Wild Loop by Cerebral Bore

[raw]
made by Cerebral Bore for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

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BRIEF

Live a watercolored video game experience.

Dive into the American Western expanses. Step into the boots of a sheriff. Share his daily life, and his questionings about the purpose of his duty. Because yes : his life is rythmed by a rebellious bandit, and everything leads to believe that he always repeats the same actions.


EXPLANATIONS

Catch the bandit who escaped and bring him to jail

Your choice(s) will determine the end of the game


CONTROLS

  • LEFT and RIGHT ARROWS : MOVE
  • SPACE : ACTIONS (like engaging in conversation)
  • ENTER : (in chat box) NEXT, CONFIRM
  • ESCAPE : (in chat box) CANCEL
  • MOUSE can be used to select an option in a chat box

CREDITS

Art : Antonin Perrus Developer : Quentin Jouanique Music and sounds : Zapslat.com Kevin MacLeod - "Drankin Song" Topher Mohr and Alex Elena - "Horses to Water"


screenshot3.png screenshot.png screenshot2.png

Ratings

Overall 1024th 3.352⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1571th 2.42⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1385th 2.731⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 812th 3.611⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 95th 4.429⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 533th 3.478⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 450th 3.18⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 724th 3.46⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 17🗳️ 30🗨️

Feedback

Nyubi
05. Oct 2020 · 22:51 UTC
This looks great, visually really really nice with the water color style and the parallaxing. I also enjoy the animation style of the characters. The music was nice too, but it didn't really give a me a sense of urgency/chasing – after a while I got it though, as I remembered also the description of the game. Thx, gave me a few ideas for my further game dev journey!
Dodidouda
06. Oct 2020 · 09:52 UTC
I think I cuaght the bandit?? Not totally sure of the purpose of the game but I really enjoyed the watercolour art style! Nicely done
GarfSnacks
07. Oct 2020 · 23:44 UTC
Love the water color style! Really liked the animated flickering of the building colors. Would be nice to see that same aspect applied to the characters and vegetation to give more life/ dynamism to the world. The music was great, gave the impression of a laid back town. The game play was fairly simple, having some props to jump over or move around would have added more obstacles. Overall I enjoyed it :) Great job!
Gilad Bar Ilan
10. Oct 2020 · 15:04 UTC
Nice Game! Great Graphics!!
CodeForJoyCaro
10. Oct 2020 · 15:11 UTC
I liked the water color graphics. Well done!
Flazone
10. Oct 2020 · 15:18 UTC
Loved the art style, it looks cool and unique. Not sure if I caught the bandit, he ran into me and disappeared?
svyatozar
10. Oct 2020 · 15:22 UTC
I cought him like 5 times. Is there anything else to this game? Nice graphics. The far background layer moves jaggedly - a bug?
humnyn
10. Oct 2020 · 15:53 UTC
A game with a very unique visual style, I liked it! Though some more content would be great, I feel you really nailed the theme of the jam and the fact that the dialogue changed every day helped show some sort of progression here. The art style really fits the mood, and though the audio is nice I have to agree that it kind of clashes with what's happening in the game. Maybe a bit too cheery/laid-back? Though it did fit the location you went for, so it's something. :-)
Stratcat66
10. Oct 2020 · 16:29 UTC
The art style is really unique, together with the music very atmospheric.
Flaterectomy
10. Oct 2020 · 16:32 UTC
Very pleasant art, though some things stood out to me: the upper half of the front layer that contains the road and the buildings doesn't connect to the bottom half; the hard disconnect detracts from the look of the game. Also, the parallax scrolling stutters a bit.

As for the interface, I don't think you needed a continue button for the dialogue. Just hitting space bar again would've sufficed.

I guess the game just continues on the final cycle of dialogue, about four or five days in? Characters remained in the same spot, dialogue didn't change anymore. I feel like the dialogue could've gone somewhere interesting as days pass, but they all seem to be fairly isolated remarks.
Zhanna
10. Oct 2020 · 16:41 UTC
Nice artstyle! Not sure if there's more to it than catching the bandit over and over again. Is there?
Roka Josh
10. Oct 2020 · 16:42 UTC
Nice game, I love the art style and the dialogue was funny. Good job!
SpawnCampGames
10. Oct 2020 · 16:47 UTC
I loved the asthetic.. The watercolor look is great.. I woulda preferred the distance from the left and right side of the screens to not be as wide so you didnt have to spend so much time walking without doing anything.. Good game over all tho.. Oh and the sound fits the game perfectly.. Good Job! :)
StellarBearGames
10. Oct 2020 · 16:51 UTC
Great art, fitting music, and right on theme. It took awhile to find out how to end the loop and I wish space bar was used to continue dialogue. Nice game!
KeyurRana
10. Oct 2020 · 17:08 UTC
Love the art style and the music. The dialogs were nice too.

