LD46 - Keep it alive by ZwodahS

Hi, This is Earth Control. Mars has just been hit by the biggest sandstorm we have ever seen. The power plant you are in is the last one left. Please keep it alive at all cost..

Control: WASD to move, SPACE to pick up items. Instructions: Fix broken things, keep the stations charged and keep it alive.
Will post a "spoiler/hint" in the comment, so don't read it if you want to explore.
Made with
- Haxe/Heaps
- Aseprite
| Youtube | https://zwodahs.itch.io/ld46-keep-it-alive |
| Youtube | https://gitlab.com/ZwodahS/ld46 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/ld46-keep-it-alive |
Ratings
| Overall | 437th | 3.521⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 692th | 3.083⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 569th | 3.229⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 343th | 3.854⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 502th | 3.479⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 557th | 2.667⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 233th | 3.591⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 28🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
- Survive for 5 minutes
- There are a few incidents that will happen each with their own effects
1. Broken wire - caused an increased in power output
2. Fire - cause oxygen pressure to drop
3. Broken oxygen tank - cause oxygen to leak and increase
4. Clogged Vent - cause oxygen level to fluctuate.
- You will also need to refill the power station regularly.
- To see oxygen level and overall power level and output, you will need to be near the control station in the center. If you are near the power station, you will see the power for the specific station.
* I prefer controls with arrow keys when mouse is not used
* I would have liked some kind of indicator (icon, sound, etc) what sort of incidents were active instead of randomly running around the map.
Overall it was a fun game, good job :)
Kind of made my hand sore after a while with the W/A/S/D :(
Great graphics, interesting premise. Good luck! :)
@goldfish-games: yeah... i feel you. I had reduced the win condition time from 15minutes to 5minutes because of that. My first map was way bigger than this and there was even more moving around. Oxygen issue are usually due to fire if it is going down, or the tank leaking when it is increasing.
@nikita-demidov : intentional that I don't want people to know where the problem is. Initially I wanted to add camera objects so you can put them in places that you want to see. Perhaps I will add it next weekend.
My sole complaint is the way the game doesn't end after 5 minutes. I legit believed that I either haven't hit 5 minutes, or there was a second ending in sight, and replayed several more times until I saw that I kept going for ~10 minutes and going for much longer won't be possible due to limited power supplies. The realization was a bit frustrating :D
Let me add a new game over screen today to indicate that there is nothing beyond that.
If you continue working on this, I'd love to see (hear?) some sound effects added, I imagine the red flashes would cause even more panic with the right sound effect attached.
I liked the ending twist but as I could go on with the tasks, I was waiting for a second ending. This has already been said but I felt it too so I wanted to share ^^
I think it needs some balancing on the difficulty. At first play when you have no idea what problem is caused by what, you die a lot (oxygen was mainly what I suffered from) and once you know how to fix each problem and how to prevent it, the 5 minutes wait is a stroll. The computer is a good idea and a useful tool but maybe it could make use of a clearer interface like signifying that there *is* a problem (red text or bleep noise) and maybe a dialogue box for the first time you encounter a problem("hmm. One of the oxygen tanks is probably leaking.")
These are just small things I think could be bettered but on the whole I found your game quite amusing and well put together. The graphics are nice too and the number of different actions to be performed is well balanced. The dev seems good too : fluid interactions with world, great fog of war, no bugs or crashes. Good work !
Also the UI could be improved a bit, I found the text at the beginning long and hard to read, it you break it up (show the first paragraph, then press space, then the second paragraph...) it would have helped.
I had a lot planned for this initially. I wanted to have mini game for each repair but I realise that would take too much time and I might not finish the game and decided to cut them out of the scope a few hours in. I also had ideas for "Camera" so you can place them and have more control. I also wanted to have more type of incidents but I feel that would confuse the players way too much for this LD, so I also cut them and prefer to make a tighter game instead.
Planning to see if i can expand this ideas a bit more and polish it up in the near future =). Do follow my itch and I will post it there :D
Great work!