LudumData

The Tale of Earl by dans17

[raw]
made by dans17 for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

Meet Earl, a parasitic alien worm scouring the universe for food. You start with nothing, not even a whole body, but you can inhabit the bodies of humans in your path. Help Earl infiltrate a spaceship and inhabit the captain so you can redirect the ship to your home planet and feed your species!

LD45-Screenshot1.png

LD45-Screenshot2.png

LD45-Screenshot3.png

Controls:

  • AD - Move left and right
  • WS - Use hatches and ladders
  • E - Inhabit body
  • Space - Jump
  • Mercenary: Click to shoot
  • Strongman: Click to punch
  • Officer: Click to use sword
  • Robot : Cannot be inhabited
  • Scientist: Pick up key-cards and click to open door

Tips:

  • Use hatches to walk through the floor undetected, then inhabit enemies while you are underneath them
  • You can only inhabit a body for a limited amount of time, and afterwards, it will make you sick for some time
  • As Earl, you can reach the next floor by jumping up and going through a hatch

  • Passing an alien scanner will alert enemies and cause them to attack even while you are inhabiting a body

                      Created By:


 Daniel Sousa | Sam Westerlund | Andrew Potach
Youtube http://samw.co/ld45/
Youtube https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uRxHBNfNbBFS9o4v-9nFXV0XVYHmWsjH/view?usp=sharing
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/the-tale-of-earl

Ratings

Overall 335th 3.653⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Fun 375th 3.51⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 277th 3.582⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Theme 621th 3.235⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 424th 3.735⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Humor 465th 2.911⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Mood 435th 3.48⭐ 51🧑‍⚖️
Given 72🗳️ 35🗨️

Feedback

shaurya_juneja
08. Oct 2019 · 16:59 UTC
Nice game! I loved the death music
Reblys
08. Oct 2019 · 17:01 UTC
I liked it ! The game is pretty rough on you at the start, but once you get the hang of it, it goes smoothly. I did not really get the point of possessing ennemies (that's a cool feature though). During most of my tries, I was just bouncing around and hiding myself.
Besides, I liked your take on the theme "You start with nothing". I expected some power-ups along the way, but you sticked with the "nothing" part. That was nice !
Seabird
08. Oct 2019 · 17:04 UTC
Good job. I had a little trouble to get rid of the enemies though.
🎤 dans17
08. Oct 2019 · 17:36 UTC
Thanks for rating! Sorry that it's so hard at the start, we didn't have time to balance it very well, but if you are having trouble getting rid of enemies, try possessing a Mercenary and using his gun to take them out.
hiro.e
08. Oct 2019 · 19:02 UTC
I almost went deaf when all the sirens sounded. You could just leave one of them sounding when the others activate as well.

