A Horse Called Nothing by jefvel

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

You're a sheriff in a town infested with bandits. The patrons of the saloon will help get in control if you give them booze.

Controls:

Click/drag to shoot.

  • Dodge the bandits' shots. (Red line means a bandit is aiming).

  • Collect from dead bandits.

  • Drop them off at the saloon.

  • Make the green guys reach the right side of town.

ludum.gif

deatg.gif

Ratings

Overall 215th 3.823⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Fun 60th 4.042⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 184th 3.729⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Theme 859th 2.885⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 374th 3.802⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Audio 456th 3.188⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Humor 42th 4.063⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Mood 329th 3.633⭐ 47🧑‍⚖️
Given 54🗳️ 44🗨️

Feedback

JoaoSoliva
07. Oct 2019 · 23:49 UTC
oh I loved the mechanic and animations

feels good to explode haha
JD Parker
07. Oct 2019 · 23:51 UTC
A Little bit hard to control, but thats part of the FUN!!! GREAT GAME!
Narffy
07. Oct 2019 · 23:52 UTC
Nice game and very good theme usage
SBrianZ
07. Oct 2019 · 23:53 UTC
Simple but quite fun. The art aesthetic and color choice pulled me in. I found the humor of it all to be good and even the single mouse controls to be a unique challenge.
Madbarron
07. Oct 2019 · 23:53 UTC
OMG This is super fun. The greenshirts are useless and I forgot to not shoot them. Also you get some baddie density issues later on in the game. But super well done, I love it!!
MateusBoga
08. Oct 2019 · 00:00 UTC
This is such a unique idea, and also this game is so hard xD
Great job!
🎤 jefvel
08. Oct 2019 · 00:24 UTC
@madbarron thanks, glad you liked it! They are actually quite useful in keeping the whole map clean once you start piling them up. It's also how you increase the town control progress
krjack
08. Oct 2019 · 01:28 UTC
Very interesting mechanics, and funny style, but the game is sooo hard =)
🎤 jefvel
08. Oct 2019 · 07:43 UTC
@krjack Thank you! Being a sheriff is a hard job :gun: :cowboy:
Feingehacktes
08. Oct 2019 · 19:48 UTC
not so easy to handle but we like the art style of the game. great job guys
Magnega
08. Oct 2019 · 20:16 UTC
I think there's good and bad kinds of dumb and this is probably the good kind.

Excellent leg animation!
blitzcloud
08. Oct 2019 · 20:24 UTC
*wiggles legs*

Excellent concept!
Seabird
08. Oct 2019 · 21:03 UTC
Good game, i had a lot of fun running around the bad guys and moving forward while i was shooting my gun the opposite direction.
Bomb-X
08. Oct 2019 · 21:17 UTC
Love the mechanic and this super horse !! :laughing:


The gun sound a little bit annoying, maybe you can put range in his pitch to feel less repetitive ?


Good job :slight_smile:
kruemelkeksfan
08. Oct 2019 · 21:28 UTC
This took me waaay too long, but its so addicting! Although the hitboxes seem to be a bit off sometimes, but maybe thats just a cheap excuse for my inability :D
🎤 jefvel
08. Oct 2019 · 21:32 UTC
@bomb-x yeah, I get annoyed by it too but after a while I grew indifferent to it. Still recovering.
We didn't have enough time to make it sound better, but definitely will if we decide to make something out of it. Thanks for playing it!
🎤 jefvel
08. Oct 2019 · 21:35 UTC
@kruemelkeksfan did you manage to beat the game? Congrats if you did! I don't know if anyone else has done it except us devs :laughing:

