Moletube by johnhackworth

[raw]
made by johnhackworth for LD29 (COMPO)
------------
Achtung!

Some people seems to experiment some lag issues with the game... It's STRONGLY recomended to use Chrome to play it, since the performance of the other major browser would not be as nice at it should rendering all those entities ...
-------------

The former mining city of Moletown is slowly becoming the jewel of the northern Moleland.
Moles from all over the world are arriving to the city thanks to its sprawling industry. The city has grow too much in the last years, and now is too large. Moletownies has to walk too to arrive from home to work, and their life is becoming less happy than it should.

Moletown needs you!

Moletown needs a mass transist system!

Moletown needs a monorail!

Err, no, Moletown needs an efficient underground network ... Build a underground network to help moletownies to go from their homes to their workplaces and back, and keep them happy!

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.92 812
Audio 1.80 958
Fun 2.48 991
Graphics 3.17 551
Humor 2.33 629
Innovation 3.32 384
Mood 2.41 1036
Theme 3.49 354

Feedback

Mincemeat
28. Apr 2014 路 09:10 UTC
Really laggy for me unfortunately, the art was good, and the game idea sounds really fun though.
馃帳 johnhackworth
28. Apr 2014 路 09:16 UTC
there are some combination of OS/browser (firefox, I'm looking at you) where the game lags like hell :(

I hope I can compile some native versions soon to avoid the problem
deadarius
28. Apr 2014 路 09:18 UTC
Stops working after I add three subway entrances
馃帳 johnhackworth
28. Apr 2014 路 09:57 UTC
Please, for those who has problems with the game, could you please tell me which browser and OS you're using so I could check?

thanks!
fserb
28. Apr 2014 路 10:01 UTC
Very laggy and slow on Chrome/Mac. After I add a station on L! it completely stops.
pythong
28. Apr 2014 路 10:06 UTC
Didn't play on Firefox, and Chrome lagged like crazy. Also, the instructions were very small, hard to see on the bright background (Windows 7, latest Firefox, lateest Chrome Version 34.0.1847.131 m). your game looked interesting though :(
GiveMeAllYourCats
28. Apr 2014 路 10:08 UTC
Nicely made and good thinking for the theme, but it's very laggy here (it was almost unplayable :O)
馃帳 johnhackworth
28. Apr 2014 路 10:16 UTC
ok, found ... I had a crashing bug when you added some stations but didn't add a line between them (the game path finding algorythm were assuming that all the stations would have at least one line, DAMN). It's fixed now, it shouldn't crash anymore
馃帳 johnhackworth
28. Apr 2014 路 10:17 UTC
The laggy issue seems to be your browsers generating 60 (fps) * 50 (number of moles looking for paths) error reports each second :I
hitinyfriends
28. Apr 2014 路 10:24 UTC
I added like 7 subway stations and works fine! (in chrome)My moles are happy even if they have to go to work :D
anbreizh
28. Apr 2014 路 10:36 UTC
Might be fun if it were not for the lags :(
kbm
28. Apr 2014 路 11:02 UTC
Really daring, complex concept, execution was nice, too. Maybe a little too large of a game idea for 48 hours? Anyways, well done and good job! :)
SleepyRhino
28. Apr 2014 路 13:30 UTC
Really laggy for me unfortunately.

Ambitious project for 48 hours and love the art.
primaerfunktion
28. Apr 2014 路 13:38 UTC
I guess I'll check back later. Maybe you're able to fix the lag.
馃帳 johnhackworth
28. Apr 2014 路 14:14 UTC
damn... I guess I was too ambitious for a browser game ... In my computer ran quite fine, but I didn't have tested it on any other (of course, not much time for testing on 48h :) ). I've uploaded a fix reducing the number of entities (less moles, smaller map) to try to fix the lag issue
LewisW
28. Apr 2014 路 14:16 UTC
How do you earn money?
馃帳 johnhackworth
28. Apr 2014 路 14:17 UTC
LewisW -> each time a mole enter a metro station, you earn 5$
JoeProgram
28. Apr 2014 路 14:47 UTC
I liked the concept and being able to customize my own city. I would love to have seen more balance in the economy - it took me a long time to build my sixth station, so that I didn't have enough opportunity to experiment with station placement.
馃帳 johnhackworth
28. Apr 2014 路 14:53 UTC
@JoeProgram -> thank you! I would love to have had more time to playtest & balance. Also, on my original idea, you could setup ticket prices making more or less attractive your network to the moles, but I that had to be cut out of the final game (maybe I should take this and build a propper game over it, with all the features I left out)
Ludonaut
28. Apr 2014 路 15:44 UTC
I'm also experiencing the lag issue, even in Chrome. Looks impressive though, and I really like the idea.
local minimum
28. Apr 2014 路 16:07 UTC
I would really urge you to write a fuller instruction on how to play the game or even better a tutorial intro level, because I had to reload 4-5 times to just figure out how the building stops and connecting worked. The limit of lines per stop (even though there seems to be a bug in that number if you make a circular line). Never found any undo either.

