LudumData

Out of Controls? by Bumble

[raw]
made by Bumble for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

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Premise

In this adventure, you have to navigate a spaceship through dangerous territory. Every hit you take from hostile spacecrafts disturbs your control-panel which you have to painstakingly fix to - delay the inevitable - prevent loss of controls.

Controls

The button mapping is not only variable, but has to be remapped by you during gameplay.

Remapping is done by mouse input. Just drag from one side of the control-panel to the other to create a cable. Mapping one key to multiple actions is possible (trust us - you will probably need that at some point).

Remove a cable by dragging the same way you would to create it.

Available keys are W, A, S, D, Space, and Right Mouse Button.

Available actions are Up, Down, Left, Right, Shoot and Dash (you are invincible while dashing).

The initial button mappings are W for Up, S for Down, and Space for Dash. Not ideal - so get on remapping immediately! Oh and by the way - your right mouse button-panel does not look so good...

Gameplay

SPOILERS AHEAD if you like to figure stuff out on your own

You lose by - well - losing all your possible button mappings. So try to survive as long as possible to get the highest score!

Key-panels have three states. So they are either totally fine, probably ok or definitely broken. Every time a panel gets damaged a little bit more it loses all its mappings, but as long as it is not completely broken you can remap it without problems.

The hostile ship types are: - A red ship shooting bullets which damage a random key-panel - A blue ship shooting a freeze ray which makes removal of button mappings impossible for a few seconds (so keep your mappings clean even under pressure) - A spiral bomb exploding into an emp wave removing all your button mappings without damaging your key-panels (try to destroy it before it destroys your precious mappings!)

Sometimes destroyed hostile ships drop items: - A small heal which repairs a random damaged key-panel partially - A full heal which repairs all key-panels fully - A bomb that destroys everything on screen (except your ship - if we can trust our spaghetti code)

Credits

The crude graphics are made by us (thanks to the power of Inkscape).

We used pixi.js to drive our code and graphics-capabilities.

All sounds are from pixabay: - Shot-Sound: shoot02.wav by V-ktor - Explosion-Sound: Musket Explosion by Willlewis - Freezeray-Sound: Old camera flash by MichelleGrobler - EMP-Sound: Synth Bass Drop Impact by AlexLane

Link https://crygos.itch.io/out-of-controls
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/out-of-controls

Ratings

Overall 995th 3.288⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Fun 895th 3.197⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 55th 4.103⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Theme 689th 3.652⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1225th 2.621⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Given 43🗳️ 52🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 202408
04. Apr 2022 · 20:37 UTC
the game has a well made multitasking challenge, I tried to be smart and stick to the edge but I got punished for it anyway lol, really like the game. as a bit of criticism I wish your buttons don't get permanently destroyed at some point, I would like to keep going untill I run out of health but that's just how I feel about it
Crygos
04. Apr 2022 · 20:48 UTC
Glad you like it!
Some of the enemies drop spare parts to help you repair your controls.
kurrik
04. Apr 2022 · 21:08 UTC
This is a really inventive idea! I like the idea of trying to fix the ship in the middle of a fight. Rerouting is super interesting but kind of difficult to use, maybe there should be some way to fix things if you can buy yourself some extra time. Nice work!
Haastregt
04. Apr 2022 · 21:08 UTC
I really like the concept! It gives a good type of stress-dopamine trying to fix up your ship, and rerouting the controls like crazy, so good job on that.

Some constructive criticism would be that I feel like except for the first 30 ish seconds, you very easily spiral out of control once you get hit and lose one control, since the screen is basically filled with bullets at that point. Losing one button thus easily makes you lose a lot of buttons, maybe there could be some sort of invincibility frames to not lose all your buttons instantly?

Overall great job!
vgel
04. Apr 2022 · 21:10 UTC
Cool idea! Reminds me of the GMTK jam theme from a while back. Game was fun, but I wasn't really able to multitask well -- I just ended up getting shot while trying to fix the wires. I found a good strategy was to wire every key to shoot as well as whatever movement it was, to have backup keys for shooting if space was broken.
Lako
04. Apr 2022 · 21:15 UTC
The concept of losing your controls and having to remap them to get a fighting chance is amazing. The controls are very sensitive which makes it hard to dodge projectiles. Overall it is a very creative and entertaining game.
OllieOA
05. Apr 2022 · 11:10 UTC
Wow! This game was very hard but a really cool concept with a creative implementation! The EMP effect was really cool and a nice bit of polish.

It was pretty difficult to pay attention to both panels and I feel like this could have been balanced a little better. Shooting enemies was very difficult, and I liked the addition of invincible dashing.

