LudumData

Golden ticket to heaven by jac_B

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

Snímek obrazovky (6).png

Game description

Beautiful and relaxing game, that is Golden ticket to heaven. You play as innocent red air balloon. You're flying throught the city a just picking up different valuable items. But you shloudn't get too greedy, because otherwise you have to sacrifise your fortune to stay alive.

Gameplay

So game is basicaly about avoiding obstacles and picking up shinny items like gold and money. But the balloon will get heavy after while so sometimes you need to throw your thing away. Only thing you have to do is actually get to the end of level, but with some extensions the colleting could be really important feature.

Gameplay features

  • "jumping"
  • collecting items
  • gaining weight
  • dropping items

Controls

  • Space: jump
  • R: restart level
  • click on item in inventory: drop item

Development

In a fact this isn't game what I originaly worked on for this LD. But I just couldn't make it work and I realise it quite late. So this game was real challenge for me as I had only about half a day for the whole game.

The idea came instantly so I really didn't struggle with this thing. As an art style I use my favourite "I don't have any god damn time for graphics - art" and actually I quite like it. I even diceded to make my own sound track and sounds so that was quite fun too. And then programming was pretty easy in comparison with previous project.

Final words

Game is still more demo for concept, because I really didn't have so much time. But overall I can say that I'm happy with the result in comparison with my two previos LD games.

Snímek obrazovky (5).png

Snímek obrazovky (7).png

Snímek obrazovky (9).png

HTML5 (web) https://jac-b.itch.io/golden-ticket-to-heaven
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/golden-ticket-to-heaven

Ratings

Overall 947th 2.816⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 973th 2.474⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 968th 2.474⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 662th 3.237⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 462th 3.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 506th 3⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 823th 2.088⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Mood 664th 3.132⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 3🗨️

Feedback

mrspeaker
04. Dec 2018 · 06:55 UTC
Surely the technical montgolfier term can't be "jumps"!

I really enjoyed this - it was peaceful and tranquil and had a very well-drawn hot air balloon.

The "sacrifice" theme REALLY applied to this entry - I actually wanted to keep the painting, but HAD to ditch it at the last second to complete the level... it felt like I sacrificed something!
Finn Truman
04. Dec 2018 · 11:52 UTC
I like this and had fun with it, but wow, it's hard! I couldn't make it past the first level!

I think it would be better if holding space added force to the balloon and something Ctrl took force away from it. I think that would make the "weight" mechanic very daunting, as it would get to a point where the balloon can't rise even if you hold space, and pressing Ctrl would be a risk vs reward thing as you might sink too quickly.

I like the use of the theme. Having to make a quick decision because you misjudged the physics and thinking "oh god, I need to get rid of something quick! Argh! What do I get rid of?!" but because of that I thought it was more tense than relaxing!
Matt Heinrich
04. Dec 2018 · 12:20 UTC
Nice little game, interesting how it starts out quite chill and relaxing, but as you take on weight it gets more and more tense. Especially impressive considering you did it in a fraction of the time.

Definitely nails the theme, the first play-through I did I tried to grab everything and failed horribly until I realised, wait, no sacrifices *must* be made. I especially like how that applies twice, you can sacrifice the treasure by throwing it out, or by skipping it entirely to get some safe height.

My only criticisms are it possibly gets too hard too quickly, and the music gets a little grating after a while.

All in all a fun, atmospheric and very on-theme game.
falak
09. Dec 2018 · 10:53 UTC
Interesting game! Good Luck!
Quasar47
09. Dec 2018 · 11:19 UTC
Pretty cool indeed! The art style, the music and the slow-paced gameplay make it wery peaceful and relaxing. This time, the theme really applies to the gameplay, but I had some problems with controlling the balloon. It is not really affected by gravity, which means if I press space only once, the balloon will keep going up without letting me a chance to make it go down again, except if I pick up items by chance. The hitbox is really small; in a few occasions, I missed a golden bar or a valuable item by only a few pixels, which is very infuriating. Also, you can spam the spacebar to go up infinitely, so it goes a bit against your idea of "the heavier you are, the harder it is". Still, a pretty funny and relaxing game, good job considering you only had half a day to do it :)
Kaipi
09. Dec 2018 · 15:33 UTC
I liked the graphics very much, the music work perfectly with the game,I had issues controlling the balloon it never lower down so I lose when I wanted to pick something, overall i liked it.
🎤 jac_B
09. Dec 2018 · 19:34 UTC
Thank you all for your comments, I really appreciate your feedback you've given me so far. I see that I probably should explane why balloon never falls down. It's because gravity is scaled by weight and I didn't add any addintional weight to balloon so that is reason why balloon is not falling when you don't have anything in your inventory.

@finn-truman I like your idea. Even my friends told to me to add this feature. After some testing I can say that this feature would improve balloon control.

@quasar47 I agree with you about the hitbox, it is quite hard to pick up something. But you're not right about spacebar spamming. You can only go up if you have some "jumps". Jump recovers every second, that is quite fast, but it's not enough to get you up when you have lot of things in your inventory.
shubart
09. Dec 2018 · 21:50 UTC
What a really funny idea. Thank you !
tpamir
10. Dec 2018 · 12:50 UTC
Well loved the concept you got there. Only comment will be about the controls. Wish they gave more sense. Good job!
Samusoidal
19. Dec 2018 · 05:22 UTC
Overall I gave this one a 2.5 out of 5. I really loved the concept and art for it!

The main theme-based mechanic (throwing away your gold to beat the level) was beautiful in its simplicity and you did an amazing job picking an art style and setting to go along with it. That said, the gameplay could use some fine tuning. For example, it was to easy to end up flying too high at the start of the level, with no way to get back down. The 'jumps' also didn't provide enough boost to keep more than 1 or 2 items in the basket at any given time. The gameplay was a little slow for my taste and I would have liked to see more levels.

I liked the choice of ukelele for the soundtrack, though it was a very short loop and got a bit annoying after a while. Some sound effects would have accented it nicely and taken the edge off of it.

This one really hit me at all the right angles, though, and I enjoyed playing it a lot. I look forward to seeing more of your work!

P.S. - I don't know if you were going for a ranking in the Humor category (since it doesn't seem to be a funny game), but I gave you 1 star there anyway since I hate to see any category unrated :wink:

Overall: 2.5 Fun: 2.5 Innovation: 2.5 Theme: 3.0 Graphics: 3.5 Audio: 2.0 Humor: 1.0 Mood: 2.5
OddballDave
20. Dec 2018 · 08:10 UTC
I really like the art and music on this one. The controls were a bit fiddly to begin with, but once I'd got the hang of them it was quite easy to play. Good stuff :8ball: