Ludum Dare #50compo

Kitastrophe

by jezzamon

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.27

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.46

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.06

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.75

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.20

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.46

Play the game! (HTML5)

Note: The server for this game not very efficient so it crashes pretty often! If you see a blank field the server is down leave a comment and I'll try restart it!

---

A kitten has noticed our peaceful mouse village! Join up with other mice to distract it as long as possible!

This is an online multiplayer game! You're working with everyone else that's currently playing to get as high of a score as possible. You'll have more a lot fun if you play with others, so invite some friends to try to get a high score together! You can also join the discord server if you want to coordinate to try break the record :)

Controls:

- WASD / Arrow Keys to move
- Space to Dash
- Space near an object to pick it up
- Space while holding an object to throw it
- Space to restart if you lose or respawn if you die
- M to mute (toggle between Music + SFX, SFX only, or no sound)

Bring stuff to the kitten to delay its inevitable destruction!

Also, throwing certain specific objects at other things might have useful results!

Items that exist in the game (try to find them all!):

- 🌱 Grass - Not super interesting for a kitty
- 🪨 Rock - May be useful?
- 🪵 Wood - Some might say this is just a brown rock. They are wrong.
- 🧶 Yarn - Cats really love yarn!
- 🧶 Small yarn - Yarn is enjoyed in smaller quantities too, although you'll need to figure out how to get this
- 🐟 Toy fish - A fishy friend
- 🐠 Painted toy fish - Pretty fishy friend
- 🏠 Mini house - ???
- 🐱 Cat biscuit - ???

When you start, the game will probably be in a losing state from the last person that played it. So press space to restart and begin!

Comments41

Wren Erickson4 Apr 2022, 21:46

I see cute cat, I click like

Defrag5 Apr 2022, 00:58

I don't see any way to play on your submission page. Can you host the game somewhere?

lb015 Apr 2022, 02:48

Not sure if you've figured out how you want to host the server, but usually when I need to spin up something and not pay anything, Heroku's free tier gives you 550 hours per month which should be enough for the playing/rating period. Let me know when the multiplayer version is up because I'm really excited to play my first ever multiplayer game in a Ludum Dare compo!

William Corrin5 Apr 2022, 05:33

@lb01 total side note here, but holy crap, I wish I had known that earlier. I have been sweating bullets trying to find the right hosting platform for my current personal project (started from LD48).

You are a lifesaver for bringing that up! So glad I read this comment!

milq5 Apr 2022, 08:19

I have seen your code but I don't find WebRTC but Socket. With WebRTC you can do multiple P2P and you only need a small relying server.

LeReveur5 Apr 2022, 14:31

LD real time multiplayers entries are rare, and often impossible to test (ludum darers are from all over the world, but not enough to have the chance to find someone just *when* you test the game).
But if you manage to publish it, I would give it a try :smile:

Jezzamonauthor6 Apr 2022, 06:34

@wren-erickson @defrag @lb01 @william-corrin @milq @lereveur Hi all! Thanks for your interest in playing the game! I fixed up my server issues and now the game is playable on itch.io! Would love if you could rate it!

If you're curious, the main thing I was missing was setting up the certificates for HTTPS, I have hosted multiplayer games like this before but didn't have to do the HTTPS part at the time. Wasn't too complicated to set up once I got it working.

Jezzamonauthor6 Apr 2022, 06:35

Also a shame that 2 folks have already rated it before it was playable, but I guess that happens :/

TescoOne6 Apr 2022, 17:35

Hey ! I tried your game on itch.io, but I couldn't get the networking to work :/ Ping me when the issue is resolved !

onnofal6 Apr 2022, 20:17

Yep confirming, even though I am unable to analyze whats going wrong. Wanted to play but got lost as well in the middle of green, only visible things are grass and vertical road. Going to return, truly interested .)

Jezzamonauthor6 Apr 2022, 23:15

Thanks for the heads up! Yeah I noticed that too. Grrr

Foursay7 Apr 2022, 08:06

really cozy and relaxing game! It seems that you always know how to make your work polished in a fine scoop! Good Job!

Jezzamonauthor7 Apr 2022, 11:18

@tescoone @onnofal It's back up again! Looks like my server logic is buggy somehow and I just have to restart it occasionally lol

lb018 Apr 2022, 04:09

I am thoroughly impressed that you were able to make an online multiplayer game in just 48 hours. It's a fairly simple game, but the fact that you're collaborating with other people definitely makes it a lot more fun. Graphics and sound is super cute too. But mostly I'm in awe about the multiplayer part.

Local Minimum8 Apr 2022, 11:55

Impressive to dare a multiplayer game. Unfortunately for me no-one was a round to help when I was playing. I mostly tossed myself and yarn at the cat. The jumping things I didn't understand what to do with and I found no twigs. One thing I noticed was that when I ventured a bit out of the absolute proximity of the cat it wasn't that easy to find my way back since there was no directional guidance.

Gaming Night8 Apr 2022, 12:00

The main interest of the submission to me is obviously the mmo aspect. Very impressive indeed ! And very refreshing game, as being able to play with other players in a Ludum is pretty rare (however I have to mention the fact that I was all alone on the server when I played ahah). I really enjoy the originality of the idea in this context, not to mention the very neat implementation, with neat graphics and audio. Congrats!

blinry9 Apr 2022, 14:47

@jezzamon We think that the server is down again! We don't see each other and there are no objects! Make sure to delay the inevitable death of the server component! :)

Jezzamonauthor9 Apr 2022, 23:15

@blinry thanks for the heads up! It's working again! :sweat_smile:

Alex Stewart10 Apr 2022, 00:38

Ooo, a multiplayer game! I really like this, and the idea combined with the multiplayer effort is really unique and fun! I may have found a duplication glitch by spamming throw while holding the cat biscuit. Or maybe it's an odd server quirk, I'm not sure. Either way, the game is super fun!

Skleembof10 Apr 2022, 00:41

Very impressive that you managed to create a multiplayer game like this for the jam. It's pretty cool how I was able to just jump in and play with other jammers who will likely also come back and leave a review.

The online aspect is cool but the pacing is really poor. The top score right now is 20 minutes! I can't imagine someone sticking around picking up yarn and flinging it at this cat for 20 minutes. I think you should try and shoot for shorter play sessions since the gameplay is so simple. Make the cat more aggressive and harder to slow down. I was in a room and saw people play for a little bit and then leave. So I decided to sabotage the village and cleared a path for the cat which I admit, felt pretty good. Being evil is fun sometimes.

I think the cat shouldn't stop when it sees a ball of yarn, only slow down, and make the yarn disappear faster. You could turn this into a cool short multiplayer experience that will have players sticking around to the end

PoshDan10 Apr 2022, 00:46

I couldn't get the game to work. I get in, there's a strip of road, i try exploring around but there's nothing in any direction. The interface did not seem to get updates on the state of the game either. After a few minutes i get the game over screen and space doesn't work for restart. I'm assuming the networking is out of order atm

LDJam user 26214210 Apr 2022, 00:47

seems like a fun idea but unfortunately nothing spawned and can't see other players atm, maybe if i can catch it when its up i'll give it a rating

milq10 Apr 2022, 01:13

The truth is that you never disappoint, your quality in the games is very high! I still keep Dog++ very fondly and this one doesn't fall short either! I'm glad you were able to fix the multiplayer and HTTPS that bothered you so much.

Jezzamonauthor10 Apr 2022, 01:19

@poshdan @shreemp Yep, the server crashed for a moment there. It should be up now though!

Jezzamonauthor10 Apr 2022, 01:21

@skleembof Yeah, I suppose I didn't communicate this too well but the idea I had in mind was more of a tag in and out system, where as people play they add a few minutes of distraction, and then other people can jump in to add extra time too! You don't actually need to play it for 20 minutes to get a score of that long.

MiltonNH2510 Apr 2022, 01:33

Great job on the game. I am impressed that you were able to get working coop multiplayer in a compo submission. It was fun to mess around with and I liked the teaching/learning aspect of seeing another players throwing certain objects at things to get different effects. I only got to see a few of the items while I was on so I was not sure what things like the mini house did or how to find them. It would be cool to see even more items to interact with. Overall well done.

adamk33n3r10 Apr 2022, 02:17

That was a fun experience :) I liked learning from others by just watching and then cooperating for trying different things. Me and this other player found a glitch where you could push the cat back up and eventually I actually clipped into the cat and I could fight the physics pushing me out which was also pushing the cat up :P

LDJam user 26214210 Apr 2022, 02:19

this was super fun tho! had a blast learning the mechanics and finding secret things off the map, the music was very calming which is great for a long loop. amazing to pull off a multiplayer game where a bunch of randos can have fun

###### cheese it by working together to knock the cat out of bounds

Papabirb10 Apr 2022, 02:19

Came in on a session that had a score of like 45, was super bored but had a lot of time to figure out how to craft painted fish and plant/destroy trees, lol. Kept trying to figure out how to get yarn/biscuit/mini house, eventually sabotaged the game with friend to experience game over + fresh start game lol, have now successfully seen all items listed in the description.

