MINLIFE by DesignerNap

[raw]
made by DesignerNap for LD26 (COMPO)
This is a minimalist take on things I do and experience most days. By taking a minimalist view on the visuals I have created an atmospheric little story with various levels of interaction and intrigue.

This was made using Game Maker, all graphics and sounds are my own from my imagination and any living coincidences to peoples who may or may not be collected on the way to work are purely fictitious or something that sounds legal.

UPDATE 1:
a couple of people have asked me for controls. With the theme being minimalism I wanted people to pick up and play without tutorials But just for reference

MOUSE - front end navigation
Once you have selected Male or Female character THEN

A OR Left Arrow = left
D OR Right Arrow = right
SPACE = Interact

UPDATE 2:
There appears to be an issue with "parking" when you get to work. Inconsistent but occasionally there is a spawn cycle of NPC's.

UPDATE 3:

Performance seems to be the main thread of feedback and unfortunately it is something I just don't understand. For some reason, the game will grind to a halt occasionally when interacting or queuing up an audio file. The odd thing is, if you close it and start again, it works fine. Typical tech support advice BUT it seems to work at the moment. Best I can do is apologise and say "don't give up! you haven't met the spaceman yet!" or "the twist in the story is later!"
:)

FINAL UPDATE:
Fixed a crash bug with the kitchen scene and that has had a knock on of fixing the frame rate and stability issues game wide. Quite happy with that actually.

Enjoy!

Ratings

Coolness 37% 1594
Overall 3.55 212
Audio 3.33 186
Fun 2.81 711
Graphics 3.77 151
Humor 3.10 148
Innovation 2.95 699
Mood 3.62 102
Theme 3.91 218

Feedback

cptalbertwesker
29. Apr 2013 路 06:40 UTC
Fantastic! It's like I'm xopsx Are you only able to kill your driving buddies or am I just a bad person?

Lovely accompanying music, space tea and a day in the life that is satisfying, brilliant first LD!!!
馃帳 DesignerNap
29. Apr 2013 路 09:31 UTC
Yaay! You can pick them up normally yes but I wanted to surprise players when they experimented so didn't say what would happen :D
rejooh
29. Apr 2013 路 11:20 UTC
I think this game really catches you. Personally I was so interested in what will happen next. Oh and I killed one of them. :)
mire
29. Apr 2013 路 11:31 UTC
Very cute, reminiscent of Once Chance, that flash game you can only play through once (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/555181)

Love the art style, the use of the theme, and the random bits of humor!

I killed Bobby :(
Mythalore
29. Apr 2013 路 11:35 UTC
First LD26 game I've been compelled to finish! Amazing art! Let down by bad performance and screen tearing but that's just GameMaker's way.
馃帳 DesignerNap
29. Apr 2013 路 13:15 UTC
Thank you Mythalore! The performance is something that concerns me... If it was consistent i could do something about it but it is so random. Some times it runs like a dream, other times it chugs and crashes. Same PC, same settings etc. madness. Still, thanks for taking the time to play it :)
Beerman
29. Apr 2013 路 19:05 UTC
Great stuff. Loved the space tea.
馃帳 DesignerNap
29. Apr 2013 路 22:33 UTC
Hey all! I managed to fix a crash bug which has had a nice knock on effect of fixing the screen tear and chugging! :D
Uploading v1.2 now :)
tayl1r
29. Apr 2013 路 23:37 UTC
Nice!
BarrensZeppelin
30. Apr 2013 路 11:24 UTC
I don't know what to think. Bobby died, seems like he's having a tough day :/
Alphonsus
30. Apr 2013 路 11:30 UTC
This is really great! It's awesome to make a game that's really personal. Love the ambience. Nice work!
Lythom
30. Apr 2013 路 17:35 UTC
Hi ! Here is some feedback.
What I loved :
- the concept (close to mine in fact :p)
- finished and clean
- color scheme consistency
What imo could be improved :
- consistency in the story (either it goes a bit everywhere and doesn't tell a full story, or I did not understand what was behind)
- a few bug with controls (freeze when changing direction, not sure I when I presses space it was efficient each time)
- for the space key thing, a tip would be to audio or display an immediate feedback

nice overall, thanks for the game !
Catmoo
01. May 2013 路 19:48 UTC
Really enjoyed it, I feel almost like it was a day in the life of myself, minus the basketball potentially, and the driving, but still thoroughly enjoyed.

Had no issues with the game itself and I had fun throwing a few dozen basketballs :)

I also always imagined space tea would come down on a little parachute.
Skulls
02. May 2013 路 09:13 UTC
In game maker you can set it to be an exe file when you extract by using the dropdown menu in the save window below the name.
馃帳 DesignerNap
02. May 2013 路 17:43 UTC
Hey Skulls! Thank you for the advice. I have quickly created one and uploaded it just now. Link is at the top! :D
Skulls
03. May 2013 路 01:21 UTC
No worries, always happy to help a fellow jammer :)
Eternal_Rest
03. May 2013 路 13:22 UTC
Crashes for me every now and then. Not bad other than that.

ERROR in
action number 1
of Key Release Event for <Space> Key
for object MALEGETCAR:

Creating instance for non-existing object: -100
at gml_Object_MALEGETCAR_KeyRelease_32 (line -1) - <unknown source line>
cwilloughby
04. May 2013 路 08:17 UTC
Very cool. I also chose to do a life sim, but it turned out very different! Couple of bugs - got a code error after getting in the car and got stuck completely when I got to work, couldn't progress any more. Love the art, audio, narrative, and theme. Excellent.
馃帳 DesignerNap
04. May 2013 路 09:09 UTC
Hi everyone, sorry for the errors, just seen that when I export it Via an EXE I get some issues that are not present when it is installed. Removed link for the moment until I can fix it. Thanks to Eternal_Rest for the heads up!
SuperlevelSebastian
04. May 2013 路 09:31 UTC
Got this error message at driving start:

"
___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Key Release Event for <Space> Key
for object FEMGETCAR:

Creating instance for non-existing object: -100
at gml_Object_FEMGETCAR_KeyRelease_32 (line -1) - <unknown source line>
############################################################################################"

Then it went on, but hanged up at the games studio.


Though: A very pretty, interesting game!
Dmitrix
04. May 2013 路 19:47 UTC
woah, that was pretty great. I killed Bobby and Craig though. XD
zkenshin
09. May 2013 路 00:45 UTC
Oh God, I killed every one of them D:
Nice art, really helped with the atmosphere (:
HelkeGames
18. May 2013 路 19:28 UTC
Neat idea, love the concept!