Snake Oil

by ordineu

co-authored: @jdeedubs, @thedugnutt, @csuth17

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.52

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.06

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.67

Theme★★★★★★★★★★2.54

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.35

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.89

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.94

You are Conrad, a steely-eyed conman with a silver tongue, and a crushing debt to Mr. Octopus. After years on the run practicing your craft, you have returned to Schmucksville to con your way to the top and pay off your debt. Armed with only your coat and last bottle of snake oil, you intend to writhe out of the crippling grasp of Mr. Octopus' tentacles. Refine your cons and slither your way deeper and deeper into the city, but be careful to not be caught in the lies you tell along the way!

Con your way to the top and press deeper and deeper into the city, but be careful to not be caught in the lies you tell along the way!
Snake Oil is a head-to-head lottery game. Make your way through Schmucksville trying to con the residents out of their most precious belongings by beating them at slots.

Collect points when your icons show up in your spin. Get more points than your opponent to win in a best-of-three series.
Add an icon to your pool between each round.

Arrows to move, click and space to confirm.
Shift to sprint.
Tab will show you the suggested order to face people in.

Slot machine mechanics heavily inspired by Luck Be a Landlord.

Tags: #pixel art

Genres: adventure, simulation

Tools: Aseprite, Unity

Comments16

programming_sock26 Apr 2021, 23:55

super cute game, i loved the art and the crab rave easteregg was funny. great work!

oeschmid26 Apr 2021, 23:55

The art and writing for this game are really fantastic! It all, combined with the music, really make for an enjoyable game. I also liked the slots gameplay - making me think about what to add to machine was a clever idea. Great job!

nate_wec27 Apr 2021, 00:01

I beat Puggsworth but I'm not sure what I won exactly, did I get to keep the tokens? It didn't seem like I was getting any stronger while playing since I played against Puggsworth a couple more times and didn't feel anymore powerful. Some more clarity would be appreciated!

The art on the game was great, really goofy and cartoony, along with the premise and setting. With some more polish and content I think this could be really good!

PookiPoot27 Apr 2021, 01:15

Det. Pugglesworth looks a bit like he's about to sell me drugs (I think that's a plus!) Your art style is awesome and the music is pretty good too. I was never really into slot machine games but this one is actually fun. The point system from squaring off with people with the added addition of modifying your icons is a great touch. When you get an icon added to your pool, does it stick around the entire game or just for that battle? Great job!!

TheDugnutt27 Apr 2021, 01:23

@pookipoot thanks! Yes, after each round, you choose an item to add it to your slot machine. Eventually it caps out if you hit 25 items though and then starts replacing them.

@nate-wec yeah we kinda had issues with time as we did a hard pivot on our concept in the last 20 hours.
But the idea is that Puggsworth is just a starting battle, then you keep moving down your list of targets to con until you eventually face Mr. Octopus.

Each character offers different items(Pugglesworth doesn't offer great items though) facing different people will help you "deepen your cons" and get some better synergies going in your slots.

but the lack of player guidance is mostly because we ran out of time. You can face the characters in an order you want, but the further down the list they are (TAB to open the list) the more difficult they are.

Hope this helps and thanks for the feedback :)

ezgoodnight28 Apr 2021, 01:26

You swung hard with this, and I admire the hell out of it. You did a lot really well, it's gorgeous and you've built a really interesting little world. It's not clear enough imo what is the play mechanic or what to do next, but it's lovely and I like it. One of your devs told me on twitch tonight you rebuilt a lot of it Sunday because you had to pivot, and that's a heroic feat. Altogether you should be really proud of this and I like what you've done here.

Tarcisiotm28 Apr 2021, 02:47

Loved the art style and the animations. Even though it is a jam, it looks like a fully realised world, so good job on that!

LDJam user 25117028 Apr 2021, 14:58

Cute game! I really loved the different characters.
The slots game was interesting and even though it was just a matter of clicking some buttons, I quickly got addicted to it hehe. It was satisfying watching the points you'd score grow as you got more and more upgrades.
Some feedback to show how much credibility you lose would be a nice addition, but I'm pretty confident you already considered that hehe.

If you're going to continue working on this, I'm curious to see what improvements and/or variations you might be able to come up with. Thanks for the entry!

Rawb28 Apr 2021, 19:12

This game mechanic is so great. I love the sort of hybrid slot machine and deck collecting. Also the art is fantastic

eharp28 Apr 2021, 20:44

Really interesting game mechanic. Also love the art style and feel. Not sure I get the theme connection but great entry!

Jinny Kang30 Apr 2021, 01:40

First off, I really love the music and graphics! I could just listen to the music for hours in my daily background! I also do appreciate the time you've put into creating such an interesting game! However, at a certain point, the game sort of got lost for me b/c I felt like I was just clicking 'stop' on the slot mechanic, which felt like it was mostly based on luck and not on skill or knowledge. Great game anyways and congrats on creating 'Snake Oil!' :snake: