Ludum Dare #52compo

Bad Apples

by paulstraw

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.78

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.82

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.32

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.36

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.00

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.42

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.13

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.42

It’s harvest season, and the apples are growing quick. Search for ripe apples, chop them down with your boomerang, and collect them in your truck before they hit the ground!

Be careful, though. The normally-peaceful Inches have sensed the feast and started their yearly assault. A few bad apples will spoil the batch, so watch out for falling Inch-infested apples!

Controls: A/D or arrows to move, mouse to look, click to boomerang!

Made from scratch in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 52. Read more in the post-mortem!

Note for graphics ratings: All art was drawn from scratch during the event. However, the two "walk" frames of the inchworm are "heavily inspired" by the inchworms in Commander Keen 4, one of my all-time favorite games. I simply couldn't resist, they were too perfect. Take that into account when rating graphics, if you want. Note that the inchworm "chomping" frames are completely original.

Genres: action

Tools: Unity

Comments27

Rockwell8 Jan 2023, 21:23

This is really fun! The controls feel good, and the difficulty is really well balanced – it makes me want to keep trying again to beat my high score. And of course, the artwork and sound effects are cute as ever.

th1z8 Jan 2023, 21:30

The sound effects are awesome. Provides a lot of entertainment in a neat package. I find the apples on the higher branches are a little bit hard to reach with the boomerang.

JakobTheQuizGuy9 Jan 2023, 01:48

Beautiful graphics and fun gameplay, all that's missing is a chipper tune to go with it. As Rockwell mentioned, the difficulty is well balanced. Great job on putting this together. And concerning your "Note for graphics ratings," you're just using a reference, nothing to worry about :) reading that actually made me look for the chomping animation, I wouldn't have seen it otherwise which is a shame because I love it hahaha

Lex9 Jan 2023, 02:18

That totally exceeded my expectations! Both in terms of how polished it looks, sounds and plays, and also how simple and fun it was to play. Gameplay and goals are easily conveyed in the very first try. Good submission, congratulations!

LDJam user 3152779 Jan 2023, 02:21

The worms are mean!

profundity9 Jan 2023, 02:27

This is a delight! I love the mechanic of the worms causing the apples to go bad so you can strategize based on where you see the worms heading instead of things falling randomly. I could really imagine this as a minigame in a larger game.

caranha9 Jan 2023, 03:04

Hey, this game was really fun! I got a score of 66 on my second play.

I loved the graphics. I thought they were very crisp, and worked really well together. The idea of avoiding spoiled apples and collecting good ones was well done! The movement of the car and the boomerang felt super satisfying.

That said, it was really irritating that the game would often lose focus when I tried to click an apple near the edge of the screen and ended up clicking outside of the screen instead. Maybe you could make the game capture the mouse cursor during gameplay?

Also, I felt that the game should get a little bit faster or more difficult as you got more apples. It felt like the difficulty curve was a bit flat.

Thank you for the game!

paulstrawauthor9 Jan 2023, 05:05

@caranha good callout about losing focus, appreciate that. I updated the Itch settings to make it launch in fullscreen mode. That way, clicks anywhere in the browser are still registered and don't cause the game to lose focus. This also gives the player more control over the game resolution.

Thanks all for the great reviews and feedback so far! @profundity that's a great score.

matimat9 Jan 2023, 15:35

The is very fun, I love it. I think the truck is too fast. I play 10 minutes, it's my first game I really like.
Congratulations

cogcomp9 Jan 2023, 19:56

Wow that was really well made. I really enjoyed the "two step" mechanics. Not only did I have to boomerang down the apples I also had to make sure that they landed in the truck. Very well balanced game as well. It never felt unfair and it also felt like I was getting better at it all the time. Very addictive game. Well done!

owca9 Jan 2023, 20:02

It was really fun to play. I like the graphics and audio.

cannibalgirl9 Jan 2023, 22:13

GAME AND WATCH: APPLE PHYSICS EDITION

sweet graphics, audio and theme contribute to excellent lighthearted, bright mood.
mechanics were easy to understand but hard to execute perfectly with the added physics aspect.
i appreciate that dropping an apple doesn't cause a "MISS" as it happened quite often for me :face_palm:

nice compo combo, loads fast and works flawlessly :two_hearts:

thank you for this, I enjoyed the time spent in here!!

omphh9 Jan 2023, 23:30

Fun game! Got a high score of 89. Good job!

Manan9 Jan 2023, 23:31

Very nice, reminded me of old flash games. The mood it created was very chipper and nostalgic. My only criticism is that I didn't really understand why it was necessary to have the leaves covering the apples when the mouse isn't hovering. The controls were very nice, with the interaction between the vehicle movement and the boomerang.

Richard Jedlicka9 Jan 2023, 23:44

Well done. It is fun to play and challenging, works without issues. Only music is missing.

moonlightbomber10 Jan 2023, 00:06

This can have potential as an arcade-type game.

fallcresthero10 Jan 2023, 00:16

Interesting mechanics and nice graphics

Found a minor bug: in rare inctanses when an apple is already counted as yours it can fall out of van on the ground and it will follow your van after that.

Anyway good job, thank you!

paulstrawauthor10 Jan 2023, 00:24

@fallcresthero hah, I was wondering if anyone would hit that! I only got it once during dev. Thanks for playing and reporting!

Chum Chum10 Jan 2023, 01:13

Really cool mechanic! I Had a lot of fun.
Controls felt really good and I like how you have to strategize your boomerang throws depending on where the worms are.

TheGhostofTommy10 Jan 2023, 01:39

Really well balanced game, with a lot of give and take. Rewards the player for being careful paying attention. The art and sounds are really nostalgic as well.

Tsamf10 Jan 2023, 02:59

This game is really fun. I love the sounds, controls, and art a lot. Really well rounded game.

Jason Wilson10 Jan 2023, 03:15

Very nice looking game and fun little game. I think what I'd like to see is more reward for playing more aggressively. I found it was far too easy to play defensive and avoid the bad apples without any cost. Maybe something like a combo meter that ticks down if there's too much time between consecutive apple collections.

All in all well done!

paulstrawauthor10 Jan 2023, 03:56

@jason-wilson I really like the idea of some kind of combo system!

LDJam user 31435610 Jan 2023, 04:56

- Nice graphics and touch on growing apples and x-ray vision!
- Controls of the car are a little bit irritating, but I can see why it's made as it is.
- The gameplay is pretty fun, when you get it, but the game lacks objective (just not dying isn't enough for me).
- Boomerang is kinda buggy – sometimes it just stays for like 5-15 seconds in one place, and sometimes it returns right away.

Nice game overall :) And thanks for the GIF in the description!

Vigneshwar10 Jan 2023, 07:47

Very nice looking game and fun little game. to fast for truck moving .nice gameplay

bartalomew10 Jan 2023, 10:37

had fun with it, very nice mood with the visuals and music and it makes this quite frustrating genre very relaxing for me. it's a great jam game!

Blue Pin Studio13 Jan 2023, 04:55

Great entry! There was a bit of jankiness with the car's movement and the boomerang kept getting stuck but i loved the game! I managed to get to 66 apples before one of those damned worms threw an apple directly into my truckbed. I'll admit the other 4 bad apples were my fault. After reading your blurb about commander keen, i had to give you a follow on twitter! What a guy, haha

Other games by @paulstraw

★3.52

★3.66