Wow that's such a cool interpretation of the theme!

I'm not 100% sure what I played, but I think I liked it! The absurdity wouldn't feel out of place in a Wario Ware game haha

Weirdly cool and funny game, the graphics and voice acting we're great too, nice work.

This game is amazing! Please make this into a full experience. The entire premise, the graphics, and the methods of massaging are fantastic!!

I fell off my chair while playing it. A very funny and absurd game.

Ey, the Cowboys are back!

Very enjoyable gameplay loop with the brand of humour one comes to expect! And the polish... amazing!

I'm glad to see another game of yours! Definitely surprising and weird in a really good way. I enjoyed the choice of movements, the art is beautiful!

My hands now have a purpose...... 🤩

Once again the Keyboard Cowboys had me laughing the instant the menu came up! I feel like this game is the reason I have a mouse. (*Maybe my mouse is my hands..... that would explain my mouse now having purpose*)

I honestly don't know if anything can even come close to this in the Humor category! (No competition from me, I opted out)

This game was dope, nice varied mechanics for each massage, strong elsa-gate vibes, nice job.

Funny!

Loved all the different keyboard moves and the timings felt just right. Really solid difficulty curve, and I loved the voice work. Also really cool to see a challenge mode, my time on that was 3 minutes.

Omg, this cracked me up, such a fun game. There's so much personality. The controls are really unique and fun, makes it really interesting to speed massage all these bodies. Solid entry, love it :open_hands:

really neat game with really awesome and well tuned controls. i was skeptical that this game would be fun, but i was wrong. the graphics were outstanding. thank you for making this game.

HAHA, I really had a blast. It is such a cool concept and idea for an LD Jam. Guys you have made an amazing job. Graphics, music, gameplay, everything is so smooth and feels like a fully flashed game. I love the semi-dramatic irony tone of the "story". Just amazing.

Masterpiece 10/10 creepy dog man

Hahahahahaha, geez, maybe my memory is so bad that after a few I realized I forgot how to operate it! The game is fun, the music is also very sensational, and the operation is also very innovative. After playing it makes me want to go get a good massage!

I only get a black screen once i click play :'(
(My computer is trash, it may be because of that)

Inspirational. There are sim games out there that help people discover their vocation. This one does a great job at helping me figure out what I never want to do. Imagine having to touch everyone's backs, indiscriminately. Respect to those who do the job though.

Speaking of backs, impressive collection of them. You came up with a well thought of and carried out game concept. Very nice graphics and music as well. My only complaint is weak relation to the theme (as far as I can tell). Good job.

Had a blast playing this on stream! Incredible amounts of fantastic art. The mechanics were solid and well designed, great visual and auditory feedback. I would however add some visual feedback when you miss a hit. Here's the timestamped clip to the stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1003143985?t=1h8m6s

Such a cool and funny game! Really interesting concept, and I enjoyed the mechanics (my arm hurts tho) It does feel like a realistic simulation in that sense haha!
My second attempt:

Fantastic! Absurd and funny but also graphically brilliant, unique and an interesting left-field interpretation of the theme. Music and voice acting was great, too. Excellent work!

This is a great game - awesome :-D!

[masseuse_u_lose_05.png](///raw/269/8/z/418b8.png)

I do wonder what happens when you max it and get A+ all across the board? There a secret cutscene :P ^^#
really cool - great game for a game jam - like mini-games but well-balanced - I struggled with the combo-click one a bit - but it works really well!
I love your signature style - I discovered your little time with your LD47 one where you cowboy rodeo-poney-dudes - excellent - you guys heard of GreasyMoose - animator from Australia? Reminds me of his style a bit - live it!
Thanks for the experience, very cool game - keep it up - can't wayt to see what you'll cook up next October <3 :-D

So I really like your game and I'm streaming Ludum Dare 48 games on saturday with my friend Teauorent on his Twitch channel - https://www.twitch.tv/teauorent - Saturday May 1st 4PM CET
First of all - that cool with you? This may redirect some traffic to your page for more people to try your LD48 game :smile:
If you'd like, please e-mails us anecdotes and sneak peeks of your creative process (photos, screenshots, beta/WIP asset renders, mood boards, concept Art, etc.) so we can present them alongside and illustrate your LD48 adventure to our audience :slight_smile:
Here's our e-mail to send all that good stuff to --> TeamChooChoo.GameJams@gmail.com [we will confirm receiving your e-mail(s) upon reception]
The show will be in french but I'm bilingual so you can totally submit in english, we'll take care of the rest :slight_smile:

Have a great day, I hope to hear from you soon - thanks for that great moment I spent testing your little nugget of a game, and see you in the chat on saturday I hope :heart: :smile:

What was this?! One of the most absurd games I played and liked :smile:
It's really unique and engaging and I really liked the graphics.

