bot.copy() by Druvsaft | LudumData

bot.copy() by Druvsaft

made by Druvsaft for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

A game about unfortunate bots stuck in endless, looping patterns of inputs, and one special bot's surprising power to control them. Can they defeat all the challenges ahead of them? You might be their only hope!

Instructions: * Get all bots to their goal matching the same color. * You control the blue bot which receives a new input every second. * Every 10 seconds, a new red bot is created programmed with the last 10 inputs. It will loop these inputs forever. * Bots self-destruct if they determine they are stuck. * [WASD] or [Arrows] to move. Hold down the desired input to register it. * Registered and programmed inputs show up as icons above the bot. * You can bring up a pause menu using [Escape] to restart the current level or return to the level select

See how far you can get and have fun!

Made with Godot

Note: Audio not by us

Update 07/10/2022:

Added HTML5 and MacOS Builds (Mac build is untested, but please give it a try!

Link	https://jokgames.itch.io/bot-copy
Link	https://jokgames.itch.io/bot-copy
Link	https://jokgames.itch.io/bot-copy
Link	https://jokgames.itch.io/bot-copy
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/bot-copy

Ratings

Overall	479^th	3.622⭐	43🧑‍⚖️
Fun	498^th	3.475⭐	42🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	217^th	3.763⭐	42🧑‍⚖️
Theme	483^th	3.763⭐	42🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	1002^th	2.813⭐	42🧑‍⚖️
Humor	800^th	2.419⭐	33🧑‍⚖️
Mood	948^th	3⭐	39🧑‍⚖️
Given		42🗳️	59🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 299757

04. Oct 2022 · 01:19 UTC

Fun game low framerate for some reason but fun and hard puzzles

04. Oct 2022 · 07:09 UTC

@triangle-point, thank you for playing! We apologize that you had performance issues, we never noticed any when developing, but we might need to profile it!

Fractal Flower Girl

04. Oct 2022 · 20:21 UTC

Really cool idea! It would have been nicer if there were more complex graphics, but the music was really great. Great job!

05. Oct 2022 · 08:40 UTC

@fractal-flower-girl, thank you! We do agree that the graphics are a bit lacking, this was our first time working with 3D in Godot, and programming the core loop and features took a bit longer than expected perhaps. We're glad you liked it despite this!

As mentioned in the description the music and sound was not made by us unfortunately, but it's good that it felt like a good fit.

LDJam user 298496

07. Oct 2022 · 13:31 UTC

Really unique idea, nice work!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:44 UTC

Fantastic little puzzle game! We also thought of doing a kind of "code monkey" style game but couldn't figure it out and you nailed it. It took me a few tries to understand what's going on but when I did, it was fun enough for me to finish the entire game. I wish there were more levels / more challenging levels. Great job!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:45 UTC

A bit "easy" for me, I would like to play harder levels. I think there are too many ways to find a solution. If there were a puzzlescript version of this or a level editor I would definitly try to make some levels.

"Bots self-destruct if they determine they are stuck." => It never happened in my game.

![Sans titre.png](///raw/ccd/3/z/52b8c.png)
PS: cant upload a image of the winning level :(

07. Oct 2022 · 13:47 UTC

@matt-ravenhall, thanks for playing, glad you like the idea!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:48 UTC

Neat use of the theme and I like the concept! I found it a bit confusing on level 3 as I felt that the second clone didn't appear to follow the original instructions (went in a different direction sequence) and I didn't understand why - but definitely wanted to play more :)

07. Oct 2022 · 13:49 UTC

@yoni, thanks for playing, we're glad you enjoyed the concept once it clicked! I've seen some other takes on the same programmable actions side of things, but they all seem very unique, fun to see that others had the same core idea but took it in a different direction!

We would love to have made more levels introducing more challenges and concepts, but in the end we ran out of time and had to polish up what was there!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:51 UTC

@schadocalex, thank you for your playthrough and comment! I would agree that there could be more complex and interesting levels, we wanted to make sure we nailed the core concept first, but ran out of time to flesh out more challenges and so. A level editor would be a fun post jam project, you never know!

