LudumData

Drone Diner Dash by Lex

[raw]
made by Lex for Ludum Dare 53 (COMPO)

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The future of food delivery is here!

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Skillfully navigate your drone through the diner while balancing the orders on your tray in this physics simulated game​. Race against the clock and earn bonus points for lightning-fast deliveries!​

Can you reach the leaderboards?

Screenshot1.png Screenshot2.png

Controls

Keyboard

  • Left Arrow - Left Throttle
  • Right Arrrow - Right Throttle
  • R - Return to the last checkpoint
  • Esc - Pause Menu

Gamepad Support

  • Left Trigger - Left Throttle
  • Right Trigger - Right Trottle
  • North Button - Return to the last checkpoint
  • Start - Pause Menu

Mobile Support

  • Touch right side of the screen - Left Throttle
  • Touch left side of the screen - Right Trottle

Tools Used

  • Engine: Unity
  • Audio: Audacity
  • Graphics: Paint.net
  • Leaderboard: Leaderboard Creator​ by Danial Jugalamiyev

Post-Compo Changelog

Based on some of our fellow jammers comments I've made some fixes and improvements. Nothing related to gameplay or content, just quality of life updates and fixes.

They're the following: * Added a Swap Controls option in the game's Pause Menu so people can now swap controls if they feel the original one is not intuitive. * Added a UI to show your current progress as there was no way to know how you were progressing to the end of the game. * Modified Intro Scene to start the game with a button instead of "Any key". I suspect people skipped the Main Menu by mistake after loading the game and didn't even notice there was a scoreboard there. * Added mobile touch support, so now it's playble from mobile browsers. * Tentatively fixed a bug that caused landing not to register sometimes.

Link https://lextatic.itch.io/drone-dine-dash
Link https://gitlab.com/lextatic/ld-53-delivery
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/drone-diner-dash

Ratings

Overall 168th 3.646⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 113th 3.7⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 164th 3.46⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 91th 4.16⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 229th 3.44⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 227th 3.14⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 229th 2.727⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 310th 2.864⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 17🗳️ 24🗨️

Feedback

KyleTheCoder
01. May 2023 · 12:42 UTC
Very tough game! I would have liked to have it so that the things couldn't fly off you quite so easily, maybe some little "walls" that make it just slightly more difficult to immediately through stuff away accidentally. Pretty much couldn't land anything quite correctly. In all, I think you have a good idea but needed more time to really execute on it.
Dinoraz
01. May 2023 · 13:27 UTC
Pretty interesting; I think it would have been nice to have a L/R inverted controls option. I never invert game controls normally but here I think it could be more understandable, since here the physics means left arrow makes you go right and vice versa
🎤 Lex
01. May 2023 · 17:01 UTC
@kylethecoder Thanks for the feedback. While developing and testing, I considered adding some "bump walls" to prevent dishes from slipping out of the tray too easily. In the end, I decided to keep it as is since it's a physics-based game and part of the fun is dealing with the challenge. However, I do tend to make my games a little too difficult, so I apologize for that. ;P

@dinoraz Thank you for your input. I agree that an option to invert the controls would be helpful, and I also wanted to include support for key binding. Unfortunately, developing for COMPO can be challenging, and I often have limited time to implement all the features I want.
Scribbl_Games
01. May 2023 · 20:38 UTC
I like the chaotic nature of this game, and it is quite fun to fly around, But I feel like the art is lacking, and the player should have more leeway on what counts as "delivering" items.
adam-gould
01. May 2023 · 20:47 UTC
That was pretty fun and chilled out. Once you get the hang of the physics (avoiding the tempation to go at high speed is 100% the key), it's quite relaxing to go back and forth between tables. I do agree with the other comment that inverted controls would have been a nice option, but it wasn't too hard to get used to it.
ZungryWare
01. May 2023 · 21:02 UTC
Oh man, that was a lot of fun! The controls were tough to get used to, but that's the entire point! I just wish there was more to do than deliver plates. Delivering six plates isn't much different than delivering a cup. Once I got the hang of the controls and did a few more orders without much trouble, I called it quits. Maybe in a future version, you could add more restaurant-related tasks like uncorking bottles or refilling drinks from a pitcher.

