Dig the socials by badabooom63

[raw]
made by badabooom63 for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

Use real social networks to uncover hidden connections, investigate and dig up the truth.

Welcome to Central Profiling System, newbie! I hope you'll like it here.
(images are blurred to avoid spoilers :D)
q.png

Write "help" in the search bar to get a hint on the current step.

2.png
3.png 4.png

You will need an access to Facebook pages to finish this game.

Artemii Frolov - programming, game-design
Oksana Kostiuk - dialogues/profiles
Anton Piskarev - story, game-design, dialogues/profiles

Music by Knxwledge https://youtu.be/W0rtvjsBJ1I

v1.0.1 added: One name was changed, now possible to select the text, spaces are stripped, discord link renewed

Ratings

Overall 471th 3.793⭐ 60🧑‍⚖️
Fun 611th 3.542⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 75th 4.161⭐ 64🧑‍⚖️
Theme 242th 4.131⭐ 63🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1170th 3.441⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Audio 987th 3.079⭐ 59🧑‍⚖️
Humor 705th 2.94⭐ 52🧑‍⚖️
Mood 573th 3.746⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Given 54🗳️ 105🗨️

Feedback

Alina Baybulatova
27. Apr 2021 · 08:03 UTC
Interesting game! Thank you so much!
darqweful
27. Apr 2021 · 08:57 UTC
Awesome game! It's somewhere between Orwell and Her Story. I had a lot of fun digging through the pages on the internet. Very innovative. Great job!
🎤 badabooom63
27. Apr 2021 · 09:04 UTC
Thank you, @darqweful !
Orwell was the biggest reference, I am glad about this comparison :)
It's also great that you finished the game (without spoiling for others, I can see that :D) - I was worried if it will be too hard.
Thanks for the review :)
dvd
27. Apr 2021 · 12:57 UTC
Very cool!
Macibacsi56
27. Apr 2021 · 13:00 UTC
Excelent game :)
LDJam user 237904
27. Apr 2021 · 14:22 UTC
*Man*, this is amazing! I really liked going about and trying to figure things out! I was honestly sad to see it ended, that was a ton of fun! The only problem I had was with (trying not to spoil it ^^;) the V Shor, red text lass! In the game, it mentions V Visili, however typing it in the search box shows up V Shor. I'm guessing this was changed as there seems to be an actual V Visili, but their name is still mentioned in-game! Other than that, I loved this! :D
🎤 badabooom63
27. Apr 2021 · 14:29 UTC
@simul thanks for the review!
Haha, you made a great way not to spoil, thanks!
The thing is that it is the Russian name, so Vasi.... is the second name, while Z and Sh are the first and the last name. :)
Thanks for pointing this out, I will add an explanation to the game!
LDJam user 237904
27. Apr 2021 · 14:30 UTC
@badabooom63 Oooh, gotcha gotcha! Thanks much for letting me know about that! :D
fabula_rasa
27. Apr 2021 · 14:51 UTC
Damn, it looks interesting and does remind of Orwell at first glance. It's a real shame that you need Facebook to play (finish the game), as there is no way I'm making an account there :laughing:

I wish you happy jamming nontheless!
Nerzal
27. Apr 2021 · 15:28 UTC
The music got quite repetetiv pretty soon.
We had a clean userinterface.

The only real issue i encountered is the fact, that i was unable to mark & copy text fromt he game into the social media, as i am pretty good at making typos, which is not your fault, but i would appreciate a copy-text feature really much.

The amount of content was pretty decent for having only 72 hours to create content, so you have done a nice job on this one.

All in all i have enjoyed the game.
Kszaku
27. Apr 2021 · 15:51 UTC
Now this is the kind of experience I am looking in LD games for! The creativity just bursts out from every ounce of your game.

I don't wanna spoil anything, but let me say this - I really appreciated your game, really good job!
🎤 badabooom63
27. Apr 2021 · 15:54 UTC
@fabula-rasa thanks!
I will do text walkthrough for the game, so you can check Facebook part there and skip it. I will mention you in comment if you are interested!
@nerzal thanks! I tried to make the copy/paste function, but it was my first project in Godot, so I didn't find out how to do it in time :(
fabula_rasa
27. Apr 2021 · 16:00 UTC
@badabooom63 Yes! Do that please and let me know! I would really like to try the game but I don't want to start if I can't finish it and see the ending. So a text walkthrough would be a nice solution.
Dagostino Audio
27. Apr 2021 · 17:19 UTC
this is such a cool idea! Shame on you for making me open up facebook for the first time in forever but the ARG aspect of this game is super awesome and made me feel like a real detective! Overall presentation is super clean and awesome. Well done!
🎤 badabooom63
27. Apr 2021 · 17:45 UTC
@fabula-rasa done, you can check walkthrough in game resources!
@dagostino-audio sorry for that! :D Thanks for your review :)
kypello
27. Apr 2021 · 18:12 UTC
This is an extremely interesting and creative take on the theme! It is very well executed and immersive as well. I had to make a facebook account for this game but it was very much worth it!

