LudumData

Madman - The Crazy Scientist by mudlee

[raw]
made by mudlee for Ludum Dare 48 (COMPO)

Controls

  • Move: WASD
  • Hypnotizing: Hold Space (while you're close enough to a citizen)

Important Notes

Movement controls will not work on 144Hz monitors. Please either decrease your refresh rate or use an another monitor! Many thanks :)

Known bugs: you can see in the comments :P

Story

You're a crazy scientist who doesn't like how loudy your city became recently, as the lockdown has's been ended. People flooded the street and shouting, because... well, just because they are allowed to.

In such a cacaphony you cannot concentrate on your project, so you decided to find and dust your old hypnotizer tool, go through the city and hypnotize everyone you can.

Obviously, it's not legal to do, so soon the police will catch you. Accomplish your goal and decrease the city's noise to 40 decibel before they get you.

Screenshot

game.png

About the Author and the Game

I’m mudlee, father of one and a hobbist game dev. This is my 6th jam, 2nd LD.

This time I decided to leave Unity behind, and dream a big: "I'm gonna use LibGDX!". Boy, Saturday evening, I was still writing an A* algorithm, based on a 7 years old article. Interestingly, I had to do and code way more in LibGDX than in Unity, but still, this game is my best I've ever made.

I used:

  • LibGDX
  • Aseprite
  • Gimp
  • LMMS
  • IntelliJ Idea Community Edition
  • Ubuntu!
GitHub https://github.com/mudlee/madman-ld48
Link http://drive.mudlee.hu/games/ld48/linux.tar.gz
Link http://drive.mudlee.hu/games/ld48/windows_v2.zip
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/madman-the-crazy-scientist

Ratings

Overall 539th 3.333⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Fun 571th 3.135⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 281th 3.531⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Theme 599th 3.344⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 500th 3.365⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Audio 281th 3.448⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Humor 107th 3.574⭐ 49🧑‍⚖️
Mood 358th 3.396⭐ 50🧑‍⚖️
Given 45🗳️ 82🗨️

Feedback

PixelPortalz
26. Apr 2021 · 06:16 UTC
The madman pixelart character must be the cutest pixelart character in the world!

I'm also a hobbyist and this is my first game jam, so impressed to see alll the creativity and the talent. Thank you for inspiring me!
SecretJuice
26. Apr 2021 · 06:33 UTC
This sounds really cool, but unfortunatly I wasn't able to figure out how to launch the game. I've worked very little with Java, so it's probably just ignorance on my part lol. A brief guide on getting it running would be appreciated!
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 06:36 UTC
@secretjuice there is a launcher.exe on windows and a start.sh on linux :) Or maybe you didn't manage to see the Start button? Can you make a screenshot pls?
Wunarg
26. Apr 2021 · 06:39 UTC
Tried to launch it but received an error log with EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION instead
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 06:41 UTC
@wunarg can I have a screenshot pls? :)
SecretJuice
26. Apr 2021 · 06:55 UTC
@mudlee Sure!

![Screenshot 2021-04-26 014758.png](///raw/24e/a3/z/3d35d.png)

After clicking launcher.exe, a log file appears.

![Screenshot 2021-04-26 014933.png](///raw/24e/a3/z/3d361.png)

This pastebin contains the log file: https://pastebin.com/S5Np0Fsk

Hope this helps!
hungryroy
26. Apr 2021 · 07:01 UTC
Same here, the launcher just quits with an access violation in a log file. (Windows)
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 07:04 UTC
@secretjuice thanks, unfortunately it's a bit cryptic this way. But that's already a feedback that if I continue with LibGDX, I have to find a solution to avoid such things and if I cannot, what should I ask from the user who faced with the issue :) Am I right that you couldn't even start?