I think I got it down, but I didn't find any speed up the pace at which the game runs so I don't know if I got any revenue unfortunately. There was no clear indication that my lines were in operation either.

Some dudes stopped walking, don't know if they simply were too upset. Clicking on those to the left side made their info come outside the screen.

I think this could become a fun game, but for me there was a bit too much troubleshooting to even get to playing. Unfortunately.
Pietro Ferrantelli
28. Apr 2014 路 17:06 UTC
Really interresting idea and great graphics ! You really should polish this game in a post-compo version ! Lot of potential ;)
Techblogogy
28. Apr 2014 路 17:28 UTC
Really great concept
Garris
29. Apr 2014 路 17:35 UTC
Great entry. I love resource management/strategy games, and they seem to be a bit of a rarity. The graphics are great, and the concept and mechanics are solid and well executed. It was a little bit laggy in places, but never un-playable for me. Nicely done.
Corn茅 Dorrestijn
30. Apr 2014 路 14:02 UTC
earning money doesnt go really fast, it is still a nice game :)
Zerkruemler
30. Apr 2014 路 14:36 UTC
Unfortunately I don't understand it. I built some subway stations and connected them, but none of the moles ever entered one. Although the mole happiness increases, I earn no money. I tired to restart several times, but no luck. The idea ist good, but I am not able to play it right.
mcburrobit
01. May 2014 路 14:52 UTC
very innovative concept.
tomvert
01. May 2014 路 15:00 UTC
Well this seems interesting, but I don't understand the controls.
SoupWithBits
01. May 2014 路 15:06 UTC
Really like when people attempt to make these types of games! Awesome! Really 'dug' it! See what i did there ;)
WhiteWolf93
01. May 2014 路 15:14 UTC
it took me a while to understand the game but finally I did, great concept, graphics are good, remembers me to simcity 2000 lol.
Naouak
01. May 2014 路 15:58 UTC
Nice graphics and idea. I have an issue with the rythm of the game, you have to wait way too long to get a new station.
SmilingCat
01. May 2014 路 16:05 UTC
No lag here, even in Firefox. Interesting concept, would love to see this expanded.
zedutchgandalf
01. May 2014 路 16:18 UTC
This looks great and I can definitely see where you were going with it :)
It runs perfectly fine for me in Chrome (Mac Os X), but didn't run at all in Firefox.
The line creating does seem to be a bit bugged. It created some random lines which I didn't want to and didn't create other lines that I DID want to make (always telling me a station can only have 2 lines - even when I still only had used 1 line on the entire map)...
tripleVisionGames
01. May 2014 路 17:08 UTC
I like the idea of this, I'm a bit of a city builder nut , but I think the mole people needed to be a bit more random where they go. After I placed some stations and had no money (well, $200 but it won't let you place another then) none of the moles walked past my stations :(
hbocao
01. May 2014 路 19:29 UTC
I liked the concept but I definitely didn't understand how to make progress since the moles never entered the stations or I made money. :(
jellymann
02. May 2014 路 11:18 UTC
The concept is good, I found the theme amusing :) Didn't quite understand how to get the moles using my system either, also the moles are very hard to click on, so you have to kinda judge where they're going to be when you click on them. While it didn't lag on my computer, it sure got my temperatures up, which is a little disconcerting since this game doesn't seem like it should be so demanding.
HuvaaKoodia
03. May 2014 路 12:28 UTC
A solid proof of concept with a lot of potential.

Consider the following, if you decide to build an extended edition:
-Ability to remove stations and lines.
-Ability to see worker traffic paths, either by clicking on a building to see all in&out traffic (as in SimCity4) or by showing the paths of all current workers.
-Another possibility is to show average in&out amounts based on city blocks/areas on the map as an overlay of sorts (0 apartments, 25 workplaces in this area)
-Workers should seek nearby stations on a known radius (they might already do this but it's not explained/show anywhere)
-Ability to pause the game (just to be able to click on those bloody moles!)

Basically more useful and easy to understand information for the player as well as interface improvements.
pinkmonkeyhead
04. May 2014 路 16:26 UTC
Amazing AI!
Oddly Shaped Pixels
04. May 2014 路 21:10 UTC
Nice concept. I didn't understand everything but I reached 80% mole satisfaction so I'm quite happy with myself :)
Jupiter_Hadley
10. May 2014 路 18:01 UTC
I really sucked at this game, but I included it in part 19 of my Ludum Dare Compilation video series, if you'd like to take a look :) http://youtu.be/KGS8tZwHKag
AlexFili
10. May 2014 路 19:26 UTC
Needs a bit of extra work but the concept is good and I like the story behind it!