LudumData

Gas or Pass by Kobi Hawk

[raw]
made by Kobi Hawk for LD 40 (JAM)

In a world where gas is horribly inefficient. One rectangular car must race ahead of the opposition to get to the promised land: The Land of Gas.

Go fast! Pick up gas! But if you get too much, you'll slow down from all that heavy gas you're carrying! Will you GAS or will you PASS?

This was supposed to be in the compo event, but real life got in the way on Sunday. I did make everything myself though. The music is mostly filler, something I cobbled together at the last minute. I'm not a musician. Feel free to mute it.

Controls:

Escape: Open pause menu

A and D or arrow keys: move horizontally

W or arrow keys: go forward; can also set "Always Accelerate" from pause menu

Left mouse button: Use boost. Boost charges once every 3 seconds while you are moving at least 75% of your top speed. 5 charges deploys a boost that doubles your current and max speed for one second. Represented by the 5 boxes to the left of the gauges.

Spacebar: Emergency fuel. Upon picking up a star, can press this key to instantly regain a portion of fuel. Can only hold one at once. Represented by the fuel icon to the right of the gauges

UI:

Enemy tracker: On the right of the screen, an enemy will chase you, slowly gaining speed over time. More obstacles and fuel will also spawn over time. If the enemy reaches you, it's a game over (but you can keep going if you don't want to restart)

Red bar: How much fuel you have remaining. More fuel means you travel slower, but no fuel means you can't travel at all.

Blue bar: Speed. Limited by how much fuel you have.

Windows https://www.dropbox.com/s/jkn8998i6oe0h32/Build%207%20Final%20Build%20for%20LD40.zip?dl=0
Backup Link http://puu.sh/yzwKW/cfe783e9b7.zip
Source code https://github.com/KobiHawk/Gas-or-Pass-LD40-
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/gas-or-pass

Ratings

Overall 941th 3.025⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 927th 2.842⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 994th 2.632⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 391th 3.639⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 939th 2.725⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 828th 2.357⭐ 16🧑‍⚖️
Mood 918th 2.775⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 15🗨️

Feedback

homeworld
05. Dec 2017 · 02:37 UTC
A bit too easy, but FANTASTIC effort for an almost-compo entry, so many features!
Siege
05. Dec 2017 · 02:55 UTC
Very simple game. Didn't really have a sense of progression to keep me going. I like the aesthetic though!
zgragselus
05. Dec 2017 · 03:01 UTC
Good job on almost compo entry. The controls were something unusual (or at least to me), but I enjoyed it. Fuel could have different texture or model (I didn't realize what is fuel and what is obstacle on the first run, and died ... yeah, 'git gud' on me).

Keep up the good work!
cortexdeveloper
05. Dec 2017 · 03:02 UTC
Great idea but too easy
theloneplant
05. Dec 2017 · 03:08 UTC
I think the player choice will always be gas in this case, since you don't provide a real punishment for players who only pick up gas since the AI is way too slow. I think having the option to slow down the car prevents players from needing to improve since they can just slow down and aim exactly where they wanted to go without much problem, and adding a boost option to catch up where it would eat up extra gas would also be a good addition imo. I also feel like the sideways acceleration on the car is a bit weird, though that might just take some getting used to. I think you made all the tools for a good game but it needed much more balancing.
ManBeardGames
05. Dec 2017 · 03:10 UTC
Fun game. The enemy didn't seem like a threat, there wasn't a time where he was gaining up on me. Managing fuel for speed and getting the boost was a fun concept.


Really enjoyed the graphics style.
Nerketur
05. Dec 2017 · 03:21 UTC
I liked the idea of this. More fuel = slower and you have to try and balance between fuel and speed. I found the controls were a bit too fast for me, but acceleration was A+. I got confused a few times with why the game just seemed to pause. Only game over after you hit escape?

Quirks aside, though, its actually a pretty cool game. Good time-waster, even if its short. :)
pkenney
05. Dec 2017 · 03:22 UTC
I think I reached wave 21? Nice parts are a cool open almost tron-like environment and some nice SPEED! That horizontal shifting, wow, it's potent.

Heads up, I got confused the first couple of times I played and thought maybe the game froze. Try opening the game and doing nothing (pretend you're reading the UI For the first time). The enemy will catch you and the game will "freeze" because you lost. Really if you hit escape the game explains this to you, but I didn't know to do that! I had to come back here and read up a bit more, then try again.

But, that splinter aside, once I Got rolling I had some fun swerving around and grabbin' gas! Nice work.
DraperDanMan
05. Dec 2017 · 03:43 UTC
Reminds me a lot of race the sun. A great effort in ~40 is hours! It wasn't obvious to me that the yellow cylinders were fuel until I started running into things to see what they did. Perhaps, in future try to get an effect or show the player what is friend or foe. Especially with primitives! The distance bar on the right was awesome, it gave me a great idea of how far ahead I had progressed.
Fluffi
16. Dec 2017 · 22:52 UTC
well it was really hard to understand what to do without a ingame tutorial and the game discription on this page was also a little bit too much text for my taste. It was not the yellow from the egg. This somehow goes me on the ghost and on the cookie. I wished for the soundtrack to change with the tempo of the car.
Flaterectomy
17. Dec 2017 · 14:41 UTC
In my second play-through I reached wave 62 and then decided to halt there because I didn't really know what I was trying to achieve. :smile: Afterward I read your text here on the page and realized I Was being followed by an incompetent driver of sorts. At first I didn't realize the yellow cylinders were fuel, and only went for the stars. Think I made it to wave 3 then.

The fuel/speed balance is a good idea, but the opponent doesn't really seem to pose a threat no matter how conservative you play. The art is very basic, and like I said, the cylinder being fuel didn't register to me at first, so there'd be room to improve there (a basic jerrycan for instance).

I wish you'd have implemented sound effects rather than music, that would've helped put some meat on the movement I think. The horizontal movement felt awkward to me, but with the right audio cues I think it could work.