Over-encumbered by brundolf

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

You are a sentient backpack, managing inventory for your hapless adventurer owner.

How to play:

  • The bars on the left represent the sum total of health (red), mana (blue), and stamina (green) contained in all the present items
  • The hero will automatically consume items as needed
  • The hero will pick up new items from chests
  • The hero will fight monsters
  • 3 mana lets the hero use a spell, which KO's a monster without taking damage
  • Lacking a spell, the hero and monster will take turns hitting each other
  • Stamina allows the hero to use a stronger melee attack than normal, but a stamina point is lost each time
  • If health runs out, it's game over

  • Drag mushrooms onto each other to craft potions

  • Drag junk outside of the bag to throw it away
  • Gold coins add to your final score, but take up space for restorative items
  • Items from chests opened while inventory is full will get thrown away (running out of space!)

See how far you can get!


Credits

Brought to you by the fine minds at Smith, Smith, & Goldgar.

All sprites used are from https://opengameart.org, specifically:

Hero sprites by: Knife Drawer Games

Cloud sprites by: Richard Fhager aka DawnBringer

Tree and bush sprites by: Jestan

Terrain, butterfly and mushroom sprites: Copyright 2008 Jordan Trudgett | http://jordan.trudgett.com/ - Licensed under CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Item and enemy sprites by: David E. Gervais

Meters GUI: modified, original by Michele Bucelli https://opengameart.org/users/buch

Trash can stolen from MacOS System 7.5.3

Sounds used include these sounds from https://freesound.org/:

Mushroom sound: 321552brendan89regular-arrow-shot (https://freesound.org/people/brendan89)

Potion clink sound: 432245techgknclink.wav (https://freesound.org/people/TechGkN)

Potion sound of loss: 41348datasoundsampleglass-shatter.wav (https://freesound.org/people/datasoundsample/)

Junk1 and 2 sound: 21781splashzookaclap-rock.aiff (https://freesound.org/people/splashzooka/)

Junk3 sound: 237926foolboymediamessy-splat-2.wav (https://freesound.org/people/foolboymedia/)

Hero gulps a potion: a sped-up version of gulps.wav by GagaMan

Hero eats a mushroom: Eating An Apple 03.wav by bryanongsounds

Useless potion: a clipped and faded version of steam pipe 2.wav by visions68

Gold: a clipped version of coinsfallinto_coins.WAV by Sir Smith (no relation)

Spell effect © 2005-2013 Julien Jorge julien.jorge@stuff-o-matic.com (https://opengameart.org/content/animated-circular-air-blast-effect)

Music

"Doobly Doo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Thanks to SomeGuyXG3 for suggesting the game name

Ratings

Overall 598th 3.383⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Fun 410th 3.417⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 596th 3.167⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Theme 364th 3.767⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Humor 276th 3.224⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Mood 493th 3.233⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 25🗨️

Feedback

dunin
13. Aug 2018 · 11:15 UTC
Simple but fun.

It needs more feedback and a restart button would be great (runs are short).

DON'T TAKE BONES LITTLE DOG, DON'T TAKE BONES!
jackyjjc
13. Aug 2018 · 12:31 UTC
Deceptively simple yet pretty fun, the graphics and music is pretty cute. I would love a bit more variety in terms of crafting and less RNG for the runs.

Overall a very relaxing and enjoyable game to play. Well done!
Dries Vuylsteke
13. Aug 2018 · 12:50 UTC
Short but very fun game. I am missing the restart button because one run is not enough to fully enjoy this game.

Music and graphics are good and the mechanics are solid. I wish the games would last a bit longer, perhaps with more item diversity.

All in all quite the enjoyable game, played it multiple times!
Pace
13. Aug 2018 · 15:13 UTC
We added a restart button, we fixed the bug where gold was not spawning from chests, and we tweaked the difficulty curve so that it starts out easier and ramps up. Runs are a little longer now, and I think/hope a lot more fun!

More item variety and less RNG are great ideas, but they will have to wait until after the jam due to time constraints.

