Offworld Slaving Company by James Dunlap
Description
After decades of testing through experimental abduction, humans have been found as the most suitable laborers for the ever growing industrial outposts on Mars. Their capture and auctioning pays out handsomely, so you, Howard, have been sent by a slaving company to walk among their kind and abduct as many as possible without alerting their enforcers and being caught. Your salary is at stake, so get down there!
How To Play
You can fire mind control orbs with Left Click, they don't travel very far though. Anyone hit by the orb becomes your slave. You can only have one slave, taking control of another human releases your previous one. Taking a slave to your ship increases you score by 1.
Being spotted while controlling a slave or releasing a slave will make you "Spotted". While "Spotted", Police will move in on your last known position. If seen in this mode, Police will move straight towards you. You will become "Safe" if nobody has seen you for 10 seconds.
If spotted by Police while controlling a slave you will become "Hunted". While "Hunted", Police will constantly move in on your position, even if you are not seen by anyone. To become "Safe" while "Hunted" you must change disguises at your ship by pressing E.
If a Police officer touches you while "Spotted" or "Hunted", you lose -- game over!
Controls
WASD or Arrow Keys - Move
Left Click - Fire
E - Change Disguise
Background
We are family group who has participated in every Ludum Dare since Ludum Dare 38. For this entry, one of the sons' friend joined us to compose the music. We have enjoyed every entry to Ludum Dare, and each has brought its own specific challenges. This one was no different. For this one, I (the dad) was out of town for work at the beginning of the Ludum Dare and was, therefore, not able to participate in the planning stage or the beginning of development. My oldest son had to take over most of my responsibilities as the programmer, and I joined in when I got back. Most of the work on this entry was done by my sons and the friend. I only implemented a couple of of systems and did some bug fixing (and probably missed a few...) It was fun to see what they did on their own, though!
Credits
James - Coding
Anthony - Coding
Cameron - Graphics
Friend (Waiting for permission to release his name) - Music
Closing
We hope that you enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed making it. We do try to give feedback to every entry that leaves us feedback, regardless of whether we like it or not. We are here to learn, so please be honest!
Ratings
| Given | 3🗳️ | 2🗨️ |
Which brings me to the first recommendation in case you ever return back to this project and decide to fully finish the game. The recommendation is - letting your slave go when you want, so you at least can lose your hunted or spotted status faster. Being hunted is very easy to achieve because enforcers look everywhere. Again if you decide to revise the game ever in the future, I would like to see some visual or musical representation of you being too close to bystander's/enforcfer's view.
The last cluster of issues is how the disguise system works (even though it all ties in with the enforcers). Even though the look of the alien with the disguise is hilarious. Either the hunted mechanics should be changed to the behaviour similar to the spotted. With the difference being that you cannot lose the hunted status until you change your clothes. The second connected change I propose is is slowing the police down. It is difficult to lose them when they run faster than you. Your only hope is to get them stuck on an object or to slow them down during diagonal movement (where the AI occasionally struggles). The other solution is to be able to change your appearence outside of the vessel. If not everywhere then at least in buildings. If you do it in the space ship, the enforces will get you most of the time.
The graphics could use a little imporvement as well, now the main focus of improvements should be variety. There were lots of tiles with the same texture and since the color pallete was fairly monotonous it can be eye straining at times.