The Automation Department by Camden Cecrle

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

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The Automation Department is a game about an unstable office environment where things keep breaking down and you can hardly keep up! Buy robots to do your tasks for you until you automate yourself out of a job!

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This game is played with the mouse only.

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Character Art & Environment Art Milo Moore @extyrannomon

Sound Design & Systems Programming Alex Cecrle @Alexzoin

Technical Art & Animation Camden Cecrle @Camzoin

Gameplay Programming & Implementation Jonathan Miller FalconDance.itch.io

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Ratings

Overall 76th 4.156⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Fun 151th 3.984⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 305th 3.719⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Theme 821th 3.469⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 7th 4.766⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Audio 105th 4.078⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Humor 147th 3.938⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Mood 136th 4.078⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Given 31🗳️ 38🗨️

Feedback

Alexzoin
04. Oct 2021 · 12:44 UTC
This was a ton of fun to make and one of the coolest things I have worked on! What a great and skilled team.
Duck Reaction
04. Oct 2021 · 16:13 UTC
Very original art style ! Using a paper to make the game UI is great idea :thumbsup:

In the option screen, the checkbox is not very clear because the shape doesn't change. A red cross to mark the option disabled will be better.
The drag and drop is too slow in my opinion.

The music works well, it creates a very stressful atmosphere.

Good job :clap:
Swen
04. Oct 2021 · 16:22 UTC
Yay, I successfully automated myself out of a job! Wait...

Cool game. It has a nice gameplay, art and sounds. Especially nice idea to make it comic like and have the game play in a 'magazine'.

This is the first game I've played with a difficulty curve that goes down after peaking.

It'll wiggle. It'll jiggle!
Great job!
Spolarium
04. Oct 2021 · 22:01 UTC
Really polished game! Love how charming the characters are, as well as how challenging and addictive the gameplay is. Well done!
DAk001
04. Oct 2021 · 22:16 UTC
Very fun to play. Automated normal mode, but lost on hard. I bealieve that hard mode is too hard...
Soul Grinder
04. Oct 2021 · 23:10 UTC
Excellent graphics and fun gameplay. I like the way the music makes the game feel more frantic when the workload piles up. Nice work, had fun playing it.
Sirkovitch
04. Oct 2021 · 23:18 UTC
This was really fun ! The art is incredible and works very well with the audio.
It overall feels very polished. Beat the normal mode, now going to try in hard mode :)
Pilgrim1987
05. Oct 2021 · 08:14 UTC
Game is fun, looks and sounds great. Overall nice experience. Sadly it's short one. But fun though. =)
Liss1024
05. Oct 2021 · 10:11 UTC
Very fun game, nice visual, good music, i am out of compliments, can i buy one bot to write it for me?
Roxslon
05. Oct 2021 · 10:14 UTC
Great job! Game looks awesome. Sad that it's so short:(
Lucywang
05. Oct 2021 · 20:44 UTC
Wow this was super addictive and fun! I had to retry it a bunch of times because I couldn't beat it in normal mode :( It's definitely harder to play on a trackpad hahaha. Amazing work with the sound and graphics! The music speeding up made me actually anxious!!
zain
05. Oct 2021 · 23:28 UTC
I really like the comic art style and addictive gameplay, I had a bunch of fun with this!
EnergyCzar
06. Oct 2021 · 00:31 UTC
Fun fact: The ringing phone sound is a doorbell that belonged to the great-grandparents of the sound designer and tech artist. (from someone who knows) Unique artwork and concept, enjoyed the gameplay, was able to beat easy mode after a few tries but haven't beaten hard mode yet. Great job by the entire team!
JammyGunns
06. Oct 2021 · 04:46 UTC
I know I'm repeating what has already been said but the art style making it look like we're playing in a comic book was a fun idea and wonderfully done. I also liked how each of the upgrades are shown as ads, clever touch.

