A Man and a Dog by YYZ

[raw]
made by YYZ for LD 43 (JAM)

SS5.png You find yourself stuck in a forest. What kinds of sacrifices and decisions will you make to get out? ManAndaDogCompressed.gif SS_ForLD.png Update 4 December: - Polished Main Menu achievements page - Settings includes music and sound controls - Final scene polishing of visuals!

If you would like to read the behind the scenes on my devblog, check the making-of here: https://yyz-productions.com/2018/12/07/a-man-and-a-dog-a-game-made-in-72-hours-for-ludum-dare-43/

Ratings

Overall 137th 3.917⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Fun 279th 3.569⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 195th 3.611⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Theme 345th 3.722⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 174th 4.153⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Humor 439th 3.014⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Mood 33th 4.222⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Given 31🗳️ 95🗨️

Feedback

Lizouille
04. Dec 2018 · 16:36 UTC
I love narrative adventure games, and this one was great! I love the different animations that illustrates the story, it makes the sacrifices more heart-breaking. The choice of sounds is great too, the growls really creeped me out.
Jupiter_Hadley
10. Dec 2018 · 20:56 UTC
Neat graphics, interesting game. I included it in my compilation video series of games from the Ludum Dare, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/Ow-xrYDXDFE
Arvejeitor
12. Dec 2018 · 18:25 UTC
Nice art direction! really nice game
cax
13. Dec 2018 · 21:58 UTC
Pretty original way to tell the story!
Yaen
14. Dec 2018 · 00:10 UTC
Very pretty game. I had lots of fun exploring. Nice environment design, too. The mood was spot on! Audio was great (don't know why I can't rate audio for this submission but I would've given it a good rating here).

Trying to forcibly escape the bear trap resulted in an ending that didn't fit the game's style. Felt kind of slapstick but in an unfitting way. I'm a bit unsure how to feel about the third ending. It's a bit strange that for the best outcome there are no additional sacrifices to be made. In the end it just depends on picking up a weapon, so it feels like it clashes with the narrative theme a bit.
huf0001
14. Dec 2018 · 00:28 UTC
This was a cute game. It was fun poking around and seeing what narrative choices would result in what, and what the game could push me to do. The look and sound of the game were very nice too.
Theory Studios
14. Dec 2018 · 00:39 UTC
This reminded me somewhat of the old text adventure style games. It is a powerful experience where the cute graphics really help juxtapose the mood and give it some intensity that would otherwise not be present.
kleinzach
14. Dec 2018 · 01:43 UTC
That was really well done. The graphics are simple, almost "Programmer art", but the effects and animations completely hide that. It was a great way to make the most of what you have. The branching story felt good, if a little bit transparent at times. Some of the branches felt more like twigs that just reset the game. I like that you don't sacrifice the dog to get the colorful ending, it was a nice way to play with expectations that in a game that feels so dark that you can get to the end with (relatively) few sacrifices. Great job.
🎤 YYZ
14. Dec 2018 · 02:30 UTC
Hi @yaen, thanks for the awesome feedback! We were going for something resembling a jump scare for the bear trap, being written as a counter-trap that activate when you attempt to break free from the bear trap. Sadly it appears it did not seem to work very well for you in this case.

In our initial story plan, the third ending was a bitter end, but I felt I wanted to end the game on a more positive note, and also set the third ending to be different from the rest rather than have them all end in a terrible bitter end. Nevertheless, I understand that this also clashes with the idea of sacrifices as the 'final' ending ironically involves the least sacrifices. That is why we also had the quote at the end, to hopefully explain the idea of having to sacrifice for the first two endings to get the 'good' ending.

Thank you for trying the game and for the thoughtful comment :)
badpaul34
14. Dec 2018 · 12:01 UTC
Oh my god it's amazing! I love the format (little scenes that goes one after the other), the mood, the graphics, the texts, the sounds! I love it for real !

I think you ABSOLUTELY need to keep developing this game since it's really good.


Only one little tiny problem: I sacrificed the dog and a text said "with the dog".. but damn I don't care since I really enjoyed playing.
LeoRototo
14. Dec 2018 · 12:30 UTC
I am not part of this Ludum Dare, but @badpaul34 talked me about this amazing ludum game!And its an awesome piece of art we have here.
Very good job guys, averything is pretty good, you should really think about pushing this game forward !

Congrats, i hope you will do it to the top 10 !
🎤 YYZ
14. Dec 2018 · 12:42 UTC
@badpaul34 @leorototo Thank you for such kind comments and for the enthusiasm! We are glad that you both enjoy the game! And yes, unfortunately we only spotted the issue with the text after the submission as well. :) Still, thank you for pointing it out to us too!
jk5000
14. Dec 2018 · 15:00 UTC
An interesting and super well made LD game. Well done.
muffty
14. Dec 2018 · 17:28 UTC
good job! NASTY END grr..
Replayable, good job over all. really
mccarlp
14. Dec 2018 · 17:34 UTC
I enjoyed this. It was really well put together. My only real suggestions are that the people,the dog, and the animals were a bit too simplistic for the detail level of the environment, and that the death traps were so common that it limited your ability to explore.
Ranner198
14. Dec 2018 · 17:51 UTC
Hey I enjoyed this game 100% there is literally nothing I could find to complain about except that it had the "press the escape button for pause menu" but that won't work in html5. I do wish that the audio sliders y'all used would've been in the middle by default instead of all the way maxed out I was going to turn it up a bit more. I love the blender art style with the unity choice decisions. Another thing that really blows my mind is the fact y'all managed to fit it all nice and neatly to the HTML5 Web-GL with very good frame-rate. Y'all did a fantastic job and should be super proud of yourselves. The gameplay and art style fits into my own very nicely. Let me know if y'all would like to do a collab or something someday!
TheCrittersCove
14. Dec 2018 · 19:45 UTC
The art style and mood are very charming! Almost everything feels very well made and thought out. There's something about this game that makes me what to keep going back to find each ending. The good ending I have to say does feel out of place from the other two. Every other path and object seemed far more obvious to interact with than the bat. Also minor, but the movement was a wee bit clunky.

Still an awesome game overall! It would be great to see a full length game in this style.
great-bobleny
15. Dec 2018 · 02:46 UTC
I kept getting stuck in those bent over dead trees. I think because of the angle of the map and movement.

Otherwise, I really liked the black and white 3D graphics. The change in the color at the end was really neat too.
Kasaki
15. Dec 2018 · 07:27 UTC
Nice graphics. I like the way to perform narrative story. The description in the good ending really touched me a lot. Anyway, fantastic jam :-)
arron-fowler
15. Dec 2018 · 21:50 UTC
My favorite game so far. I wish it was massive and went on for hours I would play it endlessly. Let me know if you plan on taking it further. Lots could be inproved, the movement could be slicker but the art is perfect as it is. Great great work.
Javierrppp
17. Dec 2018 · 10:39 UTC
really nice game!
citsua
17. Dec 2018 · 19:15 UTC
Absolutely beautiful game, especially (visually) the last ending. I really love the graphics, and even though my dog was just a cube I thought he was really cute with his jumping around and barking. I hoped the game would go on for a bit longer but sadly those are the limitations of a LD game :(
My only complaint is that the movement was clunky/slow which was a bit annoying when you had to replay the same part over and over to get all the endings. But that's really minor, and yeah it's a really polished entry with a powerful mood.
Good work!!
arnau
21. Dec 2018 · 12:05 UTC
Wow, this was incredible. 5 minutes of pure joy you have created. This game would really work on a larger scale and I am looking forward on you doing so, there is plenty of development potential. Well done!