Chernobyl by Robert Li

[raw]
made by Robert Li for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

VERSION 0.01 Fixes: 0. Play in full screen mode for the best experience! 1. Restart button fixed on level 2 2. Level 2 triangle door didn't display correctly 3. The player can now click on characters to select them!


Game Design: Robert LI, Tilkey YANG, Anoif LU, Ink SUN, Haoyun ZHANG

Game Programming: Robert LI

Game Art: Ink SUN

Music & SoundFX: Tilkey YANG


Please scroll down and use the link to play.


10s...9...8s......

Time flies so fast, especially in an emergency disaster.

As a squad leader, you are assigned to an impossible deadly mission.

Mission Code: Chernobyl

You must lead your team through the radiation zone and reach the central control desk to stop the nuclear leak.

However, the radiation is too intense. Each squad member can only stay in the radiation zone for 10 seconds. After that, they will be part of the ruins. They are willing to sacrifice themselves to save more.

You have to make your order wisely and calmly. Your squad trusts you unconditionally. They will strictly follow your order without any hesitation.

You have the map of each construction, but have no idea about the real-time situation inside. However, your squad will report what they see.

In that case, think about your strategy, to sacrifice one of them to get to know the map better, or to make all members rush in and reach the control desk.


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Rule book Che.png

FakeScreen_S.jpg


Thank you!

Ratings

Overall 90th 4.079⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Fun 306th 3.689⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 120th 3.932⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Theme 216th 4.053⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 18th 4.632⭐ 40🧑‍⚖️
Audio 57th 4.149⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Humor 377th 3.219⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Mood 21th 4.446⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Given 43🗳️ 38🗨️

Feedback

DanielRMorgan
03. Oct 2022 · 22:40 UTC
Hello! Really cool game, I like the atmosphere. It's a bit tricky but felt like it was doable enough that I attempted several times. I feel like the control scheme could use some work :thumbsup:
Jacob Diaz
04. Oct 2022 · 03:30 UTC
The art is really nice !
DGo
04. Oct 2022 · 03:30 UTC
Ooo I loved the aesthetic. The art fit the tone of the plot super well.

Game was pretty fun, though some quality of life things could help it flow a little better, like being able to click on the people as well as their portrait to command them.

Overall great job!
Hydezeke
04. Oct 2022 · 03:34 UTC
Really great art style and use of the theme 👍. I love the urgency of locking in your moves with no take-backs though I kept selecting the wrong person on accident.
Str0nkyK0ng
04. Oct 2022 · 03:35 UTC
Really well done! I think the only thing I might change is allowing the player to click on the characters on the grid, versus always having to click on their portrait. But that's just a small suggestion. Other than that, amazing work!
kr4ft3r
04. Oct 2022 · 14:34 UTC
You're welcome, humanity. Cool concept, but one that needs more time than what you get in LD to flesh out into challenging levels. Being able to click on figures instead of portraits would make the game more smooth. Of course the best part is gorgeous graphics, every screen is an eye candy.
Eugene An
04. Oct 2022 · 22:19 UTC
What a beautiful game and great concept!
LinuxJostar
05. Oct 2022 · 06:47 UTC
The way u guys breaking down 10 seconds is very creative! The game mechanic works really well with the theme. And I felt company because I'm controlling a group of ppl at a time:)
Andy Chen
05. Oct 2022 · 20:26 UTC
Love the fun & intense it gives me! The puzzle solving is really engaging! The atmosphere is on point. Good Job!
biggermelon
05. Oct 2022 · 20:27 UTC
Cool game, love the art and theme, the gameplay is well combined with the theme.
LDJam user 257946
05. Oct 2022 · 20:35 UTC
The art of this game is incredible! It looks amazing! Overall, Great Job!
Root_97
05. Oct 2022 · 23:45 UTC
Love the music...brings a lot to the gameplay. Art style matches the theme very well. Very engaging gameplay throughout. Well-done!! Overall 10/10
AegisFate
06. Oct 2022 · 06:38 UTC
Excellent, impressive art and atmosphere. Simple but ingenious gameplay, the story background is closely related to the theme, well done!
Faust_Mi
06. Oct 2022 · 09:54 UTC
Aке, sound, music and mechanics good work for the mood. Thanks for a game!!! Very good job!
CallofAS22
07. Oct 2022 · 13:48 UTC
Really great art style with the theme. Would be a great game if the operation was a little more optimized. Well done.
Xorel
07. Oct 2022 · 13:55 UTC
Atmosphere and art style are really good! The gameplay was simple but took me a few seconds to understand exactly what was going on, really simple and makes you think faster after you understand the gameflow. A bit difficult, but also....that's the point :P Would love to play an expanded version!
Weine
07. Oct 2022 · 18:52 UTC
Cool, but depressing use of the theme. Goodbye little yellow guy, do it for humanity!
robobarbie
08. Oct 2022 · 04:39 UTC
i had a blast with this one, no notes. love games with a darker tone to them, and really love games with fun and unique strategy elements. great job!
Shaopenguin
08. Oct 2022 · 23:38 UTC
Wow this was a great entry! Loved the art style, the limited palette, the pencil sketched character portraits. The game also had a great atmosphere on top of that and the puzzle concept felt very original. Just a great entry overall. Amazing work!
candlesan
09. Oct 2022 · 00:21 UTC
I really enjoyed the sketch-style art. It created this awesome retro-noir vibe.
The music was really good. I enjoyed when the music changed on the later levels.
The mood set by the idea that some people must be sacrificed was dark, tragic, but tasteful. I appreciated that the mechanics did not glorify the death of some of my troops but rather made me feel like they were sacrificing themselves for the greater good. It was a necessary loss.
I liked puzzling my way through the levels trying to figure out how to do the reactor shutdowns.
I found myself trying to save some of the people even though I know it wasn't strictly required to finish the levels which I don't normally do in games of this type - which speaks to the strength of the mood.