I think it would be great if there was a way to go back to a previous page, or to see a history of pages I've seen, because it's possible to forget a person's name and not be able to get back to where you were. Otherwise this is an amazing experience!

I did notice one possible error, which is that z---a s--------a was written with two different last names, I wasn't sure if that was intentional.
🎤 badabooom63
27. Apr 2021 · 18:21 UTC
@kypello thanks for your review!
Yes, that was intentional - Z. has Russian name, so the one from the chat is her second (it is the "polite" way of telling the name) and from profile is the last name.
Sorry for making you create FB :D
GameRaccoon
27. Apr 2021 · 19:33 UTC
Woah, that was a journey, never expected to play Orwell on real social networks :smile: Thanks for the game, you made my day
fabula_rasa
27. Apr 2021 · 19:55 UTC
It does have an Orwell investigative vibe to it! That part is really nicely done, as you have to actually think and pay attention to what you are looking at and reading.

As I neither have or want to have Facebook, I played with a walkthrough. And I will say that it probably feels much better when you actually have Facebook and can go and figure out everything on your own. Just looking up the Facebook parts in a walkthrough does not feel satisfying and breaks immersion. So I would not recommend playing the game like that.

Other than those parts though, really nice concept and good execution. Very unique take on the theme. And additional points for using Godot :grin:
🎤 badabooom63
27. Apr 2021 · 20:27 UTC
@gameraccoon thanks for playing and for good review! :)
@fabula-rasa I am glad that you liked it even with walkthrough and breaking the immersion. To be honest, I was 100% sure that you can check the page even if you are not registered so it was a big punch from the facebook after I discovered that it is not possible (you can find a workaround even for twitter!). Thank you for coming back and finishing the game :)
cninja_
27. Apr 2021 · 23:22 UTC
Another creative use of LD theme - I like it! Anyway game feels like it's polished and 100% finished, great job!
Unfortunately I don't have LinkedIn account so I stopped playing it. Maybe tomorrow(it's already past 1 am here) I'll try to finish it. Anyway I enjoyed it so far, so once again - good job!
Ayxh
28. Apr 2021 · 00:39 UTC
That was a really cool interpretation of the theme! I very much enjoy these sorts of games where you have to look around for clues. It was very creative the way you made us search for information. Gratz on a great game, having finished it I'm wanting more! :smile:
DWink
28. Apr 2021 · 00:58 UTC
Fantastic art! And such a great pun.
Zelv
28. Apr 2021 · 01:41 UTC
Too bad I can't play it, the concept sounds super interesting :/
Daveroony
28. Apr 2021 · 04:14 UTC
Really interesting, I love that you are integrating real world aspects into the game very innovative
🎤 badabooom63
28. Apr 2021 · 07:23 UTC
@cninja hi, thanks for your review! As far as I know, you can check LinkedIn even if you don't have account there. Moreover, if you start over you can check the walkthrough in the links and start from the same point where you stopped before! :) Good luck!
@ayxh thanks a lot! Maybe we will do an add-on as post-LD submission ;)
@Zelv what is the problem? We can try to fix it!
@dwink thanks! I made an algorithm that create this art from the photos, so it is 50/50 real/self-made :)
@daveroony thanks!
LDJam user 242787
28. Apr 2021 · 08:16 UTC
I enjoyed the change in pace that this game offered compared to others. I think the music got a bit repetitive though. I enjoyed the story, well done.
kuviman
28. Apr 2021 · 09:32 UTC
Try finding out what my game is now! :D
🎤 badabooom63
28. Apr 2021 · 09:46 UTC
@matterlinx thanks! The are a lot of reports about music, we should definitely do something with it :)
FadrikAlexander
28. Apr 2021 · 19:32 UTC
oh god I loved every second although I got stuck on "Zelta" but the concept is fire and btw you should add in the cover photos of all accounts on all sites that they're used in a game so people wont interact or confuse them for real people this is really important to do.

