Traffic Flow by Rewzu
Images:

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:
| Online (WebGL) | https://rewzu.itch.io/traffic-flow |
| Source Code | https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cTzEFfYIv2d0ivSJ4v0JIvyUpgn4bISH/view?usp=sharing |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/traffic-flow |
Ratings
| Given | 26🗳️ | 1🗨️ |
The controls seems a bit laggy
But destroy every cars feels so good!
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.
My Highscore was 4700 :smirk:
Keep on doing
could use music and more sound effects
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*.
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.