Keep them alive by M A T

[raw]
made by M A T for Ludum Dare 49 (COMPO)

Do you know what's going on in a server room? NO!?

Try to keep all the servers alive so that the users don't get made at you.

Controls: WASD to move, MOUSE to Fix those buggy servers!

Screenshot.png

Get close to servers to fix them up

Log: add html5 version

Ratings

Overall 417th 3.15⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 404th 3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 286th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 333th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 491th 2.6⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 343th 2.875⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 256th 2.775⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 401th 2.842⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 19🗨️

Feedback

Anshul K
04. Oct 2021 · 15:59 UTC
Nice game! The theme is kind of diverted towards "Keep it alive" rather than "Unstable", but it's good enough. I especially liked the concept of handling servers!
binroot
04. Oct 2021 · 16:00 UTC
The camera-shake once you start repairing servers felt pretty epic! I forgot to use the power-ups at first, so I didn't last long :laughing:
ugly_robot
04. Oct 2021 · 16:01 UTC
What a great idea! Definitely a funny interpretation of the idea 'unstable'
Nice how you can walk about the server room, a little more immersive than just clicking buttons
Nice work!
thesedatedprince
04. Oct 2021 · 16:02 UTC
Cool idea. Fun core mechanic, easy to understand and play. One suggestion I have is that it might be worth reducing how long it takes before the first server breaks - I ended up hanging around for a while waiting for something to fix :). However, this is a nice idea and I had fun with it.
mlkvr
04. Oct 2021 · 17:55 UTC
Oh my ISP plays this game too, they only got one broken sv and millions of users hahaha, nice game I like tycoon games a lot, I think its day based and days pass every few seconds right?
🎤 M A T
05. Oct 2021 · 07:56 UTC
@binroot Ahahaha I'm glad that you liked it, I needed some kind of feedback while repairing, and it came out "Ok, let's do the camera shake".

@ugly-robot Thank you! Yeah, I wanted to create something different than a point and click.

@thesedatedprince You are definitely right. I panicked ahahahah, there was no much time left and I didn't know how to balance it well. I tried to do it like you said but, it seemed to me too fast and the player had too many things to do meanwhile the "meter" goes down and you generate little money.

@mlkvr I never did or tryied to create a tycoon game, I thought "why I don't try to make this mechanic right now for the ludum dare". And here we are :laughing: Yes, to make it a little faster and easyier for me, the days lasts something like 5seconds. :smile:

@anshul-k The unstable part is right there. You have to balance everything to make the users happy. :smile: Thanks for the feedback
Paroxysmal
05. Oct 2021 · 13:54 UTC
I like the concept. I think it would be better with more user feedback like meters on the servers showing their load, I spent a lot of time clicking on things and wondering if anything is going on. Overall good entry.
Skleembof
05. Oct 2021 · 17:30 UTC
I like the idea and the mechanics, but the balancing felt a little weird. It felt like I was just sitting around doing nothing for a few minutes, having no effect on the game and then all of a sudden people start getting angry, and nothing I do has a significant enough effect to stop the bar from dropping to zero.

Maybe this is how it feels to run a real server room. Or maybe I just suck

It was fun though and it has a lot of potential. There's a whole world of content and interactivity you could add to make the game more engaging by letting you see what kind of stuff the users are doing on each server. Maybe some activities have different effects and you can block content or something.
mikouaji
05. Oct 2021 · 18:31 UTC
At the beginning it feels a bit boring and then it gets you by surprise :D That got me the first time, used all my money on poweups and the poor server couldnt handle it. Very cool idea!
zantze
05. Oct 2021 · 19:00 UTC
Ramps up quite fast, but I was having fun! I wonder if it's even possible to survive long enough to get all the servers. The furthest I got was to around 2000. Good little game and I think it fits the theme really well! The music was feeling like a fever dream though haha
OctahedronSoftware
06. Oct 2021 · 10:35 UTC
I like the idea. Getting the balance right for something like this is probably hard during a compo, since it takes time iterating on it so it feels good. While trying it out I was thinking if it were a good idea to have controls to speed the game up when the player wants to just wait for a while.
potkirland
06. Oct 2021 · 16:58 UTC
its a fun little game and fits the theme quite well.. the first period was too slow for me i dont know if it is random but i bought 2 servers and just waited without any unstability till i generated enough money to buy a third one but after that gameplay got faster very fast..

all in all nice concept :thumbsup:
Ludokultur
07. Oct 2021 · 06:58 UTC
Cool idea and perfect fit for the theme! As others mentioned, the balance is a little off, you're earning way to little (especially early on). Next time maybe try to balance on the (too) high side instead, so players can just do lots of stuff even if that makes things a little too easy in the first iteration. Good job though! :)
cogcomp
07. Oct 2021 · 18:18 UTC
Nice idea. I agree with the others that the balance is a bit off but still a good game for a 48h compo. Well done!
BinaryPrinciple
08. Oct 2021 · 00:06 UTC
You took the theme to an interesting direction and intepretation of the LD data center >D
I would recommend setting up events, like a new eTournanment is ocurring so the demand increase for a while, or maybe a hack. Things that break the monotony.