Life of the Party by laaph

[raw]
made by laaph for LD34 (JAM)
You are the life of the party! Jump on the roof, muddle about confusing controls, walk up to people, and dance to get them to dance!

Controls: Z and X. Z moves up-right OR down-left. It alternates between pressings. X moves up-left OR down-right. Again, each time you press it, it alternates.

Dancers: Each dancer has a secret code (composed of Z's and X's) that you must dance to get them to dancing. Walk up to them to see their secret code. When they start dancing, they have a certain amount of energy (seconds) that they will keep dancing for. You are such a life of the party, that when you are close while they are dancing, you'll increase their energy! They'll tell you their energy when you get close. The energy maxes out at ten, in case you were wondering why they say "10" to you all the time.

Get everyone dancing to pass the level!

Teams! This was a large team.
Me: Programming
Chris: Programming
Magdalene Rose (twitter @codename_nycea): Character sprite art
Warren: Background art
Will Bucknam (twitter @voicetoname web http://voicetogame.com): Audio for level 1 and opening screen

All other audio was found on the internet.

Ratings

Coolness 36% 1857
Overall(Jam) 3.05 757
Audio(Jam) 3.56 212
Fun(Jam) 2.71 854
Graphics(Jam) 2.76 832
Innovation(Jam) 3.38 336
Mood(Jam) 3.19 535
Theme(Jam) 3.47 700

Feedback

h.attila
15. Dec 2015 路 18:34 UTC
I can't run this because you only have an OS/X build. :/
馃帳 laaph
16. Dec 2015 路 23:42 UTC
I had some issues because my version didn't have a "Build for windows" button. It turned out that if you do a default install on newer versions of Unity, it won't build for windows! Anyway, I reinstalled and made a Windows build.

Cheers!
Eingya
19. Dec 2015 路 01:18 UTC
Very awkward to control. While that is probably part of the challenge of the game, if I have to be honest I just find it a bit frustrating.
mcfearless999
19. Dec 2015 路 08:27 UTC
The theme was only two buttons for controls so they are a bit awkward and frustrating, but yeah, part of the challenge
Louspirit
22. Dec 2015 路 22:10 UTC
I disliked the controls, felt like I had no control. But very nice sound and original concept anyway
Dayko
23. Dec 2015 路 02:01 UTC
Haahaha that was fun :D I like the gameplay very much, maybe it needs more tuning / balancing, but your game is definetely a success :D
DissonEnt
23. Dec 2015 路 04:11 UTC
The mood was great, but the controls were more frustrating than it was fun.
馃帳 laaph
23. Dec 2015 路 04:39 UTC
Eingya, thank you for making the video! I finally watched it! I always appreciate watching people playing and commenting because I can see how they react to it.
awesomerex
27. Dec 2015 路 18:40 UTC
Interesting game concept. I liked the music! I think the time countdown time on the dancers could go up in the later levels. I had trouble getting everyone dancing when there were 5. The way you handled 2 button controls was frustrating but also added to the challenge of the game.
hyperscope
28. Dec 2015 路 02:22 UTC
While the control scheme may have been intentional I still found it frustrating to play. The audio however was on point!
LukeZaz
29. Dec 2015 路 03:37 UTC
Good game, great music choice! I had some difficulty with the controls, and would've preferred left/right & up/down versions as opposed to diagonal variants, but it was still fun to play each level.
Wumbo
02. Jan 2016 路 00:13 UTC
OK, firstly, I really liked the dance moves; they were pretty cool. Also, the particle effects on the YOU ARE AWESOME screen was some pretty rockin' positive reinforcement.

<Sigh> Controls...??? You had 4-5 people doing this? Did you guys think like "OK, lets come up with the most awkward and seemingly-random controls imaginable, but still only use two buttons"? Did you guys play this? I guess I'll just count it as humor, because I would imagine that if you were sitting here behind me, you would be laughing non-stop at how incompetent I am at getting around the board.

Music was excellent, but just a tad repetitive. It did fit the game very well, though.

I got to level 5 I think, but then there were just so many people that I gave up. I found that it was way easier if you just moved on to the next person to make them dance then to stand near people to increase their time.

Cool game, but the controls made it feel weird, as the rest of the people who played it seem to think. :)

P. S. The fish was my favorite dance, though the flower pot (?) was also pretty cool.
BunchaSapsGames
02. Jan 2016 路 00:40 UTC
It did fit the theme, but as others have said just too frustrating.
馃帳 laaph
02. Jan 2016 路 06:33 UTC
You can blame all the frustrating controls on me. mcfearless999 was with me until the end, but the rest of the group made their assets and left; I'm not even sure if they've played the game!

I had been thinking about an iphone version of this game; in that you would have arrows or something indicating what the next move will be. Would that clear up some frustration if you had a visual indicator indicating what direction the buttons would do?

(I think I'm the only person who doesn't find the controls too frustrating; but then again I'm the one to blame for them.)
A-Flat Miner Studios
02. Jan 2016 路 10:02 UTC
Super weird and neat and with great variety of tunes.
nihilaleph
03. Jan 2016 路 02:18 UTC
Pro:
+ Cool concept
+ Art is cool (though sometimes feel a bit random)
+ Great music selection
Con:
- A bit difficult to control
Obs:
o I think the iPhone idea would be nice. It's just hard to move around the place with only 2 buttons. Maybe you could make all sorts of dance moves to be done like different swipes and stuffs.
o Got stuck at level 6

Great work!