Thanks for the game it was super fun
mostel
28. Apr 2021 · 20:00 UTC
Очень оригинальная идея для джемовской игры. Мне только не хватило гиперссылок в самой игре (было лень набирать слова в поиске :)
🎤 badabooom63
28. Apr 2021 · 20:52 UTC
@fadrikalexander thanks! We decided to use different photos to support the idea - here is the official database, and there are their personal account, which can be very different! But you are right, it can be confusing: we also tried to choose names that do not exist IRL and make photos in the same style.
@mostel Спасибо большое! Да, гиперссылок не хватает, согласен, с ними было бы круче. Но это мой первый опыт программирования за все Ludum Dare (до этого только гейм-дизайнил), к тому же первый опыт использования Godot как движка (до этого мы использовали Unity). Спасибо за отзыв!
nyanpierre
28. Apr 2021 · 21:33 UTC
Interesting idea ! good job
simon.parzer
28. Apr 2021 · 22:04 UTC
Really creative use of the theme, you people really put a lot of effort into creating the fake social media profiles :) In the end I had a typo in the last guy's name, forgot who I was looking for and could not bring up the previous CPS entry anymore (a bug?) so I had to resort to the walkthrough to finish the game.
AbigailCorfman
28. Apr 2021 · 23:32 UTC
What a neat, ARG-like concept.

I agree with Nerzal-- if you expand the game it would be lovely to be able to copy the text from the in game messenger. Not necessary for something of this size, but for a longer game I can see it getting tedious.

I particularly liked the part where you had to watch a video to go forward. Neat use of multimedia.
🎤 badabooom63
29. Apr 2021 · 07:24 UTC
@simon-parzer you are right, it is the bug, thanks! It happens only with bank and cop pages, because I forgot to turn it on possibility to come back to pages after "hack" (it would be strange if you were hacked twice :D). Thank you for pointing this out!
@abigailcorfman thanks! I agree, I should add this functionality to the post-LD version :)
Train27
29. Apr 2021 · 09:58 UTC
I'm not going to rate the game because it'd be unfair to do so without *properly* playing it (I had to make due with the walthrough), hope you understand and share my view.

Again, a real shame that you used Facebook for this, knowing that it is such a problematic social network.

In any case, it seems like a great cross-media concept, and I wish you all the best.
Sasashasa
29. Apr 2021 · 11:05 UTC
An unusual solution, but I enjoy it
🎤 badabooom63
29. Apr 2021 · 11:12 UTC
@train27 I completely understand you!
The main problem was that we were 100% sure that it is possible to look to the FB posts without registering. We checked everything other, and forgot to check FB :( When we understood this it was too late to change anything
publicidadeba
30. Apr 2021 · 15:18 UTC
I did this in real life so many times :P This is the most unique Dig Deeper approach I came across. 5/5 on theme.
Noble Robot
01. May 2021 · 09:23 UTC
Pretty clever, and *excellent* use of theme.

However, a few of your names turned up real people. Be careful with that stuff. Also, while some social media pages required having an account, none of them logged a person's visit except for Discord. To be clear, I don't see any problem with that, but I ultimately wasn't motivated enough to complete the story to join a Discord server, even temporarily. Sorry.

I could see this concept, if explored further, being executed entirely outside of an app, as an ARG fully on social media sites and with chat bots. Overall, great work!
🎤 badabooom63
01. May 2021 · 10:19 UTC
@publicidadeba haha, thanks! I glad you liked it :)
@noble-robot Got it, we tried to check every name to be unqiue, but it seems that we are failed. I totally understand you about Discord part, and originally there was another idea there (Mastodon, that is not logging other persons and with real conversations, not screenshots), but there was no time to find out how it works. Thanks for your review!
Owinmowe
01. May 2021 · 21:13 UTC
I loved the concept of this game. Great work!
lesinvisible
01. May 2021 · 22:37 UTC
Very interesting and unusual concept, one of the most original this LD. The visuals support overall theme of the game well.
DevEmil
01. May 2021 · 22:55 UTC
Wow very creative! It was a bit fishy at first to search for all those weird names and open those links haha. But very interesting concept, also pretty amazing how much you got done during the jam. Also, I liked the audio a lot :)
BorderDestroyer
01. May 2021 · 23:03 UTC
My god that game was actually amazing, I thought it was just going to be a Welcome to the Game type thing, I was not expecting it to actually incorporate real life social media into it! This was seriously an amazing experience, everything from the gameplay itself, to the graphics.. everything! Absolutely fantastic job here man!
🎤 badabooom63
02. May 2021 · 10:13 UTC
@owinmowe @lesinvisible @devemil @borderdestroyer thanks a lot!
retrome
02. May 2021 · 10:55 UTC
Cool innovative experience! Using real social networks gives it additional depth of immersion. Nice stylish graphics, pleasant color palette. Appropriate music and sound effects which contribute into atmosphere.

