Ludum Dare #50compo
You Are The Snooze Button
The human is asleep. The human set the alarm — but the human doesn't like being woken up. The human will try to hit the snooze button. YOU are the snooze button. The human will try to hit YOU!
The human will try to _delay the inevitable_. Your job is to _deliver the inevitable_: to wake the human up.
You play as an alarm clock on wheels. You keep moving forward at all times. Zoom around the apartment and collect musical notes which wake the human up. Avoid the human's hands which try to press the snooze button — a single press will end the round. For some reason the hands are inexplicably big and even-more-inexplicably not attached to a body, and yet-even-more-inexplicably they fall out of the sky, but don't worry too much about it.
_You Are The Snooze Button_ is a WebGL game written in JavaScript. It's playable in all modern browsers, both on desktop and mobile.
* Desktop: Arrows to turn left, right, and jump (up). Use the down arrow to tilt the camera a bit.
* Mobile: Tap and hold to turn left and right. Tap and release to jump.
This game is a Compo game. I used my custom WebGL engine called Goodluck.
* There is no audio 🥺. Learning how to create music and sound effects is on my todo list for 2022!
* Monday, April 4
* Fixed a JavaScript error in the console.
* Tweaked hand spawning to be a bit more predictable (they spawn higher and have a smaller spread).
* Adjusted the angle of the sun to make shadows more useful as hints about where the hands will drop.
* Adjusted the size and position of the text overlay during gameplay to make it less distracting.
* Deactivated player collisions in win/lose views, which resulted in small errors.
* Tuesday, April 5
* Fixed a bug where the human's sleepiness wasn't being reset correctly during multiple playthroughs.
* Fixed an accidentally negative Z scale of the wardrobe which resulted in weird shadows.
During the weekend following LD50, I kept working on a post-compo version of this game (v1.1). Please make sure you play v1.0 when rating.
* Saturday, April 9
* Fixed a bug where sometimes, hands and notes would spawn attached to the player.
* Tweaked the physics of jumping to jump a bit lower but also forward, which helps avoid falling hands.
* Added a screenshake when hands hit something.
* Added left hands, too.
* You can now press the Enter key to start and to restart the game.
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The human will try to _delay the inevitable_. Your job is to _deliver the inevitable_: to wake the human up.
How To Play
You play as an alarm clock on wheels. You keep moving forward at all times. Zoom around the apartment and collect musical notes which wake the human up. Avoid the human's hands which try to press the snooze button — a single press will end the round. For some reason the hands are inexplicably big and even-more-inexplicably not attached to a body, and yet-even-more-inexplicably they fall out of the sky, but don't worry too much about it.
Platforms & Controls
_You Are The Snooze Button_ is a WebGL game written in JavaScript. It's playable in all modern browsers, both on desktop and mobile.
* Desktop: Arrows to turn left, right, and jump (up). Use the down arrow to tilt the camera a bit.
* Mobile: Tap and hold to turn left and right. Tap and release to jump.
Team & Tech
This game is a Compo game. I used my custom WebGL engine called Goodluck.
Known Issues
* There is no audio 🥺. Learning how to create music and sound effects is on my todo list for 2022!
Compo Hotfix Changelog
* Monday, April 4
* Fixed a JavaScript error in the console.
* Tweaked hand spawning to be a bit more predictable (they spawn higher and have a smaller spread).
* Adjusted the angle of the sun to make shadows more useful as hints about where the hands will drop.
* Adjusted the size and position of the text overlay during gameplay to make it less distracting.
* Deactivated player collisions in win/lose views, which resulted in small errors.
* Tuesday, April 5
* Fixed a bug where the human's sleepiness wasn't being reset correctly during multiple playthroughs.
* Fixed an accidentally negative Z scale of the wardrobe which resulted in weird shadows.
Post-Compo Changelog
During the weekend following LD50, I kept working on a post-compo version of this game (v1.1). Please make sure you play v1.0 when rating.
* Saturday, April 9
* Fixed a bug where sometimes, hands and notes would spawn attached to the player.
* Tweaked the physics of jumping to jump a bit lower but also forward, which helps avoid falling hands.
* Added a screenshake when hands hit something.
* Added left hands, too.
* You can now press the Enter key to start and to restart the game.
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Genres: action
Comments28
Things I really liked that you did:
- Movement + steering feels tuned well
- Color palette is very appealing
- 3D stylized aesthetic is very nice
- Incorporated humor in a charming way
- Little animation of the character rolling on jump and on finish
Things that I think could use a little work:
- Unclear how/when music notes are spawned. They seem to just appear only after a certain amount of time, but maybe have a timer or something on the UI explaining that
- The text is part of the aesthetic, and I like how big it is in the menu and after you win, but having the text take up 50% of the viewport and overlap your character mid-game is very jarring and distracting
- The hand seems like it just comes out of NOWHERE. And I know you are aware of this and made a really funny joke about it (I very much enjoyed your description lol). But in terms of the gameplay, I felt cheesed sometimes like there was just nothing I could do about it as a player. I guess that fits the theme for this year though ;)
- No music or SFX! In a game about an alarm clock! Sad :(
Overall, this is a really solid game!! So far its the most fun one I've played :) good job!
In particular, I remember from early playtesting that it was quite easy to avoid the hands. Thanks to your comment I realized that after adding the furniture, the shadows of the hands no longer provided a useful hint to the player about which area to avoid. I didn't notice it because I got used to the rhythm of spawning and I got quite good at it. I tweaked the angle of the sun to cast shadows more vertically, so that it can better serve its original purpose. Hopefully it helps!
Overall I like it :)
@wavertron Great suggestion about the screenshake! I had it on my todo list but way towards the bottom and it didn't make the deadline :)
Also I feel like the jump is not useful in many situations. I think it would be better to have something like a short temporary boost instead of the jump. That would also fix the issue with avoiding the hand.
the graphics look really nice, the game play is interesting.
the flip on the theme to prevent delaying the inevitable is an interesting flip, definitely gets this game out of the 'one of a few basic renditions of game-play that all the other games picked to fit the theme'
The game _really_ needs some music/SFX to sell the gameplay.
@adroitconceptions I appreciate the comment about the theme flip. Indeed, I spent most of Saturday thinking how to break away from the "survive as long as possible" interpretation. I'm glad that you liked it!
@cinnamon18 You can press the down arrow to tilt the camera up a bit temporarily, it helps sometimes. Most of the time I try to use the hands' shadows as a hint, however. That and I turn a lot :)
Besides the already mentioned sound, the only thing I'd change would be making it longer!
@ramil-dev Thanks, I was hoping that the balance of timing, speed, size and room layout would provide just enough challenge to be satisfying. I'm glad you liked it! Re. making it longer: Initially 5 notes were needed to wake the human up, but I took advice from a blog post about how most people spend only a few moments with each game during such jams (which is totally fair tbh), and reduced it to 3 notes.
And I really liked the idea behind this game .. as far as the entries I have seen - I think you're the only one linking the your entry to the theme the way you do.
I'm not a huge fan of the color palette - I think it's a bit narrow... but I like the "feel" of it.
Overall - really really good job on this one :thumbsup_tone1:
Good stuff :8ball: