Ludum Dare #59compo

Downtown Signal

by absolute-garbage

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.75

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.67

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.56

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.00

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.77

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.50

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.88

Zombie Apocalypse in Downtown Manhattan.
Follow information on radio to survive.

- 3 endings (other than running out of food, water, and ammo).
- 2 of the endings are before day 20, could be missed.
- Check on itch development log section for more hints and spoilers.

Please let me know if you encounter any bugs. I’ll try to fix them ASAP.

Tools: Godot 4.6, Procreate, audacity, sfxr

AI Usage

- Only the voice acting from the radio used AI (ElevenLabs).
- You can turn it off in Settings.
- This does not affect gameplay. I added them hoping for a more immersive experience.
- All other sound effects and art assets are entirely created by hand without AI.

Mainly inspired by 60 Seconds. If you’ve played other games with a similar idea, I’d love to hear about them.

Tags: #2d, #godot, #ludum-dare-59, #zombies

Genres: interactive fiction, puzzle, simulation, survival, visual novel

Tools: Audacity, ElevenLabs, Godot, sfxr

Comments26

LDJam user 42495520 Apr 2026, 02:42

The atmosphere is incredibly well done. It made me really tense. (It feels even more immersive if you live in New York)

gubo20 Apr 2026, 02:42

very decent surviving experience, it's significantly easier when you know what supplies each location gives and follow the radio instructions.

havearollonthefloor20 Apr 2026, 03:13

It looks like "60 seconds", but this game has a cool radio. The voice from the radio resembles the voice of the announcer in the subway who announces the name of the next station :D

LDJam user 389806author20 Apr 2026, 03:18

@havearollonthefloor You got the JFK ending! yes, this game is inspired by 60 seconds, I love that game!

Yueyao Wang20 Apr 2026, 04:23

Like the game! It feels like the same vibe as the game 60s. I got the Staten Island Ending :)

Alex Mulkerrin20 Apr 2026, 09:23

This is really well polished. I especially like the way the radio worked with signals popping up depending on time and date. I was managing alright until I heard of a boat at Staten Island, went to get on it and got killed by zombies...

The background hum was a bit annoying but that might have been the point. The voiceovers were very nice, impressive for AI audio generation.

Very good entry for keeping to the theme and the scene is very well put together with info and interactives, neat!

LDJam user 389806author20 Apr 2026, 17:08

@yueyao-wang you are the first person to find that ending, congrats! and yes, this game is inspired by 60 seconds, I love that game!

@alex-mulkerrin thanks! I would like to make audio sliders but ran out of time. Maybe I can just tune it down a bit for now.

Stratcat6620 Apr 2026, 18:53

I managed to get the Staten Island ending!
Very cool game. I know 60 seconds and although it has more content, I like the radio/information gathering mechanic.. It makes the game feel less "random" and like you can actually make meaningful decisions for your character.
Thank you for this nice experience!

nathmate20 Apr 2026, 22:34

Neat concept. I haven't worked with gAI but I would say that the voices felt very calm for a zombie apocalypse, but they served to give variety and get the information across. I'm not sure I agree that

> This does not affect gameplay

The game would feel very random without them. Or maybe you'd just need to stock up on more bullets to deal with not knowing where the safe zones are.

Deng21 Apr 2026, 12:37

I like this game, every decision I made gave me great positive feedback, which really kept me motivated to keep playing! I also absolutely love the art style. The map selection mechanic and the overall setting strongly reminded me of This War of Mine. I feel like adding more item variety would make it even more fun! Maybe introducing some side quests (like delivery missions?) could be a cool direction to explore too.

LDJam user 389806author22 Apr 2026, 03:51

@nathmate Thank you for playing! I'm glad you find the voice acting healful, they were added pretty quickly but I also liked the result! They were generated using ElevenLabs. I would have tuned them to sound better if had more time. By "This does not affect gameplay", I meant you can turn off the voice acting (in case some people don't like AI/robot voices). But you can still read the radio text to get the hints, just less immersive and more reading.

LDJam user 389806author22 Apr 2026, 03:54

@deng Thanks for playing! Yes, I think with more time I would definitely add more variety of things to do, especially in the first 20 days. Maybe some missions to help others and get more items to be placed on the desk, and more endings.

Psycanic22 Apr 2026, 04:24

this is so good:3 yknow im at my ny aprtment and snapped for a second believing there's zombies out there....the voice acting really adds a lot.

LDJam user 389806author22 Apr 2026, 04:26

@psycanic thank you! XD

Tykki1922 Apr 2026, 08:48

I didn't feel that there was really progress after awhile or clear goal. Day 26 and decided to quit with plenty of resources. I have to say it was really immersive experience and I really would like to play something that minimalistic with just more content. Lovely!

LDJam user 389806author22 Apr 2026, 17:26

@tykki19 Thank you for playing! Yes there isn't new content after day 20. There are 2 hidden endings before day 20 and I normally like to allow player to go endless if they choose to.
Perhaps I should add a default ending on day 20 to hint to the player that there is no more new things to do afterward. Thanks for the feedback!

Nikiroz23 Apr 2026, 08:06

A funny little game.

Mr. Flower23 Apr 2026, 13:26

Very nice, honestly I loved the feeling of looking at the map, figuring out what places are worth going to for what supplies. It becomes significantly easier once you know where you can get supplies, but still plenty of fun. Also love the little message on the gun, lol. Making use of the radio was also really fun and nice to know where safe places to go are. I got the ending where we make it to the JFK airport. Good job on this one :D

VenomousMouse23 Apr 2026, 15:35

I love zombie apocalypse/survival games! And this one is very good for text based game. Also good radio implementation. Nice job!

LDJam user 389806author23 Apr 2026, 18:00

@mr-flower Thank you so much for playing through! and noticing the message haha.

LDJam user 389806author23 Apr 2026, 18:00

@nikiroz @venomousmouse Thank you so much for playing!

Byte Bark25 Apr 2026, 00:12

I love the graphics, very clean UI. And I like how the game provides an immersive experience with such minimalism design. Made it to Staten Island :tada:

KeySole26 Apr 2026, 17:38

Good game! Barely have anything to complain about at all.

Le Don30 Apr 2026, 10:51

Great game! I really like the idea. I needed two small runs to get the idea, but then I managed to get to Staten Island.

LDJam user 389806author1 May 2026, 02:08

@byte-bark @keysole @le-don Thank you for playing!

ruthiepee2 May 2026, 11:15

Great interface design, easy to understand how to play and fun to listen to the radio for clues. As a New Yorker I had to play this one. :) I have to say I really liked having the voices, it made the zombie apocalypse feel more real.

Other games by @absolute-garbage

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