New Dawn by Penguincat
'Welcome to New Dawn, humanity's refuge beneath a surface world decimated by nuclear winter. The ruling Party has kept its loyal Citizens alive throughout the centuries, but one morning something is amiss...'
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You wake up shivering, as you have every morning since the heating went out in your building. Was it two weeks ago? Three? Seems like longer. Your stomach growls when you get up and stretch. Mark was still out when you went to sleep, but maybe he won the ration card drawing at work...
You turn to ask him how the night went, but your brother's bed is empty. His sheets are in the same crumpled pile as yesterday. The heater sits silently in a corner. Through the walls of your single-room unit, you can hear the neighbors arguing.
Your empty stomach twists. Could he have stayed at work all night? As you pull on your shoes, you try not to think about the fact that the shop hasn't been that busy for months, or about the latest curfew reforms.
He'll be there.
Won't he?
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Click to move and interact, double-click to run. Made in Unity by:
Stefan: Coding, Art, Concept/Gameplay Design
Olivia: Writing, World/Level Design, Music
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Post-LD Update: If the constant clicking is bugging you, check out the Post-LD update - you can now hold down the mouse button to move, and the player will pathfind around static obstacles. The player also moves a little faster so getting around is more convenient. Some dialogue has been tweaked to give the player a better idea of how to progress. The endgame no longer has randomized elements; it's more of a timing puzzle now. Various bugs with the interface have been fixed as well.
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You wake up shivering, as you have every morning since the heating went out in your building. Was it two weeks ago? Three? Seems like longer. Your stomach growls when you get up and stretch. Mark was still out when you went to sleep, but maybe he won the ration card drawing at work...
You turn to ask him how the night went, but your brother's bed is empty. His sheets are in the same crumpled pile as yesterday. The heater sits silently in a corner. Through the walls of your single-room unit, you can hear the neighbors arguing.
Your empty stomach twists. Could he have stayed at work all night? As you pull on your shoes, you try not to think about the fact that the shop hasn't been that busy for months, or about the latest curfew reforms.
He'll be there.
Won't he?
---------
Click to move and interact, double-click to run. Made in Unity by:
Stefan: Coding, Art, Concept/Gameplay Design
Olivia: Writing, World/Level Design, Music
---------
Post-LD Update: If the constant clicking is bugging you, check out the Post-LD update - you can now hold down the mouse button to move, and the player will pathfind around static obstacles. The player also moves a little faster so getting around is more convenient. Some dialogue has been tweaked to give the player a better idea of how to progress. The endgame no longer has randomized elements; it's more of a timing puzzle now. Various bugs with the interface have been fixed as well.
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| Web (Unity) | https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2742112/Ludum%20Dare/New%20Dawn/Web/Web.html |
| Web (Unity) - Post-LD | https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2742112/Ludum%20Dare/New%20Dawn/Web%20-%20Post-LD/Web%20-%20Post-LD.html |
| Standalone (Windows, OS/X, Linux) | https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4fbdpgu0e19y53z/AAD3N_aJO1TT1DCUWSp-qXPEa |
| Standalone (Windows, OS/X, Linux) - Post-LD | https://www.dropbox.com/sh/yb25hl3s0zchrnh/AAB95TYsvawW5AYiIINhGb8ca |
| Postmortem | http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2014/05/04/new-dawn-postmortem/ |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=37427 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.40 | 245 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.22 | 295 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.93 | 414 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 3.47 | 339 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.14 | 540 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 2.93 | 407 |
| Mood(Jam) | 4.00 | 49 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.36 | 271 |
Good work on the game :D
@Katamori: Keep exploring and talking to NPCs. Once you have a better idea of what happened to Mark, you might find a use for that ID, but then again, you might not even need it...!
@donan: The chase can be tricky, there's a bit of randomization to their spawning so it might take a few tries, but there's also a bit of strategy and timing to it.
@gsmartin: We based it a lot on classic adventure games, so point-and-click was our first choice. Sadly in 72 hours we couldn't really afford to put in alternate control schemes, but we're glad you liked it otherwise!
Nice work. :D
Thoroughly enjoyed playing through it!
For the chase scene, it's not difficult, you just need to run efficiently. Run in a straight line by only clicking once so that you run more efficiently. The goal is northeast. Hope that helps.
I could have enjoyed it much more if it has been controlled with the keyboard, constantly clicking to move the character was a bit annoying.
@Pinktreeleaf - If you were able to get into that shop, the NPC inside can help you. Alternately, if you have the ID card, you can find another way to where you need to go, but both options require that you've found out what happened to Mark.
@noom: Without knowing where you're stuck, the best advice I can give is to try talking to everyone. If you let me know where you're at I can tell you a bit more :)
@DrPrettyPatty: If you talked to Cob in the repair shop, he should've given you a hint about where to go. The building he mentions is in the northern area - someone near the big gate can tell you about Mark :)
Would like to see it expanded into a fuller game with better polished controls and UI (retaining the retro style, it looks cool)
Still, the idea was really nice, and you've gotta some great graphics and audio. :)
Anyway, I really enjoyed the lo-fi charm, the attention to detail, and the fact that you can complete the game without going to places or talking to people. The pathfinding was frustrating and the world was possibly a bit too large. I think significant places, objects, and people in the world could be highlighted better in some way so you know it's not background stuff. Overall though, great job!
We're aware of the bug where the choices sometimes can't be selected, haven't had too much time to track that one down. The lack of pathfinding was due to a lack of time, but we'll be adding that into a post-LD update soon. We've already made some post-LD improvements to make it easier to find the right NPCs to talk to but we'll be doing more of that. The world size was due to expecting to add more content than we ended up having time for, which will also be fixed some time post-LD.
I played through three times:
The first time I rescued Mark.
The second time I helped Mark up, ran away when he started asking questions, AND assassinated the dictator and got away with it (not sure if this was intended since Mark I found Mark waiting for me).
The third time I unlocked the door to Mark's room but went straight to assassinate the dictator. No Mark at the end.
Thank goodness it's 2014 and not 1984. And also not N.K. for that matter.
@Loneshark: Nice find, that was definitely not intentional! It's meant to be a strict choice. I've fixed it now in both versions.
I did not play on the post-LD version.