It's a Small World by GFM

made by GFM for LD 38 (COMPO)

Game cover

This is such a small world, right?

How many times have you been surprised by stumbling upon a friend or acquaintances on an unexpected place?

This "game" is about that. About uncovering unexpected connections.

The game is currently quite brief, with only one connection. I preferred to stop it at that and add music, sound effects and a "proper" ending than to try to shove content and fail to add any of those.

Controls

Move with arrows keys, WASD, ZQSD, gamepad's left analog stick.

Jump or interact with stuff with up, W, A, enter key or button 'A'.

Launching the game

Windows: Simply double click the executable
Linux: Most of the required libraries were packaged with the game. To use those, run it as follows: bash LD_LIBRARY_PATH=".:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" ./its_a_small_world
- Credits to @michaelb for reminding me to point this out. :smiley:

Tools

Language: C
Library: GFraMe (2.4.1)
Music: c_synth (1.0.2c)
SFX: sfxr/bfxr
Editor: Vim
Tilemap editor: Tiled
Timelapse: Chronolapse
Image editor: GIMP
OS: Ubuntu 14.04
Window manager: i3 (first time using it on a LD!!)

Changelog

v1.0.0.f - 2017-05-07
- Add notes about how to launch the game
- NOTE: Only the page was modified
v1.0.0.e - 2017-05-03
- Finish unfinished sentence.
- Modify game description to be within a quote-block
- NOTE: Only the page was modified
v1.0.0.d - 2017-05-01
- Re-add cover art to page
  - I hadn't noticed that the cover image isn't displayed here...
- NOTE: Only the page was modified
v1.0.0.d - 2017-05-01
- Actually add a cover art the official way
- NOTE: Only the page was modified
v1.0.0.c - 2017-04-30
- Updated cover art
- NOTE: Only the page was modified
v1.0.0.b - 2017-04-30
- Add timelapse link
- NOTE: Only the page was modified
v1.0.0.a - 2017-04-24
- Rename game binary so it's not a generic game/game.exe.
- Fix name of packages
- Fix link to Window's build
v1.0.0 - 2017-04-23
- Initial version

Original URL

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/its-a-small-world-4

Ratings

Overall	436^th	2.917⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Fun	506^th	2.25⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	476^th	2.44⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Theme	252^th	3.44⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	97^th	3.96⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Audio	313^th	2.708⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Humor	251^th	2.588⭐	19🧑‍⚖️
Mood	182^th	3.333⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Given		19🗳️	35🗨️

Feedback

stevenjmiller

28. Apr 2017 · 06:04 UTC

I loved the art and atmosphere, and I thought this was a great start. The presentation so far is really well done, I would love to see more!

Kinjin

30. Apr 2017 · 00:15 UTC

I liked how you used the theme too :wink:

This is an idea that we had while brainstorming but we thought that it's difficult to do a game with.

Nice art and nice C programming with GFraMe.

Burgee

01. May 2017 · 04:29 UTC

This was a nice little start, I was sad that it ended so early. The simplicity really pulled me in and I really wanted to explore more.

You're going to work more on this someday, I hope?

Ratbag

01. May 2017 · 05:50 UTC

@gfm Beautiful looking game and sounds great too. Would love to see more!

Grim

02. May 2017 · 11:53 UTC

Wow I love the look and feel of this game! nice use of theme <3 :ok_hand: I hope you continue with this style for a future project.

Huitre

03. May 2017 · 02:50 UTC

Hola!
Congrats as well for refraining to use Unity! Nice pixel art and mood. If I had an advice it would be to avoid putting sound everywhere on the UI (like when INVESTIGATE pops). Or use something less intrusive/loud!
+1 for pad support!

_(it looks like you didn't finish a sentence in your description)_

🎤 GFM

03. May 2017 · 10:35 UTC

Thanks for the comments! :smile:

@huitre The sfx was a last minute addition, so I didn't have time to check if it were too much or not before submitting... But I'll pay attention to that next time! :)

Also, I hadn't noticed that sentence... I must have been tired when I was writing this page. It's now fixed, though! Thanks!