The exploding bot was more of a safety feature in order to ensure the player wouldn't get stuck if the bot couldn't move anywhere, the easiest way to trigger it was to not move at all, but there were other cases that could happen, so we decided to add this feature. If you didn't need it just means you were great at solving the puzzles :smile:

Thanks again!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:52 UTC

Such a cool idea! Great job for a team of 2, you can be super-proud. This concept might be interesting to develop even more and adding some nice artwork. Thank you for sharing your work, I had fun playing :)

07. Oct 2022 · 13:53 UTC

It's a great concept. The levels are also very interesting. Good job!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:54 UTC

@simono, thanks for playing! It's entirely possible you encountered a bug that made the bot move weirdly, we had quite a few moments throughout development where the input of the player didn't translate 100% when copied, so while we tried to fix them all, perhaps some were left intact! Glad you enjoyed it anyway!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:57 UTC

@lauptimist, thank you for playing and your kind words, it means a lot! We're very happy with what we submitted in the end, but we also had so many ideas to build on the core concept! You always want to build too much in such a short time don't you :smile:

Glad you enjoyed it despite the basic artwork, hopefully we can focus more on the art side next time now that we have some more 3D experience!

07. Oct 2022 · 13:57 UTC

@mantou, thank you for playing, very happy you liked it!

07. Oct 2022 · 14:57 UTC

As a programmer, I enjoyed playing. First try to strategize, then it's fun to watch how hyperintelligent creatures behave

07. Oct 2022 · 14:57 UTC

As a programmer, I enjoyed playing. First try to strategize, then it's fun to watch how hyperintelligent creatures behave

07. Oct 2022 · 15:03 UTC

@exaggegen, thank you for playing, glad you liked it! Now you can program while you play!

07. Oct 2022 · 23:33 UTC

Nice idea, on the same philosophy as mine. Interesting stuff. I loved the music and I think it's a good implementation. The 10 second period, like other games, tends to make it a bit slow, but that's not your fault. Took me a few tries to understand that the commands are global (i.e. apply to all robots and not just the next one). Thanks and good job!

PSV Games Studio

08. Oct 2022 · 01:48 UTC

Very cool and fun game, you need to think about the movements before executing them, very interesting idea!

08. Oct 2022 · 09:43 UTC

@jose-bonilla, thanks for playing our game as well, glad you liked a different take on your concept! Definitely agree about the ten seconds being slow in this case, it was one of the trickiest things about the theme in my mind :sweat_smile:

The idea is that the commands the player makes only apply to the next robot created, and then it should be looping those ten commands forever, so maybe you encountered a bug in your playthrough? There's bound to be a lot of issues we missed before submitting for sure!

08. Oct 2022 · 09:43 UTC

@psv-games-studio, thanks for playing our game, glad you liked the mechanics!

08. Oct 2022 · 17:27 UTC

Really interesting concept! and great implementation!

Level 6 almost broke my brain 😂

Had a good time playing the game.

Nice job!

08. Oct 2022 · 22:14 UTC

@jonah, thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it despite the brain breakage! :sweat_smile:

09. Oct 2022 · 03:36 UTC

It was an interesting concept, well done! It was a little annoying to have to "charge" the moves though, maybe it would have been best to just lock movement for 1 second after each move but after the 1 second passes the player can move instantly without charging. Or instead of 10 seconds just make it 10 moves with no timer, but then it wouldn't be "every 10 seconds" :thinking:

I was able to clear some stages by using the blue robot as an obstacle for the red robots, to prevent them from going where they shouldn't. I liked the ending screen, it turned into a crowded party :smile: Good job!

09. Oct 2022 · 11:55 UTC

There's not really much I can say except very fun and cool!

09. Oct 2022 · 12:51 UTC

I really like the concept, pretty nice to plan ahead and then see everything work out! More levels/bots would have been cool :)

09. Oct 2022 · 20:14 UTC

I really liked the idea. It's well implemented and that makes it fun. I agree that it would be nice to have more levels!

Good job!!

AlexSolonnikovP4

10. Oct 2022 · 09:35 UTC

An interesting game with interesting mechanics, I saw that there are two people in the team, and this is a very big job, I think. The game looks simple, but on the other hand, not at all. Big fellows!) There is room to grow!

10. Oct 2022 · 12:36 UTC

Nicely Done Bro. really nice concept and use of the 10 second theme. Would love to see this game developed further and released in a larger scale. Please do check out my submission as well.

10. Oct 2022 · 14:43 UTC

@tex-killer, thanks for playing! We did have some discussions about the best way to handle player input, even at one point considering letting you move freely during the full ten seconds and record as many actions as you'd like, but in the end we opted for this approach, as it felt easy enough to implement and also should appear somewhat logical to the player. I do take your point about charging the move though, your suggestion of a movement cooldown instead might have worked well!

