LudumData

The Consumer by foolmoron

[raw]
made by foolmoron for LD 42 (COMPO)

ld.gif

You are an ignorant simpleton. You need to consume as much media as possible to become an informed and productive member of society. Your entire self-worth depends on it. Use my convenient tool to consume many random videos at once, and finally become a well adjusted person!

SORRY FOR DOWNLOAD-ONLY. There are CORS permissions issues with the WebGL version that I can't do anything about :'( so you need to download the desktop version.

PLAY ON WIFI ONLY! The game is streaming tons of videos from the internet at the same time so it can use tons of MB.

CONTENT WARNING (18+): This game pulls from ~1600 public domain videos from the 60s-80s, which contain all kinds of things including war, racism, probably some porn. I have no idea what you might see. You can check the full list of video titles here: https://github.com/foolmoron/TheConsumer/blob/master/Assets/video%20data.json

CONSUME to add a new video to the screen

CLICK THE CORRECT WORDS based on the text's style formatting (the word is also somewhat related to the video, but that's unreliable)

LET INCORRECT WORDS PASS otherwise you will lose points when clicking them

TURN OFF THE TV to end the game and save your points before they are lost

*TIPS * - Each video has 1 correct text format and 1 incorrect text format. Memorize the correct and incorrect styles so you can make the right choice. - You gain exponentially more points the more videos there are on screen, but the text style differences get harder and more subtle - If you drop below 0 points, the TV will turn off. Try staying alive for as long as possible with a high # of panels.

Source code https://github.com/foolmoron/TheConsumer
Windows https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-consumer
macOS https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-consumer
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/the-consumer

Ratings

Overall 218th 3.597⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 506th 2.952⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 5th 4.403⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 567th 3.081⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 402th 3.148⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Audio 196th 3.3⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 223th 2.768⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 51th 3.758⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Given 31🗳️ 14🗨️

Feedback

Arthridas
13. Aug 2018 · 06:36 UTC
link doesn't work

also don't forget to rate other people's games
🎤 foolmoron
13. Aug 2018 · 19:41 UTC
@arthridas thanks, I nearly forgot!
Tornquist
14. Aug 2018 · 02:12 UTC
This was a really cool take on the theme.
Pennycook
14. Aug 2018 · 02:22 UTC
This is really innovative and interesting. I think it's a little too hard to tell which words relate to which video, though -- mainly because it requires some trial and error to figure out. Maybe when a video starts you could display its title in the correct font, and remove it once the player has found a matching word?
🎤 foolmoron
14. Aug 2018 · 02:29 UTC
@pennycook That's a really good idea. You do have some leeway when clicking on new words though, you only start losing lots of points when you make 3+ mistakes in quick succession. But I also want the player to have some feeling of skepticism and uncertainty, as you should when consuming any new media.
Predominant
14. Aug 2018 · 02:39 UTC
Interesting. I've not seen one like this before. Good work!
Ethan Nachreiner
14. Aug 2018 · 06:11 UTC
One of the most interesting games I've ever played! The actual gameplay could use some polish, but it was still very entertaining! 😄
Quorusa
14. Aug 2018 · 22:45 UTC
Very interesting ! It's the first time I see a game like this. Original.
A lot of media ! I like this.
AwiX
15. Aug 2018 · 06:29 UTC
Good Gaming Idea, Music needs to be improved Graphics good
aeveis
15. Aug 2018 · 06:33 UTC
very cool! I couldn't handle more than 4 screens, but it was a cool setup and you kind of get a good idea of what where the norms in the 60s-80s. Since the text changes are pretty subtle it made the game pretty hard, but also makes you focus on the vids a lot more which helps with the immersion. You also lost a lot of points very quickly if you misclicked so it would be hard to recover.

After experimenting though it looks like bad words disappear if you have 10 screens up, so I was able to get a ridiculously high score. At 10 screens it also feels like the text variation is much more diverse.

![the-consumer.png](///raw/2e2/1/z/19abd.png)
🎤 foolmoron
15. Aug 2018 · 18:46 UTC
@aeveis Ah weird! I do know there are some other issues with text spawning after you restart a game too. The timers are messed up or something. I think I'll fix those things for the post-jam version.