Some remarks:
1. It would be nice to click on key words in text to search instead of typing.
2. Also would be nice to return last one query using Up key to check/correct it.

Great entry!
Tomtomgome
02. May 2021 · 11:03 UTC
Very nice concept, Nice mood to it all, I admit I used the Walkthrough (because I don't have all the socials) so thanks for putting it up (But I didn't rate the fun and overall as I felt I wasn't really qualified to judge them)
Sibi
02. May 2021 · 12:06 UTC
What a brilliant game! I enjoyed every moment of it! Please make a longer version and I will gladly pay money for it. I just love the cross between traditional crime investigation game and almost ARG! Amazing job! I just would have like to be able to copy from the text messages.
🎤 badabooom63
02. May 2021 · 16:54 UTC
@retrome thanks! Those are great ideas. If we will ever try to make it into the full game, we should something like this.
@tomtomgome thanks! We did the walkthrough as soon we got info that not everyone has all the socials :)
@sibi thabks a lot! I am glad that you liked the game! :)
Marta Vitos
02. May 2021 · 16:55 UTC
You picked an unique idea and created a polished game which is fun to play and overall experience is so nice. Fantastic job guys!
🎤 badabooom63
02. May 2021 · 18:43 UTC
@marta-vitos thank you!
Dobrila
03. May 2021 · 10:17 UTC
wow.. such an amazing game ! you definitely surprised me, didnt play anything like this before ! i have nothing but praise, amazing job guys ! thanks for creating this
Harrison Dunn
03. May 2021 · 13:06 UTC
I'm not sure I can say much that hasn't been said already, but well done. This is a really unique take on the theme. I didn't finish the story because I didn't want to go to a bit link that said it was discord, but still a really cool experience. Thanks for making this. Execution was clean and the audio was super well done. Not too intrusive.
Johnsensei
04. May 2021 · 13:14 UTC
Argh, I'm booted into Windows on a Mac to play some Ludum Dare games. I intentionally don't log into my social media accounts in Windows.

But I like the concept. Anytime someone can spin the theme is always really interesting.
🎤 badabooom63
04. May 2021 · 15:19 UTC
@dobrila @harrison-dunn thanks a lot for your feedback! :)
@johnsensei I don't have Mac, but I did Mac version of this project - not sure if it is working properly. You can try it, I added zip to https://artemiif.itch.io/dig-the-socials . There is also a file how to run it in the archive (there is a solution for a problem with all the LD games for Mac I saw on the streams).
SleepyStudios
04. May 2021 · 18:42 UTC
Great take on the theme, I loved the use of "out-of-app" sources to push the game along. I can definitely see this expanded into a full game, nice work!
Conduit
04. May 2021 · 22:37 UTC
Holy smokes! Now this is taking "deeper and deeper" to a whole new level! I absolutely love the augmented reality spin on this, the artwork and overall tone reminded me of the original GTA. This has to be one of the most impressive jams I've EVER played. Definitely the most inventive and innovative jam I've ever seen. 5 stars.


*POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD*


BIG HOWEVER, I was super disappointed that I couldn't progress when prompted to join the Discord server (I assume this is due to an expired invite?). I've spent 10-15 minutes trying to figure out the clue, but I can't seem to progress the story even with the help function without access to Discord... I really wanted to finish this game and that one hick up really ripped me out of an invested experience... Hopefully you all will pursue something like this in the future and work out the kinks, because I was having an ABSOLUTE BLAST before that occurrence.
🎤 badabooom63
05. May 2021 · 07:19 UTC
@sleepystudios thanks a lot!
@conduit thanks ou for review and pointing out the link thing! I updated the link, you can try new version :) BTW, you don't need to do everything from beginning you can just skip to the part with the link (HSGT)
StaNov
07. May 2021 · 20:38 UTC
Well that... was a lot of content!

I don't have Facebook, so I ended at the jewelry heist.

It is a very cool and inovative concept!

Also, it was playable on Linux via Wine.

Good job!

And thanks for playing my game and listening to my song :)
🎤 badabooom63
08. May 2021 · 07:46 UTC
@stanov thanks for your review! You can skip Facebook stages using walkthrough :) We even did a video as one step :D
Shoc
16. May 2021 · 08:15 UTC
Cool idea and cool game!

Everything is ok, but i find that some documents are confusing, but nothing else that is listed above, so i think i can't say so much :P

Game is good, great work!
🎤 badabooom63
17. May 2021 · 14:28 UTC
@shoc thanks for review!
Could you elaborate a little bit more, what did you find confusing? Thanks!