Bubbles Saves Grandma by Caladrius

[raw]
made by Caladrius for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

Oh no! Grandma has taken a bit of a tumble! Take control of Bubbles the Hamster as you tear her house apart looking for her panic button so help can be on the way. There's a pie in the oven, and without grandma's delicate hands, who will feed Bubbles?

"Bubbles Saves Grandma" is somewhere between QWOP and Monkey Ball, and not as elegant as either.

Attempt to have fun!

Find all the secrets!

Challenge your friends!

Turn the game off and never come back!

Controls - W - Move Forward - A/D - Turn - S - Slow down. Bubbles has decided to look back - Space - Jump - R - Reset - Escape - Back to menu - I'm sorry

SS1.png SS3.png SS4.png SS2.png

Ratings

Overall 865th 3.638⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 659th 3.603⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 850th 3.466⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 767th 3.862⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1116th 3.707⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 490th 3.672⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 27th 4.345⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

SlimBun
21. Apr 2020 · 13:10 UTC
I don't really get how to play...
Delunado
21. Apr 2020 · 13:19 UTC
The controls are a bit difficuld. But it is so fun!
FramboiseDodue
21. Apr 2020 · 13:24 UTC
Really hard to control but I loved it, quite fun and crazy as I like games ! Also, I love games where we save Grandmas <3 Great voice acting too :laughing:
superpatch
21. Apr 2020 · 13:28 UTC
Love the counter on top with the grave!
The voice acting is amazing, had a bit of trouble with the controls but who am I to judge how Bubbles should move around.
Sir Magic
21. Apr 2020 · 13:29 UTC
I liked this game a lot! The humour was great and I loved the music. The ball physics were spot on. Only issue I had was that I could not find the panic button anywhere. Grandma could not be saved :frowning2: However, I really did enjoy the art and overall thought it was great!
toad
21. Apr 2020 · 13:33 UTC
Really cute! I think it might have been easier to use if collision didn't remove all the momentum from Bubbles.
Philip Sawyer
21. Apr 2020 · 13:43 UTC
It's frustrating in a fun way, just like QWOP, as you mentioned. The funniest game I played yet, the dead sea scrolls killed me. Great game.
rufson
21. Apr 2020 · 13:56 UTC
Very nice hand drawn textures! fits nice with flats sprites, and all keeps aesthetic. I found one secret:)
lelita
21. Apr 2020 · 15:42 UTC
Really fun, found myself wanting to play more to get a better time.
ForgeronStudio
21. Apr 2020 · 23:28 UTC
I haven't been this frustrated in a long time... well done good sirs. Tough but fair, and the voiceovers had me crying laughing
XdSilentStorm
22. Apr 2020 · 11:39 UTC
Really nice graphics which goes well with the music. Really fun and good game entry!!
marcusnystrand
22. Apr 2020 · 11:44 UTC
nice and refreshing aesthetics!
Alex_ADEdge
22. Apr 2020 · 12:00 UTC
A funny game for sure, Grandma dying when you run out of time was billiant, and her whining about the sands of time and abaonment issues made me laugh. Definetly an amusing little game. The controls were pretty frustrating, but I get that thats the main challenge involved. Nice work though!
Inferture
22. Apr 2020 · 12:01 UTC
A really funny entry :) I loved the voiceover of the grandma and the little secrets hidden everywhere. It look me a lot of tries to get through everything but the humor motivates you to continue ^^
AMastryukov
22. Apr 2020 · 12:04 UTC
The game looks interesting and funny but the controls make it nearly impossible to play. I got onto the bed after 10 minutes of trying to figure out what to do and got stuck because jumping doesn't trigger when I want to jump onto the shelf. I've tried over and over again, and he just wouldn't jump. He would just roll off the bed and I would have to start all over again. Incredibly frustrating.
joewolf
22. Apr 2020 · 12:10 UTC
The Grandma voiceover is brilliant! Really fun (and difficult) game! I kept pressing S to slow down even though I knew "Bubbles never looks back"!
Strange Nebula
22. Apr 2020 · 12:27 UTC
Cool game ! Your game has a really unique look, mixing pixel art and low-poly 3D I love it :D The game is a bit hard, and I wish Bubbles could take a step back to jump further, instead of having to do a 180 degrees turn each time. It is also really fun to mess around with the props and make everything fall. The level design is not perfect but it's great, maybe with smoother controls it would feel better. Also the UI and music remind me old black and white movies, a perfect fit for Grandma! Great job guys ;)
Makse
22. Apr 2020 · 12:32 UTC
Really nice voice acting and audio theme! it was difficult to control but fun to play!
seamule
22. Apr 2020 · 13:12 UTC
Idea and setting are fun! As is the feel. However, the controls were quite difficult, couldn't really bounce from surfaces and got stuck in small edges and so.
amkingTRP
22. Apr 2020 · 14:17 UTC
Absolutely brilliant. Great fun. Agree with the comments that the controls are difficult (a slow walk backwards would work wonders), and the collision detection does make things a bit difficult when jumping and getting caught under small ledges. Might be worth implementing a hang-time jump control (like Mario) to make it a bit less frustrating jumping at speed.

