MiniLD #44compo

World's Aftermath

by jdaniello

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.89

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.72

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.06

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.89

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.72

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.35

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.86

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.56

Coolness★★★★★★★★★★47%

Click the link below to download for Windows.

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World's Aftermath
"A Sickening Dystopian Realtime Simulator (TM)"

A game by James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovic

In this glorious rendition of the world's end, fight for the last remaining resources, or as the Rebel Scum to defend from the oppressive Allied Collective.

* * *

To keep you guys from going into shock, we had to cut some of the awesome from the game. For one, real-time rendered 3D CGI and motion capture had to be replaced with 16-bit pixel art. Multi-channel 7.1 surround sound had to be reduced to stereo. The in-game FMV and touchscreen menus were pitched, and all the voice actors quit before we completed the project due to "unsavory" work conditions. Also, we didn't have enough time to raise money on Kickstarter for the next World War so we could properly record the tanks moving.

* * *

Note about install:
-Run the .exe or .jar.
-If you have any trouble running the game be sure to update java:
http://java.com/en/download/index.jsp

Comments28

7heSAMA30 Jul 2013, 23:47

Styling graphics, but there's not a lot of depth to it - not being able to control individual units pretty much means it's just a rush.

AVataRR31 Jul 2013, 00:06

I totally loved this game! It was annoying not to be able to control my units at first - but I think this adds further to the kind of planning you need to think about. Great audio, great graphics setting up a non too serious mood. Awesome job. :}

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor31 Jul 2013, 02:14

More info about what we had to scrap and what we plan on adding in the coming weeks:
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2013/07/30/worlds-aftermath-post-mortem/

Delirium3731 Jul 2013, 02:44

This game is brilliant. I found myself playing it multiple times and for several hours. The music and graphics fit really well and were overall amazing as was the game play.

chasepettit31 Jul 2013, 03:16

Very well made. The graphics and audio are both great.

I generally like the gameplay, but I seemed to run into a lot of deadlock situations where I couldn't do anything to push forward. Not sure if that's just me not having an effective strategy or if maybe it needs some balance tweaks.

bimbambubby31 Jul 2013, 04:03

Is all of the content in this 100% original? If so I'm really impressed.

Magnus31 Jul 2013, 06:38

Sweet, I like the parallax and the retro dithering. The incremental unlocking of units was a nice addition.

niconapalm31 Jul 2013, 07:56

thanks for the comments! I appreciate all criticism about the game. @chasepettit: my strategy is to make some infantry or hardsuits and press attack and then make 2 or 3 harvesters to afford my second wave

timtipgames31 Jul 2013, 09:02

I can't run it :(
Java is up2date.
Here's a stack trace executing the jar with java 1.7 u25
http://pastebin.com/kVWYv5Yt

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor31 Jul 2013, 12:17

@timtipgames: in the /settings/ folder try deleting 'sound.dat' and 'axis.dat' and try again. Let me know if that doesn't solve it.

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor31 Jul 2013, 16:28

Yes, bimbambubby, all of the content is 100% original: source code, art assets, music, graphics, sounds, etc. We pulled nothing from external sources.

timtipgames31 Jul 2013, 16:44

Nope, that didn't do the trick. But the exception is now slightly different:
http://pastebin.com/h1trDtbN

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor31 Jul 2013, 17:07

Hmm, bizarre. I don't have access to the code right now--I'm at work but can you try downloading again (making sure the download is complete) and be sure to unzip the entire contents onto your machine somewhere? Let me know how that goes either way and if you're getting the same issue I'll have to look into it and see why.

timtipgames31 Jul 2013, 18:18

same issue. downloaded again, extracted again, made sure to use newest java. If you prefer we can also communicate via mail (timtipgames @ gmail.com) or twitter @timtipgames to debug this. If I am really the only one it's maybe not worth it (although I really would like to play it). That's up to you :)

