The Little World by JayTord

[raw]
made by JayTord for LD 38 (COMPO)

Game is based on "The Little Prince" fairy tail. You will be able to feel yourself as Prince, who is doing his daily routine on his home planet.

Game difficulty increases each day and reaches it's cap at Day 30. Thus, even though game is endless you can consider Day 45 as Game Clear.

Links:

Windows version download: http://rgho.st/6SBWwF9MT

Source: http://rgho.st/7YtKMwKzm

Screenshots: Screenshot1.png

Screenshot2.png

Ratings

Overall 456th 2.815⭐ 83🧑‍⚖️
Fun 456th 2.593⭐ 83🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 337th 2.963⭐ 83🧑‍⚖️
Theme 169th 3.667⭐ 83🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 445th 2.642⭐ 83🧑‍⚖️
Mood 444th 2.58⭐ 83🧑‍⚖️
Given 42🗳️ 47🗨️

Feedback

dimaaasik.s
24. Apr 2017 · 15:44 UTC
I like it. Simple idea with pretty good realization. My record is 18 days. Try to get more ;-).
Aurelien
01. May 2017 · 10:03 UTC
The little Prince had a lot of work! How does he find the time to look at the sunset?

Good realization indeed, a shame that there is no audio :(

Still! Good Job! :grin:
adamalexander
01. May 2017 · 10:22 UTC
Interesting game, I'm not sure how far I got, but it seemed quite far when I died. I'm not sure why I lost the game each time and it was hard to keep glancing at the text in the bottom left as I was playing.
🎤 JayTord
01. May 2017 · 10:59 UTC
@adamalexander

:warning: There are 3 game over screens:

Green - baobabs are grown too much.

Pink - rose wasn't watered too long or you accidentally uprooted it.

Orange - volcanoes were not cleaned for too much time.

Pink is probably most common, since you really need to pay attention to that rose ;)
Move127
01. May 2017 · 11:40 UTC
Pretty fun. Once it gets difficult it becomes pretty fun trying to make decisions quickly about what to take care of as the planet rotates.

Perhaps the difficulty could ramp up a little faster. Even around 15 days I didn't have any trouble. Perhaps add some kind of notification near the top of the screen for what day it is.
lilroo
01. May 2017 · 11:42 UTC
Getting a 503 when clicking the download link to the game
bram_ve
01. May 2017 · 12:18 UTC
A unique take on the theme, it works well. The only thing i didn't really enjoy is that there is very little visual feedback for doing things. Instead of text feedback maybe adjust the volcano's visuals based on cleanliness that would be much better! Overall fun concept just visually lacking.
LeFayGames
01. May 2017 · 12:26 UTC
I always died because of the baobabs. Somehow I always missed one at one point in the game. The game is really fun but the volcanoes could have used some visual feedback . Sometimes I cleaned one that was already 5/5 when I could have done something else in that time.
TomBishopSPG
01. May 2017 · 13:17 UTC
I agree with others. The primary thing the game is lacking is visual feedback. That being said I see a lot of potential for various game mechanics here. I like that the planet spins on it own and you don't have to for example worry about spinning and looking for something through a camera control because that would have been awful. Instead you just focus on the tasks at hand and your priorities which felt good.
oxrock
01. May 2017 · 14:40 UTC
By day 22 I was screwed. Sadly there was just no was I could look away from the planet to try and read the text at the bottom to get an update of what was going on. Some kind of visual status update on things would of been priceless.
nilead
01. May 2017 · 15:28 UTC
Based on the little prince? I'm all on for that!
amras0000
01. May 2017 · 15:47 UTC
The game's definitely interesting, if a fair bit repetitive. I love this interpretation of the theme (second time I've seen the little prince used this LD), and you've definitely managed to capture some of the charm of taking care of the prince's planet.

I would have loved to have some gentle music to accompany the gardening, the lack of sound definitely hurt the mood of the game. But it's Ludum Dare so can't be too harsh on that.

The baobabs always spawned on the start of a day. It may have felt a bit more natural to have them sprout at random times, maybe with a subtle scale increase (spawn at scale=0.1, lerp to scale=1 over a second or so).

The volcanoes had a warning system if they were about to blow, but I would have liked some better visual indicators of the 5 stages of dirtiness. Maybe something like changing up the height of their spout.

