LudumData

S.T.A.C.K.E.R. Clear Bag by DrEvilBrain

[raw]
made by DrEvilBrain for LD 42 (JAM)

Capture.PNG

Stacker, I fear no man. But the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. That places scares me. I won't stop you if you have a death wish and want to go there, but you're not going to get any help from me. So get out of here stacker! I don't want to see you again. Hell, I'll probably never see you again. You'll be long before you reach Chernobyl...

An homage to one of my favorite games of all time, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.

If the WebGL version doesn't work for you (depending on your browser settings/memory allocation/whatever), try the standalone version. Or just use the standalone version to begin with.

CONTROLS

To start your journey to Chernobyl, click the Continue Traveling button. This button is used to continue traveling after every event. Use the checkmark and X buttons to make decisions during an event.

Click and drag items to move them around. Double click on a useable item to use it. How can you tell what item is useable? How can you tell what it does? None other than the tried and true method that works even in real life: by randomly experimenting!

CREDITS

Full credits can be found on the GitHub repository.

Made with Unity, Bfxr, Audacity, Musescore, GIMP, Aseprite, and Pixelator.

Inspired by Neil Thapen's amazing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. demake S.T.A.C.K.E.R..

Main menu music is quite obviously the great Bandit Radio from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky. In particular, this is a MIDI accordion version made from JdebMkay's excellent piano arrangement.

In-game music is kickhat's cool ambient soundtrack.

Inventory tetris system originally created by Farrokh Games and is licensed under the MIT License.

Original image of Chernobyl nuclear power plant edited with Pixelator.

Awesome S.T.A.L.K.E.R. logo lookalike font courtesy of Amazingmax.

Source code https://github.com/DrEvilBrain/Ludum-Dare-42
HTML5 (web) https://drevilbrain.itch.io/stacker-clear-bag
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/s-t-a-c-k-e-r-clear-bag

Ratings

Overall 593th 3.387⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 497th 3.323⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1025th 2.726⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 703th 3.371⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 761th 3.177⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Humor 532th 2.704⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 74th 3.967⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

merdeboi
14. Aug 2018 · 22:08 UTC
Nice homage to STALKER, definitely gave me the same feels.
Fits the theme well and the events are pretty varied, well done.
Johannimations
14. Aug 2018 · 22:13 UTC
its a pitty i couldn't rate audio
🎤 DrEvilBrain
14. Aug 2018 · 22:20 UTC
I didn't actually make any of the audio (except for those little bleeps during the traveling animation).
G4m3M4ni4c
14. Aug 2018 · 22:22 UTC
Not sure how to heal, but otherwise a great game overall
inateno
14. Aug 2018 · 22:24 UTC
Can we end the game? I feel like it's always the same, no difference between olding a rock or a sniper rifle.

But great entry! Loved it (would know if I an finish it XD)
🎤 DrEvilBrain
14. Aug 2018 · 22:26 UTC
@g4m3m4ni4c You can double click useable items in your inventory to use them.

@inateno You can actually reach the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but haha good luck getting there. This is partially based off my first experience playing STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl.
monetai
14. Aug 2018 · 22:26 UTC
A battle with a sniper left me barely alive at the evening of the first day, I died not long aftet that =(
The amount of content you managed to put in the game is impressive!! I really liked it!
Bismark
14. Aug 2018 · 22:49 UTC
I did not see the time spent playing it :-)
José Alvim
14. Aug 2018 · 23:02 UTC
There seems to be a lot of variety in the events!
witylernn
14. Aug 2018 · 23:24 UTC
On the WebGL version hitting the checkmark to travel to the next location did nothing, couldnt play :( looked fun though!
🎤 DrEvilBrain
14. Aug 2018 · 23:36 UTC
@witylernn Did you hit the Continue Traveling button? That's used to travel to the next event, whereas the checkmark and X buttons are for making decisions during an event. When you start the game, you have to begin by traveling, which from then on you'll make a singular choice given the event. Then you can contiuously travel and make more decisions!
Frank Gevaerts
14. Aug 2018 · 23:53 UTC
Some information about what various items do would be very useful.
Every now and then I couldn't drag an item and had to click around a bit before it would work again.
🎤 DrEvilBrain
14. Aug 2018 · 23:57 UTC
@frank-gevaerts I was originally planning on having mouse over descriptions of every item, but ran out of time. The text that appears when you use an item describes the effect. I deliberately didn't include any numbers in those. I was also originally going to not have the numerical versions of your 3 stats on the bar, but kept them in just to make it really obvious when you have critically low amounts.
DarkGuardsman
15. Aug 2018 · 00:05 UTC
Very nice game, enjoyed the text style mixed with a little inventory system. However, couldn't tell how this fit the theme.
🎤 DrEvilBrain
15. Aug 2018 · 00:17 UTC
@darkguardsman The game's mechanics and name were based off the idea of constantly juggling items through a very limited amount of inventory space. You'll never quite know what you'll want or need in a given situation, but you can only carry so much on you at all times. So you're running out of (inventory) space.
DarkGuardsman
15. Aug 2018 · 00:20 UTC
hmm makes sense, guess I never got to a point were I ran into that problem. Was always running out of items instead of space... still a good game :)
🎤 DrEvilBrain
15. Aug 2018 · 00:23 UTC
I wish I had more time to balance the game rather than making the core mechanics. Right now it's pretty much all over the place in terms of how good certain items are or if certain items even have a purpose at all.

