Good job for your first Ludum :)


I still think the game have some problems:
- I feel like the character is very slow
- I managed to win by spending most of the game in the lower left corner without moving
- I think it would be great to have something to show you how must time left there is

@xwilarg Thank you for the feedback I appreciate it greatly to address your points 1) I thought the speed of the character fit the mood of the game more but maybe that was just me. 2) I did find that in testing but adding more "enemies" to made them constantly bump into each other and thus not move which meant I left it with I believe 40 otherwise I would have had to make a much better AI (something I definitely need to work on). 3) And finally I agree that is quite useful for the player I thought it added a bit more to the anxious atmosphere which was something I really tried for in this. Thank you for taking your time to play rate and comment on my game I hope I can make a much better game come December and hopefully with your thoughts and other jammers I can make that hope a reality.

Congratz for your game. It's still a thing to release a game without bug (as far as i can witness).

I like the heatbeat speeding up.

But however it is still too simple. I don't know how are your coding skills, but you can add some features to make it more juicy.

you can check the game /ludum-dare/42/save-me-a-seat. it treats interactions with social anxiety.

For your first ludum dare this is pretty good. however, I would change it to where people are slowly added to the room

@tontonpizza Thank for the comment when it comes to my coding skills I would say I am novice at best but I am always trying to improve so I would've liked to add extra features. I will check out that game it sounds rather good. Thank you again and I hope the jam goes well for you too.

@frostbyte4k Thank you so much I did originally have it like that but when I had them all spawn by the door they ended up getting stuck to each other and therefore you could just stand on the far side and they would never reach you. I guess I could've done something where they spawn randomly in the area but like a previous project I'd likely not be able to make it so they wouldn't eventually spawn on top of the player.

Story of my life.

@xwilarg "I feel like the character is very slow" As a master of awkwardnes I must say that moving fast is very awkward, you need to seem like you're not running away from people. You gotta make it look like natural movement.

@max6333 I understand only slightly from personal experience I got a lot of inspiration for this game from my friends who suffer quite heavily from social anxiety but it does get better my friends are getting more and more confident and I'm sure you will too and that was my reasoning behind it because in anxious situations fast movement you feel as though it draws attention to yourself when in reality no one is paying attention

@rammy294 yeah I thought that might be the case. Try looking into aStar pathfinding and use that to randomize location for the enemy to go to. It would make It easier to add more depth. And it would teach you a lot about coding. Keep up the good work.

@frostbyte4k I have heard about A* but my Computer science teacher didn't cover the curriculum too well so we didn't go through that but I will look into that good shout.

Nice game! I think to add some difficulty, you can have one or a few guys try to walk towards you and you have to avoid them (will fix winning with rng while sitting in the corner). Also would be interesting to have a dash mechanic to move a short distance faster (but i guess this isn't realistic as you'd probably be slowly dying on the inside irl. Also curious to know why all of them change directions at the same time every few seconds? It's a little spooky, but interesting.

Wow, it can be difficult avoiding all those people... and the game's pretty hard too! Its a fun idea and the speeding up heart beat was a nice touch. For me, I'd have just wanted a little more polish, like maybe some kind of background music (wouldn't need to be much), and something just to make it feel like the game was progressing over time (be it more people arriving or something similar), because towards the end it was feeling a little repetitive. That said, it was a fun game and a really cool idea, nice work!

@do-the-dog-avc Haha yeah with them changing directions the code is basically them moving a certain direction for a couple seconds then they randomise their directions it never occured to me how eerie that was until now. Yeah something I've heard a lot is about the AI which is incredibly simple so for next jam I will take these on board and focus more on that and as for the dash mechanic you mentioned perhaps since it would be awkward a small boost to your anxiety-o-meter for that dash so it fits better in the game? And yeah thing I'd like to change most is the whole RNG aspect of winning which I hope with some AI research on my part I can improve on. Thank you for taking your time to comment and play the game it is really appreciated.

@doey Overall I would've loved to have more polish but I just had no time I went for the Jam category for the sole reason that it game me that extra 24hrs to make it working. The background music is a good shout I was planning on using Bosca Ceoil for the music but I'm using a new PC which I didn't realise had none of my old programs so in the rush and confusion I must have forgotten next time though I will try for some good tunes for the game. And finally I have mentioned this in previous comments but the reason I had a flat number of people was solely just the AI I was using really just clumped them by the entrance so last minute I changed it to just 40 partygoers. Thank you for playing and commenting on the game I really appreciate all the feedback hopefully when it comes to December I can really make some huge improvements.

When I saw the thumbnail, I thought "nice, someone had a similar idea about the theme" :)
At some phases, the game was way too easy since you could just hide in one of the corners for a long time and thus minimize the personal space that can be invaded by others.
I really would've wished for a more party-like atmosphere (music, more diverse visuals). Most of the game's story needs to unfold in your own head.
Good interpretation of the theme, but the game could've used much more polish. Keep jamming!

@gurkenlabs Thank you for the comments and for playing the game in the first place. I would've liked to add more music/visuals but with the limited time I had to make this and with coding being my area of "expertise" I thought I'd try to make a bug free and enjoyable game and if I had time upgrade the visuals and the sound however as it turned out my time was managed poorly and therefore this is what I was left with which I am still pretty proud of. The hiding in corners was a strategy many people have mentioned but I didn't look too into when testing but considering the setting of the game I thought it was a happy coincidence since when I am at a party I usually stay in the corner trying not to be noticed too much so it made me laugh a bit. Thank you again for playing and commenting on my entry I hope to enter again in December.

Tried to play, but no HTML or Mac version available.

Nice game, Love how everything is balanced!
Good luck, Don't forget to take a look at ours if you don't mind and see what it's like when we just focused on graphics in this game jam!
Game Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42a

You have a great idea here that you can do so much with! Like with how the party-goers respond to you or try to communicate with you, maybe there could be rooms to escape to when they are empty, maybe there is one person in the crowd who you know and who calms you down but you can only annoy them for so long, etc etc.. But this was a nice start, with great potential. The heartbeat was an especially nice touch.

You wanted brutally honest criticism so you will get some. The idea for the game is an interesting take on the theme but personally, I don't like it. The player moves way too slowly, also the number of people stay the same so I don't feel like I am running out of space. The graphics are present and that is all I am going to say about it. The enemies move in a random direction so you can't plan ahead so winning the game is just a game of luck. Some party music would have been nice and a quick way of increasing the mood of the game. The heartbeat was a nice addition but was loud. A timer would have been nice. You could have even hid it as an clock in the scenery.

For your first time joining you did fine, I have played worse

Ane more *social anxiety* idea in game. Look like I know about this all. Thanks for improving my knowlage!

@chadrbanks yeah sorry about that I have never tried a html version so wanted to keep the exporting it rather simple I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to play next time I'll be sure to add both.

@optimans Thank you and those are some great ideas I even had the one about the friend helping bring down your metre or something along those lines but sadly due to time limits and plans made I couldn't get that done which I'm quite disappointed with but next time I hope I wont have any plans so I can dedicate more time and make it more feature rich.

@smithy Thank you for the feedback I appreciate the honesty. The speed of the player was a deliberate design decision that I thought fit well with the mood of the game but as I now see I sacrificed a bit too much of the game play aspect for mood which wasn't the best decision. The goal was to have more and more people to spawn in but the AI all clumped together at the entrance and I didn't have the knowledge to fix it. Yeah fair point I am not an artist by any means and I felt the artwork (if you can even call it that) was passable especially for a game jam I hope over time I can improve or get someone else to do it in the future. AI has been a common complaint and I only used the random directions because I didn't know of any good ways to implement AI and it would've taken way too long to learn I've been shown some different methods that I will try to learn for next time though. Music was something I left to the end and when it came time to make it I had no idea what I was doing and definitely not enough time to do it so I will hopefully time manage myself better and learn what I'm doing with it. I never noticed the heartbeat being loud were you using headphones? I didn't test with headphone so that may be a big reason. Again with the timer I felt it made the situation more anxious not having it there but like with the player speed I see I put more weight on the mood than the game play which in retrospect isn't good when making a game. Thank you for you're feedback I greatly appreciate it hopefully I can take everything on board and make a better entry when the time comes in december.

@rahim-pxr thank you I appreciate the praise I will try to play your entry when I have time to I am rather busy at the moment however.