I hate to encourage people to conform to the norm, but it felt like you were aiming for a specific gaming experience so I might as well bring a couple design practices to your attention that I've seen accomplish something similar. You seemed to want each day to be a little more frantic, and force the player to switch between a couple different tools to solve problems ever more quickly and with ever higher quantities. But, despite the switching of tools, at the end of the day the game only actually involved clicking on each thing a couple times. It would have been nice to have a more involved procedure for cleaning out volcanoes and rooting out baobabs. Something to the style of typing various quotes from the book to clear out baobabs, or having to hold the mouse close to the rose while watering it.

Still, it's a sweet little game, and with just a bit more variety in its mechanics it shows a lot of promise. Thanks for your work.
Lugdumdare Team
01. May 2017 · 16:08 UTC
A visual/sound feedback would have been a great finishing touch to that game. Nice take on the theme :)
teekeks
01. May 2017 · 16:44 UTC
Day 19 for me. Looks alright and plays fun. Just a bit too repetitive after a bit.
ryte2byte
01. May 2017 · 17:03 UTC
Nice idea and it came out well. Maybe I missed it (still waking up), but I wasn't really sure what failed me out. Was losing on several fronts at the time, lol. Would be nice if the last screen told me which mechanic delivered the killing blow.
MathijsVissers
01. May 2017 · 17:41 UTC
Interesting idea. Gets pretty hard after a bit. I liked it.
Could use a bit more feedback on what you're doing and what you're forgetting to do. Audio could help with that.
The planet looks a bit bare, graphic-wise.
ZeAntwan
01. May 2017 · 18:02 UTC
It really lacks feedbacks, but I like the way tou used The Little Prince as a theme for your game ! It gets hard pretty fast, but it was fun !
Dink_Dunk
01. May 2017 · 19:56 UTC
There is very little visual feedback for doing anything, apart from that, it's a fun little game!
Vidinu
01. May 2017 · 20:14 UTC
Maybe "The little prince" is the best simple option to gave a story to a game based on "small world" theme, but i like what you were able to create in your game. Taking care of only three things on such a small planet in the end is very difficult, and generates a challenge. Good work.

See my jam game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/limited-space
Multitudes22
01. May 2017 · 21:42 UTC
Nice game, simple but enjoyable. I wish there was some music to it though! I feel like the mood of the game could've been improved by a lot with that. Overall, though, good realization and good game!
HuvaaKoodia
01. May 2017 · 21:50 UTC
Intense! Mostly for my index finger unfortunately...
The idea is, in all honesty, brilliant. An ever increasing challenge testing your dexterity, quick wits and carefulness. The problem here is many fold.

Selecting the right tool for the right job is really easy, thus the carefulness aspect is a dud.
If you needed to change the tool in between a task, for instance clean :rose: twice then water once, carefulness would play a much bigger role in the proceedings.

Quick wits aren't really needed as each task clearly signals its urgency, meaning the order of doing things is obvious. This is good UI design by the way so challenging the decision making part of the brain should be done some other way.

We are left with dexterity and, boy, that sure is required. Got to around day 30 and at that point, trying to click a :volcano: 5 times in a row is a bloody nightmare! Maybe the complexity and amount of tasks could increase instead of the rotation speed of the planet. After all, why is the speed increasing in the first place?

Well, I do still like it due to the strong idea and competent execution. It could be really something special though.
mango-malarkey
02. May 2017 · 10:57 UTC
Cool idea, but as other has stated, the difficulty could be ramped up a little earlier I think..
somethinboutgames
02. May 2017 · 15:58 UTC
Nice tribute to the little prince. It got really stressful towards the end, which is why I don't know if a cooldown on the tools works that well in a game like this. It just seemed impossible to click on a volcano 5 times in one rotation, would be nice to go as fast as I can click :) Music and soundeffects would have been a valuable addition too. Still, the game was fun, filled with frantic clicking and scrambling to select the right tool for the task at hand.
Scornz
02. May 2017 · 16:47 UTC
Awesome fun, my record is 15 days. It takes a little bit to get the hang of, but once you do, it's quite addicting.
smdeveloper
02. May 2017 · 17:49 UTC
Fun game , After a while it starts additing you , ahahah :thumbsup:
bestnickname
02. May 2017 · 20:41 UTC
Nice game :) Gets really difficult quite fast however, I lasted 14 days hehe. Also really enjoyed the end game screens. One gripe I have is that watering totally makes sense :P (in my mind anyways...)
Cornchip
02. May 2017 · 20:54 UTC
I thought it was a nice game! (Although I'm terrible at it)
lepatryckduffy
02. May 2017 · 21:37 UTC
Nice game good job (maybe make some music ;) ) Nice entry !
Connor McGrory
02. May 2017 · 22:04 UTC
Some sounds would have made this, and maybe a score system?
giusex27
03. May 2017 · 02:09 UTC
Really nice and simple game and concept, a job well done! The only things that lacks are music and a score system, like the comment above me says.
🎤 JayTord
03. May 2017 · 07:38 UTC
:heart: Thank you, everyone!

