Altruism by calzep
This is a story placed in a fantasy world about Squirt and Lola, who are a species known as Bloops. Lola wakes up from her 1,000 year hibernation to find an isolated area, once surrounded by her family and friends. She seeks out to find any sign of existence that may remain, when she runs into her life companion Squirt. They team up together to find out what happened to the rest of their species, and find out something more horrible than they can imagine.
Being the only 2 left they must use their selfless love and companionship to help each other adventure around the world. They find mystic artifacts that yield new powers for their species, seen never before. They must use these powers to help each other on their journey.
Find all the artifacts and help Squirt and Lola find out what happened to the Bloops, and more importantly, what is beyond the locked door.
-Keyboard Controls-
Left/Right Arrow Keys or A/D: Move Around
W or Up Arrow Key: Jump
E: Switch Character
Space: Shapeshift
-Xbox/Joystick Controls-
Left Analog Stick: Move Around
A: Jump
Y: Switch Character
X: Shapeshift
Being the only 2 left they must use their selfless love and companionship to help each other adventure around the world. They find mystic artifacts that yield new powers for their species, seen never before. They must use these powers to help each other on their journey.
Find all the artifacts and help Squirt and Lola find out what happened to the Bloops, and more importantly, what is beyond the locked door.
-Keyboard Controls-
Left/Right Arrow Keys or A/D: Move Around
W or Up Arrow Key: Jump
E: Switch Character
Space: Shapeshift
-Xbox/Joystick Controls-
Left Analog Stick: Move Around
A: Jump
Y: Switch Character
X: Shapeshift
| Web (Kongregate) | http://www.kongregate.com/games/InDGaming/altruism/ |
| Itch.io (Post-LD) | https://indgaming.itch.io/altruism |
| Android (Post-LD) | https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.indgaming.altruism |
| Timelapse | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqNfsrgrOkM |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=24878 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 57% | 3 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.03 | 737 |
| Audio(Jam) | 2.87 | 529 |
| Fun(Jam) | 2.81 | 784 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 2.91 | 792 |
| Humor(Jam) | 2.68 | 409 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 2.75 | 791 |
| Mood(Jam) | 2.77 | 783 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.44 | 465 |
I fell to death a lot, the harshness of missing a jump takes away a lot from the game and kept me from playing more. Maybe checkpoints would have helped?
Pretty good, regardless, great job!
To improve the game many already said: avoid the slippery movement, place checkpoints, make the game the least punitive possible.
I'll try and offer some constructive criticism along with my praise, so I hope you will find this helpful rather than destructive! But I'm well aware that LD time is restricted and that mistakes are easily made — that goes for our entry too. c;
The main mechanics were a good use of the theme and fun to play with. It was a little bit confusing that the transformation previews would show in the right area no matter which character you were playing as tho.
The stereotyping was a bit annoying, I do have to say that. The female character's JUMP is higher pitched? And pink and blue? And the colours of their respective icons? Come on, it's not 1993. The "man of success" quote also felt like you were assuming a male player, something which seems quite common among dudes making games still.
That's the major nitpick, tho. The game itself was nice, so it was just a pity there was stuff like that in there to take away a bit from the overall experience.
I assume you mostly playtested on gamepad so I guess it was easily overlooked, but the keyboard controllers were probably a little dangerous at times (both space and W/up commonly being associated with jumping making me accidentally press the wrong one and dying sometimes, and shapeshift key being perhaps too close to the jump key). I do have a 360 controller, but I never tried playing using that.
Required a bit of old school patience and problem solving, like figuring out that not both characters can pick up the artifacts, or why the shapeshifting didn't work the first time I saw the message (I hadn't gotten the artifact yet). This was actually a bit refreshing in a way, allowing the player to feel a bit clever, but you probably shouldn't have shown the shapeshifting message before it was actually possible to do it. :p
Unfortunately I stumbled into a bug after finally getting across the second bridge and climbing on the L-shaped character after having died many times. I jumped, hit the ceiling, and then I started flying uncontrollably upwards, straight into something which killed me. :c
Can't say much about the audio. The music was nice. I do think jumping sounds, at least if they're this prominent, can get annoying in games with this much jumping, tho. ;p
TL;DR: good mechanics, neat game, a bit unclear at times, and please drop the stereotyping next time, but mostly I liked it for the gameplay itself! C:
I might have some info about the bug where one character starts flying uncontrollably. I think it happens when a character stands on the other character as they transform back to normal form. I guess gravity doen't get reset or whatever mechanic you use for detecting when a player is on the ground. Maybe it helps.
Checkpoints would be needed though. I was really curious to see more but having to start all over again after a single mistake drove me away from it.
The blobs are cute, the sound effect when you change characters I liked too, platforming not too demanding. I liked it. Although, maybe the level design could have helped comprehension a bit : maybe you can only find the "space to shapeshift" places once you actually have the powers.
Shapeshifting squirt while Lola is on top bugs the game. Squirt flies into space, never to return. D:
Taking Lola and Squirt across the same map areas feels redundant. You could exploit their jump height difference to give them different pathing options independent of one another to eliminate some of this repetitive play.
The camera is a bit laggy, in the browser.