Dolen Days by James Clark

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

Dolan pic.PNG

This is a game we created for the Ludum Dare 47 game jam. The theme is "Stuck in a loop".

You play Dolen. A young man who has started a new job and moved into a new apartment. The game shines a spotlight on the issue of balancing work life and personal life. Having less energy from work lowers our motivation to do things for ourselves which can ultimately affect our personal lives but work lives as well.


Guide:

D - The 'D' at the bottom of the screen is your Dirty meter. This grows when Dolen doesn't clean his apartment. If you show up to work too dirty, you will lose points from your 'J' (job) meter.

J - The "J" meter at the bottom of the screen is your Job meter. This grows when you perform well at your job and show up to work clean. This is subtracted from when you show up dirty. Each 10 points, you receive a small pay rise.

E - The "E" meter at the bottom of the screen shows your energy. Don't overdo it and lose all your energy or you won't be able to work harder or do things for yourself at home.

Move the mouse over objects on screen and click to interact with them. Dolen must go to work each day and decide how hard he wants to work. You have a choice between 'Slack', 'Work' and 'Super Work'. The harder you work, the more energy you consume. When you arrive home, it's up to you to cook for yourself or get take out. Cooking for yourself creates dishes which you'll need to clean but that consumes energy. In the morning you can choose to shower and put away dirty clothes which consumes energy too. Not cleaning will make Dolens dirty meter grow. The dirtier Dolen gets, the less Job meter you will grow and can even go down.


Credits:

Blaise Guy - Programming and Design James Clark - Art and Design Michael Ware - Background Music

Everything made with Godot Engine and Aseprite.

Ratings

Overall 945th 3.398⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1484th 2.593⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1196th 2.953⭐ 45🧑‍⚖️
Theme 289th 4.057⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 632th 3.75⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Audio 486th 3.534⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1039th 2.333⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Mood 431th 3.727⭐ 46🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

🎤 James Clark
03. Oct 2020 · 07:42 UTC
BEST GAME EVER!
Yagir
03. Oct 2020 · 09:32 UTC
Link?
BEK
03. Oct 2020 · 09:38 UTC
hey links?
🎤 James Clark
04. Oct 2020 · 01:50 UTC
Link up now! Follow the itch.io link in description. Or else here it is, here!
https://jamesc89.itch.io/dolen-days
🎤 James Clark
04. Oct 2020 · 13:08 UTC
Version 1.1 now on itch.io. Many bug fixes. Lose screen. More stuff
ZachsButt
05. Oct 2020 · 05:56 UTC
It made me sad
🎤 James Clark
05. Oct 2020 · 07:35 UTC
Glad to hear, @zachsbutt !
Seskon
05. Oct 2020 · 09:19 UTC
very depressing game :(
well done tho :)
BukkakeTears
05. Oct 2020 · 09:23 UTC
It is a perfect game about working in a corpo. I have started as "Okey, I will do my job just ok, keep everything clean" and so on. But after some time I went like "Awwww, fck that, I will be dirty nasty bastard". Stopped with cleaning bullshit and showers. Were always working super hard, felt into endless loop of being dirty, smelly programmer. But got rich, which is nice.

Good entry! :smiley:
Henrik Ganard
05. Oct 2020 · 09:23 UTC
Awwww this game was brilliant, and sad, and true. It shows an impossible life-pussle and the stress of loosing more energy then what the world gives you. I LOVED this game. Thanks alot for making it. It made me a bit sad though =)
BeaverGames
05. Oct 2020 · 11:40 UTC
This game was fun, sad but fun. The audio could be better.
TomekS
05. Oct 2020 · 13:15 UTC
Wow impressive execution, but very sad. You manage to capture the mood perfectly matching the narrative with great audio. Very solid entry.
Sarah Shigley
05. Oct 2020 · 17:09 UTC
The feels :'(. Well thought out game with the balancing being so accurate. Nice pixel art and mood music.
Gilad Bar Ilan
05. Oct 2020 · 18:13 UTC
The deepest game I have seen in this tournament yet. I felt sad for the guy. Great graphics also you did a GREAT JOB!!!
🎤 James Clark
06. Oct 2020 · 01:42 UTC
Thank you so much for the great feedback, everyone! We really appreciate you all taking the time to play our game. This has been a very fun game jam and its been a blast playing everyones games!
wujood
06. Oct 2020 · 02:10 UTC
Really good game!
mlkvr
06. Oct 2020 · 02:16 UTC
Day 538 : I finally managed to save enaugh money for buying IDumb 12 pro thanks to super working everyday also i have few friends at the apartment even if it chews my ear sometimes I really like that guy, well it might be not the perfect life but it is one.
Peace Of Cake Games
06. Oct 2020 · 03:31 UTC
Fantastic!
jamesor
06. Oct 2020 · 04:10 UTC
Nice artwork and animations. Sure did feel like you were stuck in a loop.
digitaldude555
06. Oct 2020 · 10:20 UTC
Great take on the theme, like the art, like the music. Set up a great mood for the game. Dont see much wrong with it. One of my faves so far.
TheAppleCake
06. Oct 2020 · 14:50 UTC
This is a good one ! The music, the art and the mechanics together create a great atmosphere and really catch that feeling of being stuck in a loop. I guess the slow transitions from scene to scene may add to that but they are just a bit "too" slow and become quite quickly frustrating in my opinion.
But overall I thought this was a great approach to the theme !
Dudum Lare
06. Oct 2020 · 17:07 UTC
This game gave me mcpixel vibes, and that really blew up didnt it! Good luck and I hope to see you again in the next jam :D
Palemek
06. Oct 2020 · 18:48 UTC
This game is the worst. I thought that games on LD are supposed to be fun and cheerfull.
This almost made me cry, so good job guys(angry!)

Seriously: great job, only thing to mention is that light in his romm and transition between screens are not "pixelish" and are out of style. Apart from that: great entry!
Aless
07. Oct 2020 · 23:24 UTC
Super solid game. Sad as the life itself music helps a lot. The overall game reminds me of "The Last Door" if you don't know it, you should try it! Good job on this game
fabula_rasa
08. Oct 2020 · 00:03 UTC
This game has some great music. It really creates the atmosphere and elevates the whole experience. I like this interpretation of the theme and you did a very nice job implementing the idea. I felt for poor Dolan.

Although I did find it very funny that making the bed in the morning costs twice as much energy as working all day :laughing: Must be why I never make the bed!
ForgeronStudio
08. Oct 2020 · 00:12 UTC
This was fun to play, and it felt polished with a really consistent feel overall. I liked the attention to detail, like Dolen bashing furiously at his keyboard and the rodents that start to appear when you're too dirty.
Good job!
LTyrosine
12. Oct 2020 · 03:50 UTC
Nice polished game. Cool graphics and amazing music.
It's the classical usage of the theme yet so well performed.
Musics help a lot to set the tone and as audio wasn't opt out, I'm assuming you guys made it - amazing.

Cant find how to restore energy - aside from sleeping.

Overall, good work!
Matootsy
13. Oct 2020 · 12:28 UTC
At first I was thinking at a kind of idea close to yours. With a metro/work/sleep loop. But I thought it would be too difficult to manage for a jam. You two have done it very well! It's a boring loop not boring to play because of the small choices to do that impact the repeating life. I didn't manage it well and I lost my job. I just discover the shower at the end ^^ Anyway. Very nice entry. I love the pixel art and the music is very sweet and add a very good ambience. Congratulation!
Trexxak
13. Oct 2020 · 23:23 UTC
Depressing yet relatable. Polished, solid and fitting. Good job!

Feeling very elevated about real life all of a sudden. Surely noone will notice if I don't make my bed today, right?
Shakedimus
14. Oct 2020 · 01:02 UTC
I thought the mood was very well set. The music was nice and indeed depressive and the graphics were a cool style. Aside from that it is as might be suspected quite boring to play. I like the concept but there should be something making it interesting, I don't know what. In the beginning it was also very unclear what could be clicked. I thought it was a pity you couldn't die. This again made it feel low stakes and uninteresting. OVerall I think a very solid entry but I don't like it as a game.
elliottd
16. Oct 2020 · 03:38 UTC
Nice level of completeness. I came back for more a couple times after thinking there was no winning. I think the sad part for me was realizing i was living in my plan for many days ahead and not enjoying the moment. I executed a plan to gain two raises as fast as possible and eliminate dishes completely by always eating out. It took a long time like that, but i got another raise and made it to the energy positive and money positive side of the mechanics. By that time i was wishing to go back to eating at home. I'm actually surprised that eating out didn't give an energy bonus, but i think that was a good choice. I also personally derived some joy from seeing Dolen eat (and getting to read the meal names, even though most sound bleak). My strategy tip is to let the dishes pile up and never wash them. The laundry needs to get done when there are three pieces. but let everything go another day if you are at 3 dirtiness when you're going to bed, and have a shower in the morning. You gotta clean the floor as soon as you can once the mice show up. Doing tasks early is a waste of resources. I played to $3100 on the last game. great work.
Tamail
23. Oct 2020 · 15:03 UTC
Oh, this was kind of depressing to play like - I superworked three times, now I can buy take out. Hm, nice, now I need to superwork for even longer to have some fun. Oh wait, I don't have the energy... So relatable :D Great entry, liked it a lot!
LetterAfterZ
27. Oct 2020 · 10:30 UTC
I finally managed to get past the slump and get myself making some decent coin, but it seems that's just the endless loop, so then I decided to see how bad things could get. Didn't take long fro the rats to move in, and dolan to try and sustain himself on bread and dirt, until he got rekt.

Haha good entry, but now I feel a bit depressed.