Tato - Potato by Noel Widmer

made by Noel Widmer for Ludum Dare 48 (COMPO)

Experience a day in the life of Tato. She really loves fresh potato. And chips even more!
Play Tato's story in your browser.

Post your high score in the comment section below and take the community high score home!
Controls: Use either a controller or a mouse.

Known issues

I had a player that was unable to use a PS controller and another one that couldn't use the genesis p58. Many (5+) players used an Xbox controller and that works fine.
The retry button on the score screen might be placed behind the score in some browsers. It should be above the score. This issue only occures on some devices / browsers.

Fixed Issues

1.0.4

Fixed a game breaking exploit found by one of my players which turned the game into a very easy and never ending score hunt. There were no score submission yet.
Fixed the score display during playtime, which wasn't visible.

1.0.3

Tato is now invincible for 1 second after entering a new layer. She was previously able to hit herself right after entering a new layer. This was very frustrating and felt like a bug to players.
Reduced the amount of the chewing sounds even more. The previous reduction was not enough.

1.0.2

Fixed an issue so that eating a chip now reduces hunger too. This required rebalancing the hunger values. There were no score submission yet.
The chewing sound is now only played when eating two pieces in a frame rather than 1. This turned out to be neessary because palyers got confused.
Solved an issue where the next layer starts before all body parts cought up.
The rain strength is now part of the metrics on the final screen. This turned out to be neessary for players to understand some mechanics.

1.0.1

Fixed the collision when doing sharp turns. Tato now no longer collides with her first 5 body parts.

Link	https://noelwidmer.itch.io/tato-potato
Link	https://github.com/NoelWidmer/TatoPotato
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/tato-potato

Ratings

Overall	526^th	3.359⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Fun	229^th	3.688⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	490^th	3.125⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Theme	803^th	2.813⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	617^th	3.141⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Audio	494^th	3.047⭐	34🧑‍⚖️
Humor	149^th	3.4⭐	32🧑‍⚖️
Mood	446^th	3.25⭐	32🧑‍⚖️
Given		24🗳️	47🗨️

Feedback

Cheese_man

26. Apr 2021 · 01:56 UTC

potato

oeschmid

26. Apr 2021 · 02:21 UTC

Fun game! the rain slowing you down was a little scary even :O

cavedens

26. Apr 2021 · 03:06 UTC

I dont really know what happened there. I liked the noises but couldnt get more then a couple chips before I lost even if my hunger wasnt depleted

🎤 Noel Widmer

26. Apr 2021 · 07:05 UTC

@cavedens The issue you described is fixed now :) Just make sure not cross your own path. Especially when doing a U-turn.

samguy

26. Apr 2021 · 19:58 UTC

Interesting spin on snake! Solid amount of variables makes for good replayability. Those raindrops slowing you down are a nice touch, and I like that there is a way to reset the potato. The screaming when you bite yourself was a little much for me but I otherwise quite enjoyed it

phealsout

26. Apr 2021 · 20:04 UTC

Pretty fun potato stuffs

neonjeff

26. Apr 2021 · 20:19 UTC

WORMS! Hah now I see why you were interested in the masking I did vs maybe how you did it. I'm now curious if it is different! I tried eating my tail at the very beginning and noticed the beginning of the worm doesn't count which was a little confusing at first. I imagine that is so the trailing segments don't trigger collisions which makes sense. I removed all my colliders except for the first segment since I wasn't really using them but for wall detection.
![Untitled.png](///raw/a18/32/z/3e1a5.png)

🎤 Noel Widmer

26. Apr 2021 · 20:26 UTC

@neonjeff I was just about to suggest that you check out my game and try to figure out where I used a mask :P Check my changelog for update 1.0.1. Removing the colliders on the first 5 segments was a deliberate choice. Since many of my testers did quite sharp turns and ended up eating themselfs without understanding what went wrong. It's a bigger issue when using a mouse though (not sure what device you used).

neonjeff

26. Apr 2021 · 20:38 UTC

Yeah I figured it was intentional but hadn't read the change logs. I used a controller so it wasn't as easy to do. I almost added a growing worm mechanic to my game but didn't want to have to program all the detection/food/etc hehe.

