Ducky's Day Out by Kosmo

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

Description

Mama Duck :duck: has left little Ducky :hatching_chick: behind! It is up to you to place animals around the stage to assist Ducky's journey back to Mama. Ducky is always moving, so use frogs :frog: and eagles :eagle: to avoid snakes :snake:, tigers :tiger2:, and more! Plan out your level on the fly to keep Ducky alive!

Use your mouse to place animals from the bottom hotbar into the level. Right click will cancel a placement, but they cannot be deleted so choose wisely! If you get stuck in any way, you can kill Ducky (boo) or restart the level.

Want an extra challenge? Go for the Bread :bread: collectible in each level!!

Controls

W, A, S, D or Right Click and Drag to move the camera.

Left Click and drag critter portraits to place them on the map. You can move critters you already placed by clicking on them again (but only while Ducky is not yet hatched).

Right click while holding a critter to put him back on the bar.

Post Jam version - 4/21/2020 6pm EST

The Post Jam version below added some basic quality of life improvements to the game including: Being able to move critters while Ducky is dead, respawning sugar gliders, and not auto-spawning ducky. Thanks!

Screenshots

early goings.png

jumping.png

snake pit.png

Utilities

The following tools/software were used to make Ducky's Day Out: - Godot - LMMS - Adobe Photoshop - Adobe Illustrator - Affinity Photo - Audacity

Ratings

Overall 1699th 3.285⭐ 67🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1399th 3.238⭐ 67🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1339th 3.231⭐ 67🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1524th 3.523⭐ 67🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 2051th 2.836⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Audio 930th 3.313⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Humor 616th 3.387⭐ 64🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1640th 3.139⭐ 63🧑‍⚖️
Given 61🗳️ 92🗨️

Feedback

bonder
21. Apr 2020 · 02:26 UTC
It's funny, I can't get past the first "level" but it was fun figuring out how to use the frog to get ducky home. :)

Good funny sound effects and nice music!
smallgaier
21. Apr 2020 · 02:28 UTC
This game looks really fun to try! Sadly, it seems that the graphics aren't positioned quite right when playing from a monitor with a different resolution so it wasn't playable for me past the second level :(
![Ducky.PNG](///raw/4d3/e2/z/30d69.png)
If you're able to fix this somehow I'd love to try it out so I can give you a rating! I think if you enable full screen on itch.io it may behave better. The mechanics made it seem like it'd be a fun puzzle game.
🎤 Kosmo
21. Apr 2020 · 02:36 UTC
Hmm, the game is designed to be played at a fixed 1280x720 resolution. How did you manage to get it fullscreen'd like that?

Thanks for the error report!
BossCoffeeCake
21. Apr 2020 · 02:40 UTC
Very fun puzzles! The rules for all the animals take a minute to get used to, it would be nice if there was some build-up to teach how they worked, but still I loved trying to save little Ducky!
lectvs
21. Apr 2020 · 05:50 UTC
Really cool concept! The interactions between the different animals lead to some creative solutions.
KreGames
21. Apr 2020 · 05:59 UTC
Pretty good concept. The buttons could be a little more visible.
HomunculusGames
21. Apr 2020 · 06:10 UTC
Reminds me of lemmings on the NES but this one was more puzzling! Well done making it on this short period of time!
mehrdadsh
21. Apr 2020 · 06:57 UTC
Great game! I love the feel of this game
No Grapes Games
21. Apr 2020 · 09:03 UTC
This game is pretty fun! The rush of putting the animal helpers out in time is really a good feeling. This is a good entry, great work.
SageWare
21. Apr 2020 · 09:24 UTC
Not an easy game. Very innovative concept that requires you to plan and learn from your mistake. Great job!
erebus
21. Apr 2020 · 09:24 UTC
Really cool puzzle game! Thanks so much for bringing it by the stream!
sledzik
21. Apr 2020 · 14:08 UTC
Had no idea which mole takes him where
Catalystl
21. Apr 2020 · 15:16 UTC
I finally finished the game and it was all right, so I'm gonna list a few things you could do to improve on it. First of all, I think there should be a way to tell which animal you selected that isn't based on whether or not you can see the animal following your cursor, since the selected animal only appears on the ground. I would put a highlight around the box of the animal you select.

I also had trouble with the section with tons of moles, since it wasn't obvious as to which one would take you the right way. I was gonna give up, but since you played my game all the way through, I wanted to do the same with yours.

The jump shown in the image I uploaded was a bit weird, since sometimes, I was able to get to the moles in the top right of the screen, but other times, I didn't. You should align the ducky with the grid of the level to ensure that each setup will have the same outcome.![bug.PNG](///raw/288/e2/z/31a16.png)

I wish you could cancel out the animal you selected also/remove animals since one misplacement can mean you have to restart the whole level and that can get annoying.

I think the Eagle was a really good addition, since it served two purposes, one for getting through the level, and the other for using it in other places to get through the level faster. The Sound Effects were also really funny. Good job!
Scharma
21. Apr 2020 · 15:57 UTC
Fun graphics, absolutely LOVED the sound effects. I did think, however, it should be more permissive as to where I put the animals, it seemed to require quite specific positioning at times. Well done, great project!
ssh.randy
21. Apr 2020 · 16:21 UTC
Awesome! Great execution on this idea, the level design was pretty fun, graphics were good, the resetting was a little annoying (and it was annoying to have the animation play from the end to start of the level on each death). Really well done though!
HuddyBuddyGreatness
21. Apr 2020 · 16:51 UTC
Nifty game, Very cute and I liked the concept. Just kind of hard to remember what all the enemies did, maybe introduce new ones slower
Nocity
21. Apr 2020 · 17:57 UTC
Nice cute game around the old but gold concept of Lemmings.
Grentacular
21. Apr 2020 · 19:58 UTC
This is really impressive for a game jam! I wish resetting didn't take so long or I could reposition animals after I placed them, but this is seriously one of my favorite games I've seen so far. Great job!
🎤 Kosmo
21. Apr 2020 · 22:24 UTC
@grentacular @ssh-randy @catalystl We just put out a small QoL update that alleviates some of the issues. You can now move critters (while ducky is dead) and sugar gliders respawn -- both of which are the majority of the tedium of the game. Thanks so much for all of the helpful criticism!
Trifectuh
22. Apr 2020 · 00:20 UTC
This is super fun. I could see people making some really crazy stuff with a level editor *hint hint*. Huge fan of the sound effects as well. Nice job
Abdurrahman Khallouf
22. Apr 2020 · 04:15 UTC
good job! like the game and the sounds are funny :D . loved them.
the game is real fun but I will give you a quick feedback:
- hated that I have to restart the level instead of getting back my animal.
- hated that I cannot see the level in free cam or zoomed out way to think about how to solve.

the rest is just lovely ! great job.
I really love the sounds
tsombi100
22. Apr 2020 · 06:56 UTC
I love the sounds
ryan123rudder
22. Apr 2020 · 07:11 UTC
Really Fun!
AdrianKrawczyk
22. Apr 2020 · 09:14 UTC
its fun!
VirtuaWorlds
22. Apr 2020 · 10:21 UTC
this is too cute! love the animals, I laughed out loud when i saw the "umbrella". Nice work, really cool game.
Rens Jan
22. Apr 2020 · 13:03 UTC
Really loveley mechanics. Loved the puzzle aspect. The sound really fit the game. As a tip I would maybe implement zooming
PrimalShadow
22. Apr 2020 · 16:57 UTC
great puzzle game!
Jvdwijk
22. Apr 2020 · 20:47 UTC
I really enjoyed this puzzle game, it was to find the best routes and I yeeted ducky off the map which is a big plus
nicksmaddog
23. Apr 2020 · 00:48 UTC
Really well done level design. I enjoyed the puzzle aspect a lot. The sound effects were pretty great too!
merrak
23. Apr 2020 · 02:28 UTC
Very innovative! I liked the concept. Zooming would have been helpful, though. My only complaint is that the levels felt a bit too large. Seeing more at once would've been helpful when coming up with a strategy.
Bulent Altinay
23. Apr 2020 · 05:13 UTC
Cool game. Really liked it. You lose the duck in the teleporter moles area. I remembered 'Lemmings' while playing. Congrats!
Drums
23. Apr 2020 · 19:14 UTC
I think this is really neat! You can tell a lot of time was spent on it. Love the details and the puzzles. We both made our sound effects and it is amazing haha! Thanks again for playing mine on stream!
Carlix
23. Apr 2020 · 19:48 UTC
Cool concept, fun game.

