Ludum Dare #50compo

Adelie - Chasing Pavements

by meep

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.00

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.70

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.84

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.92

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.33

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.46

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.79

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.81

Survive being chased by a rolling snowball with a crafty penguin.

Pickup, combine, and throw objects to delay the snowball's inevitable descent! Throwing objects at the snowball chips away at its continually growing volume, while throwing them at other objects can craft tools to better suit your survival.

To clarify how to combine objects, you can aim your throws. An easy way to do it without precise aim is to carry an object and then throw it downward while sliding through another object. 😀

No background music because of the deadline and also I don't know how to make background music.

Spoiler: *The game is possible to beat (i.e., has an ending) if you put more emphasis on crafting fancier tools over throwing every bit of debris at the snowball.* 🙂

Controls

* Arrows - Move (+ Aim throws)
* Z - Jump
* X - Pickup/Throw

Screenshots

Cartridge (p8.png)

Hall of Fame

* kuviman - 1:55.13
* raphiell - 1:59.03
* itsBoats - 2:02.20

Tags: #arcade, #crafting, #penguin, #pico-8, #pixel art

Genres: action, platformer, survival

Comments36

LDJam user 2789184 Apr 2022, 01:01

This game is so cute! I thought it controlled really well and I really like the look of everything. Well done!

William Corrin4 Apr 2022, 07:47

The NES-era aesthetic on this kicks serious ass! Man, the whole thing really comes together. The bootup screen is so awesome.

One of my favorites so far. I don't have a ton of critique, other than the lack of background music, and the snowball sprite doesn't rotate!

This was really awesome. Great work!!

LDJam user 2331author4 Apr 2022, 12:01

@wiliam-corrin: Glad you enjoyed it! :) It's subtle, but the snowball sprite does rotate if you watch the little dots on it :P

EmberUshi4 Apr 2022, 15:29

It's super cute and it plays well!

I wish the game could have had a wiser screen, but that's a limitation of pico 8, IIRC.

Lawrence4 Apr 2022, 17:22

It so polished and charming, the penguin is full of character, it's like a tiny cartoon, love it!

lectvs5 Apr 2022, 03:35

A fun game made even more impressive by Pico-8! Love how the snowball blows up after you lose. :laughing: Great compo entry!

Lumous5 Apr 2022, 07:46

Great vibe, good fun, the aiming is a little hard, but overall it was enjoyable :)

ruruie5 Apr 2022, 23:20

This is one of the cutest things. I wish the little jingle at the start were a full theme.

MasterOfCheese6 Apr 2022, 05:16

Wow these Pico-8 games are very cool! Really great entry, everything is very solid. I couldn't manage to beat the snowball!

LDJam user 2431936 Apr 2022, 08:39

Nice endless runner game!
I wish the snowball could be pushed to 1/3 part of screen on left side to give more space for obstacles to deal with. Currently, the snowball takes almost half of the screen.

Fromage6 Apr 2022, 23:09

I like this! The crafting was unexpected but I found it a bit hard to pull off. Controls too I would have preferred jump maybe be spacebar? Alt to pick things up?

LDJam user 2331author6 Apr 2022, 23:24

@fromage: Unfortunately it's a PICO-8 limitation for what buttons are allowable. If it helps, Z and C act as the same button in PICO-8, and so X + C works if you prefer swapped buttons.

Fromage6 Apr 2022, 23:50

Thanks for letting me know, I had no idea and I keep giving this suggestion, heh.

LDJam user 2504267 Apr 2022, 10:04

eg 🥚🐧

alec7 Apr 2022, 17:09

it took me a minute to get a hang of throwing, and even then Im not good enough at video games to get the ending haha. I love seeing pico8 games, especially ones that get off the grid/map! This game is super polished, just needs some background music :)

JavaSaurus7 Apr 2022, 19:32

Thank you for submitting this, really enjoy the retro games. I'd have played this game for DAYS in my young days on an NES... Really challenging and fun. Unique and smart mechanics and the pixel art... well it's just so darn cute I want to lick it :D

Alexascher7 Apr 2022, 19:33

Very good little arcade game, it's like I'm back in my childhood. Great job!