The hitboxes are kinda on kinda off, depends on how they feel. Might fix it some day. Thank you for playing it and I'm glad you liked it!
kruemelkeksfan
08. Oct 2019 · 22:25 UTC
@jefvel Yes I did, after like over 9000 tries. My basic tactic was to first ride left to right as fast as possible and praying to not get stuck at the right edge with 4 bandits from various directions, until I got a shitload of booze and after that proceed very carefully in front of the greenshirts, shooting every red line or instantly retreating, if there were more than 2 red lines. Occasionally I ran back to turn in more booze, or else I would get shot in the back ruthlessly.
Cral
08. Oct 2019 · 22:31 UTC
Tons of fun, a little clumsy to control but that ended up being part of the charm. Animation is top notch, good job!
omnikrll
08. Oct 2019 · 22:38 UTC
hell yeah
Death_Is_Cold
08. Oct 2019 · 22:44 UTC
fun game, the gunshots did get a little earsplitting though
TheWustache
08. Oct 2019 · 22:44 UTC
I had fun, although the controls are a bit difficult.
BenPeterson
08. Oct 2019 · 22:46 UTC
Haha this is one of my favorite submissions good job. a lot more to this funny little game than i expected. if you update anything please make it the repetetive gun noise
Kyle Bowman
08. Oct 2019 · 22:46 UTC
Very cool game and animations. You should definitely put this on mobile it'd be a hit. Hard to not shoot your teammates. Great job!
Taylor Reynolds
09. Oct 2019 · 05:19 UTC
omg this style is so fun and charming. i love it, and I love the exploding when you get hit!!
Philarmon
09. Oct 2019 · 20:11 UTC
I like this reactive movement and the graphics are pretty good too. Thanks for the fun!
sg-goennung
09. Oct 2019 · 20:13 UTC
The idea was is realy good and the implementation, too!
shubart
09. Oct 2019 · 21:09 UTC
Nice game. The graphics are cute and the idea very surprising. You could improving this by just increasing the width of the viewport. Its difficult to aim in such a small portion of the screen. Thank you for your entry
shabbyrtist
09. Oct 2019 · 21:09 UTC
the game needs music! absolute fun, funny graphics, it was really fun to play!
ToxicComputer
09. Oct 2019 · 21:17 UTC
Lol really fun game. Im sitting here with a smile on my face. Felt incredibly smooth to play. Great job.
tomfu
09. Oct 2019 · 21:24 UTC
Very nice game!
Good looking graphics, unique game play idea, entertaining sounds added and a decent playable game on hand.
The mechanic sadly looses it's appeal after a while but definitely puts a charm to the game. The sounds are a bit annoying on endless repeat but for 5 minutes it's completely fine. All the game mechanics are well implemented and I didn't find any bugs or exploits. It is a nice addition that you are getting more helpers during level progression. Sadly I never got to the end because it is somewhat hard and I hadn't had enough patients to retry it 4-5 times but I still had my fun.
Good work here!
Honey Pony
09. Oct 2019 · 21:26 UTC
Pretty good game! The art is fantastic and it's pretty fun. It just gets super hard if you actually try to fill up the town progress bar as collecting more beer is pretty difficult without killing the green guys.
Annie Owl
09. Oct 2019 · 23:10 UTC
Damn, that game was too hard for me :smile: This is as far as I was able to get, without shooting all of my men, or dying myself
![scrn0.png](///raw/a20/d/z/293db.png)
4quet
10. Oct 2019 · 14:26 UTC
The horse's name is Nothing and I think that's hilarious.
The gun sound is a bit repetitive but the game is still quite funny and your art style is really cool :)
Great work !
🎤 jefvel
10. Oct 2019 · 17:37 UTC
@kruemelkeksfan you figured out the same tactic I used too! Great job finishing the game:)

@benpeterson I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for playing!

@owlannie-owl yeah we might have made it a bit too hard! But it is beatable if you figure out the right tactic. Thanks for playing it :)

@4quet Inspired by a horse with no name by america! Yeah definitely, it's the first thing I will change when/if we do a post jam version. Thanks you for playing it!
0x01F0
10. Oct 2019 · 20:00 UTC
Really smart and unique game mechanics :D Feels and plays great, even when getting blown to pieces ;D

I appreciate that you made only the rider die and not the horsie :D

It's really juicy and fun to spawn helpers, makes it fun to progress and makes you want to try again and again.

A solid entry, nice work!!
Shelvid
11. Oct 2019 · 01:30 UTC
Very interesting and fun game, really love the art style too, best horse I've seen in any game. Sound design is also very nice but i think gun shot could use a slight variation with every shot to not be super repetitive as its sound you hear the most. The game is incredibly difficult as bandits spawn behind too but the gameplay itself is very fun so very impressive job on that :)
QuadApe
11. Oct 2019 · 01:41 UTC
Very fun to play, and the artstyle is amazing!
Nikolay Zapolnov
12. Oct 2019 · 16:32 UTC
Game is very fun and I like the animations of the horse :) Controls are a bit hard for me, so I found myself in a situation where I run shooting all over the field to the end, kill enemies there, collect the booze, and run all through field back without doing anything with the in-between guys. And enemies were spawning quite fast so those middle guys were killing me :) I really enjoyed playing your game, I like its mechanics. Great work!
johnnysix
19. Oct 2019 · 21:34 UTC
This was hilarious to play, love the animation of the horse, and the movement method.

![ld45_db-051.jpg](///raw/028/2/z/29b81.jpg)
🎤 jefvel
21. Oct 2019 · 18:53 UTC
@nikolay-zapolnov haha yeah, that's basically the only reliable tactic to best the game. Might add a ramming mechanic so you can just ride down enemies, and have the gun as a secondary action along with some upgrades. Wanted to make it feel like you're gradually getting your town back, and have the townspeople defend it on their own. Glad you liked the animations, and thanks for playing!
crneumre
27. Oct 2019 · 19:34 UTC
This was really fun! Really juicy, the shooting mechanic was well polished and I really love when a game uses one mechanic to interact with the whole game.
Solid entry!
conk
27. Oct 2019 · 21:35 UTC
That was weirdly fun! Took me a while to get into it as the bandits spawned FAST when moving around a lot and I almost won, but my army of drunks were no match for the bandits waiting patiently off-screen :stuck_out_tongue: My one criticism would be the view is rather limited - although that is likely by design.

All around an incredibly solid entry! Towards the end of me playing it I was approaching full town control and was very jumpy when when a red line locked onto me - I literally called out when a bandit finally got me :scream: it was TENSE.

Great job to the both of you :grinning: