Mecha Cop 2875 by Tuism

[raw]
made by Tuism for LD32 (JAM)
Mecha Cop 2875 is a nostalgic take on the future! There is carnage in the streets, and the colourful people of Megatropolis X quiver in fear, even if they don't show it.

It's up to the government-funded Mecha Cop and his Pet Mechas once again!

Ride in one of three models of Mecha! Kill bad guys! Don't kill Civilians or you'll be reprimanded by flashing warning lights!

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WASD to move and jump. (Double tap to dash)
Mouse to aim, click to shoot.
E to eject when in a mech.

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Awesome amazing three-piece soundtrack by Tim Harbour

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Pun fact: 2875 is semi-1337speak for 2875... Kind of, right? See it?

Ratings

Coolness 76% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.31 447
Audio(Jam) 3.06 379
Fun(Jam) 3.48 214
Graphics(Jam) 3.41 457
Humor(Jam) 2.53 674
Innovation(Jam) 2.77 704
Mood(Jam) 3.15 460
Theme(Jam) 2.48 953

Feedback

SteveSalmond
21. Apr 2015 · 09:16 UTC
Pretty cool man! I picked the siege mech first cos it was the biggest one there, but got defeated by the first set of steps, haha. Assault mech was lotsa fun and combat felt cool - the screen shake and stuff was a nice touch. A few combat sfx would have added a ton to the mood, I think. Loved the music!
SteveSalmond
21. Apr 2015 · 09:17 UTC
Oh by the way, I think you have your embed URL wrong - it starts downloading a unity3d file as soon as you open this page. Should probably link to an HTML wrapper instead.
zimmy87
21. Apr 2015 · 09:31 UTC
this is cool, there feels like a good challenge here and the blend of 2D and 3D is nice
Druid
21. Apr 2015 · 09:38 UTC
Great concept, interesting graphics, but controls were little stiff. Anyway, great work!
Bemmu
21. Apr 2015 · 09:42 UTC
Enjoyed playing this, impressive that you managed to get these different mechs in. Trying to shoot the baddies while avoiding civilians made it more intense. Nice blending between different sound channels depending on the action.
rogberth
21. Apr 2015 · 09:43 UTC
Siege mech sucks. I love the rest haha. Nice game! Very difficult to win without civilian casualties
tripleVisionGames
21. Apr 2015 · 10:09 UTC
Oops I killed lots of civilians...

...also, love that music! Explosions are pretty neato too :D
🎤 Tuism
21. Apr 2015 · 10:24 UTC
Rats, you can get into the siege off the bat? That's supposed to be mission 3 exclusive XD Will need to update that. Or not. Hmmmm not sure.

Thanks guys :)
🎤 Tuism
21. Apr 2015 · 11:41 UTC
Each of the three mechs are mission-specific, the siege one has one special property that suits the third mission, but yes, it's otherwise pretty hulking useless. Would have needed much more time to fine-tune the balance between the mechs, which I didn't have because I threw them down the toilet building oh-my-God-so-many-interlocking-systems. SO incredibly overscoped.
DesignerNap
21. Apr 2015 · 12:10 UTC
Great looking game that plays well. Couldnt get the siege mech up the stairs tho! Good fun with the rest and I like that the flying one has the readout of fuel on the arms. Excellent.
🎤 Tuism
21. Apr 2015 · 13:35 UTC
YES THANK YOU for noticing the fuel gauge on the arms :P I totally redesigned the flight type so that it could be understood without tutorialising. Turned out to be the best idea ever :D

