Ludum Dare #52compo
Mow Rider Deluxe
Plot
John Doe, was a hardworking farmer who lived on a small farm in the countryside. He spent his days tending to the crops and animals, making sure everything was in good shape. John was known for being a bit of a perfectionist, and he always wanted to make sure his crops were harvested at just the right time.
One year, John realized that he had forgotten about the annual harvesting feast at the community center. It was a big event, and all the farmers in the area were expected to attend. John knew he had to hurry and finish harvesting his crops if he wanted to make it to the feast on time.
He jumped into his red tractor and started to work, but he quickly realized that he had overloaded it with too much grain. The tractor began to huff and puff, and John was worried it might even explode if he pushed it too hard.
Despite the risk, John knew he had to keep going. He had to get his crops harvested in time for the feast, no matter what. With a determined look on his face, he pushed the tractor to its limits, racing across the fields to get the job done.
Gameplay
Mow down as much crops as you can within the 2 minute time limit. But beware... Your trusty tractor can get overloaded, so you need to figure out how to get back to the silo's and unload before it explodes.
The following video shows an example of the game loop !
Credits
I want to give special thanks to my son, who kindly did voice lines and is now a REAL game voice actor !
NOTES
* This was probably one of the nicest project with (quite possibly) the biggest scope reduction in my LD career. However, some code was left and I decided to turn a scope reduction into a working cheat system, so you can at least get a taste of what could have been ! You won't be able to submit a high-score using these... But nonetheless, if you type the following words followed by an ENTER in the options menu during gameplay, you will unlock the following cheats :
| CHEAT | EFFECT |
|---|---|
| DUKES | Secret First Person Mode |
| INHALER | No more puffs when overloaded |
| SUPERTRAILER | Unlimited Hauling |
| IMBATMAN | Night mode |
| REDBULL | Gain superspeed |
| FERTILIZER | Regrow all crops on the field |
| MONSTERTRUCK | Big Wheels |
* It seems the web build is loading extremely slowly. Therefore I have decided to upload offline builds for the game. I have optimized the project for a web-build, to no avail yet.
* As per usual, high-scores are only local for the time being, but should our little tractor gain some traction (hehe), I might consider creating an online leaderboard as well !
BUG FIXES
* Not really a bug, moreover a performance issue. Judging by a comment, the game is pretty heavy for older systems.
Therefore I have optimized the mesh generation code for the crops in a fixed build. It may look less "hairy", the feel
and intention is still the same.
Comments21
I wanted to keep the lines straight so badly but the tractor wasn't having it.
Was a super neat concept though, makes me think of farming simulator mixed with overcooked.
I could see having a farmer running around jumping between machines and having to hastily do everything while chaos ensues.
I did have some chugging once I got into the middle of the field though. There are a few things in unity you may can check out for mesh instancing if you havnt yet that could help.
Good to see you and your son had some fun with it!
Your art workflow must be super efficient, the low poly aesthetic works well without looking sparse.
The noises the tractor made when full were amusing. :)
@clyde The art was actually pretty straightforward, aside from a couple of buildings. The crops are generated through code and I make the tip of the crops move to a perlin noise based flowfield ^-^ The tractor itself is just built up from basic unity shapes, made it way easier to make the tractor explode. The fences and the smoke particles were pretty easy as well, thank you blender! :D
@Both You both gave indications that the game is capable of turning a GPU into an airfryer, so I decided to have a look for obvious mistakes. I've optimized the mesh and made it slightly more sparse. I also fixed some "oof" code that accidently duplicated meshes, which overlapped near the center. That should be resolved now (or at least greatly improved). Thank you for letting me know !
Super cute game, feels very polished for jam game (especially the menu), although the controls vere a bit clunky - it added the fun factor for me, so maybe it is intentional?
The cheat code are a nice addiction.
Only one thing: i think that the playtime is a little long, and it could be shortened to increase replayability
It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. The drop-off mechanic is obvious enough once you see it, but seems pretty unlikely that anyone will accidentally make it back to the beginning corner without intentionally doing so. Post-compo, I think a demo play running on the title menu would be great here. Or maybe flash "drop off at the start" the first time the tractor is half full each play.