Crowd Control by CriticalMammal
Instructions
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Click the tank to open up the menu to modify your weapon. You can click buttons that add/decrease their effects at the cost of more damage.
Then click (and hold) the mouse button over parts of the crowd to apply your selected emotional damage to them.
Quick Notes to Clear Up Confusion
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EDIT: Added a post-jam version that will continue to be updated. Already added tweaks to the crowd reactions so they have animations and additional effects to their behavior.
1. The game DOES have ending scenarios, they can just take a while to achieve.
2. The crowd size does not grow, what you see at the start is what there is. It's up to you to get rid of them. (Note: If fearful, they generally run off stage but return back later which may give the impression that more are being added).
3. The emotional effects can be fairly subtle, I'm sorry they aren't a bit easier to distinguish. In general, rage makes them more/less aggressive, sorrow increases affect their long-term interest in rioting, and fear causes panic quickly at the cost of more rage later.
4. The goals are very loose and I don't force you to take any certain approach. This means there are easier and harder ways to "win", it's sort of up to you to decide what approach is appropriate or most rewarding.
The Game
------------
The goal of the game is to stop the crowd from rioting. You can do this in whatever way you see fit, though for a challenge you can try to see if you can end it without killing anyone.
My concept focuses on riots and emotional/physical crowd control. The weapon is a kind of microwave mind control tank based on the very real Active Denial System (minus the mind control). I thought it'd be interesting to be able to alter the emotions of the crowd and whatnot at the price of doing physical harm to them. It encourages some thought about how far you should go to keep control over a population. I hope it's presented in a sort of neutral way, where you can experiment with it and come up with your own idea for what works.
About me:
-----------------
Created by Dylan Gallardo for the 72 hour Jam. All programming and visual art was done during the jam. The audio was found and edited during the jam from Freesound.org
Find me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CriticalMammal
Or visit my website: http://dylangallardo.com/
---------------
Click the tank to open up the menu to modify your weapon. You can click buttons that add/decrease their effects at the cost of more damage.
Then click (and hold) the mouse button over parts of the crowd to apply your selected emotional damage to them.
Quick Notes to Clear Up Confusion
-----------------------------------
EDIT: Added a post-jam version that will continue to be updated. Already added tweaks to the crowd reactions so they have animations and additional effects to their behavior.
1. The game DOES have ending scenarios, they can just take a while to achieve.
2. The crowd size does not grow, what you see at the start is what there is. It's up to you to get rid of them. (Note: If fearful, they generally run off stage but return back later which may give the impression that more are being added).
3. The emotional effects can be fairly subtle, I'm sorry they aren't a bit easier to distinguish. In general, rage makes them more/less aggressive, sorrow increases affect their long-term interest in rioting, and fear causes panic quickly at the cost of more rage later.
4. The goals are very loose and I don't force you to take any certain approach. This means there are easier and harder ways to "win", it's sort of up to you to decide what approach is appropriate or most rewarding.
The Game
------------
The goal of the game is to stop the crowd from rioting. You can do this in whatever way you see fit, though for a challenge you can try to see if you can end it without killing anyone.
My concept focuses on riots and emotional/physical crowd control. The weapon is a kind of microwave mind control tank based on the very real Active Denial System (minus the mind control). I thought it'd be interesting to be able to alter the emotions of the crowd and whatnot at the price of doing physical harm to them. It encourages some thought about how far you should go to keep control over a population. I hope it's presented in a sort of neutral way, where you can experiment with it and come up with your own idea for what works.
About me:
-----------------
Created by Dylan Gallardo for the 72 hour Jam. All programming and visual art was done during the jam. The audio was found and edited during the jam from Freesound.org
Find me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CriticalMammal
Or visit my website: http://dylangallardo.com/
| Web | https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80401684/LudumDare32.html |
| Web (Post Jam Version) | http://dylangallardo.com/LudumDare32.html |
| Windows (Post Jam Version) | https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/80401684/CrowdControl.exe |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-32/?action=preview&uid=26681 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 78% | 2 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.12 | 595 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.00 | 404 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.54 | 865 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.12 | 605 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.16 | 838 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.82 | 99 |
| Mood(Jam) | 3.26 | 378 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.85 | 159 |
unclear though what the decrease and increase mean...
lowering rage and then clicking someone decreases its rage or has less effect on its rage?
1. The crowd doesn't grow or happen in waves. What you see at the start is what there is. They run off-screen though, which might give the impression more are being added when they come back
2. The emotional effects can be fairly subtle, I'm sorry they aren't a bit easier to distinguish. In general, rage makes them more/less aggressive, sorrow increases affect their long-term interest in rioting, and fear causes panic quickly at the cost of more rage later.
3. The goals are very loose and I don't force you to take any certain approach. This means there are easier and harder ways to "win", it's sort of up to you to decide what approach is appropriate or most rewarding.
- Dylan
It's interesting though, being threaten by the crowd in-game and resorting to violence. There's a certain point where you sort of take a "them or me" approach and decide you just can't handle them and have to take them out.
I haven't read Elias Canetti's "Crowds and Power", though I'm tempted to now as research for this since it seems so relevant.
Some more feedback would have been helpful, like i did not always know, in which "mode" the crowd (or single individuals) are. for example, look at gods will be watching, there you can estimate how nervous people are by looking at their movement.
Nevertheless a great game. Well done! :)
I also appreciate your comments on my game and elsewhere! It's obvious you're very committed to Ludum and providing feedback, which is great to see.
The audio fits very well into the game and made me appreciate even more.
The only problem is the crowd, i spent about 15 minute trying to calm it down [using sorrow -3, rage -2 and fear +1 and some little modification] but was unable to do so, in the end i killed everybody out of "rage" and felt like this was the only way to calm it down [as jmborden said].
I'll try the post-jam version asap and see how it plays
Good job!
Thanks a lot for the additional comments everyone, there have been a lot and I may respond individually to some more of them later today.
I'm very aware of the original submission's lack of feedback regarding the crowd's response. The post jam version improves that pretty well I think, but feel free to tell me if there are still some confusing aspects.
So, as you see, we have similar views on the theme. I like your game: it is simple and feels complete. The graphics is an example of what you can achieve with minimal skills and effort. God job!
I managed to control the crowd without killing anybody but didn't see any special ending, just "imagine something better"