🎤 Noel Widmer

26. Apr 2021 · 20:43 UTC

@neonjeff But how did you make your sprite mask look like a tube? Did you somehow draw a sprite at runtime which was then used by the mask? Because you can't use a precreated image since you don't know where the player would go... That's where I was stuck.

neonjeff

26. Apr 2021 · 20:45 UTC

Ah yeah I was still drawing circle masks but I drew them closer together than the worm and only saved ~1000 circles so if you kept going around the same area eventually the end of your trail would start getting replaced. Originally I had it save more like 10,000 but ran into some performance issues every once in a while so I reduced it... I have a pretty beefy PC so I'm not sure if it still gives people trouble.

🎤 Noel Widmer

26. Apr 2021 · 20:48 UTC

@neonjeff And here I was thinking you solved the problem :D I am using thousands of colliders inside the potato to have an accurate detetction of the players actions. That's where I started to run into performance issues as well :P Having play testers with slower machines is really helpful :)

fargred

26. Apr 2021 · 21:47 UTC

Time to get some more high scores in here:
![Screenshot 2021-04-26 at 23.42.43.png](///raw/a75/a3/z/3e607.png)

...and this was done with a touchscreen mouse nonetheless. ;)

Very fun game and a cool twist on snake, with the "recharge" zone and environmental hazards! Plus I can strongly identify with the little guy's ravenous hunger for potatoes.

🎤 Noel Widmer

26. Apr 2021 · 21:54 UTC

@fargred With a touch mouse? Sick! I tried that during developement and ... well it didn't go that well for me :D

dhim

26. Apr 2021 · 21:56 UTC

It's indeed hard to play with a mouse, i keep eating myself!

Nice idea though of eating the potato

FussenKuh

26. Apr 2021 · 21:58 UTC

Tato only got to Potato Layer 3 and only at 8 chips before she starved. She subscribed to the philosophy of live fast and die quick! That said, I had fun eating stuff while Tato was alive. Nice job :)

Kevin Meissner

27. Apr 2021 · 06:08 UTC

Very nice and cute game, love it. I hope we do a gamejam together again next time :-)

ludrol

27. Apr 2021 · 14:17 UTC

Cool game, doesn't work with my controller (genesis p58). I really liked the aesthetic and humour.

Webox

27. Apr 2021 · 17:07 UTC

Nicee!! Very cool concept!! At first I thought I had to eat the entire potato but the score wasn't going up, maybe I didn't read the instructions correctly haha. The scream when you lose was super loud for me, other than that is a super original game, very cool idea an excelent execution. Congrats!! :D

🎤 Noel Widmer

27. Apr 2021 · 17:13 UTC

@webox Thank you very much. I absolutely agree. I would change that sound as well if I was allowed to. The sound was made at around 2am here in Zurich Switzerland; the compo ended at 3am. Therefore I decided to use what I had instead of spending my last few minutes on something better :)

neverautomatic

27. Apr 2021 · 17:52 UTC

Ah, a fellow worm game! I really liked the concept and the mechanics of having the potato be a safe zone, but not TOO safe. All the pieces fit really well together, and made for a fun and well balanced game. :D

LDJam user 236416

27. Apr 2021 · 18:25 UTC

What are blue circles for?

txanevk

27. Apr 2021 · 18:55 UTC

Mesmerizing, would spend hours here!

🎤 Noel Widmer

27. Apr 2021 · 18:57 UTC

@xpycm They are supposed to be raindrops and will make a trip outside the potato more dangerous by slowing you down.

🎤 Noel Widmer

27. Apr 2021 · 18:58 UTC

@txanevk I would love to see your score after playing for a while. You must have gotten really good at it! :D

txanevk

27. Apr 2021 · 19:09 UTC

![Captura de pantalla 2021-04-27 210901.png](///raw/f56/93/z/40e9d.png)

Sure!