You do have the high score for now though :P
Sam Machell
16. Aug 2018 · 13:26 UTC
this is a great game! exactly the kind of work i like to make and like to see! i think it would work really well in an installation setup with multiple screens. really unique interpretation of the theme! nice one :)
hungare
16. Aug 2018 · 21:27 UTC
This is the most interesting game I have seen this jam! Very cool. The gameplay is very fun, because the more I played, the more panels I felt I could add. It would have been nice for it to be more video related, but still the gameplay was fun. Can't really give you much of a rating for art and music though since its from videos. Overall, very nice game!
Fluffy_Kaeloky
16. Aug 2018 · 22:35 UTC
This is by far the most innovative idea I've seen for this jam so far. I'm not completely sure how the theme fits into all this (Perhaps the videos taking up the screen space ?), but I enjoyed it nonetheless. My retro side was also tickled by all thoses 80s videos. Great job !
🎤 foolmoron
17. Aug 2018 · 00:59 UTC
@fluffy-kaeloky The theme is about running out of "mental" space, attention or awareness or something. And also screen space yeah. Thanks!
Toster
17. Aug 2018 · 18:17 UTC
Very interesting idea, keep it up! :)
Stefan Jovanovic
17. Aug 2018 · 18:18 UTC
Really unique and interesting idea, I liked it!
crastinator
17. Aug 2018 · 21:55 UTC
![Capture.PNG](///raw/400/2/z/1a264.png)

As I tried my best to spam for 18+ content.

What a great idea. Great execution of a great concept. Definitely expanded my mind on what constitutes a game. How did you come up with the idea?

Did I say how great of an idea this is yet?
Swordfish
17. Aug 2018 · 21:59 UTC
This is probably the most interesting game I've seen so far, I don't think it fits the theme very well though and I felt like I was mostly just guessing at what the correct formatting was.

With a little polishing it could be really good I think.
🎤 foolmoron
17. Aug 2018 · 22:18 UTC
@crastinator Well for this game I specifically wanted to practice with AV Pro and TM Pro plugins, and I wanted it to be adaptive to different screen sizes using UGUI, so I tried thinking what I could do with those. I noticed I could put a bunch of videos up in a grid, and it reminded me of how we mindlessly consume so much media simultaneously nowadays, and how it steals our limited attention, etc
mike_inPrinciple
17. Aug 2018 · 23:42 UTC
Peculiar experience, I'll grant you that. I thought that the game mechanic actually got in the way of the experience. I'm not sure what sense it made to read words and decide if this word was bold enough or large enough or if the character were far apart enough. I found myself more interested in the content of the videos than the words.

The experience aggravated for me when I started getting irrelevant and politically charged words all in a row, like "racism", "antifeminism", "bigotry", "chauvinism", "sexism", and so on. I felt like the game was trying to direct my thoughts much more than the films being played. And I got the impression that the game was all about demonstrating how the videos in question in fact were aimed to modify my mindset instead. I may be reading too much into this, but I always get defensive when I perceive that people, especially artists, devs included, are trying to project their morality onto me as an end user.
🎤 foolmoron
19. Aug 2018 · 19:01 UTC
@mike-inprinciple You're not reading too much into it at all. I think the main thing is that none of the content in the game is mine. The videos are from a generic list of public domain videos online, and the words also come from a related-words API using the tags of those videos.

The moral that I am trying to instill is that we naturally consume a ton of random media nowadays, none of which is neutral at all, and it takes a concerted/serious/difficult/uncomfortable effort to sort out what you actually want to internalize and what is bad.

One of the videos you got was probably about racism (there's a few listed in the JSON) and it took a lot of your mental space (attention) which hurt your overall experience and ability to continue watching. That's the point when you should turn off the TV. But then you miss out on all the other info and you are deemed "ignorant" or "uninformed" or whatever. That's pretty much exactly how I wanted it to work.
mike_inPrinciple
20. Aug 2018 · 01:43 UTC
@foolmoron Fair point. I apologise for what I wrote and I appreciate your explanation.
Flubz
20. Aug 2018 · 04:06 UTC
Although I didn't find the "game" too fun, it's the most innovative and interesting interpretation of the theme I've seen so far. I do really love the concept behind it, makes me wonder what gave you the idea? :joy:

I think if you could somehow incorporate more of a game from the data/video pulling, again, somehow, it would be far more interesting. Very well done tho!
kaiclavier
23. Aug 2018 · 09:10 UTC
Wow this is very innovative and challenging! Love the premise, too... it's like I'm being quizzed on the content I'm watching, and if I fail that's it! Like how you can't see the next chapter in an RPG if you can't beat the boss, but applied to TV instead of games if that makes sense?

Some of the text styles I got were similar to eachother at one point so it was a bit hard to to tell the difference on those. I think I'll be revisiting this one and showing some pals this after LD, it's seriously great.
Jupiter_Hadley
31. Aug 2018 · 19:37 UTC
Interesting idea! 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/sgI7Z7NA6tk
axoona
01. Sep 2018 · 22:30 UTC
nice game. The concept is interesting. It's a perfect example of how you can make a simple mechanic interesting by adding some depth and colour (in here the 50-60s propaganda mood). And the mood is excellent, I guess it's what makes this most interesting.

Gameplaywise its probably just a sort of arcade game? But it's a really good thing to make the player adjust the difficulty by himself, while it's completely explained by the game's narrative. Pretty ingineous! :smile:

Overall good job!