LudumData

Pet Slime! by staircase27a

[raw]
made by staircase27a for Ludum Dare 46 (COMPO)

l46.png Pet Slime! The latest craze sweeping the world!

You have just been given a new pet slime, try and keep it (them) alive.

You can use your lead to move the slime around to the water and food they need. If they have too much or too little water or not enough food they will shrivel and eventually die. However if you can keep them happy they will grow and grow (while green), oh, and then split into two slimes that you now need to care for.

Try and keep your slimes alive for as long as possible or try and get the best set of slimes (most total health) but if any of them die it's game over.

Good luck and have fun!

Use the mouse to move, press 'space' to attach or remove the lead 'p' or 'h' to pause and show the help message and 'r' to start a new level.

Youtube http://www.darkfieldgames.com/files/Slime%20Pets.zip
Youtube http://www.darkfieldgames.com/files/Slime%20Pets.love
Youtube http://www.darkfieldgames.com/files/Slime%20Pets%20-%20win32.zip
Youtube http://www.darkfieldgames.com/files/Slime%20Pets%20-%20win64.zip
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/pet-slime

Ratings

Overall 946th 2.896⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 882th 2.771⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 320th 3.542⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 407th 3.792⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 978th 2.521⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 833th 1.952⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 947th 2.479⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 31🗳️ 23🗨️

Feedback

SoarenDev
20. Apr 2020 · 13:27 UTC
Found it quite hard to manage several slimes with the lead being so slow. Don't know if it is a design intention, but I think it would be even more fun to facilitate movement somehow (making the slimes slide when you take off the bait for example?), and rather place the difficulty on being able to quickly micro manage the slimes.

Still had a lot of fun playing your game, and I found the gameplay quite innovative. (I managed to get 5 slimes alive at the same time for a few seconds :O )

Good job there!
Haoro
21. Apr 2020 · 13:40 UTC
Interesting game ! It was fun playing it (even if some more food spawn wouldn't be too much wwhen there's more than 6 slimes x)
Great job !
Hanamigi
21. Apr 2020 · 13:53 UTC
It was interesting, and gave the feeling of looking at microorganisms through a microscope. I think that if the lead moved 1:1 with the mouse the game would be more enjoyabe, without sacrificing difficulty. Also food spawns felt scarce, but might be intentional so the player has to udecide which slimes can go hungry and which cannot.
bongo227
21. Apr 2020 · 14:00 UTC
It gets pretty tricky with 7 slimes! I like the visual indicator on how much water a slime has. Some sound effects would have been nice.
Lintfordpickle
21. Apr 2020 · 16:41 UTC
a nice concept and unique concept, although I found it difficult to get into at first. Well done
Shigure
21. Apr 2020 · 20:02 UTC
Unique concept with the leashes, but I found moving around to be tedious. Solid entry, though.
🎤 staircase27a
21. Apr 2020 · 20:50 UTC
Thanks for the feedback. I tried with the slimes moving quicker and it become too easy for the start of the game.

@hanamigi resources becoming scares was definitely means to be a large part of the difficulty once you are further on, along with the need to micromanage multiple slimes.
shaulor
21. Apr 2020 · 21:51 UTC
Interesting idea, i think some mechanic to manage multiple slimes at once would benefit the game :wink:
stolen_biscuit
21. Apr 2020 · 23:31 UTC
Unfortunately the game crashed straight away for me :/ (Linux, running the love file with Love2D)

Error

main.lua:151: attempt to call field 'mod' (a nil value)


Traceback

main.lua:151: in function 'update'
[C]: in function 'xpcall'
Rhiz
22. Apr 2020 · 04:54 UTC
Very stressful, it gets to be a lot of slimes to manage.

It seemed like not enough food was spawning. There was nothing I could do to prevent a newborn from dying because there was no food and there hadn't been food for a while.

It would be cool if the slimes had a little bit of autonomy. It was a lot of micromanagement to get all the slimes in and out to get their share of the food. The game would be a lot less intense if you didn't lose when one slime died.
ZwodahS
22. Apr 2020 · 11:53 UTC
I like the idea. However it is really hard to control more than 4 slime and losing after one death is really punishing. It feels like I need to try not to let them multiply to last longer.
SaltFactory Studio
27. Apr 2020 · 06:28 UTC
I really like your game idea of trying to breed and grow the best collection of slimes as possible. It reminds me a lot of breeding and training in Pokemon for some reason. While I do wish you could control multiple slimes at the same time, maybe micromanaging was an intended gameplay mechanic that you wanted. Regardless, this game is a great submission for this Ludum Dare. Great job!
🎤 staircase27a
02. May 2020 · 11:55 UTC
Hi @stolen-biscuit,

What version of linux and what version of love2d are you using? Apparently the mod function has been renamed to fmod in the latest version of lua but I didn't know any versions of love2d used that new a version of lua.

I have a workaround that is now in the updated .love file. Please can you give it a go and see if it now works. I haven't updated the other versions for now as they should use the bundled version of lua which doesn't have the issue.

Thanks!
stolen_biscuit
04. May 2020 · 13:01 UTC
Updated version works with Ubuntu 19.10 and Love 11.1 :) Just tested and played, really unique concept and a lot of fun! Graphics are simple but very clear, controls are fluid and easy to use. Well done!