I absolutely love this game, it is really fun to play and the concept is great! Graphics are really cool, each person feels unique I like it!

Haven't seen a variation like this before. It's like Diner Dash or Cook Serve Delicious where you have to figure out the best approach to taking orders, except for this one it's a different execution minigame. I loved that idea.

Because you're mostly choosing which ones to tackle, I always tried to chunk the actions together to make it quicker. I always brought my left hand to my mouse for the acupuncture to hypertap for example, so it was costly if I didn't chunk that action.

You guys always seem to make games that are easy to play and hard to high score. I don't even want to attempt a high score because you get a whole lotta crazy people that are willing to speed run the hell out of your games :)

Very fun game with a jarring intro to get you in the right mindset. Kudos to coming up with different and interesting inputs to mimic real life techniques.


WHAT GOOD ARE THESE HANDS?! Here's where I played it on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1004348513?t=2h49m20s

I did have a slight bug where holding the 2 mouse buttons and swirling sometimes didn't register for some reason (played the sound, but made no progress), but releasing and clicking again fixed it.

Well, I guess masseuse is not a job for me :D

This is one of the best examples of why game jams like Ludum Dare are awesome, this is such a strange and funny concept, and it's executed so well.

Shoutout to the voice acting and the cinematics, something which is very rare in gamejams!

Great humor as well, both the acupuncture & the people you massage where hilarious! :smile:


Messed up on the last body! Almost got straight As. Oh well.

The controls are superb! High marks in innovation. It really felt like I undoing knots and poking a body. On top of that, the controls were all distinct but in reach at the same time so I could go from one to the other no problem. Really well done on that front! This is like cook serve delicious but for touching people. Make a full version!

Today I quit my job as a game developer and enrolled in the Shiatsu Masseuse academy. I owe you my future success. Thanks.

(PS: really great game, I'm envious of the scope and engagement that you've packed into this wonderfully silly game)

I had a touch pad and had a very challenging time with the Swedish massage but I liked the mechanics for all of the others. The game goes at a fast pace so its hard to pay close attention to the bodies in front of you, but if you watch someone else play then you can really pick up on the humor.

I like how you interpreted the theme :smiley: :massage_tone4:

Just floored by the absolute charm and personality you three crammed into this! The style is overflowing and it really exemplifies why jams are such a fun experience, just the wacky and fun stuff you get to play!

Love both the 2D art and the 3D art in this, great stuff all the way through and the voice acting matches perfect with it. I know you said you don't have good voice acting, you just have....voice acting but you're selling yourself short. It's perfect to the tone of the game!

Love the mechanics of each of the types of massage, it really reminds me (and in fact I could 100% see this being) a DS game akin to the Trauma Center under the knife games. Unsure how hard it would be to rework the design due to the use of keyboard input for two of the massage types but a handheld only Switch game (Like Pokemon Cafe) I think would be great. Either way it's a fun experience so if you work on this more and have it as a PC only/or controller input deal it's still solid!

The only slight crit I have is the pointer/knowing exactly where my cursor was at times sometimes was a little tricky, and the title screen seemed to be very picky about where my cursor was for clicking.

But great entry and great job at finishing! Look forward to any future projects you do/if you work on this post jam :D.

Even thought the shiatsu gave me just a little bit of brain damage to make it work, this was very fun. Thanks for submitting it! -PomoTheDog

I really dig the variety of bodies to massage.


Glad to finally get around to play this game, and I liked how interactive and fresh it feels from beginning to end. I actually loaded it a few times just to see how many voice lines were made for the title screen. It's impeccable polish, and far from beyond the only thing that outstands in the game.

Can't really say if I thought the use of the theme was fitting or a stretch, but I'd call the game brilliant regardless. Different mechanics for different massage techniques felt uniquely interactive. The game really showcases that a relaxing activity is only relaxing relevant to what's your role with it, since I was actually stressing out (positively) at the many things to do and how to properly do them.

From beginning to end, a fun and even funny experience! It's one of the best looking, most unique, good games of the jam! Always pleased to see you all around again! :whale:

Very challenging I spent some time playing and WHAT ~~good are these hands~~ ?? Haha funny game! I really enjoyed it. The game is beautifull and the effects are great! It's amazing how much you guys did for a Jam and the high level of polish in the game. Great job! But I ruined some people's backs :sweat_smile:

Why was the old lady pink? what is her story!? Great game though

Another year, another great classic by the keyboard cowboys. And of course another high score challenge mode I must destroy. My best so far? SS in 2:22 in the 16 back massage gauntlet from hell. I think the boys outdid themselves this year. - NickPeaandTheBean

Think you can take my score down? Play some Masseuse You Loose today

The web version of this game isnt really loading correctly. Besides that, this game was quite fun. Great job

I really didn't expect to enjoy a massage game this much?? Really fun concept, really gives you the kind of frenzy experience you'd get from games like Cook Serve Delicious. There is definitely somewhere to go with this past the jam! :)

Masseuse You Loose https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/masseuse-you-loose

Overall:5.0
Fun:5.0
Innovation:5.0
Theme:5.0
Graphics:4.5
Humor:5.0
Mood:5.0

It's not fair to play Coleslawski's games. The team here quite clearly knows what they're doing and obviously has a great cohesive working pattern. Their games are always really cool.

