Ghost in the Machine by bmacintosh

[raw]
made by bmacintosh for LD 39 (JAM)

screenshot03.png

Beep and Boop worked uneventfully for years as robot assistants and janitors in Mr. Watts' Convenience Store. But one day, the ghosts got fed up with powering household electronics (and helpful robots) and began reVolting! It's up to Beep and Boop to save the day. Or, actually, to just pretend nothing is wrong and fetch the customers their orders from the (much darker now) store shelves.

A 1- or 2-player co-op puzzle/arcade game made in like 56 hours by:

  • Matt Hansen - art
  • Alexis Korb - programming
  • Brian MacIntosh - programming
  • Minnie Wu - level design, additional art
  • Justin Britch - sound design

Music by NGXmusical. Neglect the music when rating Audio, it was not created during the jam.

Controls:

BOOP: Boop can pick up water puddles with his vacuum. - WASD [move] - E [interact] - Q [transfer power]

BEEP (single player): Beep can pick up objective items and boxes with her grippers. - IJKL [move] - U [interact] - O [transfer power]

BEEP (two player): - arrowkeys [move] - / [interact] - . [transfer power]

Ratings

Overall 334th 3.488⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Fun 503th 3⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 178th 3.512⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Theme 418th 3.488⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 348th 3.721⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Audio 165th 3.634⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Humor 295th 2.684⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Mood 288th 3.463⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Given 63🗳️ 38🗨️

Feedback

Lovro Kalinovčić
01. Aug 2017 · 05:01 UTC
Very nice graphics and audio! The controls feel quite satisfying too. :slight_smile:
ekarnopp
01. Aug 2017 · 05:14 UTC
It took me a bit to figure out what I had to be doing but this is really unique! I really want to play more of this with my gal when she wakes up tomorrow! Great job guys!
Chris Coe
01. Aug 2017 · 05:21 UTC
Cute concept. I had a bit of trouble figuring out what each robot was meant to be doing. The ability to transfer power was very helpful for sure. Nice!
donvermo
02. Aug 2017 · 05:55 UTC
I'm a sucker for puns so you get extra points for that. The game is cute and witty and the concept has some nice potential for further exploration.
jahndis
02. Aug 2017 · 06:28 UTC
Man this is a really polished entry. I wish I had someone to play it with as controlling both robots hurt my brain :P Great job!!
Spice135
02. Aug 2017 · 06:35 UTC
Polished and really well made :D Absolutely love the music, gave me chills
maskinmask
02. Aug 2017 · 06:45 UTC
Cool game.
Asofi
02. Aug 2017 · 10:02 UTC
Was interesting to play!
pfeyffer
02. Aug 2017 · 23:22 UTC
A very good game, higly polished, great art style. Controlling both robots single handedly is quite challenging and fun.
Timothy Hoffman
03. Aug 2017 · 00:33 UTC
Awesome! Just played with my brother, and we loved it!
pkenney
03. Aug 2017 · 05:02 UTC
This is *really* well put together. It looks nice, and I especially like the shadows and lighting from the robot. The sound effeccts and music are all really great, too. Also, the whole thing is just distinctive, which is great.

I think for my personal taste the overall pacing was too slow for me, but that's obviously not going to be true for everyone. I would have preferred to have regular movement instead of tank movement because it was a lot about waiting for the robot to turn. I wanted to zip around the levels more and tank controls make that very hard, especially when I'm doublefisting (I played single player). I also lost a lot of patience when I solved level one but instead of having to move one item to the end zone, I had to go back and forth six times. For a puzzler it was like, well I already solved it and now I have to go through the motions... I would have strongly preferred to move immediately to the next thinking challenge.

But I can also see another way to look at this pacing: the mood is there, you've delivered, so it's okay to languish and have a pace where you spend some time in this evocative space. I also see that the tank controls delivered a real feeling of being a robot.

So the pacing stuff is not necessarily against the game, just the impression of one guy who likes everything to go faster all the time.

Really nice entry here with a lot of quality.
MichaelTWG
03. Aug 2017 · 05:14 UTC
Well done, the two characters system is cool and the music is very nice.
wesley werner
04. Aug 2017 · 19:35 UTC
This game is captivating. Great use of shadows to bring out the nasties, polished graphics and smooth controls. A very solid entry!
AntaresValdemar
06. Aug 2017 · 19:53 UTC
Awesome game, I had to play it on my own so it probably didn't feel as great as it would with two people, but it was still enjoyable. I don't really have any criticism, it's very high quality and everything seems to work as it should. I'm not very bright so for a while I was frustrated trying to find out how to get the batteries back from the blue robot once I had given them to him. You might want to consider making that more obvious, just so it's idiotproof. Or perhaps not :) In any case, great work!
Pixel Game Wizard
07. Aug 2017 · 05:48 UTC
I agree with @pkenney above on the points about the pace of the game and turning. Otherwise I think it's really well-designed, I like how each robot has unique skills. Graphics, audio are spot-on.

I *really* want to try playing this game with someone, and I might just come back to it again. Good job!
evbo
07. Aug 2017 · 06:08 UTC
This is a really well made, unique game. I agree with the other commenters saying the pacing needs a bit of work, but this was a very pleasant experience nonetheless.

I think I would have preferred a single set of keys for single player with a button (maybe space?) to toggle between the two, since I was rarely able to move both robots at same time without confusing myself.

If you polished this up and sold it, I would pay for it. Great work!
pilly
07. Aug 2017 · 06:43 UTC
Unique game - I played through it partway by myself, but definitely think it would've been more fun with someone else. Impressed with the level of polish, and especially the graphics - important items stand out, which takes a lot of guesswork out of figuring what to interact with / how to interact with it.
The pacing was slow, as some have mentioned, but think that would've changed with 2 people playing.
Overall nice work - I especially like Beep and Boop, with their distinctive designs and cute walking animations. Nicely done!
ruerob-hyky
09. Aug 2017 · 21:08 UTC
Whoa! This game is so awesome!! Thank you! Everything was great! Nice graphics, nice gameplay, nice sounds! Everything about it was awesome! hahaha!! You've done a very great job here!
klianc09
09. Aug 2017 · 22:19 UTC
I feel the same as @pkenney, I got pretty frustrated by the controls. There is a lot of back and forth in the level design and a huge part of the "challenge" was just to move from A to B.

Otherwise amazing audio design and really good mood.
g12345
12. Aug 2017 · 00:03 UTC
I reached the end of the (tutorial) level and I have no idea what to do.

I have no idea what any of those tutorial things on the floor meant, either.

It's probably a good idea but I have no clue what's going on.

Perhaps I will try it again later.
Skosnowich
12. Aug 2017 · 09:58 UTC
The tutorials were pretty confusing, the sadly didn't really help. I thought I grasped the game idea at the end of the first level, but I was pretty lost in the second one. The music and the sounds are very good, I like them a lot. Maybe it would've been better, if I played together with another person.
Chadivision
13. Aug 2017 · 02:12 UTC
My son and I played this game together and really enjoyed it. It looks really polished, especially considering the timeframe. I like the co-op mechanics. Everything was really well thought out. Nice job.
abductedPlatypus
17. Aug 2017 · 14:36 UTC
Really fun game. Reminds me a bit of Monaco, but with some graphics that are easier to the eye (though these are a tad small). I liked it a lot, though there was some fighting over who got to use the recharge battery. (btw, It would be great if you could disambiguate the battery types a bit more for gameplay) Music was really good too. All in all a very good entry!