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor1 Aug 2013, 01:56

sorceress says:
July 31, 2013 at 12:11 pm
"Update your game as much as you want. This isn’t as strict as a regular LD. :)"

With that said, I don't deem it fair to make changes to the game, however here is a post with a fix for the bug mentioned by timtipgames. No other changes have been made except the file reading problem that timtipgames has made us aware of. Let me know if it works!

http://www.nullfrog.com/media/Worlds_Aftermath_v0.5.1.zip

HeroesGrave1 Aug 2013, 04:20

Nice!

timtipgames1 Aug 2013, 08:41

Fixing this kind of bugs is also allowed in the regular LD so that's really no problem.
Unfortunately you made it worse for me now ;)
http://pastebin.com/h4NG00y0
Note that I am on a i7, not an AMD as the native loader exception claims :)

srd1 Aug 2013, 11:14

A few innovations over the standard model of a 1 dimensional RTS - the heightmap (not sure if it affects gameplay) and the resource mine in no-man's land. However, the music is way too loud and starts with no warning! I also hit a bug where the map stops scrolling.

srd1 Aug 2013, 11:26

OK, so the heightmap does add depth to the gameplay, but some units get stuck trying to fire through hills.

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor1 Aug 2013, 11:54

Thanks for the feedback srd. We're going to fix the line of sight issue, but we need to be careful because it can easily consume CPU cycles. I did like the emergent behavior that having higher ground seemed to add, but we can't leave the game broken so we are going to come up with something clever to fix it completely.

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor1 Aug 2013, 16:40

@timtipgames, I think the project needs the 64 bit DLLs for OpenAL. I'll look into it when I get off work.

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor2 Aug 2013, 00:47

@timtipgames, It's going to be quite some work to upgrade OpenAl and get it running with 64bit. Been working for hours here. :( One thing I may recommend is to install the 32 bit version of Java. This seems to be the problem.

vincepascoe2 Aug 2013, 07:41

only 2 levels!? yes I too had tanks shooting into hills getting killed by infantry... Over all REally cool reminds me of that steam game swords and sandals? nice job other then only two levels I looked like a finished game! liked the two different factions. look forward to more games!

MiniBobbo3 Aug 2013, 02:18

I had a ton of fun playing this.

I did get stuck at level 2 though. I was playing as the allied collective and the enemy base was at the top of the hill. My troops and tanks would go half way up the hill, see the enemy and then sit there shooting at the hill. The enemy would spawn, see my units, and then shoot the hill. We had a giant standoff around this hill with eventually a ton of units that dropped the FPS rate into the single digits...

But in all seriousness this is a great entry!

James Daniello & Nicolas Ickovicauthor4 Aug 2013, 02:41

For anyone having trouble running the game, here is a link with a fix:
http://www.nullfrog.com/media/Worlds_Aftermath_v0.5.2.zip

timtipgames5 Aug 2013, 15:59

Hey James, hey Nicolas, thanks for taking the time to fix this so I (and probably others) can finally play it :)

Here are some thoughts:

* Would be nice if I could see how many units are at a spot when they are all close to the same position.
* I think the graphics are pretty cool and I like the style. But I think more colors wouldn't have hurt. I see that all the grey is kind of the style of the game, but I think the same thing with a well chosen color palette would be much better and would add more to the atmosphere than the grey. But maybe that's just personal preference.
* Harvesters don't go for the nearest resource which is kind of stupid (of the harvesters of course, not of you :))
* Audio fits perfectly.
* More levels! Really mean to make me look forward to unlocking all those units when I can't :/

Good job, hope to see you in the next LD.

phi6 Aug 2013, 09:40

One of my favorites. Awesome game!

Sometimes units just shoot into the ground when there are enemies behind, but that's the only thing I can beef about.

klianc0913 Aug 2013, 19:54

I hope this gets balanced in the future, because as it is now, you just have to spend all your money on the cheap units and then press attack so that they all move at once as one big blob, and then you win^^ Besides that, nice game.