Love Craft by renatopp

made by renatopp for LD30 (COMPO)

So, this is it. This is my entry for ludum dare #30 under the theme "connected worlds", and...

# PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE PLAYING THE GAMES

- IDEA: Everybody wants a person to share a life, to found a family, to fall in love, to marry, etc; and when this happen, one person connects its own world to the other. Love Craft aims to connect worlds metaphorically: chibis walking in the park looking for their unknown loves while you protect them from obstacles (such as bad matching and meddler chibis).

- MECHANICS: Attention & Velocity, mouse-only and only by dragging things.

- WHY WAS HARD: I've developed a behavior tree library from scratch (probably a mistake, but I didn't liked the implementation around the interwebzz) and implement a lot of behavior for these chibis: there are 21 actions, 15 conditions, and 2 decorators; some of them to handle multi-agent communication. Moreover, debugging this without any visual tool is like hugging the devil itself. I've lost approximately 14 hours only on this. So, despite of apparently simple, the development was really heavy.

- WHAT IS MISSING: Sound at all; dynamic environment; more chibi styles; more levels; and more mechanics to avoiding repetitiveness.

- HOW TO PLAY: You only have to let the couples talking; click & drag meddler chibis, the rain and the bird in order to avoid interruption of conversations.

# CONTACT

* Email: renato.ppontes at gmail dot com
* Site: http://guineashots.com

Web	http://guineashots.com/love-craft/
Mirror (web)	http://static.guineashots.com/games/love-craft
Source	http://static.guineashots.com/games/love-craft/source.zip
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&uid=15241

Ratings

Coolness	71%	3
Overall	2.80	940

Audio	1.40	1000
Fun	1.98	1170
Graphics	3.65	234
Humor	2.57	400
Innovation	3.41	369
Mood	2.65	849
Theme	2.82	833

Feedback

Fanttum

25. Aug 2014 · 03:24 UTC

Cool idea, but it is so slow and boring.
Maybe not my kinda game but it is just doing things over and over

Zigsfi

25. Aug 2014 · 03:26 UTC

Great concept, executed in an amusing and pleasant way. Lovely art also.

I feel like a small amount of sound would have gone a long way with this entry, but I still think it's great.

🎤 renatopp

25. Aug 2014 · 03:33 UTC

Fanttum, I feel the same, unfortunately, but I couldn't polish the timing of the game before the deadline. There was some many bugs!!!! Hehe

🎤 renatopp

25. Aug 2014 · 03:34 UTC

Zigsfi, I was really anxious to make a music for this game, its a shame I couldn't do that in time.

Jupitron

25. Aug 2014 · 04:16 UTC

Looks nice but it needs to be more intuitive.

🎤 renatopp

25. Aug 2014 · 04:21 UTC

Jupitron, any suggestion?

Cheshyr

25. Aug 2014 · 04:21 UTC

clever idea. mostly a sit and watch game. it has potential, and the art is nice.

StencylTuo

25. Aug 2014 · 04:24 UTC

This was a tough one to judge. Fun was 1/5; very, very slow game with almost no interaction. However, the parts done well were indeed done well, so overall an okay game.

haveric

25. Aug 2014 · 04:24 UTC

Graphics are simple, yet a great stylistic choice. The game starts out extremely slow and any actions I do don't really seem to have any effect on the outcomes, which is disappointing, because there is a lot of potential here for an interesting game.

Lyszie

25. Aug 2014 · 04:25 UTC

This is such a creative idea and I was laughing really hard here trying to juggle them all! Gratz :)

🎤 renatopp

25. Aug 2014 · 04:30 UTC

Thank you guys for the time and consideration

Kaelaholme

25. Aug 2014 · 04:37 UTC

Like the art style, just wish there was more interactivity

Jupitron

25. Aug 2014 · 05:09 UTC

Mmm i think you can try to put the tutorial in game, even if the game isnt complex at all, a text with "drag couples" will help a lot. Hope it helps, the game looks amazing!

atomic_swerve

25. Aug 2014 · 06:05 UTC

I like your graphics, for sure!

LaFleur

25. Aug 2014 · 09:29 UTC

I think if you worked on this game more post-competition, you could turn it into something really awesome! Great job!

EMAK

25. Aug 2014 · 12:21 UTC

good approach of the theme, I like the gameplay!

🎤 renatopp

25. Aug 2014 · 13:25 UTC

Thank you guys, and thank you for the tip, Jupitron.

