Harvester by LDJam user 279233
Become a Harvester!
Disclaimer: There is a comically mean NPC, and a pinch of existential horror in this game.
Your harvest will not be fruits or vegetables this day! Hi this is my 2nd Ludum dare compo and my game is about harvesting... Things. The game-play is just adjusting sliders and clicking buttons, and the art is not much to look at either, but there’s a little bit of mystery in there that (i hope) keeps the player engaged to the end. You should try it, it only takes like 5 minutes to play :D
Extra info:
Ran out of time before i could make any audio but my project looks roughly like a game, which is more than i can say for my last Compo attempt
In case the instructions in game are not clear, the goal is to adjust the sliders, lock them in, and then click on "harvest" to collect all the little coin and move to the next screen
I think the zip folder is compatible with Linux and Mac too but I only have access to windows devices so I marked it as windows only to be safe
A tip to get the 'secret ending'. your scanner is kind of like a weapon. Leave one charge for the final screen. it might have a use there ;)
| Zip file with .Exe | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nQm6AAEFxHOIIg5F42LlxbdcG_bK55DM/view?usp=sharing |
| All Assets & Scripts | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DXdiZpQ5Npgfqe72Qwo0lXZ4ArbZpgul/view?usp=sharing |
| I made an itch.IO page. i think it wokrks now :S | https://meidaniaryayahoocom.itch.io/harvester |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/harvester |
Ratings
| Given | 26🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
The instructions might not have been too elaborate, but I got going pretty quickly - I'd say there was relatively little confusion as to what I need to do compared to other games.
The cell with the person in it got me thinking when it said the scanner can confirm there isn't a person in there but at the same time it destroys whatever is in there. I couldn't figure out how it would make sense for something like that to exist in a reality xd
Regarding the scanner, I have an explanation that makes sense in my mind, which may or may not make sense to you. I am going to share it with you here, but feel free to come up with another explanation yourself. I'd be happy to hear what others think
The scanner was not originally designed to be used by the harvesters. Its more like a civilian self-defense tool. If the device is turned on and detects the organism nearby it automatically tries to protect its user by destroying the hostile organism (without wasting time asking the user). A more sophisticated tool intended for the job would probably just incapacitate the target or let the user decide what to do. The harvesters are using these low-quality scanners in the field because they are low on supplies and don't have any better equipment left. One of the 'secret' documents implies that the facility has trouble contacting their central office, so i don't think they can get new material in anymore.
Love secrets like this with a hidden story
At my first try the window was too big that 1 slider went out of my screen. So I couldn't find way to activate the harvest button. XD
Thanks to (?) that issue, I tried hard to find everything that can interacte on the screen and reached the scanner. I have to say the real issue is I did not notice some UI even they are in the screen.
Otherwise, neat game! Thanks for sharing!
@simsax Thank you! I was looking at all the farming games and was beginning to think I'm crazy, but when i started reviewing games i found out quite a few people went with organ harvesting, soul harvesting, etc. I might still be crazy but now i know there is dozens of us out there :P
@natiki Im so happy that you found it engaging. I'd like to claim credit in the bold move of not including any audio, but to be honest i was completely out of time, haha
@apg Thanks for leaving that message, let me tell you how the sausage was made! To be honest, its just "smoke and mirrors". Except the 0.5 at the start to familiarize the player, all the other numbers were arbitrary. The player was supposed to trial-and-error the finite possibilities and come to the correct one. It gets worse! For a while i was thinking about randomizing the correct values each time but A) i thought it would get frustrating for the player and B) i was low on time anyway.
Before you judge me too hardly (or perhaps as a cause to judge me even harsher), let me say I used to love playing with analogue radios. slowly turning those dials until a station came on, made me feel like a code breaker. I thought the players could get a similar satisfaction out of this mechanic :)
I was kind of worried that the drab greys would be too off-putting, but I wanted the place to look soulless and cold. Going with that colour pallet was that was the best I could do with my limited artistic abilities :)
I believe that the “truth” is in the audience’s head, not the author’s. I'm going to write something regarding the story in case you are interested in what i think, but feel free to ignore it too because you decide what the story should be.
As small as my scope was, I still had to cut corners to get the game ready in time. There was supposed to be at least one other cell and it had a real person inside. The scanner Would identify them as a human and knock them out, instead of killing them. The situation when the game starts Is that everyone in the facility, except the NPC (that’s cut out of the game) and possibly the harvester (player), Is compromised by the organism. Yes, even the guy on the CCTV and speakers. If you’ve read the ‘secret’ files they refer to an incident where a guy named Yuri died and something almost got out. The first chamber you see in game is empty, except for a small puddle of blood… The overseer guiding you is already carrying the organism, he just doesn’t know/remember it yet. But again, that’s just my version :)
Every level essentially uses the same mechanic. You move each slider till the green light next to it comes on, indicating that the slider is in the correct position. After the green lights come on, then the player clicks on the button that says "lock in". When all the sliders are locked in, there is a "harvest" Button that lights up. you can then click on it to proceed. The correct position of each slider changes from level to level but is consistent between play-throughs
The tasks get a bit harder as you play, because the sliders start to have a narrower range of accepted values. Additionally one of the levels has a timer so the challenge comes in completing it quickly (or finding a way around it)
The game will (theoretically) try to run in a 1920x1080 resolution/aspect ratio, but that doesn't work out all the time and some UI elements may not appear correctly for you, but you can compensate for that. The game starts in window mode and the window is resizable, so you can drag the screen to change its size. The following should all be visible in every level: 5 sliders, 5 lock-in buttons, 1 harvest button
I hope that helps
I don't know how everyone else operates, but I am really slow, and so I finished my last build about 15 minutes before the 48hr time limit. I think by the time I had added the links here I was just 3 minutes to the deadline. All that is to say I was flying by the seat of my pants. To be honest, the fusebox is yet another cut corner. The plan was to have a fuse randomly pop off every once in a while when the player least expects it, and have the player reset it in order to proceed. I realized fairly early on that I wouldn't be able to implement it in time, but I liked having more "gadgets" on screen to add to the "smoke and mirrors" and hopefully keep that sense of wonder and exploration going just another minute or two. My game is very short so I just need to keep the player engaged in the ride a short while. At least that was my assumption at the time. I hope this was informative/entertaining :)
In the mean time, if you are feeling adventurous you can head on to my itch.IO page where i have uploaded an experimental Linux build. Its just the folder unity spits out when you ask it for a Linux build. It can work great or not boot at all. https://meidaniaryayahoocom.itch.io/harvester
I was really worried that without sound, that scene would completely fall flat. Fortunately, it looks like a lot of players still found it engaging :)
Ludum Dare compo is challenging to everyone for different reasons. I'm at the very low end of skill and knowledge required to participate, so the main challenge for me becomes "can I even make a game?". Harvester came about partially because I wanted to learn more about Unity UI. The plan was to have a variety of tasks for the player like sliders, radio buttons, toggles, drop downs etc. I ran out of time to do most of that stuff but now I think I know how sliders work!
Regarding the scary bit, I'm glad you found the other way to handle it. I tested it a few times just to make sure you can do it the normal way but my hope was that most players would realize they have another other option. I think I ended up making the time limit too lenient but I didn't want the player to feel like its impossible and give up after the first try.
As I had mentioned in another post, the scary bit's "animation" is just a timer that switches which sprites are active. I knew I didn't have time to learn how to animate, but still wanted to give the game a little flair. It took time away from other parts of the game, but I think in the end it was worth it. At least people are commenting about it