The siege type has a very specific role and wasn't ever meant to go to the right side for mission one :P In fact that it was accessible from the start is a bug I should fix. But I'm glad I had the stairs that prevented it from "breaking" the game :P
Suhvan4ik
21. Apr 2015 · 13:51 UTC
Great artstyle and nice gameplay. But it's hard to find diffrenc between bandits and civilians
edve98
21. Apr 2015 · 13:54 UTC
You used Unity, why didn't you port to Linux??
cmcoto
21. Apr 2015 · 14:11 UTC
Awesome! game
🎤 Tuism
21. Apr 2015 · 14:15 UTC
LINUX BUILD COMING RIGHT UP!!! Sorry about that was frustrated with the Chrome-hate :P
DKoding
21. Apr 2015 · 14:18 UTC
Great effort! Plays very smoothly. I liked that you had to go find your mech again when you died.
TeamCalcium
21. Apr 2015 · 14:32 UTC
A really cool mech fighting game. It is great that you included a lot of different mechs.
duck
21. Apr 2015 · 14:39 UTC
I liked it! I didn't realise there were supposed to be multiple missions until I read your comment here, though. I noticed the arrows about half way through the second mission :)
Taldius
21. Apr 2015 · 15:02 UTC
Really nice game! It's pretty hard not to it the civilians and the character feels really slow without a mecha. My only concern is that, in my opinion, a mecha doesn't feel unconventional, but that's just detail, your game is really good.
Nice job!
Pixel_Reaper
21. Apr 2015 · 17:19 UTC
Very cool, killed many civilians, oops :P
kyyrma
21. Apr 2015 · 17:28 UTC
That was pretty cool, like a mashup of Judge Dredd, Robocop and the worst and best of the neon soaked faux-80s. I think the biggest problem was trying to shoot the perps without hitting civilians, because of how many there are and how hard they are to tell apart. I guess that is a part of the challenge though!

@DesignerNap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MS4sLlBvbE
ArcturusDeluxe
21. Apr 2015 · 17:38 UTC
Mechs are always good for a laugh. I like the retro 80s aesthetic with the title screen and stuff. Pretty cool. Was difficult to distinguish the civilians from the bad guys though.
Park
21. Apr 2015 · 18:01 UTC
Fun game, I enjoyed the flying mech a lot. I think the number of civilians and blocky level design are holding back the enjoyment of the other mechs, I used each of them once but stuck with the flying mech for the precision of it's fire and better angles around civies.

Ranked A/S basically by letting the enemies kill the civilians between us before opening fire. Letting the criminals walk through civilian hitboxes or otherwise designing groups of civilians to roam within specific bounds might free up the space that a player feels free to mech dash and open fire.

Altogether great accomplishment, especially given the time. ・ᴗ・
daltostronic
21. Apr 2015 · 18:54 UTC
I'm not sure if 'please don't kill civilians' is a joke or a moral lesson :D
LukeZaz
22. Apr 2015 · 00:02 UTC
Good game! it was a bit hard to tell who were criminals until they shot at me, and avoiding shooting civilians was incredibly difficult, so I just opted to not bother trying to avoid them.
🎤 Tuism
22. Apr 2015 · 05:17 UTC
@Park thanks for your suggestion!! You're right on the money. Unsophisticated AI is easy to exploit :p Honestly because of the many systems I had to build in the time, tweaks like mutually exclusive hitboxes were simply going to add one more system which would have to change things across quite a few others, which there simply wasn't time for.

