The Zone by meskaline
Deep in The Zone there is The Room, a room which grants the visitors any wish.
The deepest and most intimate ones...
Your name is Redrick, a Stalker, living from escorting tormented people in The Zone.
Your clients are two:
Professor - a physicist, a scientist, in the search for the truth, rejected by the Institute.
Writer - an artist, in search for inspiration and the meaning of life.
Story inspired from the book Roadside Picnic and movie STALKER.
| Youtube | https://meskaline.itch.io/the-zone |
| Youtube | https://meskaline.itch.io/the-zone |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/the-zone |
Ratings
| Overall | 513th | 3⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 572th | 2.45⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 487th | 2.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 536th | 2.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 229th | 3.595⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 347th | 3.071⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 14🗳️ | 18🗨️ |
I also think some music could have helped setting the tone and would've even made the trial and error process more bearable, but being a Compo game I understand you didn't have the time to make your own music, so it's okay.
I read your comment saying that you can throw bolts with 'B', so I tried but nothing happened.
Anyways, you should be proud that you made this in Compo mode, the story and the graphics are really cool!
Maybe you could have incorporated the different characters a bit more? A central part of the source material is how the different characters act in the zone. For example, the stalker has more bolts, the scientist could leave his backpack as a reference point/respawn point, etc.
Overall, a good homage!
At first I just took a screen shot and was marking it down as I went along but that was getting to be tedious. I ended up just having all three of the survivors follow the same path to make it easier on my memory. In the third level I was able to get two people to the end but there wasn't room for the third, but once you are down to one character it is much easier to just brute force the level and remember where you have just been.
Graphics are good for a compo game, but I do have to agree with others and say the font on the story bits made it very difficult to read. I think some ambient sounds in the background and a few bleeps and bloops for moving would have really added a lot to this entry, as well as the previously mentioned marking the map.