LudumData

The Bellwether Incident by juxipolo

[raw]
made by juxipolo for LD 39 (COMPO)

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I'm sure you saw it in the papers, but Bellwether Station had a bit of an incident. When the safety checks started to fail, the engineers set the system into autonomous running. When THAT failed, they called us. We've got to get in there and get the system back online. We also need to clean up some radioactive material before that becomes an even bigger problem.

Pilot three robots through the nuclear power station and get the system back online. Restart terminals, cleanup radioactive material, and avoid rogue security robots across 7 levels of turn-based gameplay.

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Click on a bot to select it, then click on something else to command it to perform an action. Robots can only interact with things that they are standing next to.

Video post portem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWOElxxVNm0

Windows https://www.dropbox.com/s/qoamsik77793rv3/Bellwether.zip?dl=0
Source code https://www.dropbox.com/s/6fdpz4bazu2nhd4/Bellwether%20Source.zip?dl=0
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-bellwether-incident

Ratings

Overall 355th 3.278⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Fun 438th 2.944⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 408th 2.944⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Theme 490th 3.167⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 155th 3.722⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Audio 262th 3⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 279th 2.444⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 383th 2.833⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 26🗳️ 0🗨️

Feedback

Marcenat
31. Jul 2017 · 22:07 UTC
I have the following error : File loading error: base/font/medium bold
ryzy27
31. Jul 2017 · 23:37 UTC
Graphics and text is really nice, but I found it hard to move 3 characters at once. Drone was always left as a bait and others did the job.
TheFlyingKeyboard
01. Aug 2017 · 22:28 UTC
Unfortunatelly the game does not work for me, the only thing I see is black screen.
slash
05. Aug 2017 · 15:18 UTC
I Am look at the screenshots and I want to play in this game but its only black screen for me.
Hope you fix it!
Didactylos
05. Aug 2017 · 20:59 UTC
An interesting game engine, with original graphics.

But the gameplay is very frustrating. When one robot has nothing to do, you have to click run-run-run. And the interactions are unclear - the tutorial wasn't much help. The command input is also very buggy/unpredictable. Added together, I just couldn't get very far with it, so I wasn't really able to evaluate the quality of the puzzles themselves.
spencerjp
05. Aug 2017 · 23:23 UTC
Wow, did you write the engine yourself? Well done!

The text is kind of slow and it can be very difficult to determine what the goal of the puzzle is sometimes. For example, in the first level where you have to cap the radioactive stuff, the player has to assume that getting close to it will allow you to cap it. Puzzle games don't work super well if you don't give the player all the information they need to solve the possible.

Some of the sound effects are really loud and jarring (like when boxes are pushed). Still a lot better than my weak sound design, though. :P

I think with a little tweaking this game could be really entertaining. Despite being a little confusing and at times tedious, it's still a solid game and fun to play right now. Great job man!
johnnydalvi
06. Aug 2017 · 00:22 UTC
Love the game and the Sound, Awesome Concept too!

I just think that the game is a bit too slow, there should be options to skip text and to fast forward all the robot`s moviments
LeviDSmith
06. Aug 2017 · 01:57 UTC
Nice idea. I'm impressed with the fact that you made a 3D game in MonoGame for a game jam. I tried creating a 3D game in XNA years ago, and it definitely wasn't simple. I wish that the robots would keep moving until they completed their commands, since I had to keep pressing Enter or press the run button repeatedly. It would also be nice if the robots were animated. I would also introduce one robot at a time, until the player learns all of their abilities. It would have been nice to have a visual cue to show the robot capping the waste, since the only way you could tell how many turns it took was by hovering over the robot. It seemed like any robot could hack the door, and I was confused if the objective was to cap all of the waste, hack the door, or both.
Pheonise
06. Aug 2017 · 02:05 UTC
Interesting idea! A couple things that could use improvement is the speed of the message texts (something like 'Hold Space to fast-forward', and an option to put a drone into Standby mode, so that we can use the Run command even if not all drones have an action planned.

Other than that, it was pretty cool, with a lot of potential - I'd like to see more!
ikiste3D
06. Aug 2017 · 02:36 UTC
Really liked this game. You should definitely work on a full version of it. I would take into consideration what other people have pointed out already (text speed, changing the way "Run" works and less confusing puzzles) but it's still very impressive!!
foxor
06. Aug 2017 · 02:40 UTC
Pretty neat game. Kinda like a turn based lost vikings, with robots.

Good god that tutorial text is interminal though. Can I at least click to make it go faster?
rodobodolfo
06. Aug 2017 · 02:44 UTC
Loved the art and the isometric camera. the text is too slow for my taste, and also the movement. It was really fun and challenging sometimes.
🎤 juxipolo
06. Aug 2017 · 03:01 UTC
@levidsmith - Secretly, this is a purely 2d game. I created 3d models and then rendered them to textures from a fixed camera angle. They're high enough res and the positioning and layering is precise enough that it's obviously difficult to tell that, though :)

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
Godot35
06. Aug 2017 · 03:41 UTC
The graphics are appealing, as they are simple, yet crisp and clean. I felt the gameplay had a few problems. The first being the tutorial text speed, as it is too slow. The second problem I have is the tutorial tries to cover a lot of the mechanics at the same time, and it ultimately doesn't cover them effectively enough. I feel it would have been better to introduce each robot one at a time to teach the mechanics.

Overall, the game has good graphics and interesting concepts, but its subpar tutorial and vague mechanics hold it back.
tmpxyz
06. Aug 2017 · 04:02 UTC
Windows anti-virus reported the exe is infested with virus >>
mamoniem
06. Aug 2017 · 04:58 UTC
Good game, i didn't get any errors or antivirus messages, but still amazed by the final executable size!

-m
Mack101dog
06. Aug 2017 · 06:22 UTC
The graphics are really good, and gameplay is polished as well. Wish they would have been a option for text speed.
EdwinGameDev
08. Aug 2017 · 21:46 UTC
I loved your game. Turn based games strategy are awesome! Destroying some robots was very nice. I think the only think you should change are the sounds, they are too loud. Great game, good job!
KunoNoOni
09. Aug 2017 · 00:58 UTC
This was an interesting puzzle game. I'm not sure if it was a bug or not but I only really need to use one of the robots, boxworth. He was able to cap the waste and hack the terminals.I noticed the text doesn't wait for you to press a key to go on to the next page and as it was a little fast I missed what was being written out. Over the concept is really cool. Good Job!