DIE: Doomsday Intervention Enterprise by Cor.3

"Welcome to your new job at Doomsday Intervention Enterprise. It is your responsibility to assist in the prevention of nuclear meltdowns. You are responsible for the lives of millions. Do not let us down."
Operate a control panel and keep all knobs, buttons, and switches from setting off a nuclear meltdown.
Code: Cringenut
Art: Loquatrooster
Music/SFX: Cor.3
| Link | https://cor3-stuff.itch.io/die-doomsday-intervention-enterprise |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/die-doomsday-intervention-enterprise |
Ratings
| Overall | 379th | 3.79⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 255th | 3.871⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 805th | 3.258⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 183th | 4.145⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 608th | 3.758⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 43th | 4.25⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 131th | 4.083⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 41🗳️ | 41🗨️ |
Knob was a bit hard to turn, but otherwise worked very smoothly. It definitely ratcheted up at the end to a good bit of player panic. Well done!
The flip switches and the knobs maybe feel a bit hard to control but otherwise its a pretty cool game :)
More concretely: the sliders should have definitely snapped to the different increments, and the knob overall I think needs to be easier to control and more intuitive. A real-life knob is extremely easy to turn to exactly where I want it, and I think for the same visceral feeling this knob needs to be easy to turn as well. As it stands I had an extremely hard time using the knob--the first time I lost because I couldn't figure out where the 5 was, and in general I couldn't really get the knob where I wanted it to go even when I knew vaguely which direction it should be pointing in.
I'm not sure the button really can be improved; it feels fine to push. It's probably a good idea to have one really simple control like the button, as it allows the player to prioritize always fixing those, which can be done in a matter of seconds.
One thing that is really effective is the building sense of panic. The length of the game combined with the music combined with the unexpected darkness really makes the end tense (especially after I lost the first time). There is a real sense of pressure there. Good job!
Oh boy, was I wrong! The music was very fitting and fit the tone and mood of the game. Not only that, it also complements the difficulty curve and the spontaneous mood changes. The electric guitar had the perfect texture, the bit crushing added well to the vibes, and the rhythms were catchy enough to captivate my attention but not distract. I applaud the composer for doing such an amazing job.
I felt like a big part of the game is the audio and visual feedback so that clicking buttons (and other menial tasks) feels good. There are certainly areas for improvements. For instance, I felt like the button pushing could use an animation (or a more obvious one, if it already has one), and the slider could use some sfx. However, this is a real nitpick. For every other sfx and visual response, I felt like it was really well done. I especially like the indicator on the left that slowly rose as the game progressed. It added to the intensity and made me aware that the difficulty is increasing.
I personally felt that the game not having a tutorial made it even better. The game really throws into the position of someone preventing a nuclear fallout, and has no idea of what they are even supposed to do. The green and red colours were very simple, but gave me a very good indication of what to do. The simple difficulty at the start allowed me to adjust and realize what I need to do as the player.
The stage transitions were super amazing. When the sparks came in and the camera shook, I thought it was a nice touch to add to the atmosphere (and it was!) However, when the screen went dark and there were red lights, the game got so much fresher. The visual aesthetics of the game is simple, yet stunning. My only complaint is that I wish that there were more.
Unfortunately, I can't beat the game, partly because I am using a trackpad and the difficulty in the last 5 seconds really ramps up, but I still really enjoyed the experience. A big strength of this game is that the first experience is magical. However, a strong weakness is that it is not very replayable, as the magic is no longer magical when it can be anticipated. Flicking switches do get boring after a while, so if there were improvements made to the game, perhaps some variety to the game mechanics would be good.
Again, overall a good job, and kudos to the programmer, visual artist and music and SFX artist on being able to fuse their skill sets to create this work of art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHNfrJ0REFA