Divine Intervention by YogurtTheHorse
(+bugfixes)
When things in the realm of mortals become unstable, it's time for
-= DIVINE INTERVENTION™! =-
Welcome to your first afterlife job as Junior Intervention Conductor at Divine Intervention, Inc., where it's your task to oversee and control unstable events of zero to mild importance using our state of the art equipment.
It can be stressful, but you'll be ok as long as you perfectly follow the provided copy of Intervention Protocol (property of Divine Intervention, Inc.)

NOTE:
When you inevitably lose, switch the lever to Leave Alone and then back to Intervene to restart! (or press Return twice)
Study the Protocol. Really. You can't win without it.
The on-screen buttons and the switch don't do anything. They are fidget toys. Yes, we initially planned that (no we didn't)
A chain of red LEDs on top is the fail indicator. All lit = you lose. Hurry.
ISSUES:
In Safari, sound seems broken. Try other browsers.
If anything feels off, exit to Menu and come back
SPECIAL THANKS:
Sounds: Natalia “Milena” Radina
Music by: Kevin McLeod
| Link | https://yogurtthehorse.itch.io/divine-intercention |
| Link | https://github.com/faranlegt/ld49 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/divine-intervention |
Ratings
| Overall | 223th | 3.935⭐ | 87🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 493th | 3.641⭐ | 87🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 207th | 3.841⭐ | 87🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 250th | 4.059⭐ | 87🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 21th | 4.655⭐ | 89🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 318th | 3.646⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 145th | 4.065⭐ | 86🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 98🗳️ | 145🗨️ |
Thought both tasks were related to food, so the rover one definitely surprised me!
I wasn't able to beat the second task though, I don't know if it was a bug or what, but I was only able to see 1 page in the book, I never found out what the purple light was.
And thanks!
As for gameplay, that is a bit punishing and hard to remember all the keys to press, the learning curve is quite steep. As an idea, if a task would initially only require one button so one can get the hang of it. After successfully completing the task it could progress to that task level 2 which then requires 2 buttons and so on.
Also like the "juicy" feedback when pressing buttons etc, feels really good! :clap: :clap: :clap:
But managed to boil some nice spaghetti from the seconds try. Are the rules for keeping the right temperature and mixing actually the way you should cook pasta in real life? I just drop it into boiling water and forget about it for 10 minute or so. 😅
Music perfectly fits gameplay really and sounds lovely.
Gameplay-wise this project is very interesting, for final player it is structured as follows:
- Read manual
- Try
- Read manual again
- Try
- Learn manual by heart
- Finish task
Buttons on the screen, the ones you called "fidget toys" are amazingly fitting in this style of in-world-UI. First thing I did (right after reading manual, of course) was clicking on all these buttons to get satisfying animations and sounds. Kinda sad not all of them were interactive, but this is just a note for future you.
Overall: Amazing, I've had my fun with this game
Thanks for a review, pray God to connect with us and add your piano to our game, we will be looking forward to it!
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/me looked into your portfolio
Ой, мы с Юрой весь день обсуждаем какой там у вас крутой концепт. Прямо ух!! Хотим релиз игры
Also, I can confirm: we're both deeply in love with your entry, it's incredible
However, there is need to rethink controls. For example, I was able to beat rover mission just holding all 7 keys
I also really like the design of the screen, it is very cohesive.
Great work!
Of course the gameplay is very cool too. I love these games where you're just a guy behind a screen or a desk.
Thanks a lot for playing!
Thanks a lot!
Seriously, this is exactly my kind of game. It's a bit like a simpler single player Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes. The whole presentation, nah, the whole game is perfect!
If you actually decide to add to it I will come back for sure! :heart:
We're planning to expand the game, yup!
how funny that we made nearly identical games! i loved ye oldey timey computer aesthetic, and the tangible integration of the menu items / controls into the visuals.
i liked that for the pasta, you had to open the lid to stir / add salt. creating dependence between the temperature and these two other parts meant that i had to more closely manage the temperature, so that i had a buffer space for when i needed salt/stirring. the first time, i lost because temperature went to low when i needed to open up to stir.
critiques of your implementation:
the most important thing i found missing from your game was audio feedback, and more strong visual feedback, for pressing the various buttons. i often couldn't tell if i was pressing the right button, or what was happening when i pressed any button. i think getting this right is critical, otherwise i can't build up an intuition for the controls; how what i'm doing is effecting the game.
i think the learning curve could use work too, you throw a bunch of rules for what button to press under what circumstance all at once at me, and it was pretty difficult to get going. i think going step by step to gain mastery would let you make the latter levels more difficult, because the player has already learned the basics.
possible bug: i beat the first two tasks, but the third task never unlocked.


About feedback: we had a whole bunch of sounds to add, our audio-designer was very kind to give all of them to us. BUT the problem is with time. We started developing only on Sunday and the second level we added in last like SECONDS before the deadline.And only half of it, bcs timmeeeeeeee. But we are going to polish game and publish it I guess, so the feedback sounds are only the matter of, again, time!
The learning curve... The thing is.. Pasta level supposed to be a tutorial level with like one or two tasks to manage, because you are a junior afterlife worker, right? But Ludum driven development (LDD) is very UNSTABLE and by the time we finished with engine of game we thought we have time only for a single level. The second one was added in the last hour or two. So we had to make something more than simply tutorial and here we are
Again, thank you for your feedback!
It was easy to cheat on the second task by holding down all the buttons. Perhaps each button should have drained a power source, leading to failure if buttons are held too long.
Very happy that I managed in the end!
Where does one even begin with a game like this? Well for a starter, the graphics are absolutely stunning! I love the idea and the execution is super good, it feels so polished. One of my favorite things was the fidget switch, the sound effect and visuals made it such a satisfying little detail!
I did not feel like the game was too short, this is a game jam entry. I would much rather play a short fantastic entry like this, than a much longer and less awesome game.
I would love to see you guys run with this idea and make more levels and add more features. Someone suggested making it co-op, like "Keep talking and nobody dies", that would be awesome. Either way, please let me know if you decide to continue development!
You can follow up me on itch.io Ihttp://yogurtthehorse.itch.io) or @13x666 on twitter (http://twitter.com/13x666) and check for news. I guess we will have several updates :)
@strega There actually is a timer in the form of the progress bar at the bottom of the screen, but it's a bit bugged and not working in Task 1, oops. Working fine in Task 2 though :)
@zachary-barbanell What's worse than just light, you can just hold E-A-S-D-F-G simultaneously and almost auto-win, but that's a secret! Good point about familiar tasks: pasta level was supposed to be an easy tutorial followed my more similar “everyday” tutorials before tackling mars rovers and geopolitics and mental health and other things the player is probably not used to controlling :D But time was really tight!
I second everyone who would like to see a few more tasks implemented!
The personality on this one is top-notch. :ok_hand: Would love to see what y'all had in store for future tasks!
The gameplay is a little unforgiving to beginners, and maybe could have benefitted from a slower introduction of the multitasking elements so there's time to get comfy with each task individually before having to combine them, especially for the Mars rover where I struggled to memorize all the key mappings. But it felt SO rewarding when I finally succeeded at making pasta for the first time! I'd love to see this expanded with more tasks.