![drone distaster.png](///raw/01d/a4/z/59333.png)

Yup, that's me. And you might be wondering how I got out of this situation.
Defrag
01. May 2023 · 22:45 UTC
Tricky to keep everything still on the platter. Moving slow, things fall off. Moving fast, things still fall off, just more spectacularly. Pretty easy to get what to do, but after delivering a few orders, I don't see how things were going to progress, other than just needing to get to more distant orders. Were there other features on your list that didn't make the cut due to time constraints?

Physics-based games are fun, and sometimes a littler easier to reach that fun. However, I struggle with ways to extend the gameplay in novel ways.

Oh, I liked the artwork overall, and you did a good job with the drone audio and particle effects. Really helped to sell the atmosphere.
🎤 Lex
02. May 2023 · 02:19 UTC
@scribbl-games I tried to make it as easy as possible to consider both items on the table and on the drone. Do you have any suggestions on how I could provide more leeway for the deliveries? As for the art, everything was done drawing with the mouse, and I'm not a real artist (as we can clearly see).

@adam-gould Thanks for the feedback. Several people have already complained about the controls, so I added an option for it on the pause menu. Since it's a quality-of-life change, I think it's okay to add this. I'll make sure to include it in a post-compo changelog.

@zungryware I noticed that since people don't know their current progress in the game, they tend to quit mid-game without reaching the end. I added a progress UI, so maybe now people feel a little more motivated to finish the game and submit their high score. However, you're totally right that it would be fun to add more restaurant-related tasks to the gameplay.
PS: Did you use the wall to save and even align the plates? Haha.

@defrag the only incremental difficulty lies in the level traversal and the layout and composition of the combos and dishes you have to deliver. They get incrementally harder, but it's all designed around the same mechanics. I didn't plan other kinds of tasks mainly due to time constraints as you guessed. Regarding the art, it's in a gray area where some people like it, and some don't. I'm glad you're on the bright side of the spectrum. :P
ZungryWare
02. May 2023 · 02:38 UTC
@lex I didn't even realize there was an end. That's the trouble, reviewing these games. I never know if the game is endless, or if it has a final boss that I will assuredly reach if I play 20 more minutes of doing the exact same thing over and over. I think it's important to consider content-to-length ratio. If I have to deliver 30 orders that all play essentially the same, I'm not going to make it to the end. It's fine if there's enough content to justify that length and it's fine if it's a bit shorter because there just isn't much content. It's better to leave people wanting more than to make them glad that it's finally over.

And yes, I had to use the wall to prevent the plates from spilling off :P
ThaProfesional
02. May 2023 · 12:50 UTC
Liked the concept and thought the physics was great - appropriately wonky without feeling too unfair. Took me a while to get used to it.

I felt kind of ripped off when I didn't get any points for busing tables - but I liked that it added flavour.

Would have loved some tunes.

One thing that got me a few times (maybe three..) is I got wedged in between the bottom right table and the wall and couldn't fly out - the drone couldn't straighten up and kept flying into the wall. Had to restart.
🎤 Lex
02. May 2023 · 14:16 UTC
@thaprofesional You actually lose points if you lose dishes in the way back to the kitchen counter. I guess that's a mechanic that's not very explicit and the feedback for that is poor as it is now. About the drone being stuck in some places, well... that happens with real drones too. Haha.
Corporation
02. May 2023 · 17:57 UTC
Simple and familiar idea, but really good implementation. Adding leaderboards is a great touch, reminding me again how bad I am in this type of games XD
sezdev
02. May 2023 · 18:59 UTC
My favourite game of the few I have played so far, simply because it was fun and engaging. However, the overal progress was a bit boring. I would have preferred just to deliver maybe 5 or 10 of them so you could retry it a bit more often. At some point I just gave up as 20 was a bit too much for me.
I really liked how it balances risk and reward. Making daring manouvers pays off, but is also really risky.
I encountered some bugs where landing wouldn't register as correct some times.

Overall pretty good entry, well done :thumbsup:
🎤 Lex
02. May 2023 · 20:19 UTC
@corporation Haha, thanks for playing! I think if you got to the rankings it means you're already better than many.

@sezdev Yea, I think I may have made it too long for a LD game. It's always hard to balance those things without proper platytest. About the landing not registering, I'm aware of this issue and even tried some fixes based on rigidbody velocity and angular velocity but there might still be some other corner case I couldn't find yet.
kuggenhoffen
03. May 2023 · 05:22 UTC
Really nice game mechanic and it works very well to create challenging experience. Aweseom game. Tried with both controls and the inverted controls somehow feel a lot more intuitive. Nice work!