Anyways, I appriciate your help and feel a bit sad you cannot try it. But now, I'm gonna try yours!
Rushhourz
26. Apr 2021 · 07:09 UTC
Really nice game, art, sound and everything fits pretty well. Though I woudl've liked that the character moves a bit faster
AwesomeZebra
26. Apr 2021 · 07:20 UTC
Pretty cool idea. The sound and art are really great. I don't know if that is intentional, but you can hold space to start hypnotizing and then just move really far away to escape the police, which makes the game really easy. I assumed at the start that you have to stay in range.
Also, would be great if you could hypnotize everyone in certain range (assuming that you have to keep them in range throughout the process) for that big risk-big reward.
Overall, really nice game!
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 07:27 UTC
@pixelportalz thank you so much!
@awesomezebra it wasn't and even a friend of mine reported it, just totally forgot to fix it :)
LakshyaIsAGod
26. Apr 2021 · 07:28 UTC
TODO: review game
Slowfrog Again
26. Apr 2021 · 07:31 UTC
I got the same violation on Windows but found a way to run the game manually.
1) I downloaded a version of Java from OpenJDK at https://jdk.java.net/16/
2) I unzipped the content of the Java archive to a directory, something like d:\soft\jdk-16.0.1
3) From a command shell, I went to the Madman directory
4) And ran: "d:\soft\jdk-16.0.1\bin\java -jar .\app\desktop-1.0.1.jar

Hope that helps.
Wunarg
26. Apr 2021 · 09:55 UTC
@mudlee Here is the screenshot though it doesn't capture the whole log since its quite long
![Unbenannt.PNG](///raw/f17/b3/z/3d520.png)
LDJam user 249705
26. Apr 2021 · 10:02 UTC
It looks interesting but unfortunately I can't play it :/
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 10:19 UTC
Yeah, thank you guys, I try to investigate it and will see if I can fix it.
snesgaard
26. Apr 2021 · 10:31 UTC
It's like a GTA where violence isn't the solution to everything!

TBH I think faster walk and hypnotize speed would go a long way to improve the play experience :)
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 11:43 UTC
@secretjuice @hungryroy @sugarsugarsugar @wunarg @slowfrog-again guys, a friend of mine had the same problem, but looks like I managed to produce a new build, that works on his PC now. Can you try it? I updated the link to the new one (http://drive.mudlee.hu/games/ld48/windows_v2.zip).
Slowfrog Again
26. Apr 2021 · 12:15 UTC
Yep! The new build works. (I already played the game with my manual workaround)
Douwe_Ravers
26. Apr 2021 · 12:50 UTC
So funny :D The police sound effect alone :laughing: Very difficult but very nice to play.
Kevin S
26. Apr 2021 · 15:06 UTC
I really like your game. Great job on getting it done in 48 hours, which we both know isn't enough time. :cry:

This is a game I would explore developing further as I think it has potential.

Keep up the good work!
John Harper
26. Apr 2021 · 15:16 UTC
Neat and inventive concept -- I like how you used sound to complement the gameplay.
Really nice to see a fresh take on the theme. The pixel art was very nice.
emeraldboy44
26. Apr 2021 · 15:22 UTC
Great game! Really cool interpretation of the theme. It reminds me of the Cherry Poppers mission from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I'm a big fan of GTA and games about crime and evading police so I really liked this!

Okay so I'm playing on Manjaro Linux, an OS based on Arch Linux and when the sound level got to 45 dB the game froze for a good 20 seconds and then a "Congratulations" screen popped up. I thought I had to get it to 40 dB?
hungryroy
26. Apr 2021 · 15:23 UTC
Was finally able to run it! Great job on fixing in such a short time! I like the little scientist sprite, and also that deep booming hypnotic voice lol. It wasn't clear to me at the start that I had to hold space for a while to fully hypnotize a citizen, so I ran around just tapping space for a bit haha. Also, I'm not clear when the cop cars are close enough to "catch" you, so I just tried to hang out as far away from them as possible.
CrispyBun
26. Apr 2021 · 16:29 UTC
This was pretty fun! I liked the artstyle, and the colors worked well together. The concept is unique but it did get a bit repetitive with nothing new introduced, I think it'd be nice to at least hypnotise people faster as you go, or maybe even have the hypnotised people somehow help you hypnotise others or distract the police. Good job!
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 16:40 UTC
@crispybun thanks for your feedback! I planned a lot more, but as always, I ran out of time :) For eg: people seeing you hyptnozing other people on the street might say "what da fk you're doing, I'm calling a police", and they call the police. Or: people get hit by other cars on the road because they see what you do. Again -> others call police :)
SecretJuice
26. Apr 2021 · 20:04 UTC
@mudlee The new build launches properly for me now, but unfortunately when I try to move with WASD the character seems to walk in place and doesn't move. It seems reeaaally cool though. When a person walked by me on the side walk I still managed to hypnotize them, and the sounds and dialogue and everything associated with it was suuuper cool. Let me know if you need any extra information regarding the movement issue though.
🎤 mudlee
26. Apr 2021 · 20:58 UTC
@secretjuice is that possible you use a monitor that has higher frequency rate like 144hz? I messed up the controls a bit :)
SecretJuice
26. Apr 2021 · 21:27 UTC
@mudlee YES, I do use a 144hz monitor. I'll try it on my other screen.
Maple
27. Apr 2021 · 05:36 UTC
This game is hilarious! and the sound effects were top notch. I like the premise of the game, lol.

