Afterlife Dance Party by Wertle

[raw]
made by Wertle for LD30 (JAM)
Just an illicit dance party between forbidden friends.

I originally was doing this as the solo comp, but decided that my lackluster composition skills would not do justice to the need of a dancey tune. Thus the switch to Jam and John Fio to the rescue with the music.

Also used some sounds from freesounds users cmusounddesign, robinhood76, henrique85n, ondrosik and rivernile7

Known issues:
- if you spam the controls sometimes the animations lock
- there does reach a point where things spawn and it's impossible to avoid them

Ratings

Coolness 71% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.76 80
Audio(Jam) 3.91 48
Fun(Jam) 3.97 28
Graphics(Jam) 3.71 247
Humor(Jam) 4.23 12
Innovation(Jam) 3.64 99
Mood(Jam) 3.73 104
Theme(Jam) 4.03 29

Feedback

tigerbyte
25. Aug 2014 · 11:22 UTC
Good job, Wertle!

My mind just couldn't get that "the devil is going to go a different direction" and I ran him into too many spirits!
sP0CkEr2
25. Aug 2014 · 19:39 UTC
Really clever game. I love the reverse control system, and the music is very groovy.
Ludipe
25. Aug 2014 · 19:44 UTC
I loved the game, very fun and with nice art. The intro was awesome :D

Well done!

P.D.: I also used Construct to make something(not really a game :P ) http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=20471
rojo
26. Aug 2014 · 04:04 UTC
Ha, very clever. The comic book-esque intro was a nice touch. The art did a good job of portraying the mood.

Also you're my first LD30 game, so hooray for that!
KhaoTom
26. Aug 2014 · 06:44 UTC
I am learning so many moves from these two!
slakhorn
26. Aug 2014 · 12:33 UTC
I found myself jumping to the beat more than to the ghosts, great work!
thiaguera
26. Aug 2014 · 14:14 UTC
pretty fun!
barryrowe
26. Aug 2014 · 16:33 UTC
This mechanic is really fun, and a really nice interpretation of the theme! Awesome job!
Frankus
26. Aug 2014 · 20:15 UTC
I was dancing while playing it! It was hard to synchronize the movements on the low and upper screen. Amazing work!
SnoutUp
26. Aug 2014 · 20:34 UTC
This was so much fun! :)
audiosprite
27. Aug 2014 · 02:22 UTC
Yo, glad you guys enjoyed the music! You can listen to & download it here https://soundcloud.com/audiosprite/afterlife-dance-party
AFlatMinerStudios
27. Aug 2014 · 03:27 UTC
Nice!
jjhaggar
27. Aug 2014 · 09:57 UTC
Haha, that was fun to play. The music is great, the sounds are nice, the graphics are super cute and its well in theme. Well done! :D
Artamus
27. Aug 2014 · 16:39 UTC
Nice game, congrats!
Kyatric
27. Aug 2014 · 17:12 UTC
The control scheme/feel was a bit rough. Indeed the "sticky" animation bug (even without spamming though :( ) added to the inversion and yet link between the two characters was a bit difficult to apprehend.

Nonetheless, the general cute look of the assets, the indeed bouncy music and the faces expressions while dancing gave a great tone/humor to that game.

The mini story ("Dancing with the devil" was kind of missing some moonlight though ^^) with the boss man and the "when the cat's away, the mice will play" attitude gave great humor and an overall enjoyable experience.

Good job !
zatyka
28. Aug 2014 · 02:22 UTC
That was fun. One of the more unique games I've played. The opening cut scene was awesome. The gameplay was simple, yet entertaining. The hand drawn graphics worked well with the genre of game.

My only complaints were the the controls feeling a bit unrefined, and the lack of variety. Otherwise, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
rogueNoodle
28. Aug 2014 · 19:19 UTC
Super fun entry! Love the opening and animations. Fun music too :)
JavadocMD
28. Aug 2014 · 20:15 UTC
Very fun and unique concept! The setup is brilliant and I love the character design.

