Togo by Merin Car Trunk Key

[raw]
made by Merin Car Trunk Key for Ludum Dare 53 (JAM)

Build a team of sled dogs and deliver the serum to Nome.

How to play:

  • You start at the camp with a notice board to your left and a kennel to your right.

  • In the kennel, you can buy a new dog for $150. You can swap the position of two dogs by highlighting one and clicking another. Click the highlighted dog to deselect. The dog in the lead position counts double for your team's stats!

  • At the notice board, you can pick a run to attempt. Different team stats make some types of missions easier. Agility will help with high difficulty runs. Stamina will help with long runs. Power will decrease the time taken in any run.

  • When you've selected a run and set up your sled team, head through the exit at the top to start the delivery.

  • You will only get half the promised reward if your run is late, but you will get a bonus if you arrive ahead of schedule.

After 7 days of sledding time, your team will be tasked with Togo's serum run to Nome. If you've built a strong team, you should be able to complete it in time and save the town from an outbreak.

You may encounter Balto, Akiak, or Togo himself on your journey. With one of these legendary dogs in the lead position, runs that are otherwise impossible will be within your reach.

Post-Submission Bugfixes:

  • Nome result triggering on last normal run
  • Notice board showing fixed order of runs
  • Softlock if missions are completed too fast

Ratings

Overall 837th 3.341⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 880th 3.091⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 762th 3.136⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 536th 3.955⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1055th 2.477⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 715th 2.625⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 787th 3.31⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 36🗳️ 40🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 0
02. May 2023 · 08:22 UTC
This is a fun unique game, I haven't seen anything else like it in the jam so far. I found the UI for buying dogs a bit unintuitive, but I got there eventually.

As far as I can tell when your sledge starts going there's nothing you can do to influence it - at first I thought it would be arrow keys to steer but I guess not. That would have added some fun interaction!
Alex Chertilin
02. May 2023 · 08:44 UTC
The great theme. I look forward for the game like this. Thank you
LDJam user 257438
02. May 2023 · 08:55 UTC
It is Quiet Came but yet it is challenging. It takes many tries to win the game!!!
It is very unique game, and it is excellent in its own right!!!

All the best!!

Also, play my game!
LDJam user 360310
02. May 2023 · 09:11 UTC
Once you figure out the game it’s fun! A mix of strategy AND building a sled AND random events AND impactful decision making. Concept-wise it’s probably one of the best game I’ve rated today. I would buy and play this game if fully developed. Great job.


Right now however it’s very raw. It took me time to figure out the “buy dog” part. The art could be clearer, even some AI generated stuff would make the experience so much better. Nothing some love can't fix.
Obe Dot
02. May 2023 · 23:20 UTC
Like the movie! I like it.
ListlessOnion
03. May 2023 · 11:22 UTC
If there was an award for highest mood over complexity ratio, this game would win it by a long margin. Very well done!

Like @freakyzelga said, would love to see this get a bit smoother around the edges. A small suggestion I would give is also the ability to keep a dog roster to allow the player to buy more dogs even when they're maxed. That way one could swap an injured or tired dog for a fresh one, or just buy a better one and retire the previous.
Nozomu57
03. May 2023 · 12:24 UTC
This a nice idea and I actually completed the whole game, but it all could be oh-so-much-better! My main suggestion is playing your game at least once in its final form before release, because two main issues I had with the game were based on its pace, which can be tracked down and tuned.

You really need to think which tasks to take in first days, because you sip through time very fast for the first 3-4-5 days. I didn't even think I could finish buying all dogs on time. But near the end it flipped around: first 5 days had ~8 deliveries in them, last 2 days had around 20! I was just too fast with all dogs, and it was so tedious going 4-5 hours at a time (even with biggest deliveries). And I really needed to think about money in first 5 days, but at the end of the game I had around $2000.
Also that's the reason I did not even touch my sledge after I filled it: there was no need to move wolves around, I already had good setup and during encounters I chose variants so that nobody died.

A good addition to the game would be that different difficulties resulted in different amount of encounters (for now it's always one, and sometimes lvl5 seems even easier then lvl1). Also a good addition would be different types of travel (lake, forest, mountain) - something, that would require to rethink the position of dogs in sleigh. It could be a really nice sleigh management game, but unfortunately this wasn't developed at all.

Anyways, I really liked the overall mood! Somehow even with limited music and artstyle you could achieve a compelling atmosphere, props to you!
alisher_fazilov
04. May 2023 · 06:29 UTC
Quite a meditative game
Tnnv
04. May 2023 · 07:13 UTC
The game is cool and have a solid idea behind it, with some amount of polish it may turn into a really great experience! My only issue was with the fact that I didn't understand how stats work and what is the best option to choose in the random events during the run - maybe some exposed stats could help with this. Other than this, it was already an enjoyable game!
kohqctps
05. May 2023 · 03:54 UTC
That was pretty fun! It's hard to understand all of the game's moving parts, but the overall experience of picking the right sled dogs and the best jobs to run is good.
StephanSchue
05. May 2023 · 17:56 UTC
The experience was okay. The loop works. I missed some engagement with the actual scenario, so I get motivated to play and care.
A1stakesauce
06. May 2023 · 17:52 UTC
Ode' to games like "Oregon Trail" or "Gold Rush". Loved the base mechanics, with some graphical upgrades and some variety in encounters and supplies/ dog choice purchases this has the potential to be a very engaging period piece of a game. Well done!
Apple Dash
06. May 2023 · 19:00 UTC
As some people before me said – there is an issue with pacing. The game would benefit from being a bit shorter (maybe, it should last as long as 3 days last in the current version). But what makes the problem with pacing even worse is the lack of content. I have encountered the total of 5 events in the game (the wind, the money on the ground, the injury, the frozen lake, and the bear in the very end). Only 3 had some form of choice. This is just not enough.

The game could've worked if there were more events, happening unpredictably (instead of a single event at the half way point). But as it was released, it just feels unfinished (and I'm not even talking about visuals, those are forgivable for the game jams). The concept itself is not even scratching its full potential. Force me to make difficult decisions, make me prepare for a journey by buying different resources, make the time a factor that you even have to consider, make the game more difficult as a whole.
tangiblegames
18. May 2023 · 14:11 UTC
Cool take on the theme! Atmosphere is definitely there.
Making all graphics either hand drawn illustrations or pixel art instead of mixing various styles and scale of objects would really help.