Catching the bandit isn't clear. The first time, he just ran into me and disappeared, maybe some better indication than just the sound would be better. Also, on the second day, it took me a while to figure out that I needed to come in his way while he is going up or down to catch him. It would be made better if the sheriff could go up and down as well, that would give a nice sense of chasing the bandit.

Good work overall!
Yword
10. Oct 2020 · 17:24 UTC
Just finished the game! Nice art style and music, interesting gameplay and funny narrative. ^_^
BenSlaney
10. Oct 2020 · 18:32 UTC
The art is amazing and really adds to the mood of the game. I think I would have preferred if the dialogue could be insta-completed or just display faster. Aside from that, great job :)
Francesco
10. Oct 2020 · 20:29 UTC
Amazing job on the graphics, and I also liked the hints of humour in the dialogues and the sheriff situation, a direction in which I could easily see the game being expanded. In terms of gameplay it gets repetitive of course, but I found it great that just when I was thinking about quitting the game, it actually asked me if I wanted to :D (Well, at least it led me to this existential thinking: do bandits always escape to the east ?)
Raphiell
10. Oct 2020 · 21:02 UTC
Another game that's western themed! Mine is too. Well done on the game, great art and good execution of the theme.
acaral
11. Oct 2020 · 15:41 UTC
Thank you for playing our game, and a thousand of thanks for your feedback.

### Now some precisions:

-In three days we made sacrifices like
>take off a lasso mechanic ;

>leave particles effects (my bad :sob: ) ;

>fix the background layer for the webplayer and some details

-I think gameplay is not always obvious.
>bandit pattern is quite easy in the first days, it can be destabilizing

>it is not said in the game but you have to bring back the bandit in jail

>When you have to choose "yes" or "no" it influences the ending of the game. Maybe try to say one yes or two no consecutively
rangoiv
11. Oct 2020 · 17:16 UTC
The game has awesome art, really good job! However the gameplay needs more action, its just moving left and right. Also minor thing, you should speed up the dialog. Probably remove the button and make the player press anywhere on screen instead of continue.
Sherwin Claridge
11. Oct 2020 · 17:41 UTC
Neat game. Love the parallax scrolling which really adds depth (I use parallax too in my game.) Like the art direction as a whole. Well done and good luck.
archgame
11. Oct 2020 · 22:47 UTC
I thought the art style fit the setting very well. Can I have a horse to make catching the bandit easier? Or at least a glass of whiskey at the end of the day?
honey
17. Oct 2020 · 17:58 UTC
I'm sorry to inform you that your character's walk seems to be rather silly :) Very interesting concept, very interesting ending (though not very obvious). There's not much one can say about gameplay. I like you kept the loop around the town pretty short, so the player can talk basically to everyone on his way, but it doesn't feel very tedious.

What I don't get is the key binding - why can't I continue in conversation with space as well? What's wrong with it? Why so many keys for such a basic few functions? I'd suggest to go with even more keys but with equivalent binding (e.g. space, enter, f and LMB all do the same, so the player can decide what to use according to their taste), this is not confusing, but unnecessary :)

I like the art very much, the parallax background looks like a paper diorama, very nice art direction indeed!

Nice entry!
Ale
25. Oct 2020 · 17:55 UTC
Holy crap this game looks beautiful! The game world looked great and was really fun to explore even though it's small and the gameplay was repetitive. Those damn townspeople were talking trash about me being a bad sheriff, yet nobody said anything about the dumb bandit who kept getting caught!

I would love to play a full game that looks like this, seriously! This is one of my favorites in the graphics category for sure! Good work!!
acaral
27. Oct 2020 · 16:28 UTC
# thanks everyone for your comments #

There are a lot of things we should have worked on more. Some details to improve, or some choices concerning mechanics. Nevertheless in three days you know it was very hard (especially because of the tough theme think).
ditam
27. Oct 2020 · 16:54 UTC
Loving the hand-drawn parallax backgrounds, well done! If I could only wish for one UX improvement, I would like to be able to dismiss messages without the mouse, potentially with the same key I use for interactions. Would have shaved a few hours off my repeating days policing the town :)