Life is Money by Mykola

[raw]
made by Mykola for LD 44 (JAM)

Life is tough. You need money to do anything. Reaching financial freedom is extremely challenging.

You are an indebted piggy bank with a couple of cents in your pocket. Useless expenses and countless bills don't let you get to investment opportunities and financial literacy. You have never been so far away from your dream of having 1000 coins deposited on your bank account. Or have you?

Use what's left in your pockets to throw it in da face of pointless spending or avoid it all the way. But be carefull not to end up with empty pockets, since your life is literally money. Catch profitable investment opportunities to refill your budget. Borrow from the bank under crazy interest rates to prolong your suffering. Put your tough-earned coins on a deposit account to make them work for you while you are chilling around (and try not to waste money on useless stuff meanwhile). Any strategy counts as long as it puts you out of financial misery. Life stuff, huh?

intro_screen.png

Manual

But really, the game is a combination of a space shooter-like and a financial simulator. Simple to get on track, hard to master.

In game you have two kinds of resources: cash (money) and bank account balance. You can freely move money between them, but keep in mind that negative bank balance will constantly drain your cash based on credit interest rate, while positive bank balance will add to your cash according to deposit interest rate.

It's okay to have negative bank balance as long as you can sustain it, but if your cash drops to zero - the game is over. That's life. On the other hand, you win when you can live of your interest, that is when your bank account deposit reaches 1000 coins. Get the highest score among your friends by sustaining the largest cash amount.

Wastefull expenses and countless invoices (redish stuff) will try to absorb you. But you can shoot your cash at it and who knows what useful things they might drop back. Collect investment opportunities and dollar bills (greenish stuff) to refill your cash.

The game difficulty adapts to your game progress and style of playing. See if you can uncover all the relationships and how the system works.

Controls:

move - arrows or WASD

shoot - space or left mouse button

borrow money from the bank - left alt or right mouse button

deposit money to the bank - left ctrl

pause / manual - esc

Credits

The font was developed by Jakob Fischer at www.pizzadude.dk and used under the free license.

All the rest of the contents were developed from scratch during the game jam by Mykola Herasymovych.

Notes

In case the web version doesn’t work in Chrome, try using Mozilla Firefox.

Ratings

Given 51🗳️ 27🗨️

Feedback

Eric Smith
30. Apr 2019 · 17:33 UTC
Took me a bit to figure out how the game worked but then when I got fat and stuff was dropping like crazy, it was a rush! Nicely done!

Play and rate mine plz. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/lifeforms-in-space
Kaleido
30. Apr 2019 · 18:03 UTC
Cute sound effects. Could use some clarity work for what is what in the game. I didn't understand really what it meant to deposit/withdraw. I ended up just seeing "GAME OVER" a lot, but maybe I'm just bad haha. I also didn't realize for awhile that I was supposed to pick up the cash that each thing released when I killed it.

Nice job for a jam!
cheebz
30. Apr 2019 · 23:46 UTC
Love the music and sounds!! Took a few tries to get the hang of it. Keep up the good work :)
RocketRaccoons
01. May 2019 · 11:05 UTC
Nice Sounds and i like the idea of the game. But i think the pig is pretty slow and its too hard to play. Nice job !
🎤 Mykola
01. May 2019 · 11:16 UTC
@eric-smith thanks for the feedback, glad that you could get to that point!

@kaleido, @rocketraccoons thanks! I tried to explain the game mechanics in the game description and in a short in-game manual when you press Esc button, but I guess it's not that clear. Basically, the more money you have, the faster you are and the more dynamic the game gets. So in the beginning a good strategy would be to borrow around 20 coins from the bank with the right mouse button or Alt button just to speed it up. But make sure not to take too much, since the interest deductions will kill you quick. :slight_smile:

@cheebz thanks a lot, really glad that you liked it!
Tamail
01. May 2019 · 13:21 UTC
The gameplay still confuses me, I saw "Game over" a lot. :D But I liked the art and sound!
Allan Urique
01. May 2019 · 16:47 UTC
AAAH THE SOUNDS ARE SO CUTE AHAHAHAH
catangens
01. May 2019 · 17:55 UTC
Controls are tough as is a piggy's life hahaha.
Never got more than 0 in the bank account (which is too relatable), but the game itself is a lot of fun!
Shaolin Dave
01. May 2019 · 22:46 UTC
There's a few tweaks I'd suggest. First, I think there should be a delay or cancellation to the death. Many times I shot the last of my ammo, lost, but caught the money from the enemy I killed. It'd be nice to only have game over after all potentially collectable money had disappeared.
Also, the UI on the pause screen overflows. I think you can fix this during judging because it's technically a minor bug fix, allowed per the rules.
I do see a lot of games this jam that combine life and ammunition or special moves rather than as currency, and this seems like the same. You are shooting currency, but i still know that i'm "shooting" my life, not using my life to purchase anything.
Otherwise it's pretty good. I'd like to check back and see if there's improvements after judging is complete.
🎤 Mykola
02. May 2019 · 05:12 UTC
@tamail, @allan-urique, @catangens thank you guys for pleasant comments, I'm really glad that you liked it!

@shaolin-dave, thanks for the detailed feedback.
1. Delay/cancellation of death. This behavior was rather intentional, since the point of the game is to always keep some cash in your pocket. But in case you lack some couple of coins, you can always borrow it from the bank, which would help in a situation like you described.
2. UI overflow. Good point, haven't really tested it on different resolutions, will try to fix it shortly.
3. Life as currency. You're totally right. Initially I planned to add a feature to increase your stats / skills for the money, but had to reject it due to the lack of time. Another feature I did implement was borrowing from / depositing to the bank account, which kind of gives another angle to look at the idea of currency.
Anyway, thanks a lot for your comments, I'll definitely consider them during the next update!
Faithcaio
02. May 2019 · 17:31 UTC
Found it very hard to collect any money because of the slow movement.
Also some kind of background texture would make it look a lot better.
Otherwise good job.
Emperor Eagle
03. May 2019 · 07:07 UTC
It was really hard to collect the money and to tell what wasn't money. I think things should have been enlarged. Otherwise, the game was good. I liked how the smaller objects dropped less money and the bigger ones dropped more. The graphics were cool too.
nettaigyo
03. May 2019 · 14:47 UTC
The rules are easy to understand. The piggy's voice is very cute!
tomatenbrei
03. May 2019 · 20:04 UTC
Your game is really cute. I like the idea and it gets quite tough after some time :pig:
siimer
03. May 2019 · 21:15 UTC
The gameplay of this game is rather hard to grasp (had to re-read the instructions many times). Other than that, it is fun and the sounds are funny :)
EddenSoft
04. May 2019 · 14:34 UTC
Controls are bit clunky, but sounds are very funny!
Hunter Towe
04. May 2019 · 14:48 UTC
The gameplay is engaging but pretty difficult (could just be me, though); I suppose that's fitting. Neat concept, and well-executed, because I actually found it to be addicting!