A Very Important Message

by roka-josh

co-authored: @hazzerio, @masterj767, @rokagraham, @thomu

Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.07

Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.39

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.43

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.41

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.57

Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.11

Humor★★★★★★★★★★4.36

Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.14

The Game

With two kingdoms on the verge of war, the great King Autah Madepf theorises that by sending the neighbouring king a message all conflict can be avoided. With all conventional means of delivering a message being too slow however, it falls to a trusty ballista operator to bring peace to the world. Fire your ballista, earn money to buy upgrades and repeat until you can finally deliver your message to the king.

Aim of the Game

- Fire the ballista
- Earn money for your performance
- Upgrade the ballista and unlock unique environment boosters
- Reach the king and deliver the message to stop the war

Screenshots

How to play (detailed)

- Left-click to lock in the angle and power of the ballista
- WASD to control the ballista once you have relevant upgrades
- Escape key to pause

Credit

- RokaJosh: Programming, Modelling & Art
- Hazzer: Programming
- MasterJ767: Programming, Modelling
- RokaGraham: VA
- Yarro: Sound & Art

Tools

- Unity 2021.3.24f1
- Visual Studio Code
- Adobe Photoshop CC 2022
- Adobe Audtion CC 2022
- Aseprite
- Paint
- Blender
- Ableton Live 11

Note

The game was updated after launch with certain bug fixes. All updates are in accordance with the Jam rules.

Tags: #arcade, #launcher, #low-poly, #pixel art, #upgrades

Genres: action

Tools: Ableton Live, Adobe Photoshop, Aseprite, Blender, MS Paint, Unity

Comments17

vizitas3 May 2023, 19:15

Really funny game, satisfying gameplay, amazing music, great visuals(really liked that the map was curving), overall I really enjoyed this. On my first play-through I got a headshot, so played again just to see if there was another ending :D

FreezedIce3 May 2023, 19:20

Very fun and engaging, reminds me of those old flash era games!

paulhocker3 May 2023, 22:42

i played this to the very end. was a lot more fun once i figured out i could control the bolt. thanks for making it.

Freshbone4 May 2023, 15:08

Lovely and dope! Had to play it to the end to get all the upgrades. Thank you!

manioora4 May 2023, 22:13

Honestly one of my favourites from this jam, so fun! Reminds me of old flash games, but with more polish. Loved the voice acting and story, ran out of upgrades to buy at some point but it was still a really good time :) great job devs!

LDJam user 20240817 May 2023, 13:32

The download contains only a web folder, I'm guessing this is a mistake? I tried to host the html using python `python -m http.server` but had issues, it's a shame I can't play the game, the page and comments are intriguing! feel free to tag me if you fix the issue

Roka Joshauthor17 May 2023, 13:39

@0x-void-x0 Thanks for pointing this out, I tried uploading a web version and forgot to switch it back after when it didn't work. Link should be fixed to the windows download now!

LDJam user 20240817 May 2023, 13:59

Haha I"m so glad I got to play this game, it has a certain flash games vibe to it, something about playing again and again each time getting closer than really got me addicted! the gameplay loop is so fun that I deliberately missed the kingdom just so i can fly more lol, the first time I missed the kingdom I was like "wait the kingdom is behind me? no problem I'll travel around the planet and reach it again" :laughing:. the music is also beautiful and adds to the overall vibe, bouncing off all sorts of bouncers felt really epic, all in all this game is really good, it's a shame you didn't rate many games so people can get to play this masterpiece! great work, seriously!

LDJam user 16691817 May 2023, 16:08

Great simple mechanic game, with well-developed progression system (for a jam). It looks not bad, it was fun to play, it has an ending, I didn't met any bugs.

Great job. I liked it.

Harmadillo17 May 2023, 18:06

Nice selection of upgrades and features to add as you progress. The arrow fight was fun too once I realised I could steer.

aile17 May 2023, 18:33

Such a fun game! As already mentioned before, shooting and controlling the arrow was already satisfying, so finishing the game felt less important hehe (I was still happy once I did it though!). Really liked the upgrades and boosters, and also that there was a certain challenge steering the arrow. Also really positive that there's a certain freedom in that the player can choose the upgrades and boosters. This allows for a little variance...maybe increases replay value as well? I didn't test it though, I just boosted everything to max as I had the gold. Possibly, this could be something to balance - reduce the gold, make the player choose between upgrades? Just a though ^^

The voiceover intro and outro were cool! :D Loved also the overall theme of peace. Great work, team!

LeGromp17 May 2023, 19:34

Real great game. And music is amazing. Cant really say smth bad about it) Only positive) Mb just add movable obstacle to make game more challenging

Steve Sparkes17 May 2023, 20:21

This was an incredible entry and I really loved it! Amazing start and end to the game with the scroll and voice acting. It was a simple concept which made it so fun to jump into another shot of the ballista, I just wish the game had been longer! I immediately sank all the money I had into the multiplier bonus and ended up blasting through the game by day 10. A really nice concept that could genuinely be developed into a longer-term project. Great work team!

LogicProjects17 May 2023, 22:24

Great game! I loved all of the audio and it was a very nice experience :)

Hengen18 May 2023, 07:56

whoops 😅

digital bacon18 May 2023, 11:51

:rofl: Loved this, made me laugh out loud (the puns in the names of the kingdoms and the King), as well as the inevitable result of trying to get a message delivered by ballista. Good graphics, great sound, very fun. Excellent work!

Mark A Pressler19 May 2023, 17:14

Really fun game! Loved the humor, the upgrades were fun to progress through, the only thing that was my fault is that even though I got the upgrade for it, it didn't register to my brain for a while that I could steer the bolt back and forth, so I was getting frustrated with never hitting any of the boosters! But once I figured that out it was quite fun to steer between everything. Really great job overall!

Other games by @roka-josh

★3.58

★3.93

★3.69