Unicycle Balancing by Adiwan

[raw]
made by Adiwan for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

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You are a unicycle rolling in the sky while random stuff falls on you. Survive the barrage of blocks as long as you can while you try to find your balance.

GIFS

game.gif

fail.gif

How To Play

  • Survive as long as you can on the rope.
  • You game-over when are leaning more than 45° to one side.
  • Objects fall from the sky on the board that put you out of balance.
  • Lean left or right to compensate for the falling objects.
  • A preview window for the drop locations may help you to judge your next actions.
  • Every 5 seconds new objects drop from the sky.
  • Every 20 seconds an additional object is added to the object drops.

Controls

Keyboard

  • Lean left: A and left arrow
  • Lean right: D and right arrow

Game Controller

  • Lean left and right: left stick horizontal axis

Ratings

Overall 358th 3.804⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Fun 194th 3.935⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 325th 3.696⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Theme 10th 4.609⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 545th 3.826⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 763th 2.881⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 468th 3.659⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 25🗨️

Feedback

SlimmerBurger
04. Oct 2021 · 10:40 UTC
Simple but fun! I like how it tells you what objects are falling next and where, lets you plan ahead
XSchaumiX
04. Oct 2021 · 10:42 UTC
It is a great game! I can imagine that on a mobile phone this would be even more fun. Good game to kill some time. managed to score 337m :D
Sode
04. Oct 2021 · 10:54 UTC
I kinda feel like the game would have been better without the little UI telling me where they would land I would just angle the board so that they never actually landed.
🎤 Adiwan
04. Oct 2021 · 11:02 UTC
@sode I was thinking about the very same thing you mentioned. The preview is born from my own frustration of some games with randomly generated hazards and obstacles that felt that they came out of nowhere. In this case the observable falling distance is too short to react in a meaningful manner. The preview makes it a little bit easier but in my playtestings it gave the player more confidence that the game isn't rigged and there is a minor strategy aspect with it.
TeddyIncDev
04. Oct 2021 · 15:15 UTC
At some moment the Table Perfectly Balanced and it was So Satisfying.
Controls are well balanced.

I would just add some feedback when shapes drop, and make im go faster over time to have this sense of speed.

Fits the Theme Perfectly
LDJam user 257946
05. Oct 2021 · 02:53 UTC
Unstable as it gets! I liked the idea, however, I would be nice to have some sort of onscreen ui element that would indicate how close the cycle is to tipping over!

Nice Job!
orangutanrider
05. Oct 2021 · 12:33 UTC
Good concept.

Maybe you could add different objects that fall the longer the game goes on.
Colbymakesgames
05. Oct 2021 · 12:35 UTC
i found the objects dont quite have enouugh mass to affect ur strategems, however i love the game and its a really unique idea
monninen
05. Oct 2021 · 12:42 UTC
Strangely addicting game. At first I managed to get to 10-20 m far, but damn it felt good when I finally got to 100+ meters
LDJam user 139668
05. Oct 2021 · 12:43 UTC
Wanna see your face the moment you got the idea of that. It's just amazing. I would add an indicator about danger angle and reverse coming figures display, but overall it's just fun and genius
🎤 Adiwan
05. Oct 2021 · 13:22 UTC
@orangutanrider Yeah. I can see that it gets boring very fast with the simple objects that are already in the game. Currently the number of spawning objects increase by one every 20 seconds.

@colbymakesgames Funnily I doubled the weight right before the release :sweat_smile:

@monninen I hope it's not too addicting like some people were playing Flappy Bird :smirk:

@yogurtthehorse It was past midnight while I was very, very tired after a Dungeons & Dragons session. Imagine a very tired and exhausted face.At first I imagined a human balancing stuff while balancing on a rope but I'm very bad at asset creation and animation (i.e. very slow), so I cut that element back and replaced it with a unicycle, which itself is hard to keep stable. An alternative idea I threw together was more a title than game idea: "The Fable of The Unstable Table" where you control each table leg QWOP-style and transport objects from A to B without dropping anything. But that would have been more work than I could do within the time frame.
Substain
05. Oct 2021 · 13:47 UTC
The setting is quite random, but I somehow like the idea
PSV Games Studio
05. Oct 2021 · 13:56 UTC
Game very good! The sounds are nice and the mechanics are fun, challenging and mostly addictive!
Zvyaga
06. Oct 2021 · 06:03 UTC
Very cool hyper casual runner. Just like it
Micheldever
09. Oct 2021 · 13:24 UTC
This game was chill and really fun! The mass of the objects falling seem to balance out fairly well on average, so I didn't feel there was much strategy to the game other than to keep directly above the rope. Perhaps some sticky objects or objects with a higher friction might change this, or possibly even some obstacles on/around the rope. Even so, I had a really good time cruising along and there's something really satisfying about moving along with a big stack of objects. Really enjoyed the general vibe of this game. Nice work!
Weirdybeardyman
09. Oct 2021 · 22:17 UTC
Very cool. It's a great concept and it was well thought out. It felt polished and fun. It looked nice too! I also had a unicycle idea for the theme, I guess it's a popular idea.
cottonfloweryellow
10. Oct 2021 · 00:41 UTC
This entry is pretty relaxing and easy to get into. Nice work!
lucasvb
10. Oct 2021 · 03:53 UTC
I love how wacky it is as a concept, but it was very well executed and everything is super polished and visually cohesive. The control is very responsive and the balancing feels intuitive, despite lack of any physical feedback, which is pretty cool.

Contrary to what some have said, I think the preview is a nice touch, although it doesn't seem to actually help much.

I agree with @micheldever's remarks, though. The uniform randomization of objects did not provide with an unbalanced variety on average, so there was very little surprise or strategy to make full use of the gameplay elements. Having a long-tail distribution of object weights would be more appropriate, so you would really challenge the skill of the player by throwing off the balance with a big object to the side. I'm not sure it would work in practice, but it would have been nice to experiment with that idea.

Overall, it's a very well-made entry and it deserves much more ratings and plays!
neowhoru
10. Oct 2021 · 07:20 UTC
nice sold entry. game makes really fun and controls are working fluid with it.
🎤 Adiwan
10. Oct 2021 · 08:53 UTC
@micheldever @lucasvb With the benefit of hindsight I also see that a weighted distribution of objects makes it more exciting. I relied too much on the randomness being random enough to make it interesting.
After the jam I update the game to add this feature.

Maybe I'll polish the game even more and offer it for Android with accelerator controls :thinking: But that's low priority for me right now.
quanperfect
15. Oct 2021 · 19:24 UTC
Nice game! Although I didn't get if there's any benefit of having a lot of stuff on the board or it's just there to mess with you, looks like the second option. Fun short game. Good luck to you guys!
🎤 Adiwan
15. Oct 2021 · 21:04 UTC
@quanperfect Thanks! The objects are there to mess up the balance. Putting aside how the current randomizer distributes the objects, I imagined that the objects hinder you in a way when you lean to one side. All objects on the board slide to the leaning side and are putting you at risk of falling down. Also I imagined that when the randomizer puts a lot of heavy blue objects on one side you can slide the objects to the other side to compensate.
Well... That was the plan.