Great work for your first Ludum Dare! Welcome to the fold and I hope to see more games from your team :)
Emaigualmc2_art
05. Apr 2022 · 20:43 UTC
The concept and the idea are very good, it was very difficult for me to manage the ship and do other tasks at the same time. In addition to the controls being perhaps too sensitive to easily handle the ship, it is generally very good. great job!
izaak
06. Apr 2022 · 04:03 UTC
This is a really creative mechanic! I also really liked the warp effect visually. It's extremely challenging to manage fixing the wires while also moving around, but nothing wrong with a game being difficult.
Sawyer
06. Apr 2022 · 12:08 UTC
It was very difficult but it was also very fun, I like this idea and haven't seen many like it.
Dan Smith
06. Apr 2022 · 12:09 UTC
One of the most difficult games I've played this jam, felt the multitask requirements may have been a bit much, but a fun time nonetheless!
WilloXs
06. Apr 2022 · 12:14 UTC
The concept is really nice. I wonder if there is a way to integrate it smoother into the gameplay. As others have said its so difficult to focus on your ship and fixing the controls at the same time. Maybe have a small time window everytime things get jambled to fix it - and if you run out of time you have to play the next wave with fucked up controls xD

Yeah that said i would prefer a wave system as it gives some sense of progress and relax time in between.

Overall the gameplay is held back by the concept - but i think in a jam innovation is key and the idea is really cool.
sansman01
06. Apr 2022 · 12:15 UTC
It is a very innovative idea, but it is not satisfying in my opinion to loose controls all of the time, I have the feeling I never can conentrate on the fun part (shooting stuff). But maybe there is a way to mitigate the problem, I don't know. (Maybe play it as multiplayer. one fixes stuff mit the mouse, the other one controls the ship with the keyboard lol)
yusovv
06. Apr 2022 · 17:36 UTC
At first I thought it was difficult, but when I figured it out, I liked the game!
JuulH
06. Apr 2022 · 22:49 UTC
Really interesting idea, I liked how you constantly had to focus on both your ship and the controls. After a bit it becomes really hard though, since when you lose controls you can't move and there's lots of enemies on the screen at that point, which only makes you lose more controls and fail quickly. The idea was really nice but I think it would've been nice to either not lose controls as permanently or have an easier way to get them back since now it was pretty hard to survive more than 30s or so.
Good job though, it was fun to play!
LDJam user 268934
06. Apr 2022 · 22:51 UTC
I had a hard time getting the controls right.
Learning curve whas al little to high for my unskilled mulitask abilitys .
Did not get far but like the mechanics very original.
GameDevAlexandr
06. Apr 2022 · 22:51 UTC
Very interesting idea with control. A good example of when a game with simple mechanics and graphics has a unique gameplay
Gix
07. Apr 2022 · 03:00 UTC
I had a really hard time to multi-task but the idea is great. I kind of wish my ship could take 1-2 extra hits before disconnecting a button from an action.
Andreia
07. Apr 2022 · 04:48 UTC
I thought the idea of losing controls was really creative. It would be good if it was just temporary but maybe that wouldn't fit the theme as well. Nice work!
LDJam user 243193
08. Apr 2022 · 09:18 UTC
The idea is good but I've entered a situation in which enemies would gather above me while I'm shooting anything in front of me to sruvive. This could go on forever as long I could shoot any enemy in front of me and fix the controls after EMP wave.
TomatoOmelet
09. Apr 2022 · 16:34 UTC
Wow the idea to have player configuring key bindings as a mechanic is so innovative.
Sotaroni
09. Apr 2022 · 20:24 UTC
I love this idea, I'm very in love with the idea of wiring your controls and them being knocked out by damage, feel like it can be cheesed quite easily but over all i love this, fits the theme great and i hope you continue making games as this is a great project
Gaming Night
13. Apr 2022 · 09:54 UTC
Very cool concept! But very hard at the same time. At each try I get lost pretty early, actually as soon as I get hit once, it's hard to get back on my feet and go on. Maybe it would have been nice to ease the process, at least in the beginning. I would definitely enjoy a post jam version with a refinement on this point :)
Flying Dog Fish
16. Apr 2022 · 22:28 UTC
Interesting concept but hard as hell.
bufalloo
18. Apr 2022 · 06:27 UTC
Really interesting and novel concept. It took me a few tries to figure out what was going on. I think some feedback for invalid actions might have helped me figure it out sooner
bufalloo
18. Apr 2022 · 06:27 UTC
Really interesting and novel concept. It took me a few tries to figure out what was going on. I think some feedback for invalid actions might have helped me figure it out sooner
Doot
18. Apr 2022 · 17:19 UTC
Very cool idea and well implemented! It's very fun to try to remap everything in a hurry when you get hit. I would have loved a bit more event that force you to remapping from time to time without feeling like it's the end.

Thanks for the game I had fun 🚀
SketchyGalore
19. Apr 2022 · 21:40 UTC
Dang that's tough! I really like the idea, though! I could see this being played two player, with someone else trying to wire your controls and.. chaos ensuing!
foxwater
20. Apr 2022 · 22:34 UTC
I really got a kick out of this! I can't think of a game that requires you to actually make manual repairs to your ship while still flying it in combat, so big points for originality for sure. I will say it really gets away from you quickly if you do get hit, though I did eventually start to realize that I needed to prioritize the up/down connections and just focus on dodging and fully repair when safe after that...so it's almost an added strategy element that works for it. Nice work!