Other than that, the game is very good, congratulations!
GreenDinoGames
08. Oct 2019 · 21:49 UTC
Great game! I like the pixel art and idea to play as a worm who can inhabit people! Good job!
ToxicComputer
09. Oct 2019 · 02:40 UTC
Graphic were beatiful and loved the audio. Great game. :)
Extrone
09. Oct 2019 · 02:53 UTC
Really nice game, loved the sound effects and graphics, a bit hard at the start though :sweat_smile:
stephenwhoskins
09. Oct 2019 · 03:02 UTC
Overall, 5/5. I really like it. The graphics are gorgeous. The character animations are off the hook and I love playing from the perspective of a some kind of parasitic alien worm. Nice idea. Wish I thought of it, heh.
s-yanik
09. Oct 2019 · 12:11 UTC
Good idea and good concept but with nice graphics and atmosphere,but level of difficulty a bit high.
Nice.
fallcresthero
10. Oct 2019 · 08:32 UTC
Wow! I mean just a small polishing, some minor improvements and I can imagine myself buyng that game for a descent price. Very nice job.
Hiago Tadeu
10. Oct 2019 · 14:32 UTC
A very good game, and quite challenging and fun too congratulations.
adhesion
11. Oct 2019 · 01:44 UTC
Really cool concept, good use of the theme and the graphical style is solid. I found the gameplay to be a bit frustrating though. There were lots of times when firing mercenary shots would seemingly not kill an enemy even though I got a direct hit - also enemies shooting you on sight when you're possessing one of them was a bit annoying (I thought I was being sneaky!) and meant that there wasn't much point to doing that in most situations. Might be cool to have a sort of progression in the level design, like having a tutorial area and then a simple area with just a few enemies, rather than a big open area with a bunch of dudes right off the bat. Definitely has potential though. Solid entry, nice work!
Scott Steffes
11. Oct 2019 · 01:48 UTC
Interesting idea, well executed! Took me a bit to get the hang of it, but once I did, I definitely saw the potential. very creative! My only minor piece of criticism was that it would have been nicer to be able to return to the title screen more quickly after dying, since you die a lot in the beginning!
konomizure
11. Oct 2019 · 02:05 UTC
It's pretty hard to play at the beginning, mostly because i can't know when an enemy can see me, what distance am i safe from the enemy. But the game could be pretty fun to play. Maybe if you show what the enemy can see at the beginning, just for the player to learn, this would make easier to get the hang of the game.
Gauphastus
11. Oct 2019 · 03:46 UTC
This is a neat one. One complaint is when hopping out of a body you get spotted and instakilled more often than not. Might have been doing something wrong though.
But pretty fun. Yet another not often explored concept in games.

Good job and props to the team.
JosephGaiser
13. Oct 2019 · 02:22 UTC
Really cool mechanics in this!
Kalucifer
13. Oct 2019 · 02:23 UTC
Loved the worm, nice personality. Sometimes indeed you get instakilled. Nice game thank you!
TORT60091
13. Oct 2019 · 18:29 UTC
I really like this mechanic. This hiding create the unique mood. Great work guys!
asfdfdfd
13. Oct 2019 · 18:46 UTC
Great! With a bit of polishing it may become full fledged game.
Wolf4D
13. Oct 2019 · 19:11 UTC
Damn, this game is funny, but it's too hard!
ImportantCreations
14. Oct 2019 · 05:28 UTC
As others already pointed out: Very nice concept and very nice polished implementation! But also a little bit hard in the beginning :)
Friedrich Eibl
15. Oct 2019 · 21:22 UTC
Great Game, definetely a fun idea!
celsyum
20. Oct 2019 · 11:07 UTC
nice concept , but too hard to start playing
Solah
20. Oct 2019 · 13:11 UTC
Very good concept, I really played stealthy, I did not inhabit more than two or three people to win. Good work!
Philarmon
22. Oct 2019 · 20:41 UTC
I needed a few tries to figure out the controls but once you get used to it it's pretty fun :)
Finlal
27. Oct 2019 · 02:15 UTC
очень весело и бодро играется
Amerigo Gazaway
28. Oct 2019 · 07:12 UTC
Cool concept and execution! Love the art. If you still need music for the full Steam version let me know :)
zuf
29. Oct 2019 · 11:28 UTC
Nice mechanic of possessing opponents to get to the top. I look forward to playing a more polished post-compo version.

Getting insta-killed was annoying. There were two main ways it happened that could be fixed:
* When you finish possessing an enemy they can kill you immediately. I ended up dealing with this by always finishing above a hatch and going into
the hatch immediately. A way to mitigate this issue could to be add a post-possess cooldown/sickness that briefly prevents the victim from doing anything.
* When you jump up to a hatch from underneath you also pop up to the next floor. Maybe add something (debounce?) that prevents the player from going up again immediately.

The physics were a bit glitchy. It can do things like make the player pop through the floor when walking quickly over a hatch, or make your possessed character get stuck half way through a floor and never be able to get out again.

Could also add more telegraphing for enemy attacks. e.g. a brief ! reaction before they start chasing and attacking.

Make it clearer what each scientist is carrying.

Also, the "possess" text is flipped when the target is flipped.

I ended up winning by abusing the mercenary's ability to kill things at range and through floors.