Made With Meat by EatThePath

made by EatThePath for LD 42 (COMPO)

With limited space and limited storage capacity, you must build yourself up to survive as long as possible. How long can you last?

Big thanks to Icefox for hanging out with me during development and helping me brainstorm. Check out his compo game too. Thanks also to anyone who tuned into the development livestream.

Instructions

I think there's joy in fumbling through an unfamiliar game, and have seen people do that successfully with MWM and have fun.

You start with a handfull of organs (structures or buildings, in more traditional terms) that collect resources for you, and one central brain that you must keep alive to survive.

Organs cost water, minerals, and energy. Build them by clicking the buttons along the side, then mousing over an open area and hitting space to place. The display in the top center will show you the costs of the selected organ.

Minerals come from putting roots in soil, water primairly is collected in falling drops, and energy is produced by special organs.

You have a limited ability to store resources, which can be expanded with special organs.

Yellow/green 'pollen' falls from the sky in ever-growing waves to damage your organs, you must defend, rebuild, and heal from the damage to survive.

There's a bug I've observed but not identified with placement where it sometimes will not allow you to place organs that you should be able to. Sorry about that.

Engine: Unity 2018

Tools: Audacity, Krita

POST DEADLINE NOTES: Ported to OSX and WebGL. Adjusted resolution scaling to work better on smaller screens.

WebGL build is playable at default resolution but may be better full screened.

Windows	http://hwat.pathstoeat.com/LD42/LD42_MadeWithMeat_w64.zip
Linux	http://hwat.pathstoeat.com/LD42/LD42_MadeWithMeat_Nix.zip
Source code	http://hwat.pathstoeat.com/LD42/LD42_MadeWithMeat_ProjectFiles.zip
HTML5 (web)	http://hwat.pathstoeat.com/LD42/WebGL/index.html
macOS	http://hwat.pathstoeat.com/LD42/LD42_MadeWithMeat_OSX.zip
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/made-with-meat

Ratings

Overall	627^th	2.86⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Fun	660^th	2.5⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	317^th	3.261⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Theme	689^th	2.44⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	623^th	2.521⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Audio	523^th	2.292⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Given		23🗳️	23🗨️

Feedback

EX3D0

12. Aug 2018 · 23:55 UTC

It's alright. Perhaps an explaining to the player that the yellow things harm you would be helpful but other than that it's an alright game.

DanielEFisher

13. Aug 2018 · 15:03 UTC

Wasnt able to play due to no apple or webgl build. Looks ok from the pics but thats all I can do

Memel06

13. Aug 2018 · 15:27 UTC

It's a little messy, graphic need some serious polishing. It lacks of vital factor like a bigger text font and contrast between white font and background.

The idea is ok, and I think it's an alright game for a compo entry.

In the overall, well done! Improve yourself and become a great gamedev :wink:

Have a nice day!

Nobleboy

13. Aug 2018 · 15:50 UTC

There isn't much strategy besides figuring out the right build order to not run out of resources early.
Feels like a missed opportunity on a otherwise good entry.

Frank Gevaerts

13. Aug 2018 · 15:54 UTC

The rules say "Porting (especially to Web or Windows) can happen after the initial 48 hours", so no rationale is even needed for that WebGL build!

🎤 EatThePath

13. Aug 2018 · 18:38 UTC

@danielefisher OSX and WebGL builds have been added, my bad for overlooking them intially and thanks for commenting rather than just moving on.

@frank-gevaerts Thanks for pointing that out, I'd overlooked the part of the rules saying ports were explicitly allowed.

AdroitConceptions

13. Aug 2018 · 19:06 UTC

* webGL doesn't work without full screening - probably a canvas scaling issue
* Would be nice to be able to click to plant things.
* was really hard to figure out how to play the game and what the point was.

siimer

13. Aug 2018 · 19:09 UTC

It was hard to tell why I can't build something (even though I had the resources it needed... I think). The graphics also didn't fit well together with the rest of the game in my opinion. But I had some fun with this game figuring out the optimal setup, so good job :)

Samurai Ducks

14. Aug 2018 · 15:20 UTC

The game would benefit from some instructions and set clear goals but it was quite fun overall :) Space to place is a nice catch phrase though!

🎤 EatThePath

14. Aug 2018 · 15:45 UTC

Based on the repeated feedback and watching some people play, I've added an instructions section to the description.

Roidz

14. Aug 2018 · 22:55 UTC

Weird to see that people mention the graphics here a few times while this is a compo entry. I realize some compo artists are wizards and can make a great game and do A+ art in 48 hours (and make great sound fx and music) all at once but you can not expect this to be the standard.

