Herbert vs Homework

by str8griz

co-authored: @hcs-hades

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.75

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.78

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.82

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.58

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.89

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.61

Humor★★★★★★★★★★4.07

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.60

This is Herbert. Herbert hates doing his homework. Every week Mrs. Jones sends him with work to do over the weekend. THE WEEKEND! The weekend use to be a time for friends and Will Smack movies (like Men in White 3: The Alien Stain). Anyways it should be clear that Mrs. Jones is a super vile woman indeed.

It’s Sunday night now and our friend Herbert’s mom has just told him it’s homework time, or else no video games this week. Honestly his mom and Mrs. Jones might be in cahoots, but who knows I’m just the narrator. Herbert is a master of procrastination; washroom breaks, snacks and the internet. Poor boy doesn’t have a chance.

Can you help Herbert overcome all the distractions so he can focus on his homework before bedtime? It might not be saving the world, but this poor boy might lose video games for the week if you don’t do something. If you can’t stop his inevitable fate, perhaps you can at least delay it.

*Examples of different Attacks*

*Small battle scene*

*Don't let the distractions get you*

How To Play:

Mouse & Keyboard

MOVE: WASD

Aim: Mouse

Dash: Space

Pencil Attack: Left Mouse

Multi-Pencil Attack: Right

Brain Dump Attack: Q

Gamepad

MOVE: Right Joystick

Aim: Left Joystick

Dash: X/A (South Button)

Pencil Attack: Right Trigger

Multi-Pencil Attack: Left Trigger

Brain Dump Attack: O/B (East Button)

Tools Used

Game Engine: Unity

Art: Aseprite

Music/SFX: FL Studios, Adobe Audition

Let us know in the comments what wave you made it to... or if you beat it all!

*Follow us on Instagram and Twitter for updates on our upcoming projects!*

Tools: Aseprite, Unity

Comments38

krummja5 Apr 2022, 01:18

Mama mia! Fun little shooter - I love the graphical style!

Cody Holt5 Apr 2022, 04:02

It's weird that I can go on top of the top wall. Fun little game.

Owinmowe5 Apr 2022, 04:03

Fun little game. Loved it!

LambBrainz5 Apr 2022, 04:04

It's nice to see a game with a little polish. Here we have a splash screen, intro, controls screen, audio, and keeping track of waves survived during the game. Not to mention different screens based on how you died. Great game overall, can't wait to see what all you make next!

beignet5 Apr 2022, 04:05

Pretty fun. Herbert could use some power ups. Maybe there could be a powerup like coffee that makes him move faster, or another power like Ritalin that makes his shots stronger.

Str8grizauthor5 Apr 2022, 05:03

@LambBrainz Thanks! We really tried to add a lot of polish to this game. We are glad you enjoyed it!

@beignet yeah those are great ideas! You never know, we may just build onto this game in someway ;)

LDJam user 2795465 Apr 2022, 05:06

Such a good use of the theme and fun game to boot. Also, whoever decided to have the chefs say mama mia deserves a raise.

Alexio Games5 Apr 2022, 05:10

Really charming top down shooter, love the amount of polish!

Proxy-Games5 Apr 2022, 05:46

Such a weird and memorable top down shooter. I love the inclusion of a roll to help give the gameplay some more depth. The graphics and audio are well done, fitting the 8-bit style very well. The unique enemy animations and sound effects are a nice touch. The only grudge in terms of graphics I have is that I found the intro text difficult to read. Luckily, the story isn't super important here. It's the gameplay that's the focus.

High quality work, over all.

lectvs5 Apr 2022, 07:05

This was a pretty fun shooter! Graphics and music were solid as well. :smile: Neat entry!

simba5 Apr 2022, 14:15

Very fun game- and funny too! I liked that the different attacks had independent cooldowns so that I could weave them together. I also felt that the roll felt very nice. The pixel art (especially the player animations), and music were also quite good.

