Busy King by Rose

[raw]
made by Rose for LD22 (JAM)
Busy King Instructions:
You play as a king who has a long list of things to do, but his subjects won't leave him alone! You need to stay in your office by yourself to reduce your to-do list. But if a subject catches you, you have to get rid of him by returning him to his room.

Controls:
Play with the arrow keys or WASD.

Notes:
Made in Flashpunk. There's no sound. This is all my own work, but I didn't finish in time to enter the Compo.

Well, it's not completely finished: I wanted to add more people and multiple levels, the in-game instructions aren't great, and there's a bug where a subject will occasionally break free and run out of the castle! But in any case, please tell me what you think.

Postmortem: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/12/19/busy-king-postmortem/

Ratings

Coolness 46% 262
Overall(Jam) 3.36 16
Audio(Jam) 1.11 138
Community 2.53 325
Fun(Jam) 3.18 23
Graphics(Jam) 3.21 59
Humor(Jam) 2.25 53
Innovation(Jam) 3.67 4
Mood(Jam) 1.88 110
Theme(Jam) 3.53 18

Feedback

Milo
20. Dec 2011 · 03:36 UTC
This game was excellent. The concept is very original and quite a bit of fun. I like that it can be executed so simply (it doesn't take many instructions or controls) and that it can use such simple graphics, but still look excellent.
Ralkarin
20. Dec 2011 · 04:35 UTC
Clever idea! Cool graphics and a good use of the theme.
EvilDemonCreature
20. Dec 2011 · 06:01 UTC
The wizard is the worst. I really hate that guy.

If you are going to work on it some more, I suggest keeping track of how long it takes the king to finish his list to use as a potential score. (Otherwise your game might be nothing more than a tedious distraction.)
ASTERISCUS
20. Dec 2011 · 09:49 UTC
I KNEW this game was going to be great. You never see Pac-Man mechanics show up in games these days, but it's mostly because devs can't seem to figure out plausible reasons to have their characters being chased down corridors. You absolutely nailed the gameplay, the art, and the under-represented obverse meaning of the theme. Make an iPhone version of this immediately, sell it for a dollar, and I anticipate you'll be a trillionaire by springtime.
Dietrich Epp
20. Dec 2011 · 10:03 UTC
You really nailed the concept there!
waynebeam
20. Dec 2011 · 15:42 UTC
i liked this a lot. nice use of the theme and i liked the tiny sprites. fun to play too
Jorjon
21. Dec 2011 · 22:09 UTC
Good take on Pac-Man mechanics. I enjoyed playing this.
iforce2d
23. Dec 2011 · 08:23 UTC
That's really fun. At first it seemed like the subjects could find me too easily, but once you notice that you can hide in the colored rooms, it's about right.
ScreamRawr
27. Dec 2011 · 08:56 UTC
Amazing game! I am really fond of your cute sprite graphics! I loved the game and would love to see more done to it! Fantastic!
Make A Game
27. Dec 2011 · 20:25 UTC
Interesting idea, I can easily see this turned into a time management game like Diner Dash or something even better!
marudziik
28. Dec 2011 · 21:56 UTC
Awesome sprites and a really neat concept of the game! Great coffe-break gameplay. Sometimes I got some minor problems with controls (hard to turn exactly where I wanted), but nothing game-breaking.
Kelly Thomas
29. Dec 2011 · 11:51 UTC
great fun
jeffz
02. Jan 2012 · 12:14 UTC
cute concept.
SonnyBone
04. Jan 2012 · 17:19 UTC
This was really freakin' clever. Good job! Now I'm gonna go play the new version.
Shigor
05. Jan 2012 · 02:22 UTC
Nice idea... or I should probably say nice implementation of the idea a lot of entries used usually with quite bad results. (probably most innovative and quite playable).
dr_soda
09. Jan 2012 · 20:43 UTC
This is a delightful concept! I do wish you'd succeeded in getting sound put together for this entry, but even without sound it is really nice! I did see some bugs here and there, mostly relating to the subjects mysteriously teleporting around, but I also found on in which the wizard decided to move from his room to the left. forever. He passed through walls on his way out of the world.