I noticed a glitch, after beating the game. When I tried to restart, the seconds timer continued, and also voodooing one person would win the game. Also, I'm not sure if intentional, but you can walk away from someone while voodooing them. Not a complaint, though; I used that to my advantage and was happy to do so. The ability to hypnotize multiple people at the same time would have been fun, but I suppose it makes sense to only work on one person at the time.

Overall pretty cool and funny entry. Nice work :>
AssertFailure
27. Apr 2021 · 16:40 UTC
I feel like the hypnotizing takes too long when you can only hypnotize one person at a time. Gets quite boring after a while. But the idea is quite fun and the graphics and sounds are amusing :D
loonydrope
27. Apr 2021 · 16:43 UTC
I really enjoyed your game!

The sound effects of the citizens are maybe a bit to soft and cute for the crazy scientist to be as mad to them as he is!
Anyway the pixel art for the scientist and the environment is really beautiful and I love the little speech rectangles above the character when they talk, it integrates really well with the rest of the graphics.
The scientist voice is a bit freaking, but it fits perfectly with his hypnotizing goal.

At first I got caught by the police multiple times, but then I saw I could keep hypnotizing people while walking away. This helped me a lot!
I saw in the comments later that I'm not the only one who took advantage of this.

This is a really nice entry for this short amount of time, congratulations for your work!
(And it is really cool to have a downloadable linux version of a game, I am a bit frustrated with the amount of entries I cannot test right now, but that is another subject)
silkworm_sweatshop
27. Apr 2021 · 19:36 UTC
I really like the presentation, the visuals and the voice lines are great. Right now there are safe places where the police can never catch you which kinda removes any challenge. I think it would be more fun removing them and instead make the hypnotization a lot faster and possibly making it so you can hypnotize multiple people.
Heremeus
28. Apr 2021 · 07:03 UTC
Great idea and awesome that you managed to get so much done without an engine. I can't imagine even getting the rendering done in time with LibGDX, let alone finish a game with it! Good job on the NPC movement!

Sadly the controls wouldn't work for me. When holding down W/A/S/D the scientist would move 1-2 pixels and then stop. Sometimes I could randomly walk for a bit before I got stuck again.
🎤 mudlee
28. Apr 2021 · 07:09 UTC
@heremeus thanks for your kind words! The movement is because something is wrong on 144Hz monitors. Next time, I'm gonna prepare for such stuff better :)

@silkworm-sweatshop oh, I forgot to put a police "wandering point" everywhere? :) thanks for your feedback!

@loonydrope the scientist is mad by default and that was the last drop in the bottle :D His voice is mine with some FX going over it and the police's sound is from my daughter :) I realized that you can walk away, but I had no time to fix, so I hoped no one will find it, but obviously everyone recognized... :D

@assertfailure @maple thanks for your feedbacks too guys! I really appriciate it :)
Heremeus
28. Apr 2021 · 07:48 UTC
@mudlee ha, you're right! Moved it to my 60hz second monitor and I was able to move. A bit slow and stoppy, but enough to properly play the game :) That's the kind of random struggles I remember from LibGDX as well haha. Last time I worked with it (years ago), certain graphic cards wouldn't display my rainbow shader and instead turn the screen white.
🎤 mudlee
28. Apr 2021 · 08:12 UTC
@heremeus Muhaha. Do you know the classic opengl joke?

