The Archiver by Ale
Earth is scheduled for resource extraction by a powerful alien race. Luckily, an influential faction in that race believes it is important to record the history and cultures of all races they extinguish.
You're part of the archiver group which is tasked with doing just that! Care for and raise your human specimen, harvest their brains, and preserve their existence for all of eternity.
If you've ever played Creatures) or Fallout Shelter, then this game is similar to those if you squint and turn your head.
Controls
Mouse/Keyboard:
- Hold left click + move the mouse to move the cursor
- Hold right click to charge grabber, release when it turns blue to activate
- Press right click to release whatever you're holding
- Press ESCAPE to toggle in-game manual
Gamepad (not fully tested):
- Left joystick to move cursor
- Hold A button to charge grabber, release when it turns blue to activate
- Press A button to release whatever you're holding
- Press B button to toggle in-game manual
Tools Used
- Godot
- Spine Animation
- Inkscape
- GIMP
| Link | https://aramallo.itch.io/the-archiver |
| Link | https://aramallo.itch.io/the-archiver |
| Link | https://aramallo.itch.io/the-archiver |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/the-archiver |
Ratings
| Overall | 772th | 2.721⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 757th | 2.5⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 547th | 3.074⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 604th | 3.368⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 619th | 3.029⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 454th | 2.773⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 741th | 2.697⭐ | 35🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 26🗳️ | 51🗨️ |
I found the controls a bit frustrating because often I got the timing wrong and missed the short time when telekinesis tool turned blue or the stickman started walking away while I was holding RMB.
Also I am not sure if this is a bug but I didn't manage to make to start reproduction. After putting two fed humans in the cage, they just dropped down (without their fed status, because it disappeared as soon as I put them in the cage) and nothing else happened.
Unfortunately, the damn flu/covid/whatever is going around got me and I've been sick all week. I knocked out almost immediately after submitting this without realizing there were two game breaking bugs: broken reproduction cage, and impossible to harvest brains on Windows and HTML5 builds due to broken input handling.
I've uploaded an updated version which should be working fine, if anyone would like to try it again.
Please chill & get well soon
Also, the veggie people (the ones bent over at the start of the game) don't have brains, so shaking them won't give you anything.
Maybe make it a bit more dynamic and it could be super nice. Also the fact that the cursor is slower than my real cursor is a bit frustrating. I wonder if it wouldn't be easier if it just was following the mouse. Great entry anyway, so much work in so little time !
playing with mouse, the cursor lags behind the mouse so you have to click and release constantly to get it anywhere :/ (may be a bug?)
- Instructions could be given in chunks to not overwhelm the player.
- The triangle cursor is frustrating to time and would much rather be able being able to move the stick figures with the mouse.
@togo-sepultraut @fluri @hmrpf @hyster
It seems like the control scheme didn't work out. The reason I made it so weird is because I wanted to add a barrier between the player and the game world, to try and make it feel more alive. I thought that letting the player directly pick up/manipulate things with the mouse would make it feel too mechanical/game-y, whereas having to cross a barrier to do basic things would make each action feel more impactful.
...at least, that was the idea I had early in the jam. Now that I've been able to properly play test, it's clear that it didn't work, at least not in its current implementation. I got used to it while I was working on it, but obviously I'm much more likely to do that than a real user lol.
But anyways, this feedback has been very helpful. I've never made a game like this before, so it's been a very valuable learning experience :D
I've play a few games where part of the mechanic is "the controls are harder to use" and I don't think it ever really works! I think you need to make the controls feel as good as possible for people to feel like they're fun and not frustrating.
One tip I often give people is to get people to try their game during the jam, if possible! Someone might've given you that feedback which you could tweak.
I got a bit of the way through the game, managed to get a zombie worker and some worker apes, but it felt a bit slow with the controls. Still, interesting entry!