Super Stable Charger Robot by caudatecoder
Go through a maze while your parts turn off unpredictabily...did I say that? Try out this perfectly stable charger-robot Model LD-4921

Controls:
wasd - move/look
space - interact
R - use remote control
Turn the sound on! Headphones recommended.
Enjoy! Please leave your feedback!
CHANGELOG (post-submission)
- Update 1.0 -- In-world UI, dynamic music volume, energy-rebalance on player interaction not timer, one more level to get used to the mechanics
- Update 0.1.2 -- Reduce background music loudness as a lot of people have problem with distincting it from warning sounds of zappers.
| Link | https://github.com/caudatecoder/ludum-dare-49 |
| Itch | https://caudatecoder.itch.io/super-stable-charger-robot |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/super-stable-charger-robot |
Ratings
| Overall | 375th | 3.259⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 423th | 2.948⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 369th | 3.086⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 409th | 3.155⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 290th | 3.379⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 244th | 3.216⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 331th | 3.079⭐ | 59🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 78🗳️ | 96🗨️ |
- I didn't understand that in the very first puzzle I had to "interact" with the disabled power source before my remote would start working. I was moment away from giving up before doing that by accident.
- The zappy channels were a bit unforgiving and unexpected. I would have my character die before any audio or visual cue occurred on the electricity rails.
- After dying a bit in to the game, my remote seemed to stop working. It was tough to tell if that was the case or if I was just pursuing the puzzle the wrong way.
Those issues aside, I think this concept has good potential! Nice work :)
but honestly yeah it is a very interesting concept to have certain abilities of your character disabled (although i would've liked it if it was given some kind of warning) and the music is really good at creating the atmosphere. nice!
I really liked the music, both the cheerful one at the beginning, and the action one when everything breaks. It got really stressful then, with the timer and everything!
The graphics are also pretty good. The slight curves make it feel really retro.
Nice game overall. I might have another stab at finishing it later.
As bugfixes are allowed I turned down the background music volume.
I also suspect that some of you thought that they can't hear the sound behind the background music, while robot's microphone was out of power. Now I see that this was not communicated clearly enough and UI is kinda bad. That's a lesson I learned this jam :slight_smile: Thanks!
I've got some ideas on how to improve it, maybe I'll make it better after jam. Thank you for playing and giving thorough feedback!
Like maybe you could see if the bridge was safe to pass by looking at some color led on the opposite side, but your vision is another system that can fail which limits your viewing distance. This way you have to pass obstacles using only vision or sound. You decide which is tougher and then you learn to take advantage of the times when your systems are functioning to pass over the more difficult obstacles. There's a lot of room for experimentation here.
The graphics and sounds were impressive and the overall presentation was great.
@skleembof
> When your microphone gets disabled, passing the electric floors becomes a guessing game
That was kind of the point of having them. They get too dangerous without microphone so you must avoid them. This should've been communicated clearer :sweat_smile: And levels should have ways around them when the mic is off
> your vision is another system that can fail which limits your viewing distance
That's a great idea, I thought about it as well. I just decided that it will be too hard to make right in 2 days.
Thank you for detailed feedback!
It could be a bit clearer if the icons for the different tools were displayed on the objects they can interact with in the level. There was some info text at the bottom too, but it became a bit tricky to read when you have a countdown timer you have to play against.
For it being your second jam and first compo ever you did good! Actually finishing a game in that time period is a challenge, well done!
@drunkardwolf thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
> visual/sfx before they turn on to give me an indication
They actually do have a sound effect warning. Maybe you couldn't hear it because of stereo sound like Skleembof did? Or maybe you missed the part that the robot's microphone turned off and you couldn't hear the warning? It was communicated through the bad UI I talked above :sweat_smile: I totally should improve it
The graphics are well produced, and match the game's proposal.
The sound is very good, both the music and the sound effects. Although I would like the volume to be a little lower, or have some control over the sound volume.
I also really liked the gameplay, the interpretation of the theme was very creative and well implemented. It was fun and even exciting to race against time using the two non-disabled mechanics.
A curiosity is that I for some reason for a few minutes believed that I should use my microphone (talking or making noise) to be able to access some functionality of the game hahaha.
Anyway, it was a good job!
Yeah, this game totally needs the explanation of what microphone's purpose is :sweat_smile:
Other than that, the game looks nice and has good tunes. It fits the theme. Only the menu music was very loud for me.
Well done!
> Without the sound it just feels RNG in a bad way
That was the point of them but I failed to communicate it through both UI and level-design. You must avoid them and take a different path when your microphone fails. Same as you would try to find a path without charger tool when it's out of power. But then again you really should not be learning this from comments :sweat_smile:
The random nature of malfunctions can make the game impossible to complete. In the second level, there's an area where there are three platform levels, each one with the connector obstacle. When the microphone malfunctions, there's no way of telling if they are safe to pass or not, so I had to just wait until the mic fixed itself.
Another problem with that area is related to the same location. I got stuck on it for quite a while, because no matter where I was standing, I could hear the sound from more than one connector, which made it difficult to know when to move on through. Eventually I've managed to get through it by moving the camera away, but it didn't feel like it was the intended way to solve this puzzle. And immediately after that I got a series of doors which all needed to be charged to open, so I dashed through it afraid my charging system would malfunction in the middle and force me to wait again.
Overall, I really liked the concept. Given more time to design more levels with more types of traps, it can become a very good puzzle game. For now though, it's a very good LD compo entry. Well done!
Yeah I know this wasn't much fun. I actually already reworked (but not published yet) that part — now systems don't turn off on timer, instead you can go to one of the "rebalance" stations. This way you are actually engaged and not just wait even when the path ahead is blocked. Now I want to add a few more levels to the game so a player could get used to the sound of electric floors and microphone system before adding stress of the timer running out. I hope to finish this update this week!
Anyways thanks again for playing and leaving feedback!