I think simple 'programmer' art is great for compo entries.

Good entry and grats on making such a interesting game !

🎤 EatThePath

14. Aug 2018 · 23:35 UTC

@roidz Thanks :) In fact I know some people assumed this was Jam at first glance for some reason. This is really my first time making sprite art, and I can't say I'm especially proficient with any visual arts besides some basic vertex juggling. But I had a drawing tablet out to doodle to help me think while brainstorming, and that just ended up carrying forward into sprites instead of my easier fallback of using lowpoly 3d graphics. The result is admittedly very rough, but contextually I'm pretty happy with it.

AwiX

15. Aug 2018 · 07:15 UTC

A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good.
Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)

Nam Nguyen

15. Aug 2018 · 17:33 UTC

The web build doesn't start the game for me, it seems to be stuck on the main menu, nothing to interact with. I couldnt see Start button T_T.
I thought its not very fair if I try only the web build, so I tried the windows build. Guess what, same thing, there is no start button! T_T

🎤 EatThePath

15. Aug 2018 · 17:49 UTC

@nam-nguyen It's an issue with the UI scaling hiding the start buttons. Since it's keeping people from playing at all I think I'll have to do a bugfix update for it. Sorry for the trouble, I'll @ you again when it's updated if you want to try it again then.

🎤 EatThePath

15. Aug 2018 · 19:43 UTC

@nam-nguyen All versions, webGL included, should now work better at low resolutions.

Nam Nguyen

15. Aug 2018 · 20:34 UTC

Hey I could play the game now. I like that you have all the instructions on the game so I read one and can test that organ right away. The goal of the game is clear: keep your brain survive, but I am not sure how, also all the organs on the left panel do not show their relation to the growth/security of the brain. Also after a while when I play, some organs just disappear without a notified cause, I guess they have a health and touching the yellow thingy kills them? There should be an indication for the age/heath of these organs so players know when they die. Also when I can't build something, it should also let me know why, what is lacking, etc. Overall, I think there is a lot to improve, but it does look like a good start. And you have put everything together in a short amount of time, great work!

🎤 EatThePath

15. Aug 2018 · 21:12 UTC

@nam-nguyen Yeah, whenever the yellow-green bits floating down hit an organ they damage it. I'd hoped the noise they make would have been enough of a hint there but feedback suggesests otherwise. Healthbars would have probably signposted it better, but that didn't happen. Thanks for giving it a second try!

bemmu

16. Aug 2018 · 12:14 UTC

This was a lot of fun to play, and a plant simulator is a game I've actually thought about wanting to play in the past – thanks for making it into a reality.

Historymaker118

16. Aug 2018 · 19:25 UTC

Yikes UI really needs some tlc here! It took a while to figure out what I supposed to be doing, the instructions weren't super clear, and I was really confused with what I could and couldn't place and the reasons why. I also wasn't sure why things kept disappearing. I would spend more time on your next game thinking about what information is the most important for the player to know and finding the best way to convey that, be it text on screen or otherwise.

Visual hierarchy is also really important, as is a good colour palette. Part of the reason I was so confused was because I wasn't sure what was going on in the scene. What were the numbers telling me? Were these numbers good numbers or bad numbers? I had a rough idea of how to make the numbers change, but I couldn't tell if what I was doing was correct or not.

I'm sure you had a great idea in here, it just needs more playtesting during development and iteration of the ui to really nail down those core ideas into something fun to play. Keep developing games, I'd like to see you come back for the next jam with something even better!

jeke

16. Aug 2018 · 20:37 UTC

Solid concept. @historymaker118 hit the nail on the head. A more clean and helpful UI layout/design would make this game much more approachable. The mechanics you implemented had a lot of complexity and that is great if you are able to enable the user to easily learn them. I felt Like I spent more time learning the UI than I did the mechanics and relationships between items. A little accessibility would go very far with this type of game.

Great work for this jam.

Yetman

17. Aug 2018 · 22:12 UTC

Nice idea but seriously needs an in-game tutorial (I read the LD page but I couldn't remember most of it during playing). The visuals are OK; they do not hinder the gameplay but can use some polishing. Also, it was initially hard to discern what each number above did (which is the required material, which is the current amount I have, etc.) Still, It is a good game and I enjoyed it after some of my confusion has cleared up.

Jupiter_Hadley

03. Sep 2018 · 11:25 UTC

Interesting game. I included it in my compilation video series of the Ludum Dare 42 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/KKcNeeBfE6w