TRASH-OUT by MelekTaus

[raw]
made by MelekTaus for Ludum Dare 58 (COMPO)

 

TRASH-OUT is a game where you control a robotic arm to save a polluted pond from drowning in garbage. As Earth's cleanup robot, your mission is to collect and properly sort waste before it's too late.

Gameplay

Guide your robotic arm across the screen to grab floating trash and dispose of it correctly. Each piece of waste must go into its designated recycler. Get upgrades to make your cleanup operation more efficient. The better you sort, the faster you can restore the pond to its natural beauty.

Objective

Victory comes when every last piece of trash has been cleared from the pond. But beware: if garbage accumulates faster than you can collect it, the pollution will overwhelm the ecosystem and you'll lose.

Controls

Use your mouse to control the robotic arm. It turns out that it also works quite well on tablets/smartphones.

My Little Message

TRASH-OUT is meant to remind us that it is our