Digital Backwater by Max Cahill

[raw]
made by Max Cahill for LD 38 (JAM)

Play Digital Backwater in your browser on Itch!

Promo Image

Didn't have much time for LD this time around but managed to get something fairly ambitious knocked out today!

Hope you enjoy it!!


Implemented:

  • Persistent multiplayer world
  • Reorganising blocks and leaving messages
  • Abstract colourful pixel graphics

Not Implemented: - Sound - Any sort of resource management or higher simulation

Ratings

Overall 561th 3.083⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 704th 2.391⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 46th 3.957⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 221th 3.739⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 537th 3.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 352th 3.286⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 11🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

philomory
25. Apr 2017 · 05:49 UTC
Pretty neat! I like the idea of the persistent world.
Firewill
27. Apr 2017 · 03:44 UTC
I played around a bit, I think its a really cool toy, and I see some already added a bit of role playing around the blue squares.
I always like this kind of small virtual world, tough it's a bit sad to know that these games are so short lived. Huge props for doing all this solo!
🎤 Max Cahill
28. Apr 2017 · 04:11 UTC
@firewill thanks! Yeah it's always sad to see these things grow and die but this is kind of a celebration of that phenomenon :) I only wish I made it harder to go around deleting things haha, as someone has been "cleaning up" which removes a lot of the moments that people have left around.

I also wish I'd thought to capture the entire history of the game to make a timelapse :(

@philomory thanks for playing!
Mazey
28. Apr 2017 · 18:07 UTC
Nice - reminded me of Reddit's April Fools (r/place), though on a smaller scale haha.
bacontree
01. May 2017 · 06:50 UTC
Cool idea! With a little more to do in the game, this could be great.
OccultOne
01. May 2017 · 07:30 UTC
I played this on my livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srBde18ASdY
The fact that this was a persistent world is really awesome. I'm always super impressed by networking in a jam... I just wish I could have played when more players were on so I could see how others were using it. Really interested in seeing what you do with this one in the future.
howardcs
01. May 2017 · 08:10 UTC
Interesting idea. I wandered around and left a message for other players. Fun.
ztiromoritz
01. May 2017 · 08:12 UTC
Cool idea. Lots of "wwwssww" marks in there, where people first tried to do "WASD"-controls, like me.
pierallard
01. May 2017 · 09:50 UTC
You made a multiplayer game without make it like a "contest", it's very intelligent, I like the idea of a small persistent world where everyone can just type its letter...
Best point next is the graphics: very simple but nice choice of colors, I like the ambiance.
JayTord
01. May 2017 · 12:00 UTC
Multiplayer is always good, but honestly I am not a fan of games with no challenge. Maybe if there was some feature that allows to protect your messages from other players it could've provide more fun to such players as I.
badscotsman
01. May 2017 · 13:41 UTC
This was really interesting... I spent way too much time moving around blocks! Hehe. The persistent multi-player world was a very cool "expansion" on the "a small world" theme.
steve
01. May 2017 · 20:28 UTC
Interesting idea, shame as you said you didn't record the history, would have been really nice to see a time lapse of how it all changed at the end of the competition! I would have liked it if the blocks didn't erase the messages when pushed over them, would have been fun to hide things underneath them for others to find :)
Eric Florio
02. May 2017 · 01:42 UTC
This is really cool!

I spent several minutes trying to understand what to do. When I was almost giving up, I read the instructions on the site =P
Maybe in-game instructions would be useful.

Also, I don't know what are the first 3 numbers on the left (they are always zero)
torcado
02. May 2017 · 02:48 UTC
Really cool game! Having any form of multiplayer in a Ludum Dare is always so cool.
gamepopper
02. May 2017 · 22:01 UTC
Really liked the persistant levels. Would be nice if there was a specific goal in mind, with some exclusive reward for those who complete it.
Sean S. LeBlanc
04. May 2017 · 04:08 UTC
This is a really interesting idea, though I found that the concept and technical aspects were more engaging than actually playing the game (the post-mortem was a nice write-up). Part of that may be that I unfortunately didn't run into any other players while trying it out, but it would have been cool to see something in a similar vein with a bit more interactivity and polish.

Given that the world is persistent, I'm also making a mental note to come back in a week or so and see how the world has changed after more people have had a chance to play; I'm curious to know how it'll evolve!
endlesspeak
05. May 2017 · 15:24 UTC
One small world for all, really interesting premise and to be honest I would like to see it in a few years with of course some added game mechanics. :)
Tymus
07. May 2017 · 17:23 UTC
I didn't grasp the multiplayer part until I found the text, blew my mind.
Fantastic idea, loved the feel of your world.
I hope you're keeping all the updates somewhere, would make a cool zine.
🎤 Max Cahill
08. May 2017 · 02:38 UTC
Thanks everyone! Glad people like the multiplayer aspect, I'd definitely recommend checking out the postmortem and giving firebase a look, it was very easy to integrate honestly!

@occultone thanks for giving it a look on-stream!

@endlesspeak @sean-s-leblanc thanks - yeah if I think of anything fun and gamey to do with it that's not just "boring deathmatch" I'll definitely give it a go.

@tymus I wish I was keeping the updates, unfortunately firebase doesn't have that kind of thing built-in and I've been busy with "real work" since LD :( Would indeed make a cool zine, I'll have to find a way to keep changes and then show it to new people!
ryte2byte
16. May 2017 · 06:47 UTC
These social experiments are always a hard sell. I must admit, I'm glad to have walked in on this once after folks had been tinkering with it for a while. Avis sure seems to have had fun :wink:

Kudos on getting all of this implemented in a day. Shame there wasn't more of a community goal other than 'do whatever'.
csanyk
18. May 2017 · 03:02 UTC
What a mysterious game. I wasn't sure what's going on here, but I'm intrigued. I feel like there must be something deeper to the game, if only I can figure it out. I don't think I managed it, but I'd love to see someone who solved it explain it to me.