Ludum Dare #50compo

Battery Low

by smilewood

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.48

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.30

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.65

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.70

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.61

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.75

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.22

Something has caused the power core to destabilize and shut down all the power in the facility! Emergency repair drones are being dispatched on reserve power to get to the power core and bring it back online.
Work within the limited battery life of each drone to explore the evacuated facility and restore power.

Controls:

WASD/Arrows to move the drone

Spacebar to abandon the current drone and spawn a new one

Tools Used:

* Unity
* Aesprite
* Font: Ponderosa from 1001fonts.com

Edit: Re-upload with a door locked that was not locked - bypassing the first puzzle

Edit2: Re-upload with another door locked that was not locked... And play-tested fully to make sure this does not happen again.

Retrospective

#### Maybe don't read this until you play the game (it is my own thoughts on how it turned out)
While I was not the biggest fan of this theme and had a very difficult time getting locked into the project I am quite happy with how this game turned out. I think that the result amounts to a good framework that could be expanded in the future - the game itself is nothing special but could be a base for more (should I ever get around to it).

I was disappointed that I was not able to get to audio for this game, I think that a couple of sound effects and some background noise would have gone a long way to making this feel like a more complete game. Unfortunately there are only 48 hours in a game jam, and sounds were a lower priority then having a playable game.

I am happy with how the art turned out, while I of course wish I had more environmental litter to give the world a lived-in feel, at the end of the day I am not primarily an artist and I am more then happy with the results, especially the tile-map (I have had trouble getting good tiling in the past).

Overall I had fun with this game jam, and I am generally happy with what I managed to create. Thanks for playing!

Tools: Aseprite, Unity

Comments13

Paroxysmal5 Apr 2022, 00:37

Good graphics and fun gameplay...would be nice to have some sound. Well done.

Mascoll5 Apr 2022, 00:37

Absolutely stellar concept! Great implementation of the theme (and great game name, sorry about the name snipe :cry: ). Clever gating of the puzzles as well! I had a lot of fun with this.

Agyrzstar5 Apr 2022, 00:39

I really love the art! The gameplay is very engaging, seems polished.

LDJam user 2874245 Apr 2022, 00:49

Fun game. I love having all the past drones littering the landscape of the level as you progress. I like the sprites and the subtle but effective lighting effects help elevate it. I would have liked to be able to hold the move key and have the drone continue to move along, even the pace is slow so people can monitor their energy consumption. Awesome work.

MrDandro5 Apr 2022, 01:52

Great game! I loved the little drones and overall style of the evacuated facility. I also liked all of the message boards. I would've appreciated holding a key to move (since I am impatient and spammed the keys)

cogcomp5 Apr 2022, 20:09

Clever idea. The game was very well balanced and everything felt really deliberate and planned out. Excellent execution of a really good game idea. Well done!

pkenney6 Apr 2022, 04:00

Science can continue!

I really liked how you used the theme. The theme generally resulted in hopeless game-stories, where the bad result is inevitable and you just have to try to delay it for a while. But in this story, you captured the theme with a more optimistic take, where the ultimate result can be a positive outcome, even if each minor player ultimately will not make it.

Graphics were nice, the story fit into the gameplay well, and the game was the perfect length where it let me experience a good amount but ended before it wore out its welcome.

It's funny because normally I don't care for the RPG style of "fetch quest" or "lock and key" styles of objective, but for some reason in this game I didn't mind them at all. Maybe it was the turn-based movement and the way I had to be efficient, which meant that even routine walking around has some optimization and thought required.

If I could add one thing it would be a bit of basic sound, just to give the world you created a bit more life.

Nice entry!

LDJam user 2401686 Apr 2022, 18:29

A nice, unusual entry! The idea is solid and can definitely be turned into a proper game. As you've already written in the description, audio would be a huge improvement. Movement is a little frustrating, maybe the drone should e.g. move left while the left key is pressed, etc? I got tired of pressing keys repeatedly, especially when I needed to get really far :) A minimap would also help a lot, since it's easy to get lost and lose track of progress. Maybe the minimap would only show already explored areas, for example. Anyways, interesting game, good job!

Xiris8 Apr 2022, 10:01

Yay! I love it. Seriously. This is one of not many games on this game jam I played until the end. If there is a single thing I would change it is the movement - I wish I could just keep the button pressed. :) Great job!

Harmadillo8 Apr 2022, 18:22

Fun game. The disposable drones and the "just a little further" than the last one incentive to keep going were good. I agree with others that continued movement while button pressed would have been nice.

LDJam user 2807558 Apr 2022, 21:31

Interesting concept! Like another person said, being able to hold down the button would be nice. Still, a cool base concept that I could see developing into something much larger.

Bernhard14 Apr 2022, 16:57

At first I was worried there was a limited amount of drones available but once I stopped worrying it made exploration fun and allowed me to finish the game in the end. Great entry and fits the theme well. And unlike many submissions (certainly mine) the thing that is "inevitable" doesn't mean it has to be game over.