Some items were purposefully made to be junk items (like the rocks and sticks) but some were meant to have a purpose, but was never properly implemented (like the hazmat suit).
Sebastian-M
15. Aug 2018 · 02:16 UTC
So... I migth have found a bug on your game.
![Capture.PNG](///raw/a70/8/z/199fb.png)
After that, the game locked.

I did get to play for a bit, it's fun top explore what every object does. I think the intro music is not very fitting to the theme of the game :P
🎤 DrEvilBrain
15. Aug 2018 · 02:27 UTC
@sebastian-m I've found that WebGL is always a little finicky for Unity. If you have an issue, try one of the standalone builds. They're there specifically for that reason.

Also, a bit ironic that the intro music is not fitting for the game since it's literally a song in a STALKER game and probably the most iconic one. I suppose it isn't fitting because it's a very happy song compared to the overall dark and depressing theme in the STALKER games.
knarf
15. Aug 2018 · 07:56 UTC
That's a nice demake, I realize managing backpack was almost a real minigame by itself in STALKER...
I liked the text narration that has enough variations to keep me captivated, the inventory system is working quite fine (i once lost an item releasing the mouse out of the slots lol)
It's good to go back into Stalker's universe, I didn't imagine it could be reached so easily just with text, travelling and inventory system.
I managed survived something like 18 days :) I'd like to find the power plant but this seems rather hard ^^
Well done!
Cheers !
SuperQGS
15. Aug 2018 · 14:29 UTC
Very atmospheric, which is difficult to convey in a text adventure. Solid game, I love the inventory mechanics.
Dj Depressive
15. Aug 2018 · 16:10 UTC
Great game! The story was really engaging (it reminded me a lot of Metro) and the inventory management was fun. I really liked it when you got bamboozled although I'm a bit embarrassed that I fell for it 3 times... Well done!
🎤 DrEvilBrain
15. Aug 2018 · 16:55 UTC
@dj-depressive The Metro games were actually made by ex-STALKER developers (or at least the original team at 4A Games was comprised of a lot of them). In many ways, Metro is a spiritual successor to STALKER.
Ozerion2103
15. Aug 2018 · 17:19 UTC
Started playing it in the web browser, but wasn't happy with it, so I downloaded the standalone version on windows... did not regreet it, it was a cool game!! loved the music in the background by the way, good job ! :)
SirMichel
15. Aug 2018 · 17:35 UTC
For a text-adventure this game has a lot of atmosphere and i was positively reminded of all those days i spent playing STALKER.
siimer
15. Aug 2018 · 17:45 UTC
Enjoyed playing this game a lot. Definitely gets the mood of the STALKER games right. In my opinion there could have been more randomness to the game so running away from a pack of dogs doesn't always end badly etc...
🎤 DrEvilBrain
15. Aug 2018 · 17:49 UTC
@siimer That was originally part of the plan, but I had limited time and at that point made an event system that was so hacked together that it would have taken far too much time to implement a non binary branching event system. Definitely something I want to do eventually though.
EnchaeC
15. Aug 2018 · 18:41 UTC
Nice writing and mood! Good job.
Dj Depressive
15. Aug 2018 · 19:08 UTC
@drevilbrain I had no idea, but it makes a lot of sense.
s-ol
21. Aug 2018 · 17:27 UTC
The "Continue Travelling" button wasn't obvious to me, I thought the browser version was broken until I realized it's a button by itself in the standalone build (i kept pressing the checkmark).
To make it more understandable either add a hover style or disable the buttons when there is no choice to do.

Other then that this is a very cool entry! I like the writing and it's fun to play for quite a long time :)