Signalien by jnur
A mysterious signal from the desert has drawn you to investigate. Triangulate the source of the signal and find what's hiding in the emptiness.
Playing through the game will only take roughly two minutes if you know what you are doing (and you are not terribly unlucky), but you are not going to beat it on your first try.
Controls
W / Up - Throttle
A / Left - Turn left
S / Down - Brake
D / Right - Turn right
Space - Look at your phone
How to play
The goal is to find the source of the mysterious signal. You'll do this by driving your car to spots where you can make measurements. The meters at the corner of your screen will help you find the correct positions, while your phone will lock on to the signal and show you a handy map. There are three of these spots in total, allowing you to finally triangulate the exact spot where the signal originates and find out what's going on in this desert.
Use the meter on the left to gauge signal clarity and to know where to go. It measures your distance to the closest measuring position and will be crucial in finding them. The screen on the right will even show you the correct direction when you get close enough.
When your signal is clear enough, you'll see it indicated on your screen. Press [Space] to take out your phone and lock the signal down. You can then continue on to the next spot.
Once you have made all three measurements, your map will show you the final triangulated source of the mysterious signals.
Credits
Everything: Me. Graphics made with Aseprite, sound effects with jsfxr, built using Unity.
| Link | https://github.com/JereNurminen/LD59 |
| itch.io mirror | https://jnur.itch.io/ld59 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/signalien |
Ratings
| Overall | 236th | 3.845⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 145th | 3.828⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 574th | 3.125⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 73th | 4.328⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 284th | 4.017⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 549th | 2.552⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 333th | 3.038⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 472th | 3.554⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 17🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
@thomas-olsson Aww, that's so sweet, thanks! Nice to hear that all the time spent honing those animations paid off and brought joy to you
@igorekkedziorek Thanks!
@pocketdog Hah, nice to hear. I should've added a leaderboard, or even just a timer, just so you can keep track of your progress
Really liked the graphics, and the concept is easy to understand and really well executed. Only gripe would be with audio, it was just a tad bit loud & annoying and I would've loved some music as well.
But nevertheless, overall a fantastic job!
@dywanix @raivk Yeah, creating satisfying and intuitive driving controls and physics is a pretty daunting task for a jam, especially top-down :sweat_smile: Even just deciding whether I want the camera to rotate with the car or not, and whether the controls steer the car left/right or you point to the direction you want to go. But as long as the player gets used to it, all is well in my books.
@snk Yeah balancing the bombs wasn't easy, it took even me myself quite a bit of practice until I could consistently beat the game on every try.
But I’m not a big fan of this kind of “tank-style” control - I prefer cars to move in the direction of the arrow keys.
@venomousmouse Thanks! Probably your browser acting weirdly, it would be a really weird bug to have. But nice that it sorted itself out like that!
@pipetto I totally get that! I personally don't like that sort of control scheme for a top-down game, but each to their own
@not-d00mka You don't have to rate the game on that category if you don't think there's enough to rate it on that, I think it's more valuable to keep all he applicable categories and only opt-out of ones where pre-made assets were used :wink: And yeah I agree that these tank controls are the best fit here, as I wanted to keep the camera oriented the same way as the map and not rotate either one of them, and having car controls based on cardinal directions would be really clumsy on a keyboard. Every opetion has its own benefits and drawbacks, and I do still think this was the best fit here. It's a matter opininion in the end, really.
I had to make 5 full-fledged attempts to complete the game.
Sometimes the places of the shots are not clearly visible and the shot occurs quite quickly.
I had to make 5 full-fledged attempts to complete the game.
Sometimes the places of the shots are not clearly visible and the shot occurs quite quickly.
I quickly figured out that just flooring it, especially after triangulating the position, was a bad idea. It's a bit tricky but going slow was all it really took to beat that last part.
Graphics were nice as well, I do agree with others that the sound was a bit loud and sharp on the ears, but with the volume low it wasn't that much of an issue.
I enjoyed it! Well done.
Difficulty curve was good as bombing got gradually more severe and when there really wasn't hurry, I realized stopping at times was a good tactic.
Fun minimal ending for a fun small game :)