ROSWELL AREA ███████ WASTE DISPOSAL, INC. by Real_Human_1000

[raw]
made by Real_Human_1000 for Ludum Dare 51 (COMPO)

Design a waste management solution for a shady company near Roswell, New Mexico! Place conveyor belts, incinerators, and acid sprayers to destroy mysterious crates of unknown origin! Delve into the lore and try to figure out what's actually happening!

Waves of crates drop from the ceiling EVERY TEN SECONDS, so be quick and pay attention!

Make sure to read the text at the start of the game. There's a lot of it and the actual gameplay is mostly intuitive, but if you're struggling, that info has many answers.

That being said, just remember: you can click on crates to do some damage to them. If another strategy isn't working, fall back to clicking on the crate.

ALSO I forgot to add it to the text at the beginning of the game, but MACHINES WILL BREAK DOWN OVER TIME! To repair them, select them in the BUILD mode and press the REPAIR button! Clicking on a machine in either BUILD or GAME mode will display its name, location, quality, etc. in the bottom right!

Finally, I'd like to apologize for any potential collision bugs. The physics engine is written entirely by yours truly, but is subject to some serious issues that I've mostly smoothed over.

Source code link: https://github.com/Real-Human-1000/ldjam2022

Ratings

Overall 400th 3.036⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Fun 433th 2.696⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 306th 3.143⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Theme 459th 2.714⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 373th 2.964⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 398th 1.762⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 154th 3.019⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 307th 3.018⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 26🗳️ 35🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 277876
03. Oct 2022 · 00:59 UTC
Cool game concept and the execution of it isn't half bad! The kicker for me is the lack of sound as even some metal churning in the background would add to the mysterious warehouse vibe. I very much enjoyed the story of it and I found humor in the specificity of it. Good job!
PBG
03. Oct 2022 · 16:22 UTC
Loved the scenario here. The intro is really well done - looks great and well written. I struggled with the gameplay a bit - is it possible to have conveyers go left? Still, I had fun. Kudos on hacking this all out in js, performance is great. Cheers!
thedashdude
04. Oct 2022 · 02:17 UTC
Didn't seem like incinerators were good, seemed to just doom you to smog. Also, I was clicking a bunch and sometimes missed the end of the game. I had fun though.
scottgoldsmith
04. Oct 2022 · 19:48 UTC
Really great game and loved the puzzle aspects of it. The controls were driving me crazy though, I'd accidently click and place things very easily, so lots of restarts. Great gameplay though and really enjoyed the challenge!
🎤 Real_Human_1000
04. Oct 2022 · 20:21 UTC
The answer to many of these questions is yes, and I just didn't have *quite* enough time to get everything good enough to include in the final game. I'm sure that could be said by anyone participating in this jam.

@glove funnily enough I actually wrote some custom background music, but I didn't have *quite* enough time to process it how I wanted and to put it in the game.

@pbg conveyors automatically alternate in direction on every other row (ex. they go right on the second row and left on the third, etc.) and there actually is an unimplemented button that rotates components and it work perfectly fine, but I was having problems with the physics engine at hour 46 and removing player-decided rotations calmed those problems down a little bit.

That actually feeds into @thedashdude's observation, as there actually is an unimplemented fourth crate-destroying machine that balances out the incinerator and acid sprayer, but it caused a lot of bugs so it got cut.

And finally, @scottgoldsmith, the weird order of click-the-space and then click-the-button is like that only because it is simpler to implement, albeit at the cost of UX. In retrospect, taking time to think about what is most intuitive for the player instead of just what's easiest would have saved the player from some of the walls of text in the beginning of the game.

Thank you all for your feedback! I'm learning a lot about how to better organize myself during game jams and I appreciate the honest reviews. It all makes me wonder how many things other games *mostly* have, but that weren't finished in time for release. Good luck to you all in the judging!
LDJam user 303716
04. Oct 2022 · 23:51 UTC
Nice Game!
lustdante
05. Oct 2022 · 04:57 UTC
You had something really unique and cool going on here. I wish there was more time to realize them :|
ninjacreeper47
06. Oct 2022 · 05:06 UTC
Are you meant to have a way to reduce smoke? It seems odd to use a machine that dooms you to losing. Clicking as a mechanic feels pretty tedious. I guess it could be interesting if there was ever a time management component so it feels like it's giving up focusing on something else. Having conveyor belts that face a wall feels pretty OP, not sure if this is intended. I pretty much just placed one wall facing conveyor belt, then some acids and just waited for the rest of the game, occasionally repairing things and clicking boxes that acid didn't kill.
CaptainDreamcast
06. Oct 2022 · 15:55 UTC
Very fun game! I had a lot of fun finding optimal survival strategies using different box configurations. The patented double-acid and double-conveyor strategy was the one that allowed me to survive the longest. Clicking on plastic and other boxes and letting the rest take care of itself.

I think it's the type of game where everything can find a different approach for themselves and I like that a lot. The take on the theme was good as well, I think you incorporated the 10 seconds well, that went well for the wave duration. The only collision bug I saw was that boxes sometimes make it through the initial conveyor belt, but I just considered that part of the channel and added some acid under there. Had a great time with this, well done!
spyranteros
06. Oct 2022 · 18:09 UTC
Great game with outside the box thinking (no pun intended)
ThaProfesional
07. Oct 2022 · 02:52 UTC
Flavour was great (really cool intro well designed and written) and I liked the graphics. Not normally the style of game I play but I had a lot of fun felt like a mix of tower defence and "The Incredible Machine" (oh no my age is showing). Ended up re-trying a bunch of times and played for a while.

Took a little while to get used to the controls. Had the same problem as scottgoldsmith when placing things. That said I liked the layout of the UI and thought it was pretty intuitive. I really liked that while placing items everything kept moving and I couldn't click boxes. It created a nice sense of urgency and made me really think about what I needed to do.

Sound would have been cool but I was engaged enough without it.
Harmadillo
07. Oct 2022 · 17:45 UTC
Nice game. The trial and error of building different layouts and combinations was a lot of fun.
lesinvisible
07. Oct 2022 · 18:14 UTC
It's a very neat and fresh concept, I like when games at LD go away from typical and tried and true mechanics. Nice background and fluff, they are far better than they have any right to be for a puzzle game.

I also struggled with the gameplay a bit, but it didn't take much from the overall experience. I was amazed how many mechanics you managed to include in this game.
Drdunkel
10. Oct 2022 · 18:40 UTC
Perhaps a little heavy on text, but i like the secret feeling
Would be nice to get back more money when you "remove"
Corporation
13. Oct 2022 · 18:21 UTC
Interesting concept, reminds me of tower defence spin-off. Something that can really get expanded by adding variaty of crates and machinery. The theme usage is a bit straightforward, but gets the job done.
rightearphone
21. Oct 2022 · 07:26 UTC
Great idea, a bit confusing UI (can't see crates and smoke indicators), didn't understand how to place different direction conveyors and tough balancing
Overall I like this game, idea, visuals are nice, congrats on a great work