Clavus

25. Aug 2014 · 18:36 UTC

Nice concept, but yeah, there isn't a whole lot to do. It's ok :)

Kyle Mac

25. Aug 2014 · 21:58 UTC

Interesting idea, not much gameplay.

01010111

25. Aug 2014 · 23:30 UTC

I really like this concept - it would work pretty well as a mobile game if you could fling things away from couples!

Empyrealhell

26. Aug 2014 · 03:21 UTC

As others have said, there's a bit too much sitting around and waiting. On the third level, I needed 12 people, and they just wouldn't talk to each other. After about 5 minutes of moving the same cloud and bird, two of them finally started talking near the left edge, and before I could even see it, they got mad because of a cloud. Cool concept, great art, clever twist on the theme, it just lacks a bit in the execution department.

Blue Thumbs Gaming

26. Aug 2014 · 04:40 UTC

Congrats on your game! Despite reading the instructions a few times I didn't really get what I was supposed to do. I stuck with it for a while and finally got it though and once I did I started to enjoy it. Just a bit slow for me personally and yeah it would have benefited from some audio etc. Cheers, Ben.

jshaffer94247

27. Aug 2014 · 02:08 UTC

I was having fun up until the level with get 8...but then it needed to mix it up (got bored). Kudos to you for the diversity. Liked the idea; I'd encourage you to keep working it after LD is over.

Larzan

27. Aug 2014 · 09:42 UTC

Nice idea, but not too much to do game wise, but if you work on the concept a bit i can definately see a nice game in there.
Great Gfx.

Goutye

27. Aug 2014 · 17:21 UTC

Interesting theme interpretation! Nice graphics!

Hemuuuli

27. Aug 2014 · 18:02 UTC

The best use of theme I have encountered so far. Fabulous job.

hadesfury

31. Aug 2014 · 15:35 UTC

A behavior tree in 48h great perf !
You should push a post-compo version that show more the behavior of your shibis

mrexcessive

01. Sep 2014 · 11:35 UTC

Hi there. Misread LoveCraft as Lovecraft, so was expecting something completely different (more Cthulu, less twee). However... Played to the 0/12 level in Tutorial. Shame no sounds as you said. Ended up just flinging everything not a couple to left or right to keep them out of the way. Interesting mechanic as love simulation. Liked the 'talk about this'->Happy mechanic. Great icons and set design. Good job!

🎤 renatopp

01. Sep 2014 · 17:09 UTC

Thank you all guys, I`m short of time these weeks but I planning to make a technical post in 1 or 2 days.

hbocao

03. Sep 2014 · 06:51 UTC

Great graphics!! The concept of this game is very interesting! The game's pace is quite slow but it gets hard as the levels go on. I wish they could talk more, a lot of them pass by each other and nothing happens. A background music will add a lot to the game! Good jog though!

🎤 renatopp

03. Sep 2014 · 15:28 UTC

I wrote a post in blog describing the process of development of this game

http://guineashots.com/2014/09/03/my-experience-within-ludum-dare-30/

klianc09

03. Sep 2014 · 19:04 UTC

Sounds good on paper, but it's so slow that it just wasn't fun anymore. Although good job on implementing behaviour trees.
Also music and sounds would have probably helped keeping it interesting.

ConflictiveLabs

03. Sep 2014 · 23:55 UTC

Lovely little game. It has a few bugs here and there and it lacks animation and music. As other players have pointed out it's a tad too slow.

Having said that, for a 48h game you did an outstanding job! I haven't seen a game like this yet. Graphics are nice and the idea is original. I like the fact you took such a different approach to the theme!

Lythom

04. Sep 2014 · 12:34 UTC

Hi there, here's somme feedback about your game :

What I liked :
- atmosphere, peaceful and clean.
- characters jumping all around (pretty alive)
- A playble finished game

What imo could be improved :
- more feedbacks on relashionship progress.
- more interactions than just cutting conversations and adjusting placement.
- I don't feel the bird and the cloud being good interactions because it doesn't intricate smoothly with the core gameplay which is about making relations. The "jealous" penality is a very good one, the bird is not.

The realization is really good, I'm sure you can make some amazing things with some bette gameplay choices =)
Thanks for the game !

arhpositive

09. Sep 2014 · 18:23 UTC

My idea and yours are kinda similar in terms of handling the theme, while they're completely different in gameplay. Your game has amazing graphics, and the concept of couples not getting along is cool. Although it's apparent that the game is not yet finished, I feel that it has potential and you should continue developing it.