Penguin March by ilPrinny
Lead a herd of penguins to their destination by pick either Option A or Option B as the events come up, that is it really. The game turned out alright, but I will give a warning here: It is Heavily RNG based.
The Goal of the game is to Keep it Alive, it being the Herd.
ESC: Return to the main menu Everything else is Menus, so just use the mouse.
I had to finish this LD kinda early, but I hope you can still enjoy this... Thing I made
The Source code is in a download on the itch.io page!
Ratings
| Overall | 265th | 3.711⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 331th | 3.533⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 579th | 3.211⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 64th | 4.189⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 322th | 3.722⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 34🗳️ | 42🗨️ |
The art style is adorable also and seeing the (shrinking) squad march was nice. Good work!
It was nice, because it was super easy(from my perspective) and seemed to almost guarantee a win and satisfaction at the end. Very different from my very hard game haha.
The penguins were also super cute and seemed to drive home the emotional connection. I liked the little interactions like clicking on the penguins to make them puff up.
One suggestion I'd have is to perhaps add a clicking-type interaction to the game. Click on the penguins so they puff up, and maybe that could add moral over time? I like the idea of making it not 90% RNG. Maybe a little more interaction with consequences.
Great game overall though goodjob!
I also really love that you added the penguins marching in the title screen. It's a small detail but it makes a world of difference in the feel of the game.
The only thing I sometimes had trouble with was understanding the trade-offs between certain options. It took me a while to figure out the up side to the other option for when I run out of food, so I always chose try to catch some fish. I'm not sure there are any changes game wise that would help, but maybe rewording it so that it's a teeny bit more clear would do some good.
Overall, I really loved this game - 10/10 from me :)
@patrickjr I added that little feedback because there was very little to do while marching. I am glad it was worth it!
@madbookstudios Near the end I was getting paranoid about the chirps, I did have to do alot of testing with it so I was worried it might get annoying, glad it was as bad as I thought (the sound definetly starts to ware thin after alot of testing)
@brunosly Thanks! that is honestly a really big compliment! If I was to continue I would have to pretty much rewrite most of it from scratch cause the code is a mess xD.
@commanderstitch haha a win is a win! glad that the penguins drew you in, I love them.
@sayumeki Oregon trial was definitely a point of reference as I worked, 'Im glad are we there yet' was enjoyed! Writing the events became odd to me after a while as I lost consistence and just started writing whatever. Thanks! this may sound strange but the shrinking crowd was the very first thing I added xD
@a-312 haha the messurements are pretty silly when you think about them, got a chuckle from your comment.
@lambdanaut I definitely thought my game was harder than it was, until I saw my brother do Hard on his first try, but to be honest considering the amount of RNG involved it definitely is better that its not to brutal. But I agree with taking some of the RNG out. Thanks!
@quichi Im glad you liked the title screen, I just decided that I would shove the penguins where ever I could. But agree, it doesnt help that the choices are not always clear on the outcome. A tool tip that says the result would have been a good choice, when I tried to do that I realized my code hated that so I would have had to do an entire rework of how events worked, which would have wiped my janky event data base again. Thank you very much for the feed back
For improvements, I would really love some sort of a scrolling background when you move. It's pretty good! The wait button feels useless I was waiting for a few seconds standing until something happens to save on or get food, but I just stood there. :c
The penguins not too annoying but I think a pitch / volume randomizer will help so everything won't sound too monotonic!
Sidenote: I played this on Hard and finished on first try with 56 penguins left! If there were more opportunities on food, then I could have save them all!
Great entry~! This has a lot more potential if you allow yourself to!
@fiakaiera Thank you! and yeah, considering the game became a more chill experience more about the little bois, A nice background would have been a great addition. I thought Hard was harder than it was, but my brother first tried it as well, usually with Jams I have made games to hard so I kind over corrected for that. Oh and yeah the wait button is pretty much just a pause because I needed to stop the march when events where up, it definetly should have been more of a rest option (or just not let the player click it because it implies in may do something). Thanks for the feed back!
It does feel like the loop becomes no food, stop for food, repeat.
Some choices are a bit confusing/unpredictable though, but it kinda fits the game. I agree with others about adding a scrolling background, maybe progressive with a visible end for the last 100 km, to give some hope to the herd and the player.
I feel so guilty when they are keep disappearing after ran out of food.
Btw, after seeing your avatar, I was wonder why there is no explosion in the game :rofl:
@houdou haha thanks, and trust me I tried to do something like that :D
RNG is pretty heavy in this game. I'm not against it but some of the events are rather too essential to be random. Specifically, I think the functionality of 'Starvation' can be separated out into its own button.
But nice little game about number management! Thank you for your experience!
Nice little penguins going around.
Animations of idle is really similar to the walking cycle animation. so confusing when stopping or going ahead.
Sound effects are seriously annoying though.
RNGesus was kind to my penguins :)
Thank you for your entry
@ilprinny
your game is just lovely. really short but I like it.had around 70 left.
I like it very much. I know you didn't have tons of time and it is a compo game. but I wish it had more encounters. and the difference between slow march and fast is not clear. and I wish the fast march will change the animation (maybe just tilt them a little bit)
I am very interested in this game because its a decision game like mine. I think you should give it a go: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/mammoth-expedition
OK I dont usually post links to my game ok ? (the site just told me this is highly discouraged)
we need to have a beneficial conversation thats all :)
if you plan to develop this further I would be very happy to give more feedback and stuff. I am really into developing stuff like this right now. dont hesitate to ask or show me your work.
And thanks for the feed back! I agree with the animation thing, if I work on the game more I think I will remove slow marching all together and make the other mode Rest, with a sitting animation. The amount of encounters was a big issue for me while testing as well, I think in one of my test runs I got "annoying child" 4 times in a row ironically it was annoying.
I do have plans to take a month to flesh the game out, I have never published a full game before and want to take steps towards that (usually cause I overscope WAY TO HARD on my other projects) and this project seems like it could work on mobile or a small steam game, After i have polished the game ALOT.
not sure the best way to contact you, This site is pretty situational. I mainly use discord
if you want to contact me later. hit me there. or give your discord to add you no problem.
the underlying system for my game has been in development for months now(slowly developing in my free time). its really complicated.
the game it self is completely new of course I did not have any working game or demo before.
that being said , about repetitive "Annoying child" event. I have a "cool down system" for an event so you don't see them very often. (some events like science projects have like 6 days cool down but scouting around 4)
also I have UsagesAllowed so some events appear once. some have like 9999 (digging) some around 4(scouting)
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last thing: about the speed march. I thought it would be very cool if it have specific purpose. maybe make speed march consume food more not save on food! but consumes same amount of morale so if you have extra food and low morale you can use it... I think having it can still be interesting.
currently it is unbalanced because it saves food.
also it is cool that it has different events but that should somehow clear to the player. I can suggest some stuff if you decided to keep it.
I like cutie penguin art. Sounds is cute, too. Great job man.
btw, my husband is @abdurrahman-khallouf :smile_cat: