rUnstable

by g5-leonardo

co-authored: @donatello, @michelangelo, @raffaello

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.61

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.67

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.97

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.18

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.69

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.53

The Game

Life is Unstable, the only certainty you have is that you always have to keep going. You may think you have mastered it every now and then but life will always throw something at you that will destabilize your world and you need to adapt, quickly, otherwise it will run you over like a train out of control.

That is the concept that this jam's theme inspired us and that led us to create this game. Eventually the life train will get everyone of us, how long will you be able to outrun it?

Find it out on rUnstable!

Gameplay Video

NOTE: In this video we added the beginning cinematic which we were not able to insert in the package due to lack of time

Controls

Can be played only with keyboard: UP / DOWN / LEFT / RIGHT

Every arrow executes a command but be ready to embrace change.

Team

We are a group of students of an Italian accademy.
This is our first Jam project, we hope you enjoy it!

- Girolamo Nobile: Game/Level Designer
- Daniele Sichetti: Gameplay Designer, Blueprints, UI
- Andrea Sciuto: Level Designer
- Matteo Saliva: Character Designer, Cinematics Designer, SFX

Known Issues

- Initial and Final cutscene, not present in the build
- At the end, the screen fade black but the game is still running. Press Alt+F4 to close it.

Tools

- Unreal Engine 4.25
- Reallusion - Character Studio 3 (owned by Matteo Saliva)

Credits

Music

- Background | this guy makes really good stuff 😄 Prod. IOF - Isolate

Tags: #fast-paced, #side scroller

Genres: action, platformer

Tools: Unreal Engine

Comments50

Leumas5 Oct 2021, 08:19

Fun game, played it for a while :)

SayuriNyooko5 Oct 2021, 08:20

It's so wierd to control with arrows bar but it's a cool game anyway. I like it!

DanGribanovsky5 Oct 2021, 08:29

no way this is your first jam.. the game is great it has different ways to run through level and once you're in the flow it gets very exciting to play

Hobzone5 Oct 2021, 08:30

The graphics are really cool ! and it was fun but confusing to have the controls changing all the time ;)

Carmeval5 Oct 2021, 22:44

Fun game! The graphics look nice and it was really fun to run once you got into the zone~~ great job guys!

Stroe Andrew5 Oct 2021, 23:42

Fun game. The mechanism that swipe the controls is hilarious, really loved it. Would fit perfectly for mobile gaming.

Hard, but satisfying. Huhuh. Great entry, I had a lot of fun.

ValidDark5 Oct 2021, 23:53

Nifty little infinite runner. Interesting mechanic with the controls switching like that, panic inducing moments of figuring out the new keys before the train hits you.
Pretty fun, I liked it.

Cam Moore6 Oct 2021, 04:58

Guys, congrats on this entry. One of my favorite so far. Well done.

MrChippy6 Oct 2021, 05:06

Nice job. The controls felt good and it was pretty fun.

MaximBegunov6 Oct 2021, 11:01

I liked that you have various kinds of interactions with objects on your way so you always try to get the fastest one for each obstacle. The challenge the game gives is very balanced too.

I got a funny bug where you could run on air for some time :)

Michelangelo6 Oct 2021, 11:13

@maximbegunov sadly we found that bug too late. The character starts to walk above the blocking volume that should prevents him to walk outside of rails. How ironic! We'll fix it.

Donatello6 Oct 2021, 11:30

@michelangelo "Your Blocking Volumes won't be able to stop us! All Characters unite! We'll fight the Evil Developers' chains of oppression! We are free!"

GameHug6 Oct 2021, 12:31

I love this game! Congrats to all the team, I think it's amazing what you have done in a few hours. I hope it will be a full game to purchase :D

Ascension6 Oct 2021, 14:51

Great atmosphere and smooth character movements.

Matthewsworld6 Oct 2021, 15:19

This is great fun! Solid concept and perfect execution! Everything feels so smooth and satisfying, a game I'll definitely be playing again in the future! Well done!

Jeff Kerman6 Oct 2021, 17:59

This game is sooo cool. My only wish is that the retry button takes a few seconds to become available and really I want to keep playing as soon as possible.

Praccen6 Oct 2021, 18:13

Nice atmosphere!

RyanJavanshir6 Oct 2021, 20:49

Really cool game, and interesting concept. I liked the music but it was a little annoying when it replayed after a gameover - better to leave it running IMO.

Marius.png6 Oct 2021, 21:08

Great atmosphere and graphics!

baconharemthug7 Oct 2021, 00:45

I like the controls display a lot! Trying to keep track of the changing keybinds was pretty tough. Whoever placed all of these obstacles on the train tracks needs a stern talking-to :)

Rein7 Oct 2021, 05:51

Maybe it was my computer, but I found this game to be very choppy and difficult to control. It looks cool though.

ChillerTyp7 Oct 2021, 08:28

Well, well...

g5-leonardoauthor7 Oct 2021, 08:59

@jeff-kerman Thanks for the tip :smile:

Donatello7 Oct 2021, 09:01

@chillertyp as long as it’s not bad, bad… I guess it’s fine ahaha

z0rg7 Oct 2021, 12:43

I enjoyed it a lot, nice game !

