Overheat by Dock Frankenstein
Description
You play as a robot jumping from platform to platform, while trying to not overheat. Whenever that happens, you wake up in a different position. Looks like someone is doing something while you're not awake.
Controls
All Input is remappable in the settings. * WASD - move * Shift - sprint * Space - jump * Double space - dash up (unlocked in level2) * Left Mouse Button - dash (unlocked in level2) * Back quote key (might not exist on your keyboard) - cheat console
Extras
This game is using qASIC v0.2.0 including it's cheat console. It's accessible under the back quote key which can be remapped in the settings.
Programs used
- Engine: Unity 2020.3.32f1 LTS (aka. the buggiest version of Unity I ever encountered)
- Render pipeline: URP (I spent 4 hours searching for any 3rd party glitch effects, all of them weren't compatible or didn't work)
- Sound effects: Audacity
- Tools:
- qASIC - my own free Unity asset for making games faster
Asking for help
This was the first game jam I've used my own custom input system Cablebox (built in to qASIC). If you experience any issue with input, let me know as I want to make this thing as polished as it can be (although most of the time the issues are for the input editor). Any reports about the cheat console, settings and audio are also appreciated :)
A bit of a rant
I have never experienced so many issues in any jam or anything game dev related period. I've used the newest version of Unity LTS (Long term support) for this jam as I hoped it would be stable. Turns out, it was the most unstable version of Unity I have ever encountered. It liked to not compile scripts, so I had to open them up again, add a space, save and hope if will catch them that time. What's even funnier is that it actually let me add them to objects, which resulted in a crash.
Not to mention URP (the render pipeline I used) sucks. I wanted to have separate effects for UI and the game, so I separated them into two separate cameras and guess what: CAMERA'S INHERIT EFFECTS! Additionally I wanted to add glitch effects when you overheat. I SPENT 4 HOURS SEARCHING FOR EFFECTS ON THE INTERNET WITH 0 RESULTS. Most of the cool free effects weren't compatible with URP and those that were supposed to be compatible, just didn't work.
Case and point: Unity bad, not sure why I still use it.
| Link | https://github.com/DockFrankenstein/LudumDare50 |
| HTML5 (post jam) | https://dock-frankenstein.itch.io/overheat |
| Windows (jam and post) | https://dock-frankenstein.itch.io/overheat |
| Apple macOS Windows (jam and post) | https://dock-frankenstein.itch.io/overheat |
| Linux (jam and post) | https://dock-frankenstein.itch.io/overheat |
| Windows (github) | https://github.com/DockFrankenstein/LudumDare50/releases |
| Apple macOS (github) | https://github.com/DockFrankenstein/LudumDare50/releases |
| Linux (github) | https://github.com/DockFrankenstein/LudumDare50/releases |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/overheat |
Ratings
| Overall | 1213th | 3.048⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1035th | 3.048⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1238th | 2.629⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1342th | 2.677⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1218th | 2.645⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 931th | 2.138⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1095th | 2.074⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1336th | 2.328⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 10🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
Its a bit annoying having to look at them to interact yknow.
Other than that the game is nice <3
The game was a lot more fun than I was expecting. The checkpoints are reasonable and the controls feel responsive. Although I liked the game the part with the 3 blue speed platforms was to hard for me and I gave up :sweat_smile:
The overheating mechanic was a bit strange for me but I guess it fits the theme ;)
Overall nice entry. Good job :)
The level design and the momentum mechanics are pretty creative. The puzzle that introduces momentum, however, suffers exactly from the interact button, it's a bit too tricky to push the button and quickly turn, move and jump all at the same time in order to see where you are landing.
I must admit I haven't really understood the point of overheating and respawning at a random location. It didn't seem to have any effect on the gameplay, nor it had any meaning - unless it's explained in an ending, I didn't play that far.
Overall, this is a solid base for a creative puzzle game, but as of now, it wasn't fun to me for too long. I would like to see less platform jumping (which becomes tiring after a while) and more puzzle-solving. The ingredients are there - overheating, jumping with momentum, buttons, moving platforms - their potential, however, needs to be utilized a bit more. Maybe overheating could somehow be used to form another gameplay element, possibly in combination with places where you can cool yourself down?
@fatpenguin A lot of my friends told me it was hard, but enjoyable. I know making hard games isn't a good idea for jams, so in the post jam version I'll add a skip level button. Worst case scenario you can abuse the built in cheat console and noclip your way to the end if you really want to see the ending.
@mvasko2 This game was made a platformer specifically to not be a puzzle game. It never crossed my mind that it wasn't intuitive to look at a wall to activate something far away. I'll definitely try to improve in the future. However I don't see where you're going with the platform momentum thing. This game is a skill based platformer first, not a puzzle game. The only puzzle is at the end of level 1, if you can even call it that. Although I must agree that the introduction to platform momentum part was quite tricky. Me and most of my friends started jumping backwards after a while.
Overheating was originally supposed to be the only threat, making you pass out and end up somewhere else. But I must agree that with the current game it would be a lot more fun if overheating instead e.g. teleported you to completely different levels, all based on a completely different mechanic. And yes, the overheating is explained in the ending. I'm gonna add a skip level button in the post jam version, but in the meantime, you can open up the built in cheat console and run `scene level3` if you really want to see the end.
A nice set of movement abilities and a nice progression of difficulty. Apart maybe from that last part with side dashes, I'd die on that hill saying player should learn about this mechanic in a less stressful environment :sweat_smile: But overall a very nice job for the jam!
Thanks for coming to my stream! Here's a recording in case you'd like to refer to it https://youtu.be/hPPKMGZGGDs
Also the heat mechanic at the moment is pretty low stakes.
Also Overheating is really just an annoyance. All it does is just limit how much I can do in the game, and respawn me at a nearby checkpoint.
Sorry about being so negative, this game could use so much more content! Rework the Overheat system so that it doesn't limit your potential so much, make some more levels, introduce more gimmicks. Hell, maybe you can reward curious players with special abilities that you don't *need* in order to beat the game, just like the Mega Man X games! Maybe it's a little ambitious, but as I said, there's so much that can enhance this game! So much that the game needs!
It's great that you were able to submit a game anyway. I guess that's what matter ~~most~~ second most, after mental health, as I learned *the hard way* last Ludum Dare. It IS pretty cool to play through the test room for this entry! That definitely made me respect the work put into the player physics. Have a great day.
I also think that overheating isn't really as interesting as it can be. It would be better if it would disturb you while playing (e.g. moving your character or camera slightly).
Firstly, instant movement with no smoothing works for some game (eg: bullet-hells), but I don't think it feels right in first-person platformers. A bit of smoothing on the movement could go a long way.
Secondly, omnidirectional dashing just felt kind of awkward in this game. In the last speed pad section (by the way, speed pads feel amazing, great job on that), I found myself moving left / right mid-air, then dashing, only to find myself diagonally dashing and completely missing the platform. I ended up noclipping over that section...
Thirdly, maybe you should allow the player to use WASD when dashing. If you dash too far and overshoot a platform, it would help to be able to hold S to resist the dash a bit. (In fairness, it's a jam game, I'm not sure this would have been worth the time, just a polishy thing...)
Fourthly, I found my finger cemented to the sprint button. There was no real reason for me to let go, except in slow walking sections, which were extremely uncommon in this game.
Fifthly, the buttons were really awkwardly placed, so you had absolutely no idea whether you timed it right until you turned around. It would have been a lot more convenient if they all looked like the yes / no buttons at the ending.
Sixthly (I'm not sure that's a word), overheating was really only a minor setback in the difficulty I had selected (Normal). In fact, I often found myself trying to overheat, as there was no point trying to do the next platforming section if I would just overheat halfway through.
Lastly, thank you so much for coyote time and using step height on CharacterController. Sure, coyote time didn't work in level 2 because of vertical dashing, but it's a jam game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Also, one quick question on qASIC: can you remove certain features of the package without affecting the rest of it? I already have my own saving and cheat console implementation in my main project, but savestates, options and input management would come in really useful...)
And about the sprint key: I used to also not like having sprint for a game which doesn't need it (because why would you be not using it then without any downsides), but over time I've learned that sprint has become a industry standard. Now I just add it to every game.
About dashing: I agree. I even noticed this during the jam but there wasn't enough time to introduce a better option. Either a shorter dash or a way to cancel it would probably fix it.
Overheat: I would honestly prefer if it would teleport you between different levels, and not just to a previous state. But as you might guess, it's a jam game.
qASIC is a collection of well integrated tools, so there is no way to remove them from each other, unless you were to manually delete individual files (with would get extra annoying with updates). Every script is under it's own namespace, so you can easily have them in your project without interference. Additionally, most systems can be disabled in project settings.
Saying that though, I might introduce a way to remove certain features completely using preprocessor directives (e.g. #if DISABLE_FILE_MANAGER).
(btw, qASIC only provides a file manager for saving files, not save states. It's literally 2 scripts, so you can just not use them)
I honestly can't believe I was able to beat this one, it was quite the challenge! And as always, the dev room was fun to mess around in :slight_smile:
Thank you for your feedback. I tried for a very long time to make sounds and music, but I couldn't make anything good enough :/ Sound design and music are 2 things I'm really bad at.