Traffic Flow by Rewzu

[raw]
made by Rewzu for Ludum Dare 51 (COMPO)

Images:

Traffic<em>Flow</em>1.jpg Traffic<em>Flow</em>2.jpg Traffic<em>Flow</em>3.jpg Traffic<em>Flow</em>4.jpg

​About:

Traffic Flow is a Compo game made for Ludum Dare 51.

Drive an (almost) unstoppable truck.

How to play:

  • Destroy cars.
  • Try to destroy many cars in a row.
  • Avoid missiles.
  • Driving off-road slows you down.
  • Missiles launch every 10 seconds.
  • Have fun!

Default controls:

  • W/Up Arrow - Move forward
  • S/Down Arrow - Move backward
  • A/Left Arrow - Turn left
  • D/Right Arrow - Turn right

Have fun! :star::star::star::star::star:

Ratings

Given 26🗳️ 1🗨️

Feedback

TermiGht
03. Oct 2022 · 09:20 UTC
It was a nice feeling to destroy a whole load of car. :smiley:
Jacob Diaz
03. Oct 2022 · 23:05 UTC
I really love it! The vehicle control system feels very drifty, but in a good way. The graphics are nice and the added visual effects really go a long way
MaximeG
13. Oct 2022 · 21:21 UTC
It was so satifying to play!
The controls seems a bit laggy
But destroy every cars feels so good!
Georgy16
16. Oct 2022 · 11:49 UTC
Cool and interesting game!
Voidsay
16. Oct 2022 · 11:54 UTC
Somehow my first attempt ended up being my best 20.000 points.

Steering felt strange, cause the truck got rotated in the middle and wouldn't always drive how you'd expect. Some spots at the map edges ended up being death traps that you can't maneuver out if you have rockets on your tail.
Fort
16. Oct 2022 · 12:04 UTC
The Semi-Truck drifting mechanism feels very cool, its add more onto the games feel and make crashing cars a more chaotic vibe, however, the nuke that chases you is very annoying... though it is a fun challenge :D
🎤 Rewzu
16. Oct 2022 · 12:06 UTC
@voidsay Maps are procedurally generated so it can unfortunately happen. You can try to explore the map at the beginning when rockets are slower. You can achieve higher score by destroying more cars at once.
Codey
16. Oct 2022 · 12:29 UTC
Very satisfying to run into a traffic jam! But its hard to runaway from the missiles! Maybe they should explode by their own after some time ;) I like how the cars react to the player, and slow down.
My Highscore was 4700 :smirk:
dimaswift
16. Oct 2022 · 13:06 UTC
what a fun game, great job! My high score was around 700k
JonnyLynx
16. Oct 2022 · 13:42 UTC
Score 41 100 :) Is that good? Loved the gameplay.. had gta vibes .. So simple and so fun !
Keep on doing
bentglasstube
16. Oct 2022 · 13:59 UTC
It's very satisfying when you get a good combo going. The controls make it a little difficult to stay on the road but I suppose that is intentional. The missiles were a little bit hard for me to see so sometimes they were surprisingly close before I noticed, but they didn't move too fast so that wasn't a big deal.
I_DoStufff
16. Oct 2022 · 14:14 UTC
very cool game, car go boom.
could use music and more sound effects
Mossieur Patate
16. Oct 2022 · 15:20 UTC
(in a rush to test many, don’t mind the cursory style)

1. I like how the controls are straightforward
2. Controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled.
3. no sound? I think some traffic sound (ambient…) would have been a nice touch!
4. oh, I hear a sound! Missile? Yes! Oh my, lost with zero! XD
5. 2nd attempt: oh, randomised truck colour!
6. ah, collision sounds!
7. got one car in between two building collisions, this time X) Nice, the missile made the truck go on a roof! And then, another missile still comes! X) Ah, this was apparently a coincidence, as no other is then launched
8. 3rd attempt; oh, red space for forbidden zone, nice
9. Am I bad at this game? XD Only one car again; although I think the rather low FPS do not help, I have trouble maneuvering that truck
10. oh, nice detail: the cars stop before the (wrecked) truck! Creating a gridlock XD
11. preventing truck rotation without moving makes things more realistic and harder! Interesting. (by the way, like how the front of the truck is a battering ram XD)
12. cars also stop before wrecked cars; nice. I wonder if you can play bowling by throwing a car against another one
13. blocks for buildings fits perfectly. The game really manages to have a fine, simple, and clear aesthetic that is right for the concept, while reminding me of building blocks construction games/kits
14. the low FPS is *really* a big problem for me…
15. some strategy involved in how you have to take cover against the missiles; clever use of the theme, because it makes the game switch between hunting and ducking phases
16. OH!!! **IMPORTANT NOTICE:** if the game runs slowly, either **zoom out** or put **fullscreen** if you are too zoomed in. I thought I was in fullscreen, but I was not, and had in fact an oversized player running, which I noticed thanks to a score indication being eaten by the top. (I remember the creator of [*03*](https://itch.io/jam/brackeys-8/rate/1666625) issued a similar warning, and rightly so, since many people ran into trouble!)
17. oh, missiles can take down buildings!! Nice! (I did not know since all previous ones met my face XD) Or did I see wrongly??
18. since missiles come from above, you even have to get protection late, because otherwise, they just avoid buildings! Clever too
19. I wonder if those collision (and explosion) sounds come from sfxr ;)
20. even though I am faring better now that my FPS problem is solved, the game still feels hard XD
21. oh, the grass makes you even slower than the pavement (do I learn right before getting another missile)
22. while in game over: ah, funnily, cars sometimes bump into one another. Wow, they also sometimes manage to cross
23. I wonder if missiles can hit cars…
24. this is pretty much *GTA*, but without all the boring stuff ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
25. found an effective strategy: drive in circles around a block as long as cars circulate; then, switch blocks, ramming through gridlocks
26. blundered at 56,900 points, which is the end, my friend

**Takeaway:** thanks for the kind of proposals I am fond of: a collection of simple mechanics that join together to yield effective and intuitively understandable gameplay! The only shortcomings I could see are a lack of some audio (general ambient traffic sounds come to mind, or even better, sounds related to the real traffic — since you already programmed it! — such as horns, turning indicators and breaks — for the record, this is how it went in the *Gridlock* subgame from *The Time Warp of Dr. Brain*; even mouth-made if you cannot make it otherwise ;)) and maybe a lack of variety in the longer term, although the score works as an incentive, while wrecks of cars change how other cars behave and cause useful gridlocks for higher bowling-styled scoring. I love the attention to detail in the management of regular traffic! :) This feels like *SimCity* gone wrong/*GTA*. X) (I could imagine mad truck driver (or missiles?) being a *SimCity* ‘disaster’.) Nice use of the theme for an uneven *Destruction Derby*.
Climbing Dolphin
16. Oct 2022 · 18:08 UTC
Nice game! I think it would be better if there was a reason to not circle around the same area. The missiles seem too slow to avoid that. But overall it's pretty good. Good job!
BrettSchiff
17. Oct 2022 · 19:28 UTC
Fun game! I love the consistent color scheme and simple but elegant car AI
chemicalcrux
18. Oct 2022 · 21:03 UTC
Performance was definitely a problem for me -- this was in Chrome on an M1 macbook.

I'd have liked if the missiles were a little more distinctive sounding, since the crashing cars make quite a (similar sounding) racket. Making them slower, but less maneuverable, would also be great. I worked out that you could make them crash into buildings, but they turn too quickly to pull that off most of the time.