Unstabled Goat by Marc-Antoine Girard
Tired of rural farming life and yearning for something more, Our brave goat sets out for adventure.
With a stalwart hamster companion and a can-do attitude, Can he ford the dangerous rocky roads ahead and Unstable.
Controlling your Goat-agonist, steer your precariously packed cart around obstacles, and keep your hamster friend fed and energized.
A happy hamster produces more lantern energy, giving you more time to respond to the perils of the rocky road ahead.
For the record you should never eat random forest mushrooms, but their numbing properties should help you smash ahead with confidence

- Anthony St-Onge: Developer
- Marc-Antoine Girard : Developer
- Chris McKnight : 3D Artist
- Charles Viau: Music
Special thanks to Jeremy Berger
PLAY IT HERE (BROWSER): https://marcuslelus.itch.io/unstabled-goat
Controls:
WASD to move around
Shift Space to Dash
Controller Compatible
Original Soundtrack by Charles Viau
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv47rFnxWw8
Changelog
- The first scene wasn't displayed, had the wrong first scene in Build Settings
- Default canvas Resolution was way too big in itch.io. Fixed it by downscaling it
- Fixed all SFX not playing / audio mixer was turned off in dev build
| Link | https://marcuslelus.itch.io/unstabled-goat |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/unstabled-goat |
Ratings
| Overall | 755th | 3.522⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1036th | 3.156⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 958th | 3.111⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1067th | 3.178⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 300th | 4.111⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 133th | 4.011⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 333th | 3.611⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 50🗳️ | 67🗨️ |
Good work completing a game like this over ludum dare, very cool and once again I adore the animations, our goat friend is super cute!
I will say, the thing that impacted the game for me the most was that there wasn't really an in-game explanation about what the goal was or how to achieve it. I think I was eventually able to figure it out, but only after dying once and reading the description. (My initial thought was that the hamster cart was evil and the goat was trying to get away from it, but this started to seem unlikely after I realized that you could just make the goat go infinitely off the screen to the left.) I think some kind of how-to-play or description would go a long way here.
One more thought about music! Both songs on the soundtrack are so thoughtfully composed that I wish we got to hear more of the menu theme!! One thing I ended up using as a way to figure out how much time to devote to each track on my own game was based on how much time I thought a player would spend listening to the music (so songs with less exposure would end up being shorter, etc). Perhaps that's some food for thought for next time? And I'm not criticizing the music itself! I just think it's a shame that most players won't hear the entirety of that wonderful menu theme.
This was fun and I'll definitely share it with others because it really captures that arcadey fun vibe so well. Congrats on a game well done!
The soundtrack and graphics are both amazing. Generally speaking, it is a very excellent work
Congrats on a great entry! :)
Lovely graphics and music.
As @marc-antoine-girard said : "From the other comments, I’m guessing you tried to control the cart. The player is actually the goat (and the cart is basically a payload) :P"
I can't see any goat on the screen? When I move wasd nothing moves on the screen? I'm missing something.
The art is lovely. I love myself some voxels.
Highest score I got was 2171, because sometimes it seems inevitable that you crash the hamster into some blocks.
I gotta reiterate the other comments that the music and sound effects are really top notch. The art style isn't for me but I can appreciate the skill and effort that went into it.
The only thing I'd like to suggest is to make the map obstacles less tight. It's a bit hard to push the cart around in time sometimes because of being blocked by the obstacles.
Great entry.
https://youtu.be/EWJKsLF4MMg?t=3935
Something I really appreciated was the fact that you were able to communicate various bits of information without any UI. The health was done with in-world objects, rather than an on screen bar. And even the few bits of UI you did have were world-space rather than screen overlay. I like games that can do minimal UI without losing anything, and this game does that excellently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01dcU5RDzZk
The presentation in this game is quite good. The graphics are consistent and clear to understand. I've rarely had a moment where I felt either visually overwhelmed or confused based on the elements that are generated. The visual and audio effects had a relatively good crunch to them. And I actually liked the diegetic health bar, being represented by the luggage in the cart.
Personally, I had a bigger problem with the control over the cart. While the movement of the goat is mostly fine, given the game is about dodging elements, having such "loose" ability to manipulate the cart makes it difficult to avoid things. For example, needing to swap from one lane to the other, then back requires moving the goat above the cart, dash, then trot around the cart to the bottom, then dash. If I had direct controls over the cart, this process would be much faster, giving me the ability to dodge rocks at the last minute. It doesn't help that the goat has collision with the rocks, and thus needs to maneuver around them to even touch the cart. And that's before I mention it's possible to be blocked by rocks from approaching the cart. I also found it frustrating that the goat has to keep up with the moving cart, as it made it slower to maneuver around the cart.
Perhaps having a way to both control the cart and the goat at the same time may make the game more satisfying. For example, with left-stick + right-stick combo, or keyboard controls one character, and the mouse controls the other. This would make the lightbulb mechanic much more interesting, an element I ended up ignoring after a while because keeping the cart out of danger's way was much more important to me, and the game was bright enough without it anyway. I certainly would like to see a level/stage system to give a sense of progression, rather than an infinitely long level.