The party room was our favourite as well, glad you liked it! Thanks for your feedback!

10. Oct 2022 · 14:44 UTC

@frigusterio, thanks for playing and your kind words, glad you liked it!

10. Oct 2022 · 14:45 UTC

@substain, thanks for playing, we're glad you enjoyed the short experience that we managed to put out before the deadline! We would have liked to make some more levels and challenges as well, with some more concepts to explore, hopefully we can get the core experience implemented sooner next time to give some time for content creation!

10. Oct 2022 · 14:46 UTC

@fosf0, thanks for playing! We will try harder to create more content next jam, always tricky to manage your time before the deadline!

10. Oct 2022 · 14:48 UTC

@alexsolonnikovp4, thank you for playing, glad you liked the core concept! We did try to keep the scope down due to our team size, so it felt manageable for the most time, but there was a lot of features we didn't have time to explore in the end. Perhaps next time we will be able to build smarter so we have more time to make content!

10. Oct 2022 · 14:49 UTC

@baylock, thanks for playing, glad you liked it enough to want to play more! Will try to check out your game during my next play session, hopefully this weekend!

13. Oct 2022 · 00:19 UTC

That was cool, would be cool to see further developed. A reset button would be helpful or some way to go back to level select

13. Oct 2022 · 10:15 UTC

@grizwhirl, thank you for playing and glad you enjoyed it! We do actually have a pause menu that you can access by pressing Escape or Start on a controller. It has restart and level select buttons, but it's only explained in the description here on the submission page, so it's not really exposed well to you as a user. We should definitely get better at creating tutorials and such for our jam games!

14. Oct 2022 · 15:31 UTC

Very innovative and interesting game, well done.

14. Oct 2022 · 15:45 UTC

@mar3k, thank you for playing, glad you enjoyed it!

15. Oct 2022 · 20:57 UTC

Great puzzle game! Took a moment to understand the mechanic, but once it clicked the gameplay was a blast. One thing I would tweak would be a bit longer first cooldown after a restart, sometimes I accidentally missed the first move cause it happened so quickly. Graphics looked quite basic, but music and sounds were nice. Quite unique idea which fit the the theme nicely. Well done!

![Picture 1.png](///raw/13d/9/z/532b5.png)

16. Oct 2022 · 11:55 UTC

Cool and interesting game!

16. Oct 2022 · 18:03 UTC

I'm not very good at puzzle games. I stopped at level 6.
I do really enjoy the idea and it suits really well the game jam theme !
I wish I could have some time before the level start so I can analyze the level and think about what I should do.

Keep up the good work ! :smile:

18. Oct 2022 · 10:50 UTC

@justmars, thank you for playing, glad you enjoyed the mechanics after it clicked! We agree that we should ideally tweak the start of the level, we had some discussions of changing it so that the timer would only start once you took the first move, but in the end we ran out of time to add that. It's also the first time working with Godot in 3D for us, and creating all the art using simple engine primitives was the fastest way we could think of! :smile:

18. Oct 2022 · 10:50 UTC

@georgy16, thank you for playing!

18. Oct 2022 · 10:52 UTC

@harksa, thank you for playing, glad you were able to appreciate the idea despite having a hard time with puzzle games! We should definitely have added a buffer for the player at the start of the level, we had some ideas but ran out of time, but we agree it would have made it easier to plan out your moves. Thanks for your feedback!

19. Oct 2022 · 18:57 UTC

Wow! This is a great game! Very decent implementation. Tricky game.

19. Oct 2022 · 19:05 UTC

@bathpirate, thank you, that's very kind! Glad you liked it, hope it was a good kind of tricky! :smile:

LDJam user 281060

20. Oct 2022 · 23:16 UTC

Great puzzle game! Solutions weren't obvious but if you thought about it a bit you could come up with the answer, which is the sweet spot for puzzle IMO. I was also impressed that new mechanics appeared after quite a few levels. An impressive amount of content. Great job!

21. Oct 2022 · 08:13 UTC

Very interesting concept. I like it

21. Oct 2022 · 13:00 UTC

@darzu, thank you for playing! We're glad you're impressed with the amount of levels and mechanics, we hope to make even more content next jam!

21. Oct 2022 · 13:01 UTC

@epeachyband, thank you for playing, glad you liked the concept!