Narwhal
Gnarly Narwhal7 Dec 2018, 05:23
I thoroughly enjoyed the game. For the most part it worked really well. There were a couple small things I noticed that I thought I would mention. Not sure if this was intentional, but I noticed that the sooner you double jump the taller your double jump is. If this was intentional, it would be nice if this was mentioned somewhere. Second, only when playing the web version with a game cube controller (not sure about other controllers), if a button was pressed it would consider the button as being pressed every frame it seemed. This led to super tall jumps and prevented me from picking up eggs as they would be thrown immediately (see gif below). Anyways those were a couple nit picky things that really didn't impact too much. On the whole I did enjoy the game. The graphics were good, and the music was nice. Keep up the good work.
rsim7 Dec 2018, 05:30
I'm very impressed with how well the platforming works - nice job! I thought it was a fun concept, though challenging. It took me a few tries to figure out the gameplay, but all-in-all not bad on that front. I was a bit annoyed that I could only have one coin in play at a time and that the coins would disappear after a short time, as it meant I couldn't set 'traps' - and also the coin would just disappear, not get refunded.
rjhelmsauthor7 Dec 2018, 06:07
@kobrar Thanks - I agree the platforming could be a bit better, this was my first go at a platformer so it's all a bit new to me.

@gnarly-narwhal Huh, I coulda sworn the controller worked in the webgl build when I uploaded it the other day. I saw the same bug (WebGL only) in another game I was playing tonight - I wonder if a recent update somewhere broke something. What OS / browser are you using? I'll look into it, thanks for letting me know!

With respect to the double jump, I did want the timing to matter but I didn't get to tune it as well as I would have liked. That bug really does show how powerful doing it quickly is - way more than I intended!

@rsim The idea behind the coin timeout was to nerf the "just leave coins everywhere" strat, but maybe it could have been longer - even much longer. Thanks for the feedback!
BumDag
BumDag7 Dec 2018, 07:48
Interesting concept. I love it! I found the controls awkward. The 'Z' to jump didn't feel right as it made my left hand do all the work when I could be using my right hand. 'Spacebar' for jumping and one other key on the right to pick up/throw
morriss
morriss7 Dec 2018, 13:14
high score:90

It was a lot of fun.

Did feel crisis and the tension when it gets dark.
morriss
morriss7 Dec 2018, 13:14
high score:90

It was a lot of fun.

Did feel crisis and the tension when it gets dark.
Suchista
Suchista12 Dec 2018, 20:46
Very funny game, I love the artstyle!
MZA
MZA13 Dec 2018, 11:29
A very well rounded solid entry. Only had one bug while playing and thats to do with getting stuck in a platform. The only thing i didn't understand is the throwing coins bit.
Geckoo1337
Geckoo133715 Dec 2018, 19:19
Nice little project. I didn't expect anything, but playing your game I have fun. The gameplay and the main aesthetic are really simple, but good enough. So it fits with the theme as good as possible. I assume that (changing eggs to something more complex) you could create an interesting casual game. Well done. Thank you ++
Purrseus
Purrseus15 Dec 2018, 20:41
Sweet game! The gameplay is interesting and works really well! The graphics are simple, but fitting. The egg's expressions are priceless! The music is OUTSTANDING, one of my favourite songs I heard this Ludum Dare! All in all it creates a great mood.

Great entry!
OddballDave
OddballDave15 Dec 2018, 22:21
This is good fun. I like the mechanic of balancing the anger of two factions. I'd have liked a bit more of a zoomed out view, but other than that it's a great entry. Good stuff :8ball:
Caveman54
Caveman5415 Dec 2018, 22:30
Fun to compete betwwen the two bars it was hard although I was always losing to Zeus
TheMuffinMan31416 Dec 2018, 17:21
Fun gameplay, good audio, funny graphics, and an interesting concept. Each egg that you sacrifice could be worth more, Zeus is hard to manage.
TinyMushroom
TinyMushroom16 Dec 2018, 23:47
A quirky, funny game! The kazoo background music paired well with the art style. You have a nice aesthetic going on. I love how the king looks perpetually stressed out/panicked.

One small thing: I would suggest a different sound effect for throwing an egg into the pan. It has a negative connotation to it, and along with the cracked egg animation, I had the feeling that I was putting the egg in the pan incorrectly. Only after I stared closely at Zeus's bar going up did I know that I was doing the right thing. I think a more "positive" sound effect, or just a sizzling pan sound effect, may be a little more appropriate in case anyone else got confused like me.
HitchH1k3r
HitchH1k3r19 Dec 2018, 04:48
My high score: 266

:thumbsup: This was a cool take on the theme, and pretty funny. I felt completed to beat my highscore a few times, to see how good I could get.

:point_right: At first I could not break 100, but after failing twice I read the controls and found out you could double jump. Knowing that helped a lot!

:star: Overall great job. Thank you for making this!
LastLeaf
LastLeaf30 Dec 2018, 14:11
Eggs are cute! The little game is super relaxing. The graphics and audio are so nice. Well done!

I found a cute bug: the eggs would gather together at the bottom.
Tim Eriksen
Tim Eriksen31 Dec 2018, 17:38
Very smooth platforming mechanics and controls! Very cute idea with nice and well made graphics. I love it!
Ratherjolly
Ratherjolly31 Dec 2018, 20:05
EGGCELLENT! A fine little platformer that had me laughing non stop xD Great job!
MediocreMonty
MediocreMonty31 Dec 2018, 20:13
Awesome game! I love the idea that you went with xD Very fun!
I only wish that the view window was a bit bigger but that's me being nit picky. Great job :D

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