Thanks for the feedback, you three - you helped make Overencumbered better!
Melmo
13. Aug 2018 · 15:16 UTC
"You are a sentient backpack..." - made me laugh, already on to a winner. Protip: save making those blue potions until you see one of those horned lizards!

Couple of points worth mentioning:
- as others have mentioned, would request the addition of a 'replay' button or equivalent, especially since each run is rather quick (at least for me!);
- the Game Over typeface doesn't match the pixel graphics; is also rather compacted.

I'd also rework the RNG to favour certain values, for example:
- ended up with four green potions but only one red and blue mushroom each on one playthrough;
- two horned lizards spawning before any pickups made for a particularly short playthrough!

Would be a good little game to port to mobile / tablet if you could implement touch input.
toad
14. Aug 2018 · 03:12 UTC
Super fun and frantic! If I had one suggestion, it took me a second to realise the bones + stuff = trash meant those items were trash and not that you could eventually craft some sort of mystical trash container (or can you??). But all in all, well done!
Pace
14. Aug 2018 · 11:33 UTC
Thanks, toad! No mystical trash container, sorry! (:
Henré Botha
14. Aug 2018 · 11:38 UTC
Incredibly fun, well-executed for jam constraints, and a super solid concept with immense scope for further improvement. Well done team!
Wxzuir
14. Aug 2018 · 11:43 UTC
The gameplay is really interesting!
What if i can control a bigger backpack, and I have much more choice, for example maybe more variety in terms of crafting.Now the only way to use red mushroom is merge two red mushroom.So players don't need to think about it just merge, but if red mushroom can be merged with blue mushroom, maybe there will be something interesting!
Pace
14. Aug 2018 · 18:31 UTC
I like your idea, @wxzuir. For the jam, we decided to go with a more straightforward and frantic gameplay style, but it would be interesting to add more recipes and a bigger backpack, thereby adding more strategy.

It's not always better to craft red mushrooms into a health potion, though - slimes only do 1 damage, so if you have two red mushrooms, getting hit by a slime will only consume one of them.
calixjumio
14. Aug 2018 · 23:17 UTC
I got 925 is that good? hah didnt got it at first thought i had to throw the stuff at the monsters or use it on the dog. It is funny! ive seen others like this one and ive liked em all :D <3
Pace
14. Aug 2018 · 23:39 UTC
925 is good! My personal best is 1238 so far. Thanks!
TheCommonThug
15. Aug 2018 · 01:35 UTC
I really dig the music and graphics. Could have used a way to drink the potions to get them out of your bag or something because the game seemed like rully hard.
Zayah0_0
15. Aug 2018 · 01:51 UTC
my doggy kept getting reket until i figured it out..... fun and simple i like it alot
Flubz
15. Aug 2018 · 03:19 UTC
Brillant game, loved it! :smile:
Rodrigo Denúbila
15. Aug 2018 · 04:25 UTC
This is a really nice take on the theme, I've spent several minutes playing this. Fun and simple. Good game.
zblah
15. Aug 2018 · 10:28 UTC
Interesting game !

I like the idea of limit the controls to the character's backpack, this adding a constant tension all through the game.

The graphic's are neat, each item's are recognizable from the others and the cheat sheet help to immediately understand the combinaisons.

It's a shame that we have to read the utility of colored bars outside of the game, even if you use the standard color scheme Life / green, Mana / blue, Stamina / green. It take me two or three run to fully understand when these are consumated.
If I'm not the only one to feel this, maybe you can add some icons to the left of each bar and instantiating floating item greyed out around the character when it's used ?

Also, it would be interesting to have some indirect control of the random, like a "melting station" along the road, to turn a potion into another one for example. Maybe it can add some depth when the random doesn't provide us the expected item.

Unfortunately, I encountered a bug when restarting the first time : i was unable to drag the items out of their boxes. However, it disappear after a refresh.

Lastly, the score is not easily readable.

It seems that a only find bad point, but I've really enjoyed playing it !
Anyway, congrats for your entry and keep doing games !
Pace
15. Aug 2018 · 11:55 UTC
Thanks, @zblah! I like the icon idea for the meters. Our plan for using items was to make them fly out of you and into the pug's mouth when they're used, we just didn't have time to implement that.

And yes, you're in good company in suggesting ways to mitigate the very random RNG.

Thanks for your feedback, suggestions, and encouragement!
Historymaker118
15. Aug 2018 · 17:16 UTC
I really enjoyed this game, the music was really fun, and I liked the quick matching mechanic. I would like to see you take this further, perhaps by having more advanced combinations with more powerful effects (being able to combine matching potions for example) perhaps in a similar manner to 2048/threes? This was an unexpected gem to find, thank you for sharing it with me and well done.
Pace
15. Aug 2018 · 19:47 UTC
Thanks, @historymaker118! We actually discussed 2048 as a mechanic during our brainstorming phase, and we decided that 2048 stands on its own as a game, and trying to embed it into Overencumbered would overcomplicate things. I do like the idea of more combinations, though - thanks for your feedback and encouragement! <3
skigfx
15. Aug 2018 · 20:10 UTC
nice one. i'd like to play it with more combinations of items and with some additional animations and art stuff
Lloyd
17. Aug 2018 · 01:09 UTC
![overencumbered.png](///raw/2ac/91/z/1a12b.png)
Lots of fun, a very unique and creative take on the theme. I don't know if it was a bug, but sometimes random items from my inventory would disappear- mushrooms and trash and gold, not just potions. I enjoyed that there's some randomness but also skill in how the faster you manage your inventory the better your chances. And the frantic pacing at the end was excellent, fun all around!
Pace
17. Aug 2018 · 01:26 UTC
@lloyd 1431, that's the current highest score I've seen - higher than my personal best! Congratulations!

The pug will eat mushrooms, but as for trash disappearing, that sounds like a bug - I'll look into it.

Thanks for your feedback and kind words!
ohmmus
20. Aug 2018 · 03:14 UTC
Cute pug! No constructive criticisms from me; I had a lot of fun playing this!
mapedorr
20. Aug 2018 · 04:11 UTC
A good game with an unbalanced random generation system. It feels unfair and frustrating (mainly because of the red lizards). I liked the concept, the graphics and the music (which made me thought in Beneath a Steel Sky). Good use of the theme. As a suggestion, apart from improving the generation of items, you should use another font and color for the restart message.

You already played our game: The legend of the looter and the incredible backpack that never runs out of space, so we can't do anything but thank you.
Johan Vischer
20. Aug 2018 · 17:17 UTC
This is a really creative use of the theme. I'm not sure if it's doing so, but an increase in health and mana spawn rates would help the game rely on user reaction times rather than hoping for specific items. So if your team decides to make a post-jam build I would hope it helps.
Pace
21. Aug 2018 · 00:30 UTC
@mapedorr Yes, the red lizards are very difficult to defeat without a mana potion. Thanks for your comment!

@johan-vischer Yes, if we are going to make a post-jam build, making spawn rates less random and more fair is high on the list! Thank you!
PeachTreeOath
22. Aug 2018 · 04:01 UTC
Cute game, I really liked the pace of the game. If it was less frantic it would've been a bit of a drag. The gameplay is nice and simple, though it would be nice to have more of a choice in the run. The current one is whether or not to hold onto gold, which is an interesting one, but the rest are more of a reaction game. I really did like the protagonist though. There are way too many of these RPG runners that just have a knight. Good job shaking up the status quo!
Pace
22. Aug 2018 · 11:55 UTC
Thanks, @peachtreeoath! There's actually a bit more strategy than is obvious, we just need to do a better job of communicating that to the player. For example, if you keep red mushrooms against gelatinous cubes instead of crafting them into health potions, the pug'll only consume 1 mushroom when it gets hit. If it's a potion, it'll drink the whole thing.

p.s. I have not yet begun to shake up the status quo (:
PeachTreeOath
22. Aug 2018 · 14:54 UTC
Oh wow, good to know! Yea that's exactly the kind of stuff that make the player sit and think a bit about what is optimal.