"Me debugging opengl"
![opengl.png](///raw/44d/71/z/4122a.png)
Heremeus
28. Apr 2021 · 08:16 UTC
@mudlee haha that's a good one! Reminds me of writing random shader variables into the vertex/fragment colour to figure out what's happening. Often looked exactly like that "screenshot" of yours (either that a fully white) :smile:
silkworm_sweatshop
28. Apr 2021 · 09:53 UTC
@mudlee
>oh, I forgot to put a police “wandering point” everywhere?

If I just hugged the wall here I seemed safe but maybe I was just lucky.
![mad.png](///raw/6c4/1/z/4127e.png)
axeltherabbit
28. Apr 2021 · 11:09 UTC
The police sound was 10/10 :D
The game idea was funny but a bit repetitive.
HPA97
28. Apr 2021 · 13:43 UTC
Very nice art style, great soundtrack and sound effects (Especially the police siren). For some reason I wasn't able to move around although the move animation played, so I was stuck in one spot and had to wait for people to pass so I could hypnotize them (Windows 10). Very interesting and unique take on the theme. Great entry!
Fatebreak
28. Apr 2021 · 15:10 UTC
Fun and silly little game. The hypnosis bit was funny but felt really long and tedious after the first couple times. Police sound effect was really funny. Nice job!
one-seed-fruit
29. Apr 2021 · 15:26 UTC
I find this really fun, and upon successfully hypnotizing someone, it felt satisfying. Like the sound and the voice with echo, it's really funny to me! I'm not quite sure how to avoid the police but I like their nee noo nee noo nee noo nee noo nee noo!!
lesinvisible
29. Apr 2021 · 16:40 UTC
Nice idea for the game and good execution. I liked the top-down view and graphics, and, of course, police sounds!
Kraemahz
29. Apr 2021 · 21:29 UTC
I was a bit confused by what triggered the police because at the top of the map I could just hypnotize people with the police driving by and it would never trigger. Maybe the radius is too small for them to "see" you from parts of the map?
guladam
29. Apr 2021 · 21:38 UTC
Lovely pixel art, I love how well you executed this minimalist, yet great style. You took an interesting and funny approach to the theme, and it reflects on the gameplay as well that you need to hypnotize random citizens just to make them quiet. I liked the overall idea of the game and I loved the sound effect of the police cars. :police_car: :speaker: :speaker: Great entry, congratulations. :wink:

My only advice is that I think the hypnotizing could be a bit faster.
Kovi
30. Apr 2021 · 18:42 UTC
This is a really fun interpretation of the theme for sure, and I like the really simplistic art style it has. I do think it could use another mechanic or two so there's a little more diversity in what you're doing, but the general premise is a lot of fun. Maybe making the hypnotizing process some kind of minigame so it's a little more involved, perhaps even making it vary somewhat each time so it's always a unique process, would add a lot to it.

Regardless, it's a great premise and it does a good job with what it has. Awesome work!
Untitled Studios
01. May 2021 · 19:40 UTC
Interesting game, not the most fun (its a bit slow and losing feels arbitrary), but I found myself liking it anyways? It's very surreal in this captivating way - it feels like there's some sort of secret other game or story beneath it.
🎤 mudlee
03. May 2021 · 09:39 UTC
@untitled-studios @kovi @guladam @kraemahz @lesinvisible @one-seed-fruit @fatebreak @hpa97 @axeltherabbit thanks for your feedback guys! I appriciate any amount of time you put in the game testing it :) GLHF!
cannashblue
07. May 2021 · 02:07 UTC
I really like how you've interpreted the theme. Very fun. It felt very balanced. The hypnosis process took just long enough to be a nail biter, but not impossible. I really enjoyed it! It took me 518 seconds to win. The only constructive criticism I can offer is perhaps a more visual representation of the hypnosis process, like a loading bar above the citizen's head. The dialogue worked in a similar fashion, but took a while for me to memorize and interpret as such. Maybe I'm more of a visual learner than auditory. But in any case, I had fun! I think you did amazing. Thanks for making the game!
PhilStrahl
18. May 2021 · 17:17 UTC
Aaaaaand deeper -- woodoo! I managed to rid the city of all the noisy people but getting there was not a speedrun 😅 Here's my time with it on my stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1oYMc95du8