That one level with a hundred of tunnels was frustrating since there is no way to know where is that one going to bring you.
Did you consider a button to speed up? That would be useful.
🎤 Kosmo
23. Apr 2020 · 20:05 UTC
@carlix we did, but since Ducky is technically a physics object -- speeding him up potentially leads to different responses to tools. In hindsight, we probably should have made our own simplified physics that is not effected by simulation speed, but we didn't think it would be a problem until too late in development to do anything about it.
cheesepencil
24. Apr 2020 · 02:45 UTC
How do you get past the first level? Ducky falls in a pit, then I put a frog in the pit to get him out, then the eagle slaps him through the spiders but the last spider ALWAYS kills him.
NightVision65
24. Apr 2020 · 02:53 UTC
Nice game. The item design is really innovative and interesting. And I love those audios. The level is a bit too large yet become frustrating as each time you fail to placed the items in the right place you have to watch the whole thing again. Would be nice if I can have a speed-up button.
🎤 Kosmo
24. Apr 2020 · 03:38 UTC
@cheesepencil that should not be happening. Was the game running really slow/choppy for you by any chance? The game is technically running via physics and if it was running slowly its possible that Ducky might fail to make it through. Never seen it in testing though
cheesepencil
24. Apr 2020 · 03:46 UTC
@kosmo I have a really powerful PC with a 4k display, maybe it was a combination of very high fps + resolution? I was also playing the `original submission` and not the `QoL Updates` package.
cheesepencil
24. Apr 2020 · 04:24 UTC
@kosmo I tried Chrome, Edge, and Firefox on Windows 10 so it must be my PC. Can you lock the physics frame rate with Godot?
🎤 Kosmo
24. Apr 2020 · 14:10 UTC
@cheesepencil The game should be locked at 144fps (you can check this if you go to developer tools in chrome, the framerate gets dumped there -- 3dot menu->more tools->developer tools-> console). While you are there, let me know if you see any interesting errors or messages. I've tried to recreate it a bunch of different ways and don't seem to be able to on my end.
cheesepencil
24. Apr 2020 · 16:11 UTC
@kosmos I definitely don't understand how, but on my PC (where ducky dies to the spider) your game's console output outputs 30 fps pretty solidly. On my crappy work laptop, the game works properly, and the console output is in the range of 40-60fps. Despite running at 30fps it did not seem choppy or slow at all on the desktop.

I had to modify the Firefox advanced preferences for `layout.frame_rate` and set it to `60` manually from `about:config`, then the game would run properly. Maybe Firefox thought my native screen refresh was 30hz (even though it's definitely a 60hz display). How strange!
P-Dude
24. Apr 2020 · 22:55 UTC
@nightvision65 You can skip the level-preview it does after restarting by clicking (while it says "Click to Play" on the top).
Mister Collette
25. Apr 2020 · 01:10 UTC
The level design suited the tools well to make for interesting puzzles. Also the snake was really cute ♥
ggrusha
25. Apr 2020 · 12:15 UTC
Looks interesting, very cute frog! )

An interesting puzzle, however, lacks more organic character graphics. All arts are different and do not always fit together (
Aj Jones
26. Apr 2020 · 00:11 UTC
Interesting idea for the jam! I think the concept is really solid, and you could probably flesh this one out into a more complete game!
data
26. Apr 2020 · 06:43 UTC
The game looks super fun but for some reason I couldn't properly drag the camera round so on the second level my duck kept falling into that pit because the camera reverted to the initial spot. But I love the idea and the execution, +1 for the sounds :D.
marcusnystrand
26. Apr 2020 · 16:07 UTC
The sound effects made me laugh real hard, haha! Fun and relaxing concept. Not too hard but still a bit challenging. Well done!
DuzzOnDrums
08. May 2020 · 12:17 UTC
Nice one! As you said on the comment on our game, it's cool to see other games with a similar design. I love the animal theme you had, really cute! You asked about the camera, and we did actually plan scrolling levels but didn't get around to adding a moving camera and controls, so ended up making the levels with the constraint of them being on one screen. I did the levels really last minute (at like, 3am ha ha) but I think I liked that constraint. But yeah, it wasn't a conscious design decision or anything!

Anyway great job!