Little Scout 2 by Tex Killer
You're the little green alien scout from Little Scout (LD 38), now exploring another planet. Unfortunately, your size change device got damaged and now behaves erratically.
Can you get out and explore the world?
Links
Post-Jam changes
In my tiredness I introduced a last-minute change that triggered a division by zero. I have fixed it, but the fix was done after the deadline. Also after the deadline I made some adjustments to the force of the electric fan that was making one of the endings unreachable, changed the ending screens to give credit to the creator of the donut image, changed the window title to Little Scout 2 (was showing Mani, from a previous entry) and added a txt file with links to the resources I used.
If you disapprove of those changes being made after the deadline please feel free to either not rate or to give low ratings. The game is rushed, bugged and I doubt it will do well in the ranking, but I did my best and I'm looking forward for any feedback I receive and also to play and give feedback to everyone else's games!
Controls
A or left arrow key: move left
D or right arrow key: move right
Space bar: jump
Item mechanics
Spring: gets compressed when you're big, propels you when you turn small on top of it
Bridge: opens up when you're big
Electric fan: blows you away when you're small
Development notes
Little Scout 2 was developed using our own engine, the same one used on some of our previous LD entries (including the first Little Scout). I'm grateful for any helpful feedback!
The images used in the game were adapted from CC0 content found in Kenney.nl, the songs were released by Eric Taylor licensed as CC-BY, the "Pumpkin" font by Bam O is Freeware and the cute donut image used at the ending screen was released by stockgiu on Freepik: https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/delicious-sweet-products-kawaii-characters_4939537.htm. Links to the resources and their licenses are included in the archive.
Ratings
| Overall | 1007th | 3.056⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1133th | 2.611⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 582th | 3.315⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 617th | 3.611⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 707th | 2.604⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1003th | 2.904⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 31🗨️ |
Also @hexyvexy, maybe the division by zero was triggering Windows Defender? I'll try to figure out what is going on there.
I assume you mean the spring at the start. When you stand on it while you're big it gets compressed, and if you stay on it until you turn small it will propel you up.
The first game (from LD 38) had a tutorial for the spring, but this time there was no time left for tutorials, unfortunately
Getting to the fan to be blown to the left was quite tricky :grin:. At one point, I got a bug when my scout stayed tiny forever, and I could not proceed. Also, jumping felt strange - like the anticipation part was too long and as a result it felt like there is a lag between a button press and a jump.
I still had fun playing and really enjoyed the mechanic of size changes.
@arihan10 I'm sorry for that issue. Are you using an onboard GPU? In past jams some people had similar problems running our engine's games with onboard GPUs
@arihan10 Yes, I meant integrated graphics, but since yours is not integrated I don't know what could be happening...
@fabula-rasa I'm sorry for the bugs, and thank you very much for the great feedback!
@benjamin If you want a little tip: the electric fan will only propel you while you're small (left passage), and you can steer yourself while in the air (right passage). Anyway, thank you very much for playing! :smiley:
I don't know if it helps, but here is a map of the entire level:
Thanks again, everyone! :smile:
I actually loved the lost of perspective when the character becomes small.
The only thing I would change if you choose to work on this game is the hole 10 seconds mechanic, though for this one you nailed the theme I guess, if the theme is staying a timer could be nice.
I've succeed to make it through! Thanks to your map of the entire level ;).
Some remarks if you want to continue on working on the game:
- Like others said it would help to be able to zoom less. Or if you still want the player to discover your level you can display a kind of minimap. Without displaying the fan and other mecanisms.
- The ten seconds between size change feel a little long. Here it is the theme but I guess 5 seconds would be enough for your game.
- You didn't display the 10 secondes timer. This is the first game where I needed to looks at my computer's clock to know when I need to go :D. It was kind of fun to do that. But also it would have help your players to display it into the game.
Also I got a bug in my first run where my scout only grown one time. Then it wouldn't go bigger after 10 seconds. So I stayed small.
On a final note, congratz on working for that long with SFML. A long time ago I've spent a loooot of time with it to train my C++. Made my first ludumdare game with it also (LD29: https://ludumdata.openfu.com/game/18948). It feels strange to see it again and I know it is not an easy task to develop a game in a weekend with it. Unity feels like cheating^^.
Good job!
Bonus: 5 seconds before disaster
Edit: *Images doesn't seems to work :(*
@guyro @pndaa Yeah, 10 seconds is kind of long for what I did, but I had to fit the theme somehow... If I do work on Little Scout outside of Ludum Dare I'm thinking this will be only one level and the time between size changes would be smaller. The other levels should probably control like the first Little Scout, allowing the player to change sizes at will.
@pndaa Congratulations on making it to the ending! During testing I used the character animation when standing still as a counter (when his eyes stared at me X times I knew I had to go :stuck_out_tongue:) Initially I planned to draw cracks in the character's helmet and have them glow every second to work as a counter, but there was nowhere near enough time for that, unfortunately... A minimap could be nice, but I think I would prefer to fix the zoom so the player can explore properly. Congratulations on your SFML game from back then! For me it's not that hard to keep using it because my engine is already done (the content is coded in a portuguese pseudo-language that gets interpreted) and platforming was already tweaked from previous entries using it, but there are a bunch of bugs that I never take the time to fix... (sorry about them, btw) Anyway, thank you very much for playing and for the detailed feedback! :smiley:
@taximan981 In the first game (from LD 38) I added tutorials that explained the spring and other things, but this time I had no time left... I've now added an explanation of the item mechanics to the description, maybe that will help :slight_smile:
Besides that, solid entry, like the animations and different mechanics related to size.
Good job!
Just having the one level where you often get sent back to the start if you mess up was a little disappointing, I wanted to see more of this idea.
I also think this is unfortunately one of those games where the "10 second" mechanic might have been better as something you can just manually trigger. Waiting around for the size change got a bit tedious. Though, I think that a bunch of games with this theme fall into the same pitfall.
@empty-set I agree, I think this theme is very hard to integrate into a game without making it less fun... I down-voted it during theme voting, but I guess a lot of people liked the idea. You can try the first Little Scout if you want, in it you can control the size changes: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/little-scout
@k-s-raj In which places did you have collision issues?