Don't Let Them Sit There by MrEvilGuy
Have you ever wanted to experience public transit from the comfort of your own home?
Well now's your chance! In Don't Let Them Sit, you play as a passenger on an underground subway train. The pandemic is not over, and you do NOT want to catch Covid-19.
YOUR GOAL: Do not let other passengers sit near you. Every time they do, your Covid-19 aerosol meter goes up. If it maxes out, you lose!
STRATEGY: At first the game might seem random and chaotic. But every passenger "type" has different preferences. For example, if they're wearing a mask, and you take off your mask, there's a good chance they won't sit next to you. Try to learn the patterns of the different passengers to make yourself the ultimate Covid-19-free public-transit user! (see images below for help)
CAUTION: While taking up the entire row of seats might seem compelling, there are transit police who WILL arrest you if they see you doing that.
There is NO endgame: you are trying to delay the inevitable (getting Covid-19). Try to get the highest time possible!
Designer notes:
My first game using C# (using the Godot engine). (Every game I’ve ever made in the past was in GameMaker and with minimal-to-no coding.)
All resources created by me during the competition. All programming done by me. Made in 72 hours which is why I had to submit to the Jam instead of Compo.
v1.1 changelog --fixed invisible phone --fixed crash on taking shoes off while sprawled out with bag --fixed disappearing torso on PUAs when rejected --fixed timer not pausing on gameover screen v1.2 changelog (should be final entry update) --fixed 'arrest mode' not triggering --fixed Z indexes on some sprites --fixed deactivating item giving activated effect v1.3 changelong (post-jam) --added rushhour mode --added joyride and hard modes
For more of my games, check out: https://andrewbrowngames.wordpress.com/
| Link | https://andrewbrowngames.itch.io/dont-let-them-sit |
| macOS UNTESTED | https://andrewbrowngames.itch.io/dont-let-them-sit |
| normal/off hours is Jam entry; rushhour/joyride/hard is post-jam | https://andrewbrowngames.itch.io/dont-let-them-sit |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/dont-let-them-sit-there |
Ratings
| Overall | 892th | 3.382⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1039th | 3.045⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 266th | 3.727⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 913th | 3.464⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 730th | 3.6⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 369th | 3.645⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 148th | 3.964⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 627th | 3.537⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 71🗳️ | 110🗨️ |
The grafics are nice and the audio is great. But i cant see what the goal of the game is
The game is very funny, thanks to some game design breakthroughs like BARE FEET :joy: that killed me. The graphics and SFX also add to the feel of the game. 100% accurate subway mood.
I love the style of this. Def feels like public transit. The interactions didn't consistently appear for every stop, and after a bit, seemed to stop appearing at all. I kept at it tho, never got arrested, but loved seeing who, in your cast of goofballs, got on at the next stop. Checking out your other games, now. Great work and thank you for the game!
This also appropriately captured my absolute horror with public transit. Too well done!
May we all one day get to have little pods that take us through tubes super fast like some sort of hamster fantasy.
I was there with my mask off, bare feet, eating a whole giant pizza and lying down grinning demonically at some guy whose torso had become dislocated from his legs, and STILL some dude was like "hey can I get your number?"
My best run was when I managed to take up the whole row with my bag. I offended humanity for sure, and made it to time 350ish if I recall. When I saw cops outside the door, I picked my bag up and then when they left hoped for a chance to put it back down... eventually got the bug from dudes sitting down in the gap my bag left, but I made it far enough that the train was packed.
Really cool, unique experience. Well done!
@pkenney glad you enjoyed it. Always love to hear game stories like that. There's a lot of randomness in the game but sometimes the pieces fall into place nicely :D
For some reason, it reminds me of a French cartoon I watched as a kid.
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450143040?t=8h28m21s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
I think the idea is great, with just enough touch of humor and reality. This rather unique art style mix and self recorded audio well complement each other.
From technical side of things I had some trouble starting the game. It seems you need to press some key for people to start coming near your? I had a for about 8 stops (didn't wait more) where no person would go in my direction. They would go off-screen to the right side.
From game design side, while it's cool that each person has different personalities and dislikes, I found it rather difficult remember them all (or even look up) in time press correct dislike image. Maybe rather than trying to fit text on the dislike image, it would be better to have text written using text component / node, and just show the image without text nearby, that way it would be less visual noise, trying to recognize the correct dislike to choose.
Another suggestion would be to actually reduce number of possible dislikes. Then the dislikes could be shown in UI always at the same place, this way separating the problems the player has to solve. It would be to only identify the dislike instead of currently identify the dislike AND then finding it among possible options. You could add placement randomization as an difficulty option.
If you think that it would be too easy, then it could be a dialog between the passenger and you. The passenger says something to you (visually, or just sound) and you have to dislike with something he would dislike in the context he just said. After your response, he could have another "dialog" line, that you also have to respond (deny). After several such exchanges, the passenger could decide if he/she wants to sit nearby or not. Maybe even decide how close to you, and the sitting distance could affect the aerosol rise rate.
Maybe it would also makes sense to keep survival progress not in time, but in number of stops survived? Because, it's possible add artificial time, by choosing dislikable thing as late as possible rather than right away as you identify it.
P.S. This could also get boost from gambling element a bit. If you add choice to leave the train at some stop, you could calculate the number of stops survived, multiply it by some exponential modifier and allow to take the train again, adding to already existing score. But if you fail to get off the train in time, and get covid, your score is reset. Of course, the more stops you ride without getting off the train, the better score multiplier. So, the more you risk, the better score you can get.