Arm & A Leg by Deprecat

A little robot gets tossed out as junk, and will need to sell their parts to survive!
Controls:
A/D | Left/Right Arrow Keys: Move Space Bar: Jump Left Click: Proceed through dialog / Shoot / Buy Items Right Click: Sell Items Esc Restart Game
My Twitter: @DeprecatGames


| Windows | https://deprecat.itch.io/arm-a-leg |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/arm-a-leg |
Ratings
| Given | 11🗳️ | 18🗨️ |
Admittedly, I tend to either play console-based games or mouse based games, so I feel like I'm still learning what keyboard mapping is ideal. Thanks for the feedback!
I don't know are these bugs or design: I cannot shoot the enemy behind the garbages hill, may be the collider or something has blocked the bullet?
And at an occasion when I sold my right eye, the right side of the screen did not black out.
Anyway nice job!
Thanks for the feedback on the jump! I'll play with tweaking it to have more control
Who needs to walk when your head can roll?
(Please mark the download as "Windows" on itch.io so it can be downloaded from the itch.io app!)

The art is nice (a bit more detail on the platforms could be a neat addition).
The sound effects are okay but could be better.
Unfortunately the concept of the game works a bit against itself since you have to sacrifice mechanics that contribute to its fun, at least until you figure out which parts are expendable and which power ups are worth it.
Speaking of which the game isn't very balanced : the best setup is to sell both arms and legs and buy the gun + scatter. Arms and legs which are the most lucrative parts are the most useless, actually they even give you a bigger hitbox. In comparison the language chip or eyes are major game changers but only sell for one credit.
Overall the game could feel a bit more rewarding, I'd recommend watching the following video for a few tips on how to juice up a game.
https://youtu.be/AJdEqssNZ-U
In this case I think the main points of improvement would be :
- enemies should have less health, 5 shots to kill is really too much (for instance regular bullets could be a 2 hit kill, and instead of scatter you could have super bullets that OHKO)
- to maintain a bit of difficulty there could be more enemies instead (however right now the game isn't that difficult once you know what to sell/buy and where the enemies are located)
- the bullets should be bigger
All of that said I still think this is a solid game, I point out these possible improvement in the hope of being helpful. Good job !
I feel like balance definitely was sacrificed due to lack of time, and I had originally intended for there to be more of a cost to selling certain parts (movement speed slowed when you sell your legs, or even some benefits such as selling all your limbs to fit into small corridors, etc). I'm glad someone noticed!
Anyway, I'm a big fan of the cute+creepy vibe you got here. My green one-legged very good boy versus the evil (and very funny) trash salesman and his goonies (that's my headcanon anyway) plus the neato minimalistic music all contribute to a very good vibe.
Selling the eyes might be a bit too much, haha. The first time I sold my left eye I immediately closed the game and restarted. Furthermore, being able to buy scattershot without having the gun left me a little confused.
I really liked how it was actually possible to avoid most of the enemies! Again, my green-legged boy is a very good boy and doesn't like killing. Unfortunately, I did have to buy the gun at the end to climb the trash tower.
Overall, I definitely enjoyed it. Cohesion is the #1 thing I try and look out for in LD games and this one feels like a cohesive, designed game.
And last, having the end credits be scrambled (and therefore making me realize the real sacrifice) was pretty clever.
The graphics are simple but they do the job. Someone else commented on adding juice to the game. I think he's right, the gun shots don't feel impact full.
The story is pretty simple but it meshes well with the gameplay. I assumed that the merchant was goin g to backstab at the last moment out of jealousy. The end felt a bit anitclimactic.
Overall, good job with your first game.
Ps, my friend beat the tower by just buffing up on health and shield and powering through, so while I haven't seen a full pacifist run, I bet it could be done