Children of the Combine by MilkWine
You are a combine harvester. You harvest people. Why? Find out next on...Children of the Combine.
Note: You can re-read the comics here: https://imgur.com/a/dd0rywf
Screenshots






Credits
Breadstick (Reddit: u/drewhead118)
Christine T.
Fey (Twitter: faux_fey)
Kelly L.
MilkWine (Twitter: MilkWineDev)
Roy Tu (royktu.com)
Changelog
There were some game-breaking bugs in the version we submitted for Ludum Dare, so the current version fixes those bugs. In keeping in line with the rules of LD, we haven't made any feature changes. Full changelog is below:
v1.1 (latest):
- Fixed the vignettes/boss intros not showing sometimes when the game is fullscreened in WebGL.
- Fixed the narration not playing sometimes on some levels.
| Link | https://milkwine.itch.io/ld52 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/children-of-the-combine |
Ratings
| Overall | 400th | 3.517⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 321th | 3.517⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 529th | 3.095⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 531th | 3.492⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 575th | 3.2⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 220th | 3.583⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 47th | 4.042⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 364th | 3.517⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 63🗳️ | 114🗨️ |
Also the "ribbit" never goes away (i don't mind though)
Sometimes I couldn't see the rest of the people because they were in the dark or hidden by an object, so it took me some time to finish the level. I would appreciate a sound when the "door" is unlocked.
entertained me very much, very reactive!
+ blood, humor, the voices
- the display of the volume is a little bugggi.
Its awesome!
I really did like the mixture of the different artstyles and the absurdity of it all.
One small note: there are areas in your “boards/areas” (I guess it was the second one), where there is a shadow area where the people could hide, that was a little bit counterintuitive to find.
But overall, a really funny game.
@eFrag: The ribbiting (and narration in general) is super bugged and seems to not be deterministic. Sometimes the voiceovers don't play, or they leak into different scenes. We'll have to fix that post-jam. Thanks for the feedback!
@Helen: Agreed, a door sound is a good idea. Thanks for playing!
@chuchugeralt: LOL our team loves your review. The shadows is a common point of feedback, and I think I know why now -- it seems the shadows came out darker in the WebGL build. Thanks for playing!
@Andreadbx: Thanks for your stream, our team really enjoyed it!
I wish that harvester would be a little bit faster to make the game more dynamic and fast (it is always much more fun for me)
I would also tweak loudness of some sounds and it is still pretty buggy but it was fun
Loved how surreal this all was. Comics animation was a very nice touch. The ending made zero sense and I guess that's part of the aesthetic of this clusterfuck of a game. Gameplay itself though is kind of boring and I made use of the K helper quite a bit. I have no idea what I just played but I think I liked it.
I loved it, it was confusing and crashed twice when loading the comics. I just wandered about listening to the voice lines and I laughed out loud at the end panels....
Gameplay wise I could feel some of the level colliders and the combine should perhaps be able to turn whilst stationary. but overall I had a fun time, good job!
The frog's recording demands were just a little bit less
I loved the incoherent ramblings of the characters. It feels weird to have such a build up for the bosses, only for them to die in 1 hit, but I guess that's part of the absurdity !
The comics were really well done, I'd like to see what you could do with a bit more time.
Beautifull XD
The voice lines were great, nice theme interpretation and got me laughing a lot XD
@Kenguin: You should have played the beta version, the kill sounds were deafening. Thanks! The voice acting was done by Breadstick in his closet.
@fallcresthero: Thank you! Comics were by our friend Fey. We're thinking of polishing this game up a bit and releasing it, improving the control of the harvester is definitely high-prio.
@nyxkn: "I have no idea what I just played but I think I liked it" is the best review we could have hoped for :D thanks for playing!
@ahintoflime: We're making a post-jam version and the wheel-turning thing was the first bug we fixed, it was driving us so mad (pun not intended). Thanks for playing!
@bardicmischief: The story... did not translate well into the actual game lol. Basically you beat up all the bosses to collect their limbs and give them to your daughter, who is extremely sick and needs them for a full-body transplant.
The fun part about the audio is @breadstick had recorded a long continuous stretch of voiceover expecting us to splice it up, but we ran out of time -- it's just playing the original recording on loop.
Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it.
@fizzbark: Sorry about the comics, we're not sure how we screwed that code up so bad. We're making a post-jam version and definitely going to target the steering cause it's pretty frustrating. Thanks for playing!
@victorrypl: Thanks for playing! The bone-crushing sound was Kelly L. crushing up a cabbage :)
@mnocenti: LOL we were wondering aloud in our Discord chats on whether anyone else would make a similar game, we'll have to check yours out. Our comic artist pulled their shoulder muscle mid-jam, so some of them are kind of incomplete, but I'll let you know you liked them! Thanks for the kind review and the play :)
The comic parts are very impressive. Great submission.<3
very interesting game ^~^
I would say randomize the pich of the screams and skill colors to make it feel more variable and add ramps or the need to carry rocks to open places.
Love how the machine feeds moving it's arms.
This game makes for the ultimate time-burner, and I can honestly see myself sinking minutes upon minutes into munching on people... therapeutically.