You're welcome that I saved humanity! :)
Fletcher Miya
10. Oct 2022 · 04:10 UTC
Impressive art style and simplicity! It feels really smooth to get the whole idea of the game right after picking it up and focus on solving each level. The idea of needing to explore the scene is fantastic in terms of help setting up the atmosphere and tension. However I do believe that being able to just restart the current level does destroyed the meaning of this to some extent. It would be even better if restarting comes with a cost or there is just simply no restarting in the level and the cost being having to replay from the beginning.
JoshuaRabbit
11. Oct 2022 · 12:13 UTC
This art style is so interesting!
Samuli
11. Oct 2022 · 12:25 UTC
Cool looking game with strong mood! The later puzzled were maybe a bit too large so repeating failed tries was a bit cumbersome.
Akkara
11. Oct 2022 · 16:50 UTC
Awesome game! I love the visuals and the gameplay is quite different from the other entries. I really like the puzzle aspect and the only remark I might make is that clicking the command button everytime after ordering every character to move is laborious, maybe a shortcut or automatically move to the move phase when all the moves are decided can speed up the game.
But Great game! Well done!
Jiri Hysek
12. Oct 2022 · 11:01 UTC
Great game! I love the overal mood, visuals are super cool and it's great fit for it. Gameplay is engaging, I'd like to see more maybe with some harder puzzles :) Anyway, I love it!
LDJam user 298496
13. Oct 2022 · 21:10 UTC
Great idea and presented really well, nice work!
TaRosie
14. Oct 2022 · 04:30 UTC
One of the most interesting ideas I have seen so far. The consistant, immersive and impressive art and sound design with strong narrative and engaging gameplay, the stake of wasting a weak, valuable and also unvaluable once-lived someone's life on a poor tactic becomes so real. It's also interesting and it feels intentional how we as the decision-maker does not need to plan a safe way for these people to leave the levels after it is won, everything about this game just take us to the nuclear winter of humanity.
HellSquirrel
14. Oct 2022 · 09:37 UTC
Very cool design and theme development. Game mechanics very succinctly fit into the theme of the competition, a good rendering of the time limit through the number of moves together within the theme of the game.

The selection of names for a moment made you think that the developers from cis-region that so well know the theme with the liquidators of Chernobyl)

I understand that this is a prototype for the competition and there was a development time limit, but as a potential future buyer of your pre-release project I would like to see more variety in the puzzles. Maybe I should have added parallel activities for the characters or interdependent actions when solving puzzles, as on the first playthrough I passed separately by each character to the end and the last character had no problem stomping to the finish line alone. Only after the final credits, where the graves of the liquidators were depicted, I felt nasty as if I were one of the Soviet officials who sacrificed people as expendable material just to please Mr. Gorbachev. And on the second playthrough I tried to save the lives of more liquidators by performing actions in parallel.

Maybe to enhance the effect on the final credits it would be worth showing the player the names of the liquidators, which he killed, to add weight to the previously taken actions. It might also be worthwhile, as in the old version of the game "Doom", to change the liquidator's icon when the radiation level changes, so that the player would also empathize with each character.
![st,small,507x507-pad,600x600,f8f8f8.jpg](///raw/811/3/z/53205.jpg) ![st,small,507x507-pad,600x600,f8f8f8.u1.jpg](///raw/811/3/z/53206.jpg)

Since my English is very bad, I translated through a translator and the text above did not want to offend you or bring a negative. I think you have done an excellent job of revealing and presenting the topic well. I hope you will not abandon the project, finalize and release it on PC or mobile platforms. All the best, thanks for the gaming experience!
BathPirate
21. Oct 2022 · 10:57 UTC
Great game!
TheSmellofOxygen
21. Oct 2022 · 12:53 UTC
Grim tone, excellent atmosphere, compelling source material and top notch visuals carried on top of a just-difficult-enough puzzle game? This is a triumph of Jam output. The sound design was good too. I think the only think I could ask for was some sort of "bonus points" or something for managing to have some of the "biorobots" survive. Perhaps they could have shown up at the end.