The one lesson I took out of this was really keeping the number of systems in a jam game down to a minimum.
Pixel Heart
22. Apr 2015 · 09:05 UTC
The controls are well made, and the idea of mixing 2d pixel art with 3D asset is nice. A part from this, the gameplay has very little clue and the concept is poor. I would have focused more on the concept and work more on the gameplay, instead of creating rich titles and GUIS and leave the mechanics incomplete.
asobi tech
22. Apr 2015 · 10:10 UTC
Great use of mechs, and nice variation.
unfortunately being asked not to kill civilians made me want to kill them even more ;)
It wasn't alway clear who the bad guys were, especially when you're zooming around in a Mech.
Great cohesive art style.
Xanjos
22. Apr 2015 · 10:37 UTC
Absolutely loved the look and feel of this game especially the little warning that comes up when you kill a civilian which I'll admit was appearing for me quite a lot as it was pretty hard to tell them apart from actual criminals when you're trying to open fire.
natalye
22. Apr 2015 · 10:42 UTC
Great take on the theme. Found the controls a bit rigid a times, and the mech sometimes gets stuck because of platforms/people in his way.
Great music and animation too.
renatopp
22. Apr 2015 · 12:56 UTC
I really, really want a mech game! I have 2 points to the game: the "dont kill civilians" is very inconvenient, I'm in a super blaster mech, I don't care about civilians! Moreover, the enemies and civilians walk together. Congratulations for the game, it is really cool.
Hyoga-3D
22. Apr 2015 · 14:39 UTC
Art is ok, controls are very nice, I had some fun game with the game :)
phi6
22. Apr 2015 · 15:55 UTC
Definitely needs some sound design to just take it beyond, even with the amount of visual polish here which is excellent. I enjoyed the game, would have liked to have seen some variable jump heights - but riding the mechas was a fun highlight.
Peach Pie Productions
22. Apr 2015 · 19:01 UTC
Great entry! The combination 2d pixel and low poly 3D art was surprisingly a great blend! Smooth and easy control. The music is great but there were no SFX sound? That would have brought out the mood greatly. Had you add sound of people screaming as the civilian got killed, it would have been completely hilarious.
Evergreen Games
22. Apr 2015 · 20:02 UTC
very satisfying! it just felt great to destroy hordes of enemies in a mech. i gave up on saving the civilians and just shot everything. wish it was longer.
Larzan
23. Apr 2015 · 08:52 UTC
Nice sound, good gfx, i like the robocop / dredd mood you gave it, great entry!
simon.parzer
23. Apr 2015 · 13:17 UTC
The controls remind me of an old DOS game called 'Abuse'. For a Ludum Dare game this has a lot of content, including 3 different mechs and some nice special effects.
It felt a bit weird having my mech destroyed after being hit ~5 times. It makes some sense because it makes the game more challenging but I was expecting the mechs to be more powerful just because they look like it.
Horsed
23. Apr 2015 · 13:28 UTC
Nice fighting action! The mech models look awesome already. The graphics and 2d animations could be a lot richer, though. Not much more to it than running around and shooting everything, but that's what I would expect from a game like this.
Frenchie
24. Apr 2015 · 03:19 UTC
Wait, we're not supposed to kill the civilians?! ;)
rogueNoodle
24. Apr 2015 · 09:15 UTC
Very cool - really impressive to have three different mechs in there, and the progression required to use them! I sort of wish they could handle a few more hits then they did, though. Felt a little disappointing to roll up in a badass mech suit and get destroyed in 3 or 4 hits.
Franklin's Ghost
24. Apr 2015 · 16:04 UTC
Nice title and impressed that you were able to get a few different vehicles in that actually had differences besides visuals. Did find it really hard to not kill civilians but they should have probably stayed out of the sight of a giant mech. Graphics are great too, liked the blend of 3d and 2d
Geckoo1337
24. Apr 2015 · 21:27 UTC
A good challenge with a pretty aesthetic. It can be improved to give more pleasure. I have some difficulties so as to do a difference between NPC - civilians and bad boys with weapon. A good entry. Thank you ++
Toby Pinder
25. Apr 2015 · 23:47 UTC
Really cool dynamic audio mixing - that's something I really notice and appreciate. I like the sense of progression, and the subtle sense of humour when it comes to collateral damage...

Would have been nicer if there was a bit more visual variety between bad guys and civilians though. Something like allies being grey and enemies being coloured?
emmelineprufrock
26. Apr 2015 · 07:25 UTC
Very slick as far as style and personality goes. The art and graphics work well to give that retro-but-not-quite attitude.
OnlySlightly
26. Apr 2015 · 07:27 UTC
That was awesome! So impressive that you can enter and exit mechs in a jam game. You have a beautiful aesthetic!
TheFuntastic
26. Apr 2015 · 09:28 UTC
Wow this was a really ambitious game! The idea of swapping out mechs to change your abilities was cool, but I can easily see how that ate all your time. For instance there was no need to have the human running around. You could have easily done that by just choosing to swap between mechs using a key.

I know focusing on design in jams where you ran out of time can be harsh, but I'll provide feedback anyway seeing as this is fundamentally about learning.

I felt frustrated by ludonarrative dissonance (for want of less pretentious words) in the game. For instance killing civilians are perfectly happy to wander around while mad men toting machine guns are running amok. Also generally speaking in mech lore you are mostly invincible against unarmoured men, so I was disappointed to die so quickly. The level design also really didn't do much to amplify the awesomeness of the mech. For instance the big siege mech was stuck in a very small area. Also having internals to buildings wasn't really something that made much sense for the mechs. However in a bigger a game I could imagine that being a cool part of missions where you have leave the safety of your mech to enter a building to hack some data or some such.