This time they knocked it out of the park with a chaos and stress inducer unlike any other jam game I have played during the Ludum Dare event.

This game has an excellent visual throwback (artistically) to the romance-novel-game type that we have seen all over the web... but in a way that has it's own charm and humor. The artist here put together, if I recall correctly, over 15 body types (level objects) in addition to all of the rest of the gameplay and world art... a truly impressive 'body of work' for such a short jam game. While I am not personally a fan of this art style; I have to agree that the artist did absolutely impressive work here.

The sounds are incredible - the music is great. I felt forced into the gameplay in the right ways if that makes sense.

On to the gameplay, the shining star:

The tutorial was "overwhelming"- but entirely sufficient to get us through the game 'on short notice'. The only complaint I have is the Swedish massage style- I did not understand that I did not have to also click the mouse during the action.

But the rest... damn the chaos is good. It ramps up slowly so at first you feel like 'I can do this'- but once it gets going... it really gets going. I did not give the challenge mode a shot but I did watch Josh playing that and I must say this is a perfect 'arcade-friction-chaos' game for those that love this kind of gameplay. I love score attacks and rating systems when they are done well and this game is absolutely a top tier performer in both of these regards. To anyone reading this and thinking about playing; do- you'll have an absolute blast.

My overall opinion is that this is your best jam game yet. I seriously loved the experience and presentation. I can't wait to see what you come up with next.

P.S. I will send you a YouTube link once I have the gameplay video up.

Thank you very much for bringing this to our stream and letting us play it!

Very cool game. Would be tons of fun to see a VR version. Very unique idea, I doubt anyone else thought of deep tissue massage for the jam theme. Great game all around.

The only thing this game is missing is a Trauma Center-style plot and cutscenes to match.

"I'm preparing to massage the client! [eyes flash]"
"No! Don't get sore on me now..."

The visual language of the icons was almost perfect. I think once you learned what each one represented (via a minute or so of trying), it was extremely easy to see how they were intuitive. However, I don't think it was immediately obvious on first blush. So for a more polished version, maybe some ideas:
a) Introduce each technique level-by-level instead of all-at-once
b) For the first stage, have popups that remind you which technique to use as you hover over the corresponding part
c) Redo the icons to add a little more detail -- e.g. "1234" numbers on the four rectangles. Though this sort of loses the charm of the minimalist visual icons.

But take that with a grain of salt as you will.

Also, Wii port when? XD

This was pretty hilarious. I had to make it full screen to get the mouse to register on the right location, but once I did that it worked perfectly. Great icons, fun story, and ridiculous all around. The one thing that I can see that would make it better is if you added one kind of massage at a time instead of all at once so I can get used to it.

Thank you for an enjoyable time! Everything from the malpractice acupuncture to the questionable tattoos made me grin from ear to ear.

The controls were very intuitive, the graphics helped to remind players what action is needed, and the sound effects were great for gauging how far along each action is done.

I feel like there's some sort of deep lore behind each changing screen and the voice acting... this is a game I will be bringing up in conversations for a while :)

Hello! Your game was played on stream ( https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos ) on 5/03 (Day 2 of LDJAM streams).

You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://tinyurl.com/LDJAM48-ursa

----
Great to see what you make, Dude Ranch was very memorable, looking forward to next jam!

Congratulations on the game, very creative game I am surprising myself with so many fantastic and well made ideas I have seen here, a big hug, and I await your evaluations regarding my game.

What a funny and surprisingly different game. There is something about the mood you guys create. As in earlier jams the gameplay is simple at it's core, but the whole experience is so much more. It must be the subtle, (and not so subtle humor). Very enjoyable.

The WebGl version is stuck on a black screen after the first screen in Firefox (ubuntu). It works with chrome though. Unity WebGl builds are clunky unfortunately

Weeeeeeeeell.......... I dunno... that was WEIRD :rofl: Exceptionel entry :thinking: Really polished - well thought out ... easy to understand and actually really really fun :thumbsup_tone1: Very very good job... still a weird experience :smile:

Very impressive game, so polished and fun to play. You guys are a very good team who seem to consistently produce really interesting experiences!

