Leechside Manor
I decided to focus on old medical tech — leeches and bloodletting. The history facts in this game are all true.
Paris, 1828–1832. Dr. Broussais orders thirty leeches for every patient, France buys them by the tens of millions, and you are his house physician at the Val-de-Grâce Hospital.
Place leeches on the patients to bleed them. The leeches will fall off when full but the soldiers will bleed until you press lint into the bites. Careful that you don't bleed them too much, or they will faint and you will need to carry them out. Salt the fed leeches so they can be used again, keep the hungry ones out of the drain, and mind your footing: leeches on the floor are slippery. Three years, three shifts of mounting difficulty.
CONTROLS
WASD / arrows — walk
Shift — run. Be careful! You are guaranteed to slip on fed leeches
E / Space — take, give, apply (hold to pump the bdellometer)
Esc — pause · M — mute
Made for Ludum Dare 60 by John Shen, using Claude code.
CREDITS
Music: "Ancient Rite" and "Vanishing" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License — http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Sound effects (CC0): Kenney, Fantozzi, bart, EZduzziteh, Independent.nu, sinny, TinyWorlds — via kenney.nl and OpenGameArt
Title plate: the death of Galerius, Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, Paris, 15th century. BnF, Français 127, f. 258r. Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF
Type: IM Fell English and EB Garamond (SIL Open Font License)
Comments8
I loved it when the nurses started moving back and forth—a clever way to "get in the way" of the doctor.
The gameplay felt very fluid and enjoyable. The movement is well-executed, and I especially liked how the doctor walks more slowly when carrying a corpse, effectively conveying its weight—a very smart touch.
Although the art style is simple, everything is easy to identify; the visuals are clear. The art at the beginning feels a bit disconnected from the in-game art—I suspect the title screen image might have been sourced from the internet. The music is also excellent; the cello gives the game a somber, funereal atmosphere.
The hitboxes for actions can be a bit confusing at times. While it’s usually clear what the character is targeting, when you’re standing near two objects, the focus tends to flicker between them, which occasionally led me to perform the wrong action. Perhaps incorporating mouse-based interaction could improve this?
What game inspired you to create this one? I ask because there are many games in this genre, and usually, there’s one that stands out as a primary influence.
I think this is a fantastic take on the theme. Many people focus solely on machinery and forget just how much medicine has evolved.
Congratulations!
@hexela - I could have made this more explicit, but running will guarantee slips. Walking is 25% chance.
@hammeredzombie - It's especially easy to slip when trying to pick up a leech from above because of how the hitboxes were configured. I noticed it too late to fix before the deadline. I plan to fix it but will have to wait until the LD review period is over.
@euler-moises - The art is from some actual historical depictions of leeching. Details in the credits! Mouse controls are interesting. I didn't consider it. I was inspired by Overcooked. I loved that game but multiplayer seemed impossible for the jam so I focused on adding 1p mechanics. If I keep working on it multiplayer is a high priority.