I did have trouble in one play through where I had the money for one of the bots but it wasn't accepting it when I clicked on it. I had tried the others as well, but it acted as if I didn't have enough.
Muros
06. Oct 2021 · 13:51 UTC
I really liked the visual style of the game. and the animation looks very cute and authentic. The gameplay is cool too, but too fast for me, I can't last long. And I also didn't immediately understand what to do with the stamp and paper.
EvokeSoul
06. Oct 2021 · 14:10 UTC
This game is incredible, the music made me so stressed XD The paper stamp is a bit hard I wish you could either drag from the in pile or once you click it that it would move over to the stamp, clicking and then have to click and drag is a bit too much for the amount of other things you have to do. The art and execution of this game though is so impressive!
nardandas
07. Oct 2021 · 04:19 UTC
Really nice little art! One thing I found with the game is it got harder and harder to start, but then once you started automating, it got easier. It seemed it was only really possible to lose in the mid-game, which was kind of weird. I dunno if that's the design intent.
ChuChuGeralt
08. Oct 2021 · 21:13 UTC
The design was superb! As already mentioned, the paper stamp was quite hard, it was in the playruns the first task to automate. Sadly I didn´t quite geht the theme - unstable here. Could you possibly explain in what way your game played with that theme? Many thanks in advance!
Alexzoin
09. Oct 2021 · 09:06 UTC
@chuchugeralt Thanks for playing! We used the theme mechanically more than anything. Everything from the quickening music to the visual effects was supposed to induce a growing sense of instability in the player. As the tasks are added, you become less and less stable. You're required APM gradually increasing. Then a return to stability with the progression of the automation. However, narratively speaking, you have made your employment unstable due to the automation of your job. Perhaps it is a loose fit, but I felt that we went beyond a surface-level application of the theme.

Inspirations: Space Team, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Wario Ware.
crneumre
09. Oct 2021 · 13:50 UTC
Gorgeous art and design. The normal mode felt too easy, but hard mode was just incredibly difficult, even when I managed to finally buy a worker, the workers couldn't keep up in the paper work and I lost the game.
Other than that the game was really unique and interesting, great job!
polkoii
11. Oct 2021 · 04:48 UTC
Finally, a game I can have 44600 volume

![Screenshot 2021-10-10 214242.png](///raw/074/b3/z/48095.png)

But seriously, what a well done art style and a clear simple multitask game! Nice work!
Alexzoin
12. Oct 2021 · 05:18 UTC
@polkoii Thank you. You are the person I argued for when I said "why cap the volume setting?" Should have made an achievo for getting it super high.
polkoii
12. Oct 2021 · 06:27 UTC
@alexzoin thank you for your sacrifices. the music got better every 1000, I swear
Daniikk1012
14. Oct 2021 · 09:52 UTC
Wow, this game is great! The graphics and sounds are awesome too! At first I did not really understand that you are supposed to buy things on the right, because I was too focused on surviving. I managed to collect 59 coins that way and then gave up. After that I saw screenshots of the game, realized that you can automate stuff and won the game by automating everything. It was fun and relatively simple. The hard mode, however, does not seem to be possible for me to win.
Chairshot Games
16. Oct 2021 · 05:04 UTC
I absolutely love it. Great and challenging gameplay. It feels very satisfying to get one of the robots. Some of the best art I have seen so far. Good music and sound effects. All around outstanding. Great job!
kakapoy
16. Oct 2021 · 19:19 UTC
Wow it was incredible ! Well done I think that is the best game I play during this game jam for the moment. The idea is great, the design incredible, the various gameplay was not too difficult to implement? Sincerely beautiful game !
Local Minimum
16. Oct 2021 · 19:34 UTC
I really enjoyed the original play-inside-a-catalogue and the very well made humorous graphics style. Quite unique, don't think I've played anything similar in all the 20 something LD events I've participated. The minigames were of course simple kind, but to me it doesn't so much matter given how well made everything was and how apart the game stands from the other experiences encountered here at LD. Well done!
thedude3600
16. Oct 2021 · 19:35 UTC
This was a fun game! I really liked the art style, it felt very appropriate. Not a whole lot to criticize, it felt very polished and complete, albeit a little short but that's not really a problem for a game made in 3 days. Good job!