Pre Call by zimennik

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

You can smell the 1960 in the air.. You’re a telephone operator, working in a huge company. Your work is pretty simple - you have to connect two people who need to talk to each other.

Screenshot_8.png

Your own working time and successful communication depends on how fast and how correctly you’ll dial other people.

Usually, you’re working from 12pm to 6pm. If you make a mistake and set up the wrong connection - the Demon of Time steals your working time. Thus your entire working day goes backwards and becomes infinite. And, yes, today is a really strange day…

If you want to somehow finish your working day you have to dial everyone who calls you in a proper and quick way.

At first you hear a call, someone tells you who you need to connect with. The connectors are arranged in pairs - top and bottom.

screen1.png

During the call you’ll get the minimum of information about the person you have to find and to dial. Everything else you’ll find in the Log Journal.

Next step is a piece of cake! You take a connector from same group (ABOVE or BELOW the first) and link all those people!

screen3.png

When the talk is finished - don’t forget to unplug the connector.

And yeah… if you accidentally or by any other reason plug in the connector in the wrong socket - you done, dear. Time goes backwards, and you stuck in a loop

If you manage to connect all the people - the Demon of Time will be defeated, and you will be saved from the infinite loop of your working day. Good luck!

screen2.png

Dev Team:

Roman Zimenko aka @zimennik - Programmer, Game designer
Artyom Obryadin aka @lostsense - Programmer
Vlad Mykhalytskyi aka @vmykhali666 - Programmer
Tanya Voronkova aka @corax - 2D Designer, Content Maker
Anton Tkachenko aka @tonyt - QA, Content Maker
Yuriy Mykhalchenko aka @tokugawa1983 - 3D Artist

Changelog:

Update 0.2

  • Fixed several text / voice inconsistencies.
  • Rework difficulty (now you can complete the game lol). Old difficulty stay as an option.
  • Few graphical changes

Ratings

Overall 155th 4.045⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 484th 3.609⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 48th 4.217⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 703th 3.717⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 123th 4.364⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 81th 4.136⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 224th 3.667⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 37th 4.364⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 11🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

Yossarian
06. Oct 2020 · 01:01 UTC
Gotta be honest- I had no idea how to be a phone operator. It was fun to figure it out! Really nice touch with the text-to-speech dialogue. You can tell a lot of care went into the phonebook / script for this game... some of the jobs in the phonebook are weird. Anyway- nice job!
burning_boy
06. Oct 2020 · 13:25 UTC
I love the vibe of this game. Great job, guys
Bauke Regnerus
06. Oct 2020 · 13:41 UTC
High score for mood. Original concept, reminds me of Papers Please. Would like to have more options, like more books to get information from. Great job!
Artyom Volkov
06. Oct 2020 · 13:49 UTC
Yet again, an excellent submission with a great atmosphere, visuals and interesting gameplay.
Los
06. Oct 2020 · 13:54 UTC
Such a great game! Idea, graphics, music, everythings comes together nicely! Well done ;)
Frozendoze
06. Oct 2020 · 14:00 UTC
The atmosphere is amazing! Great game, can get a bit frustrating though!
rickropes
06. Oct 2020 · 14:42 UTC
Very cool game idea, however its impossibly hard shame on you. Great job!
LeReveur
06. Oct 2020 · 19:21 UTC
Amazing graphics and sounds, this call for a five in mood! I laughed at some jobs, but I was not able to read a lot, because the timer is a little too short, and I didn't manage to get more than three calls :sweat_smile: Maybe an easy mode would help to have more fun for the ones like me that are not so good under pressure :laughing:
Anyways, very well done!
Evileptic
07. Oct 2020 · 10:03 UTC
Amazing work! :smile:
maxflav
08. Oct 2020 · 17:17 UTC
I absolutely adore the style and aesthetic of this game. Incredible stuff. Two thumbs up!
ubershmekel
09. Oct 2020 · 06:05 UTC
The vibes were great here, I almost felt like I was in a mini-game in Bioshock Infinite. The music sat very well with the task, and the environment art was beautiful. The task of connecting people's calls felt like a grind, but potentially not in a bad way - if the story that's being told was a bit more compelling, or if there was something more rewarding to the core gameplay loop. I feel like with this concept, you can go very far with a good story. I would leave to try this out with a fleshed out story. The textual instructional material was ok, but maybe the pins needed to be spaced out a bit more, and even have some more color coordination than just the wire, to avoid news like myself from completely misunderstanding. Also - when I die - it would have been nice to have a very specific message like "that wire wasn't the right PAIR" or something. Still this was an extremely polished game for a jam. Very well done. Thank you for the game :)
Shelvid
09. Oct 2020 · 21:32 UTC
Very interesting and aesthetic entry, well done!
Roikku
09. Oct 2020 · 21:34 UTC
Looks really good!
Jvdwijk
11. Oct 2020 · 20:52 UTC
This was very very good! I could see this being a big game with a bit more content! I did notice a couple inconsistencies with the dialogue and subtitles. For instance when he said astrologer the dialogues named someone else.

Something that I'd recommend adding:
- More levels, make each longer and more difficult, maybe add less connectors so that we have to put them together more.

Very good entry, hope more people find this!
coderTrevor
12. Oct 2020 · 22:50 UTC
Nice little game. The graphics are quite good. It felt very complete with its menu and tutorial. The theme connection is... funny. :stuck_out_tongue:
It's one of those hectic-but-fun games. Good job!
tjm
13. Oct 2020 · 02:47 UTC
Excellent style and mood, fully deserves high ratings across the board! I think the tactile nature of the gameplay and the way you have to juggle information would make this work really well as a VR game.
Dane Tesla
25. Oct 2020 · 13:28 UTC
Wow it was top notch! Amazing! One of the best games of this game jam for sure!