LudumData

Super Mailman by 0xDD

[raw]
made by 0xDD for LD 40 (JAM)

title.png

Oh no, it's that time of the year again! People are buying lots of stuff online and you gotta deliver all the boxes!

Hopefully, you are not too overstrained by this task and all the rewards it brings you.

Sidenote: The effect of medals flooding the screen is a bit exaggerated to compensate for the fact that there currently are only 5 levels.

The idea

My initial idea with which I woke up on Saturday morning was to have a platformer where you would push boxes to a destination. The theme would be included in that the further you get, the more boxes there will be to push around and the more difficult the game would be.

However on Monday morning, while making the 5th level I noticed that within these 5 levels, the theme would be too subtle and few people would notice it. Soooo... I did nothing about it just then and carried on rewriting the win and lose screens, which at that point were just a single line of text in the top left corner. While doing that, however, I figured I could add rewards and while preparing those I decided to make them fill up the screen and give them to the player for every miniscule action.

And that's where we are now.

Tools & Sources:

  • Phaser.js
  • Webstorm
  • Assets by Kenney

Future plans

  • I am currently "porting" this game to electron.js for native desktop entertainment
    • (however it seems like I need native linux/mac machines to compile for those platforms)
    • I have run into issues getting non-png assets (namely sounds, maps and fonts) to load
  • Add a "workshop" for user created levels
  • Add more levels myself

Post-Jam changes

  • Added sound (might still need a bit of volume adjustment)
  • Added local multiplayer
  • Added windows binary

If my internet is in a good mood today, I might even be able to post some gifs and videos here...

HTML5 (web) https://theultimatehose.github.io/projects/view/?item=Ludum%20Dare%2040:%20Super%20Mailman
Windows https://drive.google.com/open?id=1i-IrruXq3ioBdtgZzGOg-gwJbkNUu-7s
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/super-mailman

Ratings

Overall 549th 3.474⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Fun 290th 3.622⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 519th 3.224⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Theme 458th 3.554⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Humor 464th 3.149⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Mood 728th 3.091⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 8🗨️

Feedback

JohnnyO
04. Dec 2017 · 22:01 UTC
I like the art style and the medals are a nice idea. I didn't get past the level in the thumbnail though :(
Hendrik Leier
04. Dec 2017 · 22:09 UTC
It's a nice game!
Cool appearance and good physics!
MrChippy
04. Dec 2017 · 22:13 UTC
I liked the movement in this. The bouncy/floaty feel fit well for this game. I know that I can't rate you for graphics but I also really liked the Paper Mario style movement. There does seem to be an issue where the game freezes when you go out of the window, which is pretty annoying having to restart it. Another thing is that while I appreciate the idea of flooding the screen with ribbons but it does get a little hard to see what's going on after a while.
Chubby Stick
04. Dec 2017 · 22:15 UTC
Loved the flip effect when you move left and right, simple concept but it works well, well played :)
FussenKuh
05. Dec 2017 · 14:21 UTC
Maybe because it's early and I'm only half awake, but, I have to admit I was briefly annoyed/confused when I couldn't read instructions for a level because there were medals in the way... then I realized "duh, the more you have the worse it is!" I had to face palm once I realized how slow I was to pick up on that.

Nice simple little concept. Personally, I enjoyed when I got a box constantly bouncing on a spring in the level from your screenshot and medals just kept popping out. Though, it would have been even better with some sounds. Good job!

p.s. I got a kick out of the 'attempt' to hide 'Mario' in your title :)
foobraco
06. Dec 2017 · 01:49 UTC
This is a really nice concept! The controls are a little too floaty for my test, but good job!
King Kujito
07. Dec 2017 · 08:30 UTC
Fun concept. Well made given the time you had. :-)
gyfis
07. Dec 2017 · 08:33 UTC
I really enjoyed this game! The more you hit the boxes the less you see, nice concept! Thanks for the game :)
rohezal
07. Dec 2017 · 08:39 UTC
Super Mario with physics like in angry birds. I like the ability to use switches to on / off stuff. But I got stuck in the third level, could just move 2 boxes over the barrier and lava see.
11tomi12
07. Dec 2017 · 08:42 UTC
Interesting game concept. Love those arts and character movement

If you are interested, please check out my LD40 game [Escape Infection!](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/escape-infection)
Kasper Dissing Bargsteen
07. Dec 2017 · 09:08 UTC
Awesome game. I really liked the feel of the movement. Well adjusted ! ;)
Lumous
07. Dec 2017 · 09:54 UTC
Hilarious. I love the medals idea. Like the other poster above, I was like.. why are these damn medals in my way.. then I realized how the theme applied =) Nice work!
Matthias Schedel
07. Dec 2017 · 10:23 UTC
Great game - but you could improve the jumping mechanics a little bit. For example the falling down feels to slow
Osterzone
07. Dec 2017 · 10:36 UTC
Whenever I presss the up arrow key to jump it also scrolls the page up, and pressing space scrolls it down. This makes the game relatively unplayable for me right now. You can probably fix this in css, or just by reducing the webpage such that there's no scroll bar
Nivbeth
07. Dec 2017 · 12:48 UTC
Sweet game, but the medails on the whole screen were way too much xD" Just make sure that the medails reset after you made it to the next level. Gameplay and graphics are really nice :3 Enjoyed it!
falak
07. Dec 2017 · 15:43 UTC
Really good game. Physics is just crazy but is good to this game.
thechemist
07. Dec 2017 · 19:51 UTC
Really cool concept. Would have loved if I could keep playing each level if there were remaining boxes for a higher score of some kind. Looking forward to seeing it with more levels!
leffe108
07. Dec 2017 · 23:15 UTC
Cool with the medals that end up cluttering your screen until you realize it is not a good idea to take as many medals as possible. :-) Overall well made game. Perhaps a bit steep difficulty increment from first to second level.
weeping-rupee
07. Dec 2017 · 23:16 UTC
I really love your twist on the theme with the medals that clutter up your screen. It's a great and almost satirical concept (although you missed a chance for some biting commentary by making them Steam achievement trophies rather than medals.)

My main suggestion is that when you die or restart a level the medals you've 'earned' by trial and error that round should disappear and only carry over to the next level once you succeed. This is a physics game and the physics are loose and floaty which is totally okay but since thats the case its a bit harsh to penalize me and block my field of view for experimenting around with the springs and such.

I did appreciate that the medals re-positioned themselves up restarting though.

This game is very much in the spirit of the theme and has a great tongue-in-cheek kinda feel to it, nice work.
IllaBom
07. Dec 2017 · 23:20 UTC
Nice little game you have here. Very fun to play and the graphics go well with it.

Check out my game if you would like
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/virus-detected
X Budsterized X
07. Dec 2017 · 23:25 UTC
Nice little platformer with some puzzles! :)

The graphics and sound effects go together very nicely and the execution of the idea is great

Also, you say the more I have the worse it is?
![b403eef74a83dc8fe9067675cef76047.png](///raw/773/d/z/e3c9.png)

Man if I had so many medals I would be a legend and I would not have to worry about not seeing anything at all! :smile:
BryceLTaylor
07. Dec 2017 · 23:26 UTC
I like the art style, I'm super into cartoony art, and I enjoy that the character is a actually flat and flips around. The animations are nice. I love his face changing. I'm not into the physics, though. Desperately hoping that the angle it hits makes the boxes fly in the right direction when trying to make them go up is frustrating. I really appreciated the walls that were walls for boxes but not the player. I wish they were on all of the levels because sometimes I got stuck because a box had flown to far.
The presentation is nice. Keep it up.
icxon
08. Dec 2017 · 14:19 UTC
At first it was easy to:medal:play. But then I:military_medal:noticed something strange:first_place:on the UI. I tried :medal:to keep:second_place:playing:medal:but:military_medal::third_place:it got:medal:harder:second_place:and harder to:military_medal:navigate. Nice:third_place::medal:touch on the:second_place:theme.:military_medal::smile:
Bartosz
08. Dec 2017 · 14:26 UTC
I played it a bit - feels nice apart from very 'floaty' jumping mechanics.
Normally you should do some tricks with physics so player fall faster then he goes up - (like in mario) - then it feels more grounded.

Also i found cluttering my screen very annoying - i read description and i know why you did it this way - that's fine, but as designer you have to be really careful with hiding stuff or cluttering players view.

I enjoied idea and it fits theme well. I would opt-out from the 'mood' rating as this game is not moody at all - it is really fun though!

Check out our **Voxel Mob Arena** here:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/voxel-mob-arena
Chyme
09. Dec 2017 · 04:26 UTC
This was a real fun game! I liked that you gave the player a bit of wiggle room and didn't require every single box to be delivered, a few of the trickier levels I lost a few boxes. XD Great job!
Jack Maxwell
13. Dec 2017 · 00:41 UTC
Wow! This was an amazing and very innovative take on the theme, both categories, innovation and theme, were a 5/5. Even though the medals were obscuring my view I also was happy to get them haha. Puzzle mechanics were simple but man did I enjoy the medals. Great work!

@x-budsterized-x

I think I beat you...

![Screenshot (33).png](///raw/a90/e/z/e8ae.png)
Omiya Games
25. Dec 2017 · 18:14 UTC
I think I like this game more than I should. I made it to level 5, but then was left with a green screen on the web version. Is that intentional? Did I clear the game?

Anyway, I did like that the smallest actions would cause a medal to appear on the screen. That certainly encourages the players to solve the puzzle with the least number of actions possible to make it to the goal. That said, I would have liked the medals to reset after failing a level, or even on the next level. It was impossible to read the instructions at some point.

As much as I was a fan of the player controls, especially the fall faster button which was actually put to good use for this game, I didn't find the physics of the boxes to be as fun. Given the instructions posted on the website, it seems you already know how tough it is to move these blocks in a predictable fashion when they're airborn. It would have been nice to see finer controls on how to move these blocks, such as removing rotations entirely.