The hitboxes felt a little unforgiving which is a pain when you have to quickly switch poses. I also wasn't sure if the game sets you up for "impossible to not get hit" situations, or if I was just bad at the game. (If I spent more time with the game, I'm sure I could figure that out on my own, but anyway...) :)
dickpoelen
28. Aug 2014 · 20:42 UTC
Hahah! That was great :)
Nuclear Napalm
29. Aug 2014 · 03:55 UTC
Haha, I like this style)) Nice entry!
hoyt hoy
30. Aug 2014 · 12:41 UTC
Funny game with a simple artwork, good job!
It's difficult, but on a good way.
DarknessFades
30. Aug 2014 · 13:54 UTC
Great job, i rly enoyojed theme
EndingChaos
30. Aug 2014 · 14:07 UTC
Wow this was so fun to play! Great job on the animations and programming. and the music was addicting and on point with the gameplay. Great entry.
IamAcoconut
30. Aug 2014 · 17:45 UTC
Really fun to play! I liked the music you used, and the plot line was funny!
andrewkennedy
30. Aug 2014 · 23:12 UTC
Groovy music, and so much charm from the characters! One of the few great humor scores I have given out :)
Natman
31. Aug 2014 · 02:40 UTC
I really, really enjoyed this. Clever, funny, and well executed rhythm gameplay. Sometimes it seems like the spirits spawn in impossible-to-avoid configurations though, which is a little frustrating when you're in the flow of things.
Squidtank
31. Aug 2014 · 05:18 UTC
Hah! That was a blast! Great idea, and great execution!
kibertoad
31. Aug 2014 · 14:18 UTC
Great art, music and premise, satisfyingly working gameplay. Good job!
bluewizard
31. Aug 2014 · 19:58 UTC
Love the little comic
commodoreKid
01. Sep 2014 · 14:37 UTC
Very good mechanic, if graphics would be polished it could make a really good game.
Elemental Zeal Games Studios
02. Sep 2014 · 03:36 UTC
Enjoyable and cute game. Pleasant entry. Well done. :)
Sanguine
02. Sep 2014 · 19:44 UTC
The game taught the mechanics very well. Reminds me of games like Dance Dance Revolution, but it made more sense to me and was more fun.
nesis
02. Sep 2014 · 20:08 UTC
Fun game! Taking dodging to the next level. I love the animations on the characters, they're very cute :D Good music, too.
SecondDimension
03. Sep 2014 · 18:54 UTC
Great intro, and a good idea overall. The whole thing was quite sweet and made me smile. Good controls too, although I did shout at the screen a tiny bit, it was hard!
rantt
05. Sep 2014 · 01:30 UTC
Loved it! It got hard pretty quick. Really enjoyed it, great job :)
jukimv1986
05. Sep 2014 · 03:22 UTC
Soul dancing just got another meaning. Well done!
plash
05. Sep 2014 · 03:56 UTC
Ha! This is cute. The dance moves are adorable.

My one mechanical annoyance is that I'm not sure what the extents of the character hitboxes are. Granted this is somewhat moot since collisions occur when I'm scarcely able to pay attention individual spirits, and by that point they are effectively bound to collide with me.

Longest dance: 2m12s.

Nitpicks:

- It does not appear that there is a way to restart the game once bossman comes back. Let me dance, Wertle, let me dance!

- Cutscenes are timed well enough, but I would like to have control over them. Since it isn't voiced, my expectation was that I would be given a frame and could signal the next frame by giving input. Nitpicks, nitpicks!

Thank you for commenting on my entry.
ConflictiveLabs
06. Sep 2014 · 06:33 UTC
This is a fun little game! I really liked the animations and the mechanic was pretty clear. I felt that the progression was a bit slow. I played it for 3 minutes and I could barely notice that the game got a bit hard.
Budaniel
06. Sep 2014 · 06:35 UTC
I like the art a lot, and the cut scenes are priceless. The controls are easy enough to get in to but I kept getting hit because I would dance when no spirits were immediately nearby and kinda get forget to stop in time to dodge them when they do come around. The only thing that slightly bugged me was the clock on the screen - seeing something like 1:2 as my time was a little odd. Other than that, I really liked it.
bob_fish
07. Sep 2014 · 06:37 UTC
Loved how the controls worked! Pretty hard to get used to. Very well polished gameplay and great music. Maybe try to add some colour to the cutscenes?
Erkberg
07. Sep 2014 · 21:37 UTC
Cool music, very cute art, a really nice game overall.
orbitantlers
09. Sep 2014 · 07:01 UTC
Loved the theme/humour/animations.
I couldn't quite get into the dancing groove I wanted because of unavoidable(seemingly) spirits. Like someone else said, perhaps it's down to the size of the hitboxes.
Sheepolution
12. Sep 2014 · 18:58 UTC
Lovely game. After a while I thought I wouldn't mind if it went a bit faster, but then got hit 3 times in a row so I'm not sure if I still think that. The art is cute, and I like the sound effects in the cutscene.
TobiasW
14. Sep 2014 · 20:34 UTC
Just when I praised your comic-making skills on Twitter, I finally get to play your game and get more of that comic style :D

Awesome intro, great use of theme - and above all, fun gameplay! I don't like the situations that pop up where it seems I cannot evade, but until then it's fun and I see why this is hard to avoid algorithmicly.

And yup, good choice on switching to jam - the music fits perfectly.

PS: I love how they call each other to dance independently, but together. So cute!
MechanicMoon
15. Sep 2014 · 19:10 UTC
Woah! Really nice concept! Animation of the dancing are really funny!
Kayelgee
15. Sep 2014 · 20:20 UTC
I would really love to give you constructive critisism but this game is just too perfect :D I love the art, music and the gameplay. The pace was good too. I didn't get what I had to do at first but after I got hit by two souls I understood it. The reverse controls mind fucked me a few times :D.
PixelFeet
15. Sep 2014 · 21:02 UTC
Really simple premise, but incredibly challenging execution. I was terrible at it, but it was a lot of fun. Great job!
TaoPhoenix
10. Nov 2014 · 10:27 UTC
Yep, this was just a blast of fun art!