NOFUEL

03. May 2017 · 18:09 UTC

Great color palette and pixel art! :)
Really love the implementation of entering a house. Looks pretty cool!
I only did not like the sound for the textboxes which are a bit too loud and kind of annoying.

superpokeunicorn

03. May 2017 · 18:35 UTC

This is a pretty neat start to a game. There isn't much content wise, but the visuals are very well done and the music is calm and relaxing, which fits the tone I think the game is going for. If I had to criticize what you have so far, I'd say that the text scrolling speed is too slow and the sound that goes along with it is obnoxious. Thankfully, the ability to skip text largely mitigates these issues. There is certainly a lot of potential here and it would be cool to see this concept expanded upon. For what it is, this is a good foundation.

michaelb

07. May 2017 · 05:54 UTC

I adored it! Felt like truly a (tiny) slice of what could be the first few moments of a memorable little introspective game. Cohesive, and draws you in.

Also, nice to see another GNU/Linux nerd in the Compo! (I watched part of your timelapse.. i need to try to make something like that next time..!) BTW, you might suggest to run the provided Linux binaries like this:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=".:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" ./its_a_small_world

🎤 GFM

07. May 2017 · 13:11 UTC

@michaelb Good point! I usually deploy a script that does that together with the game, I completely forgot about that...

nk_x_x

07. May 2017 · 13:25 UTC

Some solid sprite work + I like the concept you were going for. It's a little detail, but I really enjoyed the way you handled going into buildings as well! I'd probably echo the concerns other people have about the text speed, though I'd also say it's a bit eye-straining to have it on that blue background, a darker text box would've been nice.

Caffeinated Psychics

10. May 2017 · 09:08 UTC

Good concept, i liked the graphics and music,

found a small glitch where you can fall off the edge of the map on the right, just so you know :p

Other than that, it's really solid, good job :)

AlextheDev

12. May 2017 · 18:32 UTC

intereseting, I'm liking the graphics style it's really nice to look at...

dakikad

14. May 2017 · 04:55 UTC

I liked the graphics a lot, but that beeping/typing sound when the dialogue is appearing a n n o y e d me deeply D:
Too bad you didn't have more time to expand this game. Do you plan on working on that?

Skruffye

14. May 2017 · 20:28 UTC

The gameplay was limited, but quite well polished. I especially liked how you handled entering buildings: it worked really well!

Have to say that the beeping irritated me quite a lot. There wasn't really any need for it and the game would have worked better without it.

Other than that though, it's only a shame that it was just a concept!

Keep it up!

-Skruffye

sorceress

14. May 2017 · 22:48 UTC

On my first play I seemed to get stuck off the right hand side of the screen. So.. let's restart :P It's a plesant little game, however, I found the dialogues + sounds a bit annoying. I quite like the graphics you have drawn, but I think there's a risk using black outline on some graphics but not on others. I did this in my LD entry too, and I wasn't really comfortable with the end result. I feel the same here. The music was ok. I do feel this is a good foundation for a larger game, should you wish to work on it further.

🎤 GFM

15. May 2017 · 03:00 UTC

Thanks for all comments! :smiley:

SFX was really rushed on the last few minutes. Next time, I'll be sure to put more attention to it and make the text sounds less annoying. I was aware that it could happen so... yeah...

Until some time ago, I would always at least start post-compo versions of my entries. However, I won't be expanding this game just now. There are at least two other projects that I would like to develop before that... But I'll definitely do something story-driven... one day! (shout-outs to my [LD#29 entry](http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-29/?action=preview&uid=7375) :slight_frown:)

@sorceress I have to agree about the black outlines. I usually avoid it as much as possible, but I tried to be as conscious as possible about it and only outlined characters and objects.

Oh, and I forgot to initialize the player's position. So he always starts on (0, 0)... Which I believe was the cause of the bug. XD

aeveis

15. May 2017 · 03:34 UTC

nice start! The text was a bit slow, but I could was skip to the full thought so it was fine. Liked the story so far, and the art is good. Could be cool to see more if you continue to work on it!

Endurion

15. May 2017 · 07:11 UTC

Aww, dang, just when the game should really start off it ends :)

Great mood, and neat idea. A shame that there's not more to do.

RockhopperGames

15. May 2017 · 16:08 UTC

Aww, it's a shame you didn't get very far with this one! The presentation is excellent, and the idea is very clever, nut unfortunately there's not much else to comment on yet. One thing I did notice for if you want to expand this at some point, jumping and interacting being on the same button might be a little troublesome if intractable objects and jumping sections get too close, and it also means you can't hop around when walking through town...

Hope you had fun working on this, none the less!

SiegfriedCroes

18. May 2017 · 15:47 UTC

Really nice start, too bad you weren't able to finish it... I hope you continue work on it :)