Because of the level design I was quite drawn to the flying mech. But it seemed to have bug preventing it from flying after a few seconds? Really liked the idea of flying around buildings and picking of the inhabitants, but the walls on most of the buildings made that impossible.

Anyway there were the seeds of some interesting ideas here. Would have been keen to see the results if you'd started with a more focused scope ;)
TheFuntastic
26. Apr 2015 · 09:36 UTC
Okay, upon reading the comments I see that there were missions and you are using a mech per level. Also now understand the fuel on the flying mech. Yup missed both of those things completely ;)
GAFBlizzard
30. Apr 2015 · 19:12 UTC
Mechs are cool! Nice idea with the 3 mech types.

I really didn't like the civilians running around and being super difficult to distinguish from enemies, however. Sometimes it even seemed like killing a mech gave a civilian warning, and I'm almost positive there was an armed civilian at one point so I couldn't just look for guns.

The camera movement when you switched from left to right was disorienting and made it annoying to shoot up. I would prefer an option to lock the camera on the player, and people who want a switched view could use the other option.
hexdie
03. May 2015 · 00:32 UTC
This was pretty interesting and isn't too bad for an LD entry. However, there were some issues with it.

1) It was a little confusing when missions started and ending, I couldn't tell when I was in a mission. Also, the mission complete screen should be more easily closed.

2) I like the idea of punishing players for killing civilians, however it's hard to tell them apart from the enemies and it's almost impossible not to kill them because of how much they are mixed in with the enemies. That could use some work.

3) I liked that there was music, and the music was nice, but the lack of any sound effects made this less enjoyable. I would've liked to hear some sound effects, even if they had been simple bfxr generated ones.


Overall, it was a pretty nice entry but it definitely could use some work if you plan on making a fuller version of this.
jtpup0
04. May 2015 · 19:25 UTC
Great game, the assault mech was my favorite just because of the way it hopped around.
deadbodyoutline
06. May 2015 · 03:04 UTC
Cool, reminds me about Metal Warriors :)
tmpxyz
10. May 2015 · 08:36 UTC
I love mech, hope for more.
Marek Lisý
10. May 2015 · 09:37 UTC
Although you wrote you did nothing innovative, I think that you did amazing job and had some cool ideas around those Mechas. I loved the graphics, shadows, sounds, everything. Also, the missions were well designed, so raters could complete the game and feel a bit of accomplishement, yet not spending too much time in the game.
Jasonsumm
10. May 2015 · 11:21 UTC
Really impressive! I love the look
sydan
10. May 2015 · 11:49 UTC
Good fun to play and quite unique in this competition! One thing that bugged me though, the mech's feel weak... They just don't stand up to much.
Nanolotl
10. May 2015 · 12:19 UTC
liked the player character design and animation.
Dorgam
10. May 2015 · 12:38 UTC
Good game but it doesn't go very well with the theme
aaronjbaptiste
10. May 2015 · 13:09 UTC
Overall very impressed with how much you fit into it. Great game really. I couldn't really tell enemies apart from civilians, and trying to avoid them just makes the game tedious, much more fun to just kill everything in sight.

Desperately missing sound effects, but other than that there's lots of potential here.
SeriouslyCrunchy
10. May 2015 · 13:37 UTC
Love it. I marked you down a little for the theme but everywhere else it looks good, audio is good and it plays well.
Dejvo
10. May 2015 · 18:46 UTC
pretty fun to play with mechs. not sure if it's so unconventiona though. but yeah, nice one :)
hexagore
10. May 2015 · 23:04 UTC
Hard not to agree with your own post-mortem about this one. Lovely animations on the mechs, and jumping in one and running around feels great but I really tried to avoid shooting the civilians first time (even though I really didn't have to) and found it practically impossible.

Once I realised it really didn't matter I found it more fun to play, but it did feel it was missing something. Maybe the missions would have benefited from feeling a little more... directed. I felt like I was just randomly shooting things until it said stop?

The music was great. I guess the graphics could have done with a little bit more atmosphere but that's just superficial stuff. Overall this has a lot of quality. :)
LTyrosine
11. May 2015 · 03:43 UTC
This game is amazing! Amazing idea, amazing music, cool graphics and very fun to play. Top entry of this LD!