My only constructive feedback: too many Mama Mia's, not enough screen shake. =P

kristinamay5 Apr 2022, 15:12

LOL love the Isaac shoutouts. The art is wonderful, the music is jammin', the characters are goofy as heck. One thing that I'd change is adding an invincibility buffer and delay to taking damage - I got hit by one butt (lol) and then it took all my health in one go. Otherwise, really impressive game! Makes me want to go play tBoI again...

ArianaD5 Apr 2022, 17:37

LMAOOO this was a fun game and I loved the description (WILL SMACK VDKUBVJFVK) but excellent job!!! The main character is so lively and full of personality!

Seppskit5 Apr 2022, 17:48

nice littel shooter. Very funny idea :-D . I liked it!

pev5 Apr 2022, 17:51

Pretty good top down shooter implementation, and fun too! I like the setting and it'd be nice to stylize projectiles too. The shooting graphics from enter the gungeon looks strange here.

I wasn't able to restart the game and had to reload the web page. Did I miss some controls?

ZachsButt5 Apr 2022, 17:58

great entry!

at first i thought i just lost randomly, but it looks like i reached the end based off of the text. in general it would've been nice if there was more visual feedback, like a when you got hit and stuff.

but this entry made me smile and i'm glad i got to play it!

Doug Graham5 Apr 2022, 18:42

I like a good twin stick shooter, so I had fun with this. I agree it would have been nicer to have some more feedback when you were hit, but I got through all the way.

William Corrin5 Apr 2022, 20:31

Haha, this had me laughing for a good bit multiple times. You incorporated humor into this entry in one of the best ways I've seen so far. The note at the end with the poop and misspelling and the teacher's corrections are awesome.

The little asscheek monsters were hilarious...and the voicelines were pretty funny too :laughing:

I think the tutorial could use a little bit of work, its kind of all over the place and really hard to read. Even just splitting it up onto multiple pages and having a (1/5) (2/5) at the bottom with arrows to scroll to the next page would make it drastically easier to read!

I also think the game itself is lacking in some UI/player feedback - I would have loved a kill counter of some kind, so that I could compare runs to each other to see how many people I killed!

One last thing too, is that I think the diving was a bit too far - you dive like, 1/3 of the screen! It made it a little too easy to escape enemies.

This was a really solid game though! I had fun and you made me laugh multiple times. Love the concept, the art was cute. Good job!

Thiago Andre AS5 Apr 2022, 23:00

I didn't quite understand the mama mia guy distraction, but if it moves, I shoot hahaha! Nice work!

Pequi5 Apr 2022, 23:00

Nice shooter! Really liked your concept and the humor is on point! I just had a little trouble reading because of the typhography, but it's a great game.

benskca5 Apr 2022, 23:07

Fun game with a great amount of polish! I love the graphics and they complement the tone perfectly, and the background music's really catchy. The mechanics feel good and I think there's a tonne of scope to build on here as well, great job!

(big fan of the mamma mia)

Lenny Rudeberg6 Apr 2022, 06:24

Momma mia! the art style, graphics and humour are superb here. I did struggle to read the introduction story coz of the font choice, aside from that the game was a fun experience. Well done!

Mekuri6 Apr 2022, 08:27

First off - Great humor- The whole intro description was great.
Gameplay was decently polished. A few more effects here and there would've been great- Was hard to keep track of when I'd lose 'health' or not, except for looking at the health indicator of course.

I found the sound effects quite good, and fitting to the game. Some of the sound effects felt a bit like they either cut off too soon, or maybe the just ended abrubtly (Or it could've been due to the web-player- I experience weird stuff with that) - Anyways, what I'm getting at; I tend to do a small fadeout (Just a few milliseconds) at the end of audioclips (Usually just edit them in with Audacity) - This way sound won't cut off and sound... well off - If that makes sense? - Anyways I went a bit off topic there I guess :-)

Anyways, the short version: I had fun- Oh and I loved the controller support, I tried it with both- Although Mouse and Keyboard was easier, it was awesome too see controller support as well.