Steve74117 Apr 2022, 19:37

The graphics are so great! And the overall game mechanic is simple but fun

Hawke Games7 Apr 2022, 19:39

Cool game! I really like the pixel graphics. While it is very pixely, I can still easily tell what is going on. The penguin is cute and the snowball is terrifying. The only problem I have is that it's really hard to craft without being able to throw straight down.

Kaldrin7 Apr 2022, 19:57

2:28 !
I don't know much about P8 games but I guess it's not easy to make so props!
The keyboard controls are not intuitive, why not up arrow to jump? I'm guessing it's less weird on a P8 controller but at least leaving the option to jump with up would be nice ^^;

Appart from that nicely done, works well, a little repetitive though, it becomes more a challenge of reaction time, but jam game, it's normal.
The damaging spikes and throwable objects are not different enough imo, often thought I could grab spikes.

I like the graphics, it's a little messy at times but it's quite fluid and the shapes move well, I like the color palette too!

It's solid & polished, interesting entry

LDJam user 2331author7 Apr 2022, 20:08

@kaldrin Thanks for the feedback! The main reason up isn't another option for jump is that you can angle your throws, and upward angles let you throw things higher (and farther). There's a reasonably deep crafting tree in the game (and ultimately an ending to it 😉) which relies on hoarding items in front of you. These longer upward throws help quite a bit with hoarding as you don't have to re-throw them forward as often.

Kaldrin7 Apr 2022, 20:30

@meep Damn that's a whole chunk of the game I missed, gonna play it again!

alanxoc38 Apr 2022, 04:00

Another great PICO-8 game entry. I remember the one you made last year as well. The physics are really great and overall a fun play.

fatPenguin8 Apr 2022, 11:27

"I'm in this picture and I don't like it. >=("

Just kidding, hehe. Saw your game on the stream and had to try myself with my boyfriend yesterday :)
SO cute!!! And the character is basically our "game studio", so we had to try this!!

I love the idea of a cartridge game and aesthetics, the transitions were really nice :)
Controller support would have been cool for the cartridge feel :id:

Sadly, we didn't make it to the ending yet, but will keep trying!

A very sweet little entry, congrats! :)

marcmagus8 Apr 2022, 16:52

Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for feedback! If you’d like to revisit the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1448957705

Great to see Adelie return, with a fun and challenging game.

In tweaks, maybe if the down-throw for combine had a slightly more forgiving target range, tweaking the difficulty down slightly without fundamentally changing it might be beneficial. There's already a lot of difficulty just in managing the slidy movement.

extar8 Apr 2022, 16:58

I love finding Pico-8 games on Ludum Dare, as a platform it's so well-suited to making cute little games for jams like this. Great little Pico-8 game, I love all the animation you managed to include and there were some cute bleepy bloopy sound effects.

I've posted a review too: https://youtu.be/qxkNPOozqCE

tigerj8 Apr 2022, 17:14

It's a very creative twist on this style of mechanic. I had a great time playing it on stream.

highlight: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1449896005?t=01h26m59s

kuviman8 Apr 2022, 19:32

elysiagriffin9 Apr 2022, 11:35

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450143040?t=4h32m14s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

Raphiell9 Apr 2022, 23:50

Yes! Sub 2 minutes. Thanks to watching this on Kuvi's stream I knew exactly what to do :thumbsup:

LDJam user 2331author10 Apr 2022, 02:03

@raphiell Glad you ended up giving it a go- congrats on finishing it! :D

CharQ11 Apr 2022, 02:34

It's a super cute game and I loved the penguin! Sadly I didn't get to the end, but I was happy to survive for more than 2 minutes =)

Thank you for sharing your game on my Twitch stream (MsMiaChar). Here's a link to the video (game starts around 02:54:00): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1446760516

LDJam user 25082512 Apr 2022, 21:55

Fun game! Took me a while to get a hang of combining items but that made the game a lot more strategically interesting. Love the snowfall and footstep particle effects! Was a bit confused after losing that I couldn't find any way to restart the game in-game but had to use the PICO-8 "Reset" feature (though this might be normal for PICO-8 arcade games, I don't have much experience :D). Great pixel art as well, loved the entry in general!

potkirland15 Apr 2022, 00:33

very well made game. especially for compo! the art style! the audio everything is fitting perfectly. and the mechanics are so simple and intuitive you dont even question it.! i can easily see this become the next learntofly series :smile: the penguins hurt sound was too sad thou