I love the music, it had a nice Pokemon vibe. Throwing stuff was a fun mechanic, except for chasing that little pink guy around, he's a fast bugger to aim at especially with networking.

Also the fresh start group found a bug where you can push the cat off the progress meter lol! May or may not require someone to be eaten but not respawn? Had trouble figuring out if it was inherent collision bug or related to someone being eaten since you can't really tell if someone's inside unless you're the someone.

PoshDan10 Apr 2022, 03:00

Managed to catch some gameplay on my second try. Unfortunately I was alone, but kudos for allowing lone players to jump in without having to wait for others! I really couldn't figure out how to get anything other than the chunks of wood and plant new trees. I did manage to whack the wandering purple creature after a lot of trying but it just came back a while after, I wasn't sure of its purpose other than an outlet for murder :)
I like the idea of this game, it's pretty impressive to have networking done for compo. The ability to sacrifice yourself is a bit dark, but fair enough.

Manan10 Apr 2022, 03:11

Really cool how this game is multiplayer but does not necessarily requite multiple people so people can still test it alone. I was confused at first at how the yarn delayed the cat, but I had fun trying to stop it. The art is really cute and the music was nice too.

Jezzamonauthor10 Apr 2022, 06:15

@adamk33n3r @shreemp @papabirb lol yeah I saw you guys pushing up the cat and was very confused! I did not realize that was possible so it was pretty funny seeing that happen :laughing:

CSdoesCS10 Apr 2022, 07:20

The art is so adorable! The dash is fun and snappy, and I really like the throwing. The area can get pretty blank, but generally it's a really impressive compo entry!

Linus Lindberg10 Apr 2022, 08:04

Interesting game! It would be good to hav a navigational arrow or somthing pointing you towards the cat when you go on longer expeditions.

hulien2210 Apr 2022, 10:07

Fun and cute little game! Didn't get to experience the multiplayer, but impressive that you were able to get that working for a compo game! Bit confused as to how to progress if playing singleplayer, as it seems like the yarn doesn't respawn, so you're stuck with a limited amount of throwables and then lose. Did find some things far off in the map, but its a little difficult to navigate back to the cat (would be nice to have a arrow or something that points back).

Great job!

SofiGnedova10 Apr 2022, 10:28

Oh! It was very cool!

Great job!

blinry10 Apr 2022, 10:58

As a two-person team, we had a lot of fun exploring the game! Finding mechanics like trowing rocks on trees, or wood on houses, it felt like we experienced a little story! We didn't find blue fishes. Very cute graphics, and a lovely music track! Thanks for making this!

When one of us strayed off the map, they didn't find a way back, lacking directional cues!

We got to this point before we got bored:

EDIT: We found blue fishes! ^_^

LeReveur16 Apr 2022, 22:06

I didn't found out all those wonderful things that previous comments talk about, but I guess it's maybe because I was playing alone. And so, I'm afraid that my best score is under 5 :sweat_smile:
Arts are cute and polished, the game still is fun, even if played solo, while it's meant to be multiplayer, so good job and very well done!

rosypenguin17 Apr 2022, 05:55

This was so cute, what a great concept. I played single-player at first and found it to be pretty repetitive, but when I tried with a friend it was exponentially more fun. We found a good number of secrets but at one point I dashed too far from home and couldn't find my way back, oops! Overall such a great game for a compo, and loved that you were able to make it a fast multiplayer experience!

Strega17 Apr 2022, 05:56

Super cute! Always impressed to see a multiplayer game made for the Compo! The mechanics were nice and simple. I liked how you made the action key contextual and kept the controls really simple.

alexrose21 Apr 2022, 13:21

I played single player but as it is I'm not going to rate because I don't think it's fair to do so when I haven't had the full experience. If anyone wants to play multi ping me.

It is cute though so I will rate graphics haha