I think the game should accept the delivery if you drop (or slide) the plate or whatever oon to the table, I managed to do that but I had to land next to it for it to count it as a delivery :D
tempestCognitor
03. May 2023 · 10:43 UTC
The physics worked really well and made it a lot of fun to try to get good at the game. My fingers were cramping by the time I got to the end, but I had to hit the leaderboards. Great work!
munkkeli
03. May 2023 · 12:50 UTC
Man was this hard at first, but once you get the hang of it flying was actually really fun! When you are flying with some items though some maneuvers like going sideways are very risky, so stopping the drone was very difficult at times. I also think the game was a bit too long and repetitive, but the core mechanic of flying the drone was really fun. :smile:
🎤 Lex
03. May 2023 · 13:00 UTC
@kuggenhoffen Thanks for the idea, it would be really nice to accept deliveries dropped on the table without having to land on it. If I ever work on this game afterwards I'll consider adding it.

@tempestcognitor Thanks for making it to the leaderboard! That was the first LD game I made that actually feature a persistent online leaderboard and it was very easy to implement using the Leaderboard Creator tool. I'm all hyped about that leaderboard even though we don't even have 10 entries yet. Haha.
kierogi
03. May 2023 · 13:32 UTC
The controls are really well done and the level design is a solid challenge. I really liked bouncing the dishes around "accidentally".
grid96
03. May 2023 · 19:27 UTC
This was real fun!

I even made an exception for this one and played it on phone with touch for a few minutes. The drone flies really well and gives a great experience, not frustrating at all. Though I often caught myself overconfident going at a 45 degree angle thinking "Nah, I can handle that" but then crashing full speed into the table :D

I just noticed that it says Audacity for audio in your credits. So that means you actually recorded all those sound effects in real? :O
🎤 Lex
04. May 2023 · 01:30 UTC
@munkkeli Yea, I might have overextended the play session a bit for a jam game. Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed the intricate maneuvers of the game.

@kierogi Bouncing them is fun isn't it? Hihihi :smirk:

@grid96 Yes, I recorded everything during the jam using my mic (Blue Snowball) and Audacity. The sound of the drone comes from an electric air duster I have that I use to clean my setup. And the dishes well... I just threw some cutlery into a mug and recorded it. No extra filters or magical sound effects aside from ambient noise removal. Oh, except for the drone which actually adjusts the pitch based on your inputs, but that was done in game through code.
PavelDlouhy
04. May 2023 · 16:42 UTC
Very well executed! I enjoyed learning how to fly and then delivered food to at least 7 tables. One of the best LD53 entries (at least for me) so far! ;-)
Fuzzy Lobster
06. May 2023 · 00:43 UTC
I really enjoy games like this, thanks for making it! I did feel like the left & right controls were backwards for what my brain expected.
BangKerpow
06. May 2023 · 00:52 UTC
The difficulty is tuned really, really well on this. Great job. I ~~accidentally~~ intentionally did some cool trick drops and catches.
YurisCat
06. May 2023 · 03:27 UTC
Great game! I'm not very good at controlling drones, so I'm glad the restaurant downstairs from my house doesn't use drones for delivery. I mean, if I were in control, I'm afraid I would spill all the food on the ground :( Just kidding! Thank you to the developers for bringing us such a great game!
csimpson
06. May 2023 · 05:17 UTC
This is a fun game. I played for longer than most other games I have played so far. The controls are simple to learn but difficult to master.
Tommy Moua
06. May 2023 · 15:55 UTC
Fun game. I thought the physics was done pretty well. The way everything on the plate moved felt pretty balanced and it was good how the drone didn't feel slippery either. Learning how to control the drone and balance well was nice and using the triggers on the controller made it feel intuitive as well. I felt like the audio was well done too.
Honest Dan
08. May 2023 · 07:22 UTC
This was one of the, if not the, most satisfying game to control with a controllers triggers. Really felt it was a challenge vs myself, to keep my cool when I started making mistakes! The drone audio was good and authentic, though perhaps could be a little quieter. Really nice solid entry. Potentially a bit "long" for a jam, I didn't mind though as I was enjoying.
crneumre
18. May 2023 · 22:18 UTC
Great game! I really liked the physics + lunar lander controls, very rewarding to master and deliver the packages. Felt like a really solid combo.
Great entry!
Bauke Regnerus
19. May 2023 · 08:20 UTC
This is one hell of an addictive game. The controls just feel right and it was really satisfying to deliver the dishes.