ElllaDee

28. Apr 2021 · 09:18 UTC

I am not good at snake-games, but this one I love! It's pretty fun, challenging and cute. This is my maximum, cause Tato is pretty hungry...something :D
Good job!

![Tato - Potato (Ludum Dare #48) by Noël Widmer - Go.png](///raw/fcd/33/z/4126f.png)

Anaxie Studio

28. Apr 2021 · 11:16 UTC

Didn't think I'd find someone who loves potatoes as much as me!

Clever take on the classic snake game, keep things interesting. Sounds are fun too.

Good job!

Didn't have time to try to get a higher score, so here is our highscore for now ;)![chips.PNG](///raw/f5b/a3/z/412e3.png)

🎤 Noel Widmer

28. Apr 2021 · 12:39 UTC

[VoDosGames](https://www.twitch.tv/vodosgames) just streamed my game and reached a new high score. Congrats!

![Capture2.PNG](///raw/3e1/d2/z/416a6.png)

vsi-

29. Apr 2021 · 08:48 UTC

neat game though, like the concept, gj!

Lazzor

29. Apr 2021 · 19:14 UTC

Not gonna lie, this is kind of addicting! :D I love how the game mechanics of watering the potato, going deeper into the potato and resetting your length give a bit of strategic depth. Great job! ![tato_score.png](///raw/e39/3/z/41a2b.png)

🎤 Noel Widmer

29. Apr 2021 · 21:22 UTC

@lazzor Wow. You made it into the 50's! That is where one one must really start to understand how the game works. Going to head over to your game now :P

TheJookerful

29. Apr 2021 · 22:03 UTC

So cloooose of lazzor score... ^^ yeah it's very addictive and fun well done !
![potato_score.PNG](///raw/495/a3/z/41ac7.png)

gnevesdev

01. May 2021 · 10:50 UTC

I think I found a bug... Sometimes Tato does not bite herself when I turn her really fast.

lokt02

02. May 2021 · 10:33 UTC

This game is cool but I dont understand why I sometimes can walk through myself but in other times I die because of that. But overall nice idea of the game!

🎤 Noel Widmer

02. May 2021 · 19:16 UTC

@gnevesdev and @lokt02 In version 1.0.1 (see change logs above) I made the first 5 body parts non-collidable. It's not a bug; this is by design. Because players kept hitting themself when doing sharp turns which felt really unfair.

TheGreenWorm

03. May 2021 · 14:30 UTC

Ok I got 28, not sure if I can beat the current record ! Cool idea, the fact that you have to eat to keep going leads to some very tactical decisions. That chips sfx is crisp, but the scream one if a bit of a screamer. Adding a pool of sounds that gets played randomly could help the sfx feel less repetitive.
I'm in love with tato, it loves potato

🎤 Noel Widmer

04. May 2021 · 07:29 UTC

@thegreenworm Agree. The screams went a bit wild :P
I had a look in your source code after I played your game. What is a tweener? The internet seems to have mixed definitions for it :D

Tomssuli

06. May 2021 · 16:36 UTC

Delicious sounds :laughing:
![tatoscore.png](///raw/a34/d1/z/4239e.png)

Ratrat44

11. May 2021 · 04:31 UTC

It adds a lot of twists that snake doesn't have, which is a very good thing!
Tato is a nice tuberworm, I'm sure most of her kind are not as fortunate to find chips near their host.

![Score.png](///raw/3cd/71/z/42589.png)
I love to dig through spuds!

🎤 Noel Widmer

11. May 2021 · 07:55 UTC

@ratrat44 Holy cow! You've beaten the Ludum Dare record and even the record which my team at work was able to achieve (which was 67). How long did you play to achieve such a run?

Ratrat44

11. May 2021 · 16:00 UTC

It took about 30 minutes.