Good job, and thanks for sharing your game :-)

unless games6 Apr 2022, 17:35

Relatable ending screen and cool music!

Enemy projectiles could be bigger/faster to make it more challenging.

BougieBirdie6 Apr 2022, 21:34

I did everything in my power to help the poor lad keep his video game privileges, but it was soon out of my hands :cry:

I did run into some issues where enemies were spawning inside me, which felt unfair to lose a life to. Maybe if there was some detection to make sure they spawn away from the player, or else a grace period when enemies spawn would be nice. The sound effect for receiving damage was also quite subtle, I didn't realize I was being hurt half the time.

All that said though, I love the vibe and I had a blast playing! I'm going to have "Mama mia! PBBTTBBTTTB" stuck in my head all night now

Suni6 Apr 2022, 23:25

Literally me in life, i had the issue where an enemie would spawn where i was and it kinda was a sad thing, overall i had fun

ps. MAMMA MIA

LDJam user 2439296 Apr 2022, 23:35

Very fun small game. It could use more types of enemies and waves (and maybe a visible crosshair!) but gameplay-wise it was solid and enjoyable. The intro music hurt my ears, but in-game the visuals, sounds and music were all nice and coherent. Quite good overall!

Lychee7 Apr 2022, 04:01

Loved the graphics! I was kind of confused why the distractions included a chef and a butt, haha. It was fun, felt pretty polished for a game jam game!

Wouter527 Apr 2022, 18:10

Love your game! It feels very solid and the controls are layed out very well. The graphics are nice and fitting to the whole concept! View feedback points:

- The typeset is great for UI elements, but is a bit hard to read if there is a lot (like the introduction)
- This game could benefit from a restart-button (my game also did not have it at first, but it really helps keeping your playes engaged)
- First I thought the rug was the playing field ^^"
- I did not really get the brainbomb function, what was it's purpose other than getting rid of an enemy instantly?
- I like how you can shoot the plants, nice touch!

- The endscreen is funny :grin: :poop:

Rost7 Apr 2022, 18:54

I like the fact that there is a tutorial, I couldn't read it though, the font used was to difficult to read for big blobs of text. The bullet hell gameplay is nice.

Human Writes Code8 Apr 2022, 06:54

Ah, this one made me laugh. Sure, the jokes are all pitched at the 12 year old audience but I remember being 12 and my sense of humour hasn't really changed much.

The gameplay was fun. The art style was consistent. The music matched the feel of the game. My only criticism is that the font was hard to read.

Despite the fact that I died to an actual butt, I still think you did a good job!

LDJam user 2453338 Apr 2022, 08:08

That is a fun take both on the theme and the set premise! :D The game is very creative with the sprites, animations and sounds, it's a delight to discover! And as a twin-stick shooter, it's efficient. Maybe a little easy, and some feed-back on impacts would have nice, but the experience remains enjoyable. Good job!

tomasverhagen8 Apr 2022, 23:49

This game is very fun, supported by the theme and the frenetic, very good! :D

Melon_spirit10 Apr 2022, 16:15

Had fun playing your game! The waves seemed to get harder at an appropriate pace, and the graphics went well with the concept. Enjoyed the die screen humor. Good job!

Marvis10 Apr 2022, 20:18

this game reminded me of games from the 2000s

Slecornu11 Apr 2022, 20:46

I had a lot of fun playing this, thank you for your entry!

LDJam user 23640417 Apr 2022, 08:46

Fun little game. The audio was great but the menu music was a bit harsh sounding. Visuals look nice but the font is a bit hard to read. A way to restart the game would be nice. Still had fun though.

BlueDingo21 Apr 2022, 02:31

Weird and fun little game, always love me a twin-stick shooter. A suggestion would be to add a fade-in onto the enemies spawning so they don't bone the player when they are running around and get jumped by one of them

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