Where the Cloud Lives by Tattomoosa

made by Tattomoosa for LD 42 (COMPO)

"Where the Cloud Lives" is a game I made in 48 hours for the Compo for Ludum Dare 42, with the theme "Running out of space".

You control the freshly hired supervisor of a new division in an established tech company: Cloud storage. Their motto is: "You never run out of space"... We'll see how that goes. There are two endings.

You can pan the screen with WASD or Alt-Click. Spacebar will advance textboxes. All other controls are explained in game... I think.

Thanks for checking this out! I really enjoyed putting it together. This was my first Ludum Dare, and also my first completed game.

Source is available on the itch.io page. Linking it here doesn't seem to be working. I'll put it on GitHub soon.

KNOWN ISSUES/BUGS:

There is a button to pay for a room expansion. It is underneath the build menu at the start of the game. Either close the build menu or pan the camera to see it.

It is possible to stack gateways/servers on a single room tile by clicking on a specific spot on the tile. This is unintentional and they are not meant to be stacked.

Someone says 'servers' but means all servers/gateways.

Please let me know if you find any other issues and I'll add them here. Thanks!

Ludum Dare Banner.png

HTML5 (web)	https://tattomoosa.itch.io/where-the-cloud-lives
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/where-the-cloud-lives

Ratings

Overall	94^th	3.84⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Fun	147^th	3.64⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	230^th	3.44⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Theme	103^th	4.08⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	103^th	3.94⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Audio	38^th	3.78⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Humor	73^th	3.452⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Mood	32^th	3.886⭐	24🧑‍⚖️
Given		25🗳️	18🗨️

Feedback

TheChainWax

13. Aug 2018 · 00:12 UTC

I like it

cheetahspots

13. Aug 2018 · 02:41 UTC

Great game! I would recommend a visual indicator of how many servers are on a tile and making the endings a bit longer to get to, but overall a great game.

Alexey Akulovich

13. Aug 2018 · 12:21 UTC

Very nice, well done. Need more content :)

nikki93

14. Aug 2018 · 03:54 UTC

Wow I played this game for a while. :O Was definitely compelled / captivated. Good work, you have a good balance of characters in the employers and "hacker" person too! :)

shellbot

14. Aug 2018 · 04:32 UTC

Fave submission so far!

silkworm_sweatshop

14. Aug 2018 · 19:19 UTC

Got really frustrated at first because I forgot that you could scroll the screen :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:. Are you supposed to be able to stack infinite amount of stuff on a single square? If so, it kinda takes away the point of building more space. I also wish there was a bit more of a challenge, after a while it feels like just waiting for enough money and build the next thing without much else to manage. Since I could just stack over and over I didn't have to manage removing stuff or building new storage space. I did appreciate the little narrative going on with the hacker dude though and the option to BURN everything down (which I did my first time playing).

🎤 Tattomoosa

15. Aug 2018 · 00:41 UTC

@thechainwax Thanks!

@cheetahspots Good call on the visual indicators. I agree it should be longer but I felt like it needed more substance in the game-play to be too much longer than it is. I wound up cutting a lot of planned features, unfortunately.

@Alexey Akulovich Definitely!

@nikki93, @shellbot Wow, thank you so much! I'm really happy to hear that!

@silkworm-sweatshop No you are definitely not supposed to be able to stack things infinitely! I just checked it out and it's such a simple issue, can't believe I didn't catch it. Good find! I had also meant to implement scrolling when you moused toward the borders of the screen but I guess I forgot about it? Lol. You are right too that there could be more challenge. The initial idea involved managing more variables - hiring workers, power to the servers, researching better compression, etc. but I cut almost everything when I realized there was no way I was going to get that and the story. I don't know if it was the right call but I'm really glad you enjoyed burning it all down!

OddballDave

15. Aug 2018 · 07:48 UTC

Fun game. I played all the way through to the promotion ending. I thought the length for that was about right. It fits the theme really well, has great graphics, and I really liked the music.

Good stuff :8ball:

silkworm_sweatshop

15. Aug 2018 · 15:37 UTC

@tattomoosa Ah ok, that makes more sense. It was my biggest issue with the game, really. Having to build more room adds more challenge to the game even if it's hard to ever lose. Even if a game doesn't have a lose state, just having it "feel" like you have to do and manage more stuff can be enough. Graphics and sound all work well I should mention.

Dark Roast Studios

16. Aug 2018 · 07:34 UTC

ok that was a compelling game, played it for longer then I expected, I think because the popups give a nice unfolding story while the server upgrading gives you somthing to do while you "wait" for the next popup. I thought it worked really well :) great job, well done! Sound and graphics were also nice.

RenD

16. Aug 2018 · 10:29 UTC

That's super deep!!! I'm impressed with depth and the links between mechanics and storytelling that you managed to nail in such a short time. I've played it all along, it's super addictive and the narrative is a plus. One of my favorite entries so far!

pierallard

17. Aug 2018 · 07:00 UTC

Hi! Very interesting! More than the game itself, I liked the little interactions with the characters.
First I had trouble finding the expansion button because it was under the construction panel!

Endurion

18. Aug 2018 · 08:02 UTC

Very nice, overall polished entry.
Great music, visuals, and even a story. Really well done!
Smaller problems have been mentioned already, scrolling is not apparent (why not start out with the rooms more to the left?) and also multi-stacking.
Awesome job!

ixchow

18. Aug 2018 · 13:26 UTC

Impressive level of polish!

🎤 Tattomoosa

18. Aug 2018 · 22:29 UTC

@oddballdave @dark-roast-studios @rend @lxchow Thanks! I'm so glad you have enjoyed it!

@pierallard Yeah, this is unfortunate. I noticed this the first time I got to watch a streamer play it. What happened was that I had the build menu open before building the game... the intention was that it would have been closed at first so that button would be more obvious. Glad you liked the characters! I had to pick between the story segments and deeper mechanics and this and other comments really make me think I made the right choice by focusing on the story.

@Endurion Moving the room to the left would have made a lot of sense... It's super funny in retrospect to see all the obvious things that slipped by while I was so focused on other things. That's literally a 2 second solution to a very serious problem with the finished game, haha.

ManBeardGames

22. Aug 2018 · 01:55 UTC

The branching paths you can choose is a nice touch to the game. Visuals, audio, and dialog are well done. There doesn't seem to be much risk involved when playing, reducing the challenge of managing everything. There was one point where I just didn't have the funds for something, but I was able to just wait it out till enough money came in to expand more. I mentioned it on the stream, but the icon/indicators in the top left of the screen were a tad confusing at first, like the @$0.10 indicator first drew my eye because of the $ sign, and i thought it was how much money i had for some reason.

Would love to see this made into a full management style game.

Here is the clip from the when we did the play through on stream.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/300320531

Ava Skoog

26. Aug 2018 · 10:08 UTC

Nice game! You did a good job balancing out the rate of the storage running out versus the money rolling in so that losing would never feel unfair. Is there any way to lose at all besides removing all the servers before being explicitly asked to? As long as there is *some* storage left the income seems to always remain steady.

Nice sounds and music and graphics and everything! I got both of the endings as well so it was a nice touch to have them in there. It's good that the hacker seems to always show up before you win the other way so that you're aware of your options even if you didn't read the description that mentions both endings. c:

Great job!