Initially I struggled a little with the hand as a cursor. I wanted to place the fingers over the spot instead of the middle of hand, but it was easy once I adjusted.


I know that @moskidraws already reviewed and played the game for our team above, but since it's you guys we're talking about, I knew I also had to give it a try because I knew I was in for something special. :smile:

I'll start by prefacing with this. @ruddiculous commented on our game saying that WAG has one of the most recognizable styles in _Ludum Dare_. I'd say without a doubt that the _Keyboard Cowboys_ team has just has as much, if not a more recognizable style. Ever since playing _Serial Dater_ all the way back in LD43, all your games have featured wonderful wacky and humorous presentations, mixed in with some genuinely innovative gameplay choices. After the gem that _Dude Ranch_, this game is no exception.

The whole setup right from the start, with you being introduced to Shitzu as this massage sensei is phenomenal. As much as @coleslaughter is not the biggest fan of his voice-lines, they're an incredible addition to the point I wish there were more of them during gameplay. The amount of different backs, with some of them being call-backs (heh) to previous games was also pretty amusing!

I really enjoyed the different type of inputs using the mouse and keys for different massage techniques. If anything, the only thing I struggled a bit was that I'd press way too early when reaching a spot, since the hand would be over the spot but not just enough for it to be considered the massaging zone. I know the hands change when you're de-facto ready to massage a spot, but just a lil'bit of visual feedback would have gone great. It'd also have been great to have just a little bit more feedback to know how much more you have to input before you're done with a spot, so you don't overdo it either.

The challenge mode was a very nice bonus after the end of the main three days. I don't know if it scales in difficulty the more you keep playing (though it does continuously say Day 4) but if it isn't the case I'd definitely would have enjoyed to see the difficulty escalating even more the more you played. @mateusboga might have hurt his arms, but I was ready to have mine destroyed! :muscle:

To finish this comment off, I'm extremely glad to continue having the possibility of jamming alongside you folks and enjoying your games. This is yet another fantastic entry, and I genuinely look forward to what the next editions are going to bring out from both of our teams. Here's to many more amusing and fantastic games like this one! Cheers! :whale:


I enjoyed getting my arm tired again for the stream hahaha Thanks so much for submitting! ^^ Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1011888347

That was absolutely hilarious. Awesome work.

A very funny game, I like the variety in everything, the different bodies with different tattoos, the different acupuncture tools :laughing:. The graphics are great and the music is awesome.

Great game, good job.

Wow, very enjoyable! Extremely silly, and a very strong vibe! I feel like I did way better than I scored but I guess I was over aggressive? Oh well, still had a really great time playing! nice work!

A very fun game. I loved the graphics, the music, the sounds and the idea of the game, and how it fits with the theme. Congratulations to the developers.

Incredible fun game, great submissions. Congrats!

Super funny experience whose intense speed and challenge pushed me to insanity. My wrist forgives you, but my keyboard does not lol. Wonderful work!

Little late leaving my comment on this one, but great job once again! Audio and Visuals were absolutely great! Very nicely done tutorial that doesn't rely purely on text saying what to do. Only minor issue I had was that it was a touch hard to pinpoint exactly where the hand needed to be to start each massage. Other than that, I'd love to se my score say "SS" but alas I am but a massaging novice.

holy shit. a massage simulator. really amazing!

Thanks for submitting your game to my stream! I uploaded the VOD if you'd like to rewatch (I start yours at 1:12:25):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC7ohNz5jGk

Wow! This feels so polished and complete. The art is just great, I really love the various bodies and some of those horrible tattoos had me cracking up.

Whole thing had a great vibe. You really have a clear vision and nailed it.

I struggled initially with where on the hand I was supposed to aim, and then I realized the mouse cursor is still on the screen. Once I started aiming with that I did better. Still tons of errors though! Apparently I'm not cut out for this line of work. I don't know if it would intrude on the experience, but some visual feedback on where/how I missed may have accelerated my learning curve. (EDIT: whaaat I just went back to test again and now I don't see the mouse cursor, I guess I got it into a weird state, maybe by alt-tabbing??)

The variety of the physical actions and the time pressure combined in a very cool way. After I found myself scanning-and-planning my next move while executing the current action I realized this is really well designed.

I know you sourced the music and sound but they were really well chosen and added enhanced the vibe a lot.

Really nice job here.

This is such a great game its hilarious! One thing that really stood out to me was the visual language in the cutscene and transitions. There's a consistent ominous yet humorous style in the way Dr. Masseuse is presented that I really enjoy. I especially like the these creepy eyes peering into you that gives you a little unease xD
I'm not sure how intentional the second one was, but I feel like the framing isn't a coincidence


What a fun and original game, I loved it! It had a great variety of gameplay with all those massages to perform, and it was quite challenging. Acupentur was my favorite of all time!