Where is the panic button? I managed to get over the granny and into the bathroom, but couldn't figure out where to go from there.
🎤 Caladrius
22. Apr 2020 · 18:10 UTC
Hey @amkingtrp, thanks for the feedback! Once you pass grandma, you need to climb into the sink to blast open the door to downstairs

I've received this piece of feedback a lot, and I definitely could have signposted it better!
meelo
03. May 2020 · 21:23 UTC
Love the humor and the music in this. I think the controls need a lot of work, though - in particular, I found it entirely impossible to know whether I would be able to jump each time I tried to (or exactly when the jump might happen even if it did work) - and twice I got stuck between two things, unable to jump, and had to restart. I definitely got better at the controls over time (I eventually saved Grandma), but never to a point where I felt that they responded predictably to my input. I also think that having S slow Bubbles down would improve the experience - there wasn't any place where I thought, "oh, not being able to slow down means I have to do something clever", but there were tons where I was just frustrated by running off an edge. Plus, making the controls easier would allow for harder level design than what is basically a string of "jump here to here and here to here and if you fail, you get set back a bunch of jumps." Nonetheless, I enjoyed the game, especially for the aesthetic style and the voice over.
jspacek
03. May 2020 · 21:57 UTC
Hilarious and (obviously intentionally) frustrating; the two elements really go hand-in-hand. I'd also like to compliment the visual and audio appeal and the consistent style. The voice acting also managed to be surprisingly tasteful, considering the "silly" vibe - major kudos to the team for showing such solid restraint in a game that employs humour so heavily!

I'm sure preventing acceleration backwards with S was intentional, but I'm not sure it adds anything. The hampster could plausibly roll backwards (MUCH more plausibly than "jump"!! :P )... I also found some inconsistencies with the jumping, unfortunately - about 15% of the time, the jump just wouldn't happen.

Overall, outstanding entry. I'm very impressed with a lot of the execution here.
mypalmike
03. May 2020 · 22:51 UTC
Plot twist: there is no panic button.
cheesepencil
04. May 2020 · 01:19 UTC
I never found the panic button, but I did make it into the basement without spoilers. This is a great jam game and exactly the right amounts of frustration, hackiness, and joy one might expect from a game made in 72 hours.

Judging from the comments, the stuff I would complain about has already been complained about, so I have nothing to say except nice things! Poor gramma, RIP!
peterfiftyfour
04. May 2020 · 10:19 UTC
Granny, me and whoever made the jump so inconsistent will surely meet in hell. Thanks I love it <3
velvetlobster
10. May 2020 · 06:07 UTC
Kinda katamari vibe. I felt the controls to be a bit hard. The art here is very crazy, which also makes it feel like an old school katamari kinda of game.
fabula_rasa
11. May 2020 · 20:29 UTC
I just adore this concept and it's fun being Bubbles. The game is very hard and it takes quite a while (at least, it took me quite a while) to get used to the controls and to how fast Bubbles can get in his little ball.

The flat drawn art is simplistic and charming (and kinda psychedelic) and the sounds are great as well. I really have nothing new here to complain about - so I will not! I will just say - nice jam job.
Calcitherin
12. May 2020 · 19:51 UTC
When you don't want to give up but want to stop playing cause it might drive you mad. Loved it. Oh the humour, that kept me sane, laughed hard at the Grandma's last words.
Sotaroni
13. May 2020 · 17:13 UTC
really fun game and very much hit my addiction receptors, and may or may not have driven me to spend 13 consecutive hours trying to get my run down from 1 minute to 46 seconds