Trouble in the Loop

by dmac
Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.65
Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.45
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.65
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.23
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.37
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.77
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.30
What ended up being a game about bowling balls stealing each other's ice cream was intended to be character based,cover shooter kind of thing :) It's amazing how time dictates so many of your choices.

Keys = W,A,D, Spacebar (Ram the Red sphere hard to take back your ice cream cone!)
StuckInALoop - SampleScene - WebGL - Unity 2019.4. (7).png
Initial planning took about 30 min. I was having a hard time thinking of anything other than literal loops. Doing a level that was in the shape of a loop was the only thing that seemed inspiring to me. My thinking originally was not to have spheres, but little pixelart figures running around. It wasn’t to be though! Brushing up on blender to make some level geometry took more time than I wanted, as did figuring out Unity web assembly and itch.io hosting.

I had hoped that the constrained movement of the curved level would mean less work on the character motor and 3rd person camera, but no, both had to be built from scratch. Because the level rotates and the player stays in place, I’m not using real velocities so unity physics weren’t reliable. Ended up writing collision responses as well. :sunglasses:

I wanted something to feel a little more gamey, and realized I wasn’t going to have time to make a lot of enemies. So what if I just had one? As I was prototyping I found the most interesting part of the game was pushing the opponents ball around, I just needed to give the player a reason to do that… that’s where having the opponent steal your Ice Creme Cone came in :icecream:

screenshot
Genres: action
Tools: Blender, Unity

Comments26

Tero Pulkkinen
Tero Pulkkinen5 Oct 2020, 01:32
The marble bowling ball looks awesome. Took a while to find the controls, but it was normal wasd movement. But the 3d tunnel looks a little plain, and it's lacking some speed. I was just able to jump over the obstacles and stairs.
magnusfurcifer5 Oct 2020, 01:36
Not sure if you're supposed to be able to hold shift to go super sayian (Didn't see it in the controls description) but thats what I did haha. The actual act of driving your sphere around the loop does feel good.
DMac
DMacauthor5 Oct 2020, 01:37
That's the developer cheat key! :wink:
Ausstein
Ausstein5 Oct 2020, 01:37
Funny short game!

But now I want Ice cream :(
mjbelanic5 Oct 2020, 05:58
At first, I thought I could never catch the other sphere, but then I SHIFTED my thinking. I now have my ice cream back. A very fun and simple game.
DMac
DMacauthor5 Oct 2020, 17:06
LOL,just like in real life a runner on the outside of the track gets passed by a runner on the inside of the track, even if they are both running the same speed ;)
azagaya
azagaya5 Oct 2020, 19:23
The ball's movement in the circular track looks smooth. The texture of the balls are cool. Im not sure if it ended after some time, or if there is another ending condition, but the game is nice.
DMac
DMacauthor5 Oct 2020, 19:44
Yeah, I didn't quite have time to add a "win" condition. I wanted there to be a positive ending where you pushed the opponent into a red kill box, and then got to circle the loop for a while with your ice cream cone before another opponent showed up. The theme was "stuck in a loop" so I shrugged my shoulders and submitted it. Thanks for playing :v:
Pennycook
Pennycook5 Oct 2020, 22:03
A good take on the theme. It's a little on the quiet side, though, and I think even simple sound effects and a basic music loop would make a lot of difference here. I highly recommend sfxr and musagi -- it literally takes a few minutes to put together something passable.
DMac
DMacauthor6 Oct 2020, 00:02
That's great advice @pennycook, and I agree 100%. I had aspirations of doing some foley sounds of things rolling and clacking, it would have added a lot!
APBakeWare6 Oct 2020, 03:52
The bowling ball textures are really nice and look great. While maybe not what you intended, the great think about these quick time frames are seeing what comes out and how developers adapt to them! Nice job getting the game out.
MiniBetrayal
MiniBetrayal6 Oct 2020, 03:59
Solid little game, but after a while not much happens. Eventually I realised that you could catch up to the red ball by hugging the inner wall (or, after reading the other comments, boosting with the shift key). I did once see the red ball get stuck at a wall.
DMac
DMacauthor6 Oct 2020, 16:32
Getting the red ball stuck on a red wall was going to be the "win" condition, but with the theme you were just going to travel the loop for a while before another ball came and took your :icecream:
Syafire
Syafire7 Oct 2020, 03:05
The concept of bowling balls competing to steal eachother's ice cream is great and made me smile. I like the aesthetics of the ball, the movement is good but perhaps it would have been better if there was a bit more of a feeling of weight to the ball. I played for a while but there didn't seem to be any way to actually finish the game, which is fine since it fits the theme.
UkuleleFury
UkuleleFury7 Oct 2020, 03:27
Lol, I like it! It feels like a good start to something that could be a lot of fun. The marble art is cool, and the controls are pretty good.
DMac
DMacauthor7 Oct 2020, 17:08
Thanks!,for the first day I thought these spheres would just be colliders that I would eventually replace with character animations so the physics was tuned more for a platformer / runner style. Once I realized I was low on time, I had to quickly add in some ball like physics / collisions. Very faked :)
Ericbolseiro14 Oct 2020, 00:11
Cara, a ideia é boa, mas acho que faltou um pouco mais de velocidade para bola. O material usado para a bola é bem discrepante com os demais usados (ou não usados). mas parabéns
jk5000
jk500015 Oct 2020, 18:14
This is a super simple little game. I had fun trying it, but I wish there was just a bit more to do. But okay it's funny little combo game.
LeviDSmith
LeviDSmith18 Oct 2020, 21:14
Cute game. I chased the ball with the ice cream, but eventually fell in a hole, so I will never know if it's possible to get the ice cream back.
shashwat
shashwat19 Oct 2020, 07:09
This is a fun little game. I got the ice cream back quickly enough, but I didn't know what to do next. I would have loved a win condition where I get to lick my ice cream slowly and the game ends when I get to eat the entire thing.
Bellivit19 Oct 2020, 07:27
Cute game, would have loved some music to cheer me on while chasing for ice-cream. Really like simple 3D games :)
mira
mira19 Oct 2020, 13:12
very fun game :D I got the ice cream back!!!
doomshmuck19 Oct 2020, 13:25
I kinda liked it, honestly. Music / sound effects definitely would have helped. I also noticed that hitting shift made me go super fast... was that intentional? I didn't see that in your controls list.
DMac
DMacauthor25 Oct 2020, 15:33
Haha, yeah that was the developer cheat key for testing ;)
DMac
DMacauthor25 Oct 2020, 15:33
Agree with everyone about music and sound, I'll try to work faster next time!
DMac
DMacauthor25 Oct 2020, 15:35
@shashwat I agree, if I had one more hour, even 30 min.. I would have added it :)
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