Delay the inevitable: College Addition by Jordan Pavlic
Who wants to graduate and grow up? Not me. Delay your inevitable graduation and party it up in this game I made for Ludum Dare 50.
In this game the player is dealt 3 cards at the start. You can then choose to either play a card (click "Do It") or save it ("Maybe Later"). Each round is ended by clicking on the "Next Week" button and new cards dealt at the beginning of each week/turn.
Try to see how high you can get your party score before the inevitable happens: graduation. Also try not to run out of money, let your grades drop too much, or starve to death because any of those would put a downer on things.
P.S. I know the UI doesn't scale right (try it in fullscreen to fix it) and there's no sound, but I ran out of time. This is my first ever game, first time using Unity, first time publishing a game on Itch.io, and first Ludum Dare ever so just getting this far is a win for me :)
Let me know what you think!
Jordan Pavlic
Ratings
| Overall | 613th | 2.35⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 618th | 1.95⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 498th | 2.833⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 367th | 3.524⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 607th | 1.905⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 341th | 2.632⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 567th | 2.342⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 17🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
I like the idea of balancing party and grades before graduation, and the hunger complexity was a nice touch.
One quick tip since it's your first jam, using something like https://coolors.co/ to choose your colors instead of those harsh Full RGB colors can really help boost your game's aesthetic and is super easy to do!
There are lots of complex things you'll learn to do as you make more complex games, but here are a few quick tips that are super easy and help make things a bit smoother:
- Use a consistent color scheme - I'm terrible at picking out colors, so I use a color scheme generator when I need a new one, like https://coolors.co/e9d758-297373-ff8552-e6e6e6-39393a. If you don't like the colors you can just reroll them, or lock some of them in and just reroll the ones you don't like. Even with no other changes, your game would look pretty solid if the colors matched each other a bit better
- Use rounded squares for textures - get paint.net (https://www.getpaint.net/download.html) if you don't already have it, you can draw out a rounded corner rectangle in whatever dimension you need in a few seconds, save it, and drop it into game!
- Pick a fun font - There are lots of default fonts installed, but if you don't like any of them, you can pick out a custom one from a site like https://www.dafont.com/ (just make sure the license permits whatever use you intend it for), download it, drag it into your Unity Assets folder, and it's ready to go! It's actually kind crazy what a different font can make; getting one that matches the vibe you're going for can completely change feel of the game!
Great work on getting a completed game done! That's a great achievement!
Nice humour too :D
That being said, I wasn't sure if there was an end state to your game here. I went into the negatives, i reached a completely red bar (i thought red means bad, but I guess i achieved graduation?). The game continued on regardless.
If you're interested in game design, you might want to focus on directing the player's journey through your game, and weeding out obstacles. For example, the "maybe later" button should have some sort of feedback on click, otherwise it might feel broken. I couldn't tell if there was much nuance to the numbers offered by each card, but you might want to consider encouraging a variety of options, even if the player has set their mind on partying or graduating. What mechanics or rewards could you add for steering off the direct path? That would be the thought-process of tickling people's brains in a game about choices.
EDIT: Also, black text on blue background is a bit rough on the eyes. I do like that you picked different colors for the "type" of card, though, it's intuitive.
Jokes aside, congrats on finishing Ludum Dare! Making games is haaaaaard, and this is a really cool idea. Keep at it!