TheGamerASD7 Oct 2021, 15:00

Really cool game, nice work!

Remn7 Oct 2021, 15:02

Good job, you deserve a pizza!

Xinera7 Oct 2021, 15:20

Cool game with nice graphics that felt really clean, nice job :)

Donatello7 Oct 2021, 15:24

@remn you sir just earned an official invitation to our sewer to meet Master Splinter in flesh and tail!

almightyzentaco7 Oct 2021, 16:07

What a fantastic entry! The art was stellar, the mood and lighting great, and the soundtrack was excellent. Pretty fun and stylish infinite runner. Also, I really liked your philosophical game description. Life is, indeed, a train and one day we all get flattened. Nature takes us all out eventually. We must all struggle, and nothing comes for free.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” - Alice in Wonderland.

Anyway, great work and good luck in the jam!

Michelangelo7 Oct 2021, 16:45

@almightyzentaco love that quote!
Thanks a lot, and good luck to you!

Falawiska7 Oct 2021, 17:45

Cool idea that was beautifully implemented, well done!

josher7 Oct 2021, 18:02

A lil bit of a hard game, but that might be because it tanked my computer with all the fancy unreal effects... :sweat_smile:
It was cool! I loved the graphics, and although the theme was a bit of a philosophical one, it kinda worked.
Nice gameplay too and the controls were snappy. Good job!

Shea Kelly7 Oct 2021, 21:29

its a cool game and I like the idea you had. I think it fit the theme good as well.

shubart7 Oct 2021, 22:12

Really cool game. Well polished with a great gameplay.GG. Thank you for your game

Muros8 Oct 2021, 01:51

Cool game. An interesting idea with a change of control, although even without it it is an interesting runner. Very good graphics, and gorgeous animation of the character. I think it could be part of some AAA game. Musical music suits what is happening and gives a drive. Maybe I should have come up with some kind of backstory.

Muros8 Oct 2021, 01:51

hiroboto8 Oct 2021, 03:56

so good! it is definitely one of my favorites till now!

IntoDarkness8 Oct 2021, 07:33

I really like the graphics and the game is very fun. Good Job :)

Raffaello8 Oct 2021, 08:16

@muros Thanks a lot! Maybe one day it will become an AAA reality ... follow us and you will find out 😉

Alex Chertilin8 Oct 2021, 13:59

Can I ask why do you decide to use UE 4.25?

Donatello8 Oct 2021, 14:10

@alex-chertilin you mean why the 4.25 version or why the Unreal Engine? Because if the question is why the Unreal Engine, the reason is that I personally don’t know how to use any other Engine :laughing:

arturogcdev8 Oct 2021, 14:29

Amazing twist when the input was changed!! good one

megalukes8 Oct 2021, 20:14

I liked the idea but this could have been developed a bit further. I also think the file is overly big for a small project, but maybe that's because of Unreal Engine. Hope to see you guys in the next edition too!

Proxy-Games9 Oct 2021, 05:12

Nice game. Despite some of the graphics not being yours, the animation system put in place here seems to work really well, as the character is able to move from different animations real smoothly. The rock music wasn't expected, but I definitely won't complain about it-it adds a lot of energy to the game.

The inputs changing feature *really* caught me off guard and had me panicking-that was hilarious and a lot of fun. The only issue I can think of with this game is that the climbing animation feels like it should be sped up a little, as it far too easily results in the player getting hit by the train when a lot of obstacles requiring that animation come one after another.

Overall, this is a really nice submission. Hats off to the dev team.

g5-leonardoauthor9 Oct 2021, 13:31

@proxy-games Yes, we have exluded the graphics from the voting category as we used premade assets. Only the characters were made by us. Unfortunately we lack a 3D artist in the team, for now.

At first we tought that lack of a clear tutorial would have been a big issue but it seems that the difficulty coming from that is the more appreciated part :smile:

For the animations we agree with you. We are planning to refine the game and we will take in considerations all your kind feedbacks.

Thank you all.

We hope to do better in the future jams and to see all of you again.

Brusi9 Oct 2021, 18:28

The game looks really good, and controls were mostly smooth. I like it how timing was important; you can either jump over an obstacle or climb it (which is slower) depends on your accuracy.
The connection the the theme was a bit of a stretch though.

I'm still getting the bug where the character is stuck in the air though.

JPatchZ10 Oct 2021, 06:42

The game is AMAZING! The controls is very simple and the graphic is soooo cool! very nice good job!

chesiq10 Oct 2021, 07:56

Wow, really polished looking game! Cant think of anything to change.. I'd go ahead and continued it's development. Hmm.. maybe a cinematic why you are there and what for? But that's thinking for future additions. Great job!

LDJam user 27101411 Oct 2021, 01:43

Nicely done! It's very polished and definitely looks like an Unreal game. The controls are simple to understand, and the on-screen display makes it easy to keep track of the changes in the bindings as they happen. The music was cool at first, but after playing for a while it felt pretty repetitive. Simple concept and executed well - great job!