It Should be a Crime! by Ysty

[raw]
made by Ysty for LD25 (COMPO)
It Should be a Crime is a rhythm stealth game about queue cutting. As the villainous queue barger, you must get to the end of the queue in a very limited amount of time, whilst being careful not to overly annoy those behind you, and to not be spotted outside the line by the queue matron.

The windows .exe is not an installer. For now, Mac users are recommended the .love version. You have to install Love2D (found at love2d.org), but if you're into indie games you probably should have that installed anyway.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall 2.90 406
Audio 2.96 188
Fun 3.02 282
Graphics 2.53 525
Humor 2.98 214
Innovation 3.88 43
Mood 2.94 281
Theme 3.27 338

Feedback

singpolyma
16. Dec 2012 路 23:32 UTC
Your Ubuntu 32bit binary is an empty file.
馃帳 Ysty
17. Dec 2012 路 00:47 UTC
@singpolyma Ah, gosh, you're right! Sorry about that, I can't believe I didn't notice it. I'll fix that as soon as I can, in the mean time if you want to play the game there's a raw .love (requires L脰VE to be installed) version here: ystygames.com/ludumdare/SBAC.love
馃帳 Ysty
17. Dec 2012 路 01:06 UTC
Ok, I've updated the 32bit Ubuntu version and it is no longer an empty file. I'm still shocked that I managed to do that in the first place, I guess I was just tired.
Ace
17. Dec 2012 路 12:07 UTC
A very unique concept, and I liked the audio even if it was very confusing. Managed to beat the entire game without even figuring out what the queue matrons are supposed to look like or even which way they're looking.
agmcleod
17. Dec 2012 路 13:23 UTC
Are there any dependencies that I need to run the game such as Love2d? Trying the OS X Binary and this is what I get: http://pastie.org/5542705
DST
17. Dec 2012 路 13:36 UTC
I ran the 32 bit ubuntu binary here on Arch linux, it worked after installing libtiff and symlinking: sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4
You are right, people cheating in the line are really the everyday villains ;)
馃帳 Ysty
17. Dec 2012 路 13:53 UTC
@agmcleod There shouldn't be any dependencies, but I don't have a mac so I haven't been able to test that version. If you don't mind installing Love2d, you can play the raw .love version (found here: ystygames.com/ludumdare/SBAC.love), and I'll see if I can do anything about getting the Mac version working.
munchor
17. Dec 2012 路 14:10 UTC
Interesting game, the .love worked fine on GNU/Linux.
zenmumbler
17. Dec 2012 路 14:15 UTC
On Windows, the game ran so fast it was unplayable so I can't rate this sorry.
Datw
17. Dec 2012 路 14:15 UTC
I can't get past the first level, it just isn't clear what I should be doing.
馃帳 Ysty
17. Dec 2012 路 15:52 UTC
@zenmumbler Yeah, that's an annoying issue (that luckily seems to only happen on a few windows computers). If you update your graphics card drivers it'll work (the game should tie itself to your monitors refresh rate). I'll have to remember to make the speed frame independent in future.
Worse
17. Dec 2012 路 21:00 UTC
I bit too fast paced. Interesting idea however.
BipolarMike
17. Dec 2012 路 23:33 UTC
Couldn't play it on my computer :(
Psytew
18. Dec 2012 路 00:19 UTC
Definitely one of my favorites so far.
master4523
18. Dec 2012 路 14:18 UTC
I want more levels! :)
Overall it was a great little game, the sound effects and the whipsers were funny.
Didn't encounter any issues at all.
fishbrain
18. Dec 2012 路 14:29 UTC
Quite a fascinating idea, enjoyed the experience on level 1. Simple (but functional) graphics, and audio - absolutely exceptional! 1st class LOL!
arch.jslin
18. Dec 2012 路 14:31 UTC
Hahaha! Though 1st & 2nd level is unbeatable due to frame rate issue, 3rd level is actually playable because there it got more objects so the frame runs slower!!

I was thinking is this guy deliberately make this so hard...? he must really hate some guy that jump queues.... Kudos!
Jiggawatt
18. Dec 2012 路 21:10 UTC
Weird game. I see what you're trying to do, but it doesn't feel challenging or rhythmic enough. You can kind of dash to the end, the queue mechanic is only superficially explored. These kinds of games need strict limitations to feel right.
Freakill
19. Dec 2012 路 08:42 UTC
Really liked the anting of the people you advance, and really cool that mechanics are based on sound and rythm. The problem is that for me it was impossible to finsih scenario number 2 :/ Others go at a feasible speed, but not too. Did you multiply the update of state by frame time? I think it could be running to fast due to higher framerate.

