looper by Matt Swieboda

[raw]
made by Matt Swieboda for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

Stay on the tracks, or game over!

WASD or arrow keys to accelerate and turn

Hold any SHIFT to drift

In menus: WS/arrow and Enter/Space to select, Esc/Backspace to go back or exit

Still very much WIP but it's my first Ludum Dare, just happy to be able to submit something!

I'm coding in crystal using raylib bindings to crystal via cray (also game a WIP OOP wrapper)

Art in aseprite, sound WIP but probably with jsfxr

MacOS only right now and no browser support, sorry! Here’s some gameplay since most can’t play (sorry again)

gameplay.gif

If I have time I'll try Linux builds, and then Win via WSL.

Crystal may not have been the best cross-platform choice but I love programming in it :D

Ratings

Graphics 1440th 2.5⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

Henrik Ganard
05. Oct 2020 · 06:13 UTC
To bad there isent a Windows or WebGL-version. I can´t play this. Looks nice though =(
CodeRaurus
05. Oct 2020 · 09:36 UTC
Awww, no Windows or browser version. I wanted go brrrrrr.
p-brighenti
05. Oct 2020 · 11:41 UTC
Too bad I can't play it :(
LetterAfterZ
05. Oct 2020 · 12:43 UTC
Ah wanted to give this one a go. Tried to fire up my macbook pro to learn it's dead :(
shan.hsgames
05. Oct 2020 · 16:53 UTC
No linux, webgl build :cry:
TheseusInABottle
06. Oct 2020 · 05:42 UTC
Obviously I can't play this but thank you for posting a gif of the gameplay so I can at least say your game looks like it would be fun to play.
Shyrro
06. Oct 2020 · 23:03 UTC
Too bad couldn't play cause of available versions :/
MatchaFlavor
06. Oct 2020 · 23:14 UTC
Kinda sad that I'm not able to play it. For future jams, the best thing you can do for yourself for proper feedback and ratings is to make it as accessible as possible.

For the time being, I just can't rate this.
MikadoH
07. Oct 2020 · 17:24 UTC
Not bad but even the Noob difficulty is too hard and I game over almost instantly. I was barely able to make a single loop and I had to go painstakingly slow.
Otherwise not bad, it works and it's solid for a first Ludum Dare.
Chukwuebuka_racer
08. Oct 2020 · 00:02 UTC
Screenshot looks nice, but no link to download/play for windows
Cargamoni
11. Oct 2020 · 01:34 UTC
Its not the idea to stuck in a loop ^^ Thanks for the game, please rate ours too
pedrocoden
12. Oct 2020 · 05:40 UTC
Nice game!
waynetron
13. Oct 2020 · 09:08 UTC
It's a complete game and you should be really proud.

I found it really difficult, and I feel it should be difficult, because the entire game is driving around in a circle. But it wasn't a very fun difficult.
I would start by juicing the hell out of it, skid marks, particles, screenshake etc. The point of the juice should primarily be to help communicate to the player how the game is responding to their inputs. When I am on the grass, then the car is bumpy. If the handling is starting to lose control, then you see skid marks etc. And I would iterate on the driving until it feels really really good.

Then you'll want to something in there to ensure the user takes risk. A lap time limit would be the obvious way. Without that there is no incentive to take risk (drive fast, which is fun). And the user will follow the degenerate strategy of taking their time (which is less fun).
14. Oct 2020 · 10:06 UTC
Averagly fit into the theme.. Your graphics is not good, sorry.

One last note: I always write down honest review, because everybody need that, not just nice craps with some bullshit, but sometime I will aperceite very good games. So if this review insult you, but use it well :) Anyway every game is counting so :)
hunttis
19. Oct 2020 · 16:08 UTC
It's a game with the proper scope for a jam game, so you could make a complete game!

Unfortunately it's really super friggin' difficult :smile: I honestly could finish one loop after quite a lot of retries, I didn't understand why I lost almost immediately when I ran off the road.

Instead of fighting the controls, a more fun take could be to try and find the right driving lines to optimise the time. Like mentioned by @waynetron above, timer would make this quite different (and very likely better). Now your high-score is only metered by your patience to drive slow enough.

It's really a good idea to use a language that most users can run, a web build is best, since it doesn't require installing anything. Can't say much about crystal (as this is actually the first time I heard about it), but good choices could be Phaser (for javascript/typescript) or maybe HaxeFlixel (with haxe).