LudumData

The Provocateur by Team Catwheel

[raw]
made by Team Catwheel for LD 40 (JAM)

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You are the provocateur who stands against the oppression of an evil government. Influence the mob and gather an army to capture the city hall.

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How To Play

Use arrow keys to move

Touching the civilians will convert them to Resistance army.

You cannot fight yourself but there is an army on your side.

Press and hold shift key to switch to command mode, relese shift to give the order.

  • During command mode all the resistance NPCs that you pass over will follow the green indicator.

  • Releasing on yourself will make the selected follow you.

  • Releasing on ground will make the selected attack move.

  • Releasing on a building will make the selected capture the building.

Capture the city hall to beat the game.

Captured Buildings will generate NPCs to the owners side

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The Team

Erdal Ural -- Programming, Game Design

İdil Kıtır -- 3D and 2D Artwork

Umur Cem Altürk -- Programming, Sound Design

Onur Koralp -- Writing, Game Design

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(Change Log)

  • fixed a minor bug with AI line of sight going through buildings
Windows https://teamcatwheel.itch.io/theprovocateur
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-provocateur

Ratings

Overall 499th 3.519⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 432th 3.462⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 386th 3.38⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 538th 3.48⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 787th 3.096⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Audio 474th 3.12⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 662th 2.739⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 424th 3.48⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 38🗳️ 8🗨️

Feedback

Stadoblech
05. Dec 2017 · 13:55 UTC
okay... gameplay and game design is fun. But... theme is too heavy. Music suggests dramatic gameplay but graphics, behaviour and overall desing contradics it. Im really confused here...
jk5000
05. Dec 2017 · 14:42 UTC
The idea is super interesting, but the game is super difficult to play. The graphics is fine, and the sound/music is amazing.

I would like to a more developed version of this game.
PolyHatSteve
05. Dec 2017 · 20:29 UTC
Really a lot of fun, and the mood is fantastic. My AI got stuck on buildings once in a while but the reinforcements were usually enough. To some degree it almost seems to counteract the theme though - a bigger army was better not worse. Had a lot of fun though! Love the ending. :D
Bastienre4
06. Dec 2017 · 13:11 UTC
I found the game quite hard but its really fun to "collect" people and make them fight for you !
Dudum Lare
06. Dec 2017 · 13:47 UTC
I have played for a while now, I did not complete the game though. It was kind of hard but I will come back and play it later for sure!

Concerning the graphics it looks pretty good, I like the simple design and it doesn’t always have to be very detailed to be good. This kind of graphics fit perfect with this kind of game.

Concerning the audio, It was great I liked how you morphed the sound when you were in command mode!

Overall I like this game very much. I had an amazing time playing it. And I’m definitely going back to it so I can beat it. It’s kind of addicting. Thank you so much for this experience and good luck in the future! Have an awesome day, and I hope to see you in the next jam!

// Isak from @liquidbrain
vfabien21
08. Dec 2017 · 10:36 UTC
Ah, it reminds me of Syndicate when you had to subdue people, or Omar Oyster Outing (Top down zombie game). I loved the top view and the idea to gain control is fun. Is suppose that with more time, the theme of a bloody popular revolt could be pushed a bit further.

Regarding the theme, I think that a mecanism is missing (or not obvious enough) to actually make it worse when there are more poeple (ok, more people on strike is worse for the police. But, it is a bit tooo easy)
mrerdalural
08. Dec 2017 · 16:10 UTC
@vfabien21 @PolyHatSteve actually there is a mechanic on the game that limits the maximum number of police soldiers relative to the current number of resistance soldiers. But because of performance issues we had to set the limit for the number of resistance soldiers too low. So sadly it's not noticeable. But because of this mechanic if you try to rush your way into the city hall you will find that winning the game is noticeably easier.
vfabien21
08. Dec 2017 · 16:39 UTC
@mrerdalural Ha, alright. That's the kind of mecanism I was expecting.
fangzhangmnm
09. Dec 2017 · 08:51 UTC
It should have been a very good game due to its mechanics. but in fact it is really frustrating. At first it took me severay runs until I got the game rule. Also the goal is not clear. Then It is too easy to die and I donnot know why.
CiaranW
09. Dec 2017 · 12:40 UTC
I really enjoyed it, a good entry! Took me about 4 tries to complete it, and it was pretty satisfying when I did, building up a hoard was fun.

Graphics were simple but good, Audio was alright, gameplay was really fun!

Only issue i had was that people would tend to cling to you and it could be quite difficult to send them away. I think i would prefer it if i could use the mouse to select and command people, and move with the keyboard
aeveis
11. Dec 2017 · 06:10 UTC
very nice! I was able to overthrow the government. I think there's sort of the initial gathering of protesters and after you have a good number of spawners you go out and get things done, but before that you die pretty easily. The warzone you create is pretty shocking. Good job!
mrerdalural
11. Dec 2017 · 12:23 UTC
Thank you @aeveis ! We are glad to hear that you enjoyed it!
RockhopperGames
11. Dec 2017 · 16:05 UTC
I love a bit of provocateur-ing, but unfortunately the lag makes the late game here unplayable. Some thoughts on how you might fix that (from someone with no experience optimising 3D games):

Do you ever despawn the dead bodies? They might be static, but they really seem to add up over a long enough game...

When the resistance members are following close to the player, you could probably turn off their environment collision and trust the player's movement wont lead them through any impassable objects. Turning off their collision with each other in certain situations might also help?

Despawning distant characters and respawning them from nearby buildings could probably also help, since only certain parts of the map would have to be in play at any given time.

Of course, Ludum Dare doesn't give you much time for optimisation, so that's understandable. It's a shame though, 'cos I think I would have really enjoyed this game had it played a little smoother.
mrerdalural
11. Dec 2017 · 17:02 UTC
@rockhoppergames the performance bottleneck of the game is the resistance to resistance npc collisions. Turning it off was not a solution because we wanted to create the feel of a mob pushing each other, turning it off would make them join inside each other in a single man area. We wish we had more time to optimize things. Thank you for the feedback though. It makes us really happy that you took your time to analize and try help with things! Cheers man!
RockhopperGames
12. Dec 2017 · 12:37 UTC
Ah, thanks for the reply! My thoughts in regards to turning off collision were based on what I remember of the original pikmin. My memories are that when you directed the pikmin with the c-stick, they'd clump up much tighter than usual, but when they stopped moving, they'd spread back out to their normal distance apart. I don't know if this was helping reduce the cost of pikmin on pikmin collisions, but it could be worth examining if you do want to keep working on this game.