Despite of this, I enjoyed the game and it has been one of the most innovative games I played so far in LD :D
Spotlightor Gao
19. Dec 2012 路 13:11 UTC
Very innovative, and fun to play!
MarekkPie
19. Dec 2012 路 16:27 UTC
Unique idea. Maybe I need to try it on a different computer, but the matrons spun around extremely fast, so I could only beat the first level.
Benjamin
19. Dec 2012 路 16:30 UTC
Nice and original but the level start ( especially lvl 3 ) is a bit confusing... Maybe make the matron look less efficient with range would help.
cappelnord
20. Dec 2012 路 15:37 UTC
This was brilliant, thanks!
ceronman
20. Dec 2012 路 18:03 UTC
Very nice concept. It was a bit hard to know how to play at the beginning. People graphics instead of squares would have been nice. The game is fun, it fits well with the them and it's challeging. Very nice! thanks.
caranha
21. Dec 2012 路 14:29 UTC
Very unique take on the game and on the gameplay as well!

The game was kinda short, but I liked it a lot. Maybe longer lines with more time to work on them would make the game more interesting :-)

Thanks for the game! And oh yeah, line cutting should be a crime!
sclark39
21. Dec 2012 路 16:07 UTC
Simple, but fun!
GameRespect
22. Dec 2012 路 17:13 UTC
Simple and clean aesthetics and audio, and fun gameplay. I like it!
awppy
22. Dec 2012 路 23:33 UTC
Gotta give you full credit on the theme. It definitely SHOULD be a crime. It took me a little while to figure out what to do, and the third stage got pretty hectic. Fun idea!
myachin
23. Dec 2012 路 05:55 UTC
sorry, but i cant run it on win7 intel965 videocard...(
SFX
23. Dec 2012 路 15:16 UTC
I really, really like the idea of this game.
ConflictiveLabs
23. Dec 2012 路 19:43 UTC
A good idea, maybe if the movement were discrete, so you move in rhythm
mcc
24. Dec 2012 路 02:27 UTC
This was... pretty neat! Very stylish and a cool concept. "You were eaten by the queue matron" was a great death screen. This felt very scanty though, even for a LD game. Even on the hardest level I didn't really feel like there was any challenge. Certain elements just wound up not factoring because the difficulty wasn't high enough to put them in play-- the green "annoyance" level didn't really factor because it moved too slowly to run out before the level ended, and the matron "staggering" in the final level didn't really matter because that level had so much time you could play cautiously. (Also, with levels so short, not really paying attention to the matrons and just trying again was an option!) I'd encourage you to make more levels at some point :)

Another thing, I'm not sure about this but the game made me wonder-- You'd think the idea of a rhythm game would be to have the option of listening to the music instead of looking at the screen to determine correct behavior. But on the levels with "staggered" matrons this wasn't really an option because the "looking note" was different per matron. What if instead of the matrons all sharing the same piano loop, there were a few syncopated loops, each corresponding to one of the matrons? Like say instead of (A) (A) (D) (G) the music was something like (A) [G] (A) [A] (D) [A] (G) [D]) and the top matron was always looking left on (G) and the bottom matron was always looking left on [G] ? If matron behavior was to some degree predictable just from the music you could maybe get away with doing a bunch of rapid-fire levels of much higher difficulty...
Jack
24. Dec 2012 路 11:53 UTC
fantastic, by far the most innovative and fun game I've played this LD
Frozen Fractal
24. Dec 2012 路 15:58 UTC
Pretty tense! This is the kind of game that I suck goat's balls at, though, so I didn't make it past level 2. I think this could work well as a mobile game, too. Great job!
blob
25. Dec 2012 路 04:20 UTC
Quite confusing, who are the queue matrons ? I liked the graphic style and overall audio of the game.
Mista Koo
25. Dec 2012 路 10:06 UTC
Stylish and fun, but not very villainous.
azurenimbus
26. Dec 2012 路 22:25 UTC
Remarkable game. It really opened spaces in my brain, so to speak. I like it when, after playing a game, I feel like my understanding of the universe expanded a bit, and this is one of those rare cases. The mechanics are very engaging, and the audio cues are a great touch. One of my favorites of this LD.

I feel that the game is wildly beneath its potential, however. Naturally, having made it in 2 days, you couldn't yet explore this direction as fully as you should. It should be a crime for you not to further develop it.

If you do, write me at azurenimbus@gmail.com

Great job!
leafo
06. Jan 2013 路 06:04 UTC
This is a cool concept. Pretty fun. Would be nice to see more levels. I felt like if I just rushed I could beat a level by chance without actually playing.