@bram-ve Yes, I agree that more visual effects depending on what user is doing would've been nice, it's not like I didn't plan to add them, just was short in time a bit, so in the end I've decided to keep things simpler to deliver game in time (barely managed to). It was first time when I was working with 3D and models, so it could seem easy to add few simple effects, but actually I've struggled with them a lot T_T. Now I think I should've made post-compo version with audio/visual improvements, most likely will add one for my next LD game.

@huvaakoodia @amras0000 Special thanks to you guys, I really appreciate that you gave me "deep" advises that could also improve my future games of same genre.

@connor-mcgrory @giusex27 I can't really agree with a score system here, these types of games usually use seconds/number of "wave" to indicate how long player last, the game use day number for this. I don't want to give player different scores for doing work faster or something like this, it should only matter how long your planet survives. Thus you will have approximately same score at the end of the same day and on my opinion it's more suitable to show the day number in that case. Maybe just like @move127 said I should've duplicate number of day from the logs to the top left corner of the screen.
Hethsin
03. May 2017 · 17:06 UTC
Pretty cool concept, not too complex, fairly well executed. Good job!
Mr.McGibblets
03. May 2017 · 22:23 UTC
At first I was like, "this is it?" Then the world started to turn. I wasn't expecting such a challenge to be present, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and found myself quickly breaking out into a sweat.

One suggestion for next time: and this goes for everyone that submitted something, (including myself). Think about "Why would the player want to play this?" and "Why should the player care?" and "How can I keep the player engaged and give them real depth of gameplay?"
Spiteful Fox
04. May 2017 · 01:20 UTC
This game's pretty stressful. xD
zgragselus
04. May 2017 · 02:30 UTC
The concept is good, as for the execution, somewhat repetitive for me. Few points:

- I like the tutorial, although it should have been separate (not after every restart)

- The planet rotates way too fast for me, at least before I got what I should do (and i literally 'git gud')

- Concept and idea of the game is good, but doing same things all over again makes it boring after a short while. Although in the end is somewhat innovative by introducing spherical geometry, it still misses something more in the concept itself to make it from good to awesome (although yes, it is a Ludum Dare game - so as a concept it is nice, if you're going to make something more out of it, think about mid and late game).

Overally, congratulations on making a game. I enjoyed it and thanks for sharing!
cudabear
04. May 2017 · 04:41 UTC
This is an interesting concept but is pretty lacking in content.

What I liked:
* The core gameplay loop is simple and introduced to the player in a clear and easy to understand way.
* The idea is pretty unique, I like the idea of maintaining the planet in real time.

What I disliked:
* This game sorely needs visual feedback. It's impossible to read the text to know what stage of doing something you're on when the game speeds up near the end. I'd love to know if a volcano is clean or about to blow without reading the text.
* The loop is very repetitive and not very satisfying. Rather than having the game speed up, it would probably be cooler to introduce more volcanoes or baobabs or maybe even more roses as the game progresses.


Great job on your entry and good luck in the competition!
candlesan
04. May 2017 · 06:25 UTC
Cute premise. I like the storyline. Good interpretation of the theme too.

It feels like a "submission" game similar to rock band or other rhythm game where there aren't really decisions to make but more responses the player has to make. Perhaps some extra elements to reinforce this would make it fun such as particle effects on success or music and rhythm.

Thanks for the game!
spacedoubt
05. May 2017 · 03:22 UTC
Great concept! Needs something, not sure what, maybe just sound. I'm just glad someone's drawing attention to the important issue of keeping our volcanoes clean!
el_Flex0s
05. May 2017 · 14:26 UTC
Cool concept and lovely texts!
Indeximal
05. May 2017 · 15:14 UTC
Pretty neat game, but why would you not rotate the world smoothly
dray
05. May 2017 · 22:37 UTC
really well made game with a simple story and a tense gameplay. good job :)
nekoballs
07. May 2017 · 00:38 UTC
Nice game! Simple and fun. Got stressful in a good way!
zchen
07. May 2017 · 06:10 UTC
Interesting game! The volcanoes and baobabs got pretty intense. I found myself doing a lot of clicky very quickly. Got repetitive after a few days. It was cool to see the planet grow and develop though.
valiap
07. May 2017 · 08:04 UTC
Nice little game! The story reminds me of Le Petit Prince. The game play was simple but fun. I ended in uprooting the rose :cry:

不错的游戏!故事有点像小王子。游戏性非常简洁有趣。我最后不小心把玫瑰给铲了T-T
Hegemege
07. May 2017 · 20:08 UTC
Interesting clicker game. After every day I could swear the planet was moving faster and faster but wasn't sure :D

I noticed that the baobab all spawned at first stage, maybe some difficulty progression could be added with them spawning in later stages? I played for good 5 minutes and it didn't appear to happen, but I think there were more of them. Good job including a tutorial! The icon at topleft didn't respond to the selected tool, but I managed just with the cursor icon.
athomicus
10. May 2017 · 08:23 UTC
I like It interesting game good job
namrog84
10. May 2017 · 18:02 UTC
I love games with small planets in them like this!
Toulou
10. May 2017 · 18:29 UTC
It was a nice game, I didn't expected it to be so engaging and interesting. The concept is interesting and harder than it looks at first.
It would have been better if we could walk freely on the planet, but aside from that, good job.
Ava Skoog
13. May 2017 · 11:10 UTC
Dang it, as a language nerd I keep seeing The Little Prince around as it's a big collector's item in these communities, since it's been translated to so many languages, but I still haven't read it myself, so any references have been hopefully lost on me, hehe. I guess the text on the game over screens were taken from the book?

Anyway, I'm on Mac, so couldn't play your Windows build, but thanks to the source you provided, I could open it up in Unity anyway. I made a Mac build for you in case you want to put it up!

http://ava.levelism.com/tmp/TheLittleWorld_Mac.zip

Don't want to keep it there indefinitely, especially since this is web space I'm borrowing for free, so please tell me once you've downloaded it and hosted it yourself, and I'll make my link invalid again. c:

Game was a bit confusing at first until I played a few times and got it—again probably something that's clearer to anybody who's read the book. At first I thought I was turning the rose into a baobab by watering it and then the volcano by digging, not realising these were three different things that the first "level" was teaching me about and what tool to use on them, but I got it after I had played the actual game a bit!

No idea where/if it said how many days had passed, so not sure how well I did, but I definitely didn't reach your 45 day goal, that's for sure, haha. At first glance, I thought it would be kinda similar to our game Blomst, but then I realised it was really fast-paced! Quite difficult!

Too bad you didn't find the time to put any music in there, but that happens. c: Great job overall! Wish I'd read the book first so that I could tune a bit more into the references!
Local Minimum
13. May 2017 · 21:00 UTC
Nice game. I liked that there was an initial tutorial, but that one also kind of indicated that there would be feedback on succeeding on the tasks. The rose disappeared and plant disappeared as well as the volcano. In the real game after, it was only plants that gave feedback on to the player and I think it would have been nice to have seen in some way how dire the need of water or cleaning was as well as the other side of the scale: this volcano is spotless - stop clicking on it. I know there was text and that it told me what to do, but frankly I was too busy tending to the planet. The planet movement that dubiously was speeding up, I think? That was great. I don't really know for how long I survived and exactly what item did me over either which would have been nice to know. So perhaps just letting the world play on half a day more without allowing player to interact and showing somehow that it is game over, before switching to the text. Or perhaps just putting the text in the same scene while the world is still spinning below. In general though, nice game.
sgstair
19. May 2017 · 09:54 UTC
I was disappointed when frantically mixing up the tools did not appear to cause some kind of immediate chaos. This game gets out of control pretty quickly. I'm not sure whether the weeds or the volcanoes are my least favorite element :P

I played this on stream at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/143780402 - time 0:39:10
🎤 JayTord
19. May 2017 · 14:11 UTC
@sgstair
Thanks for including my game in your stream, about mixing tools...You actually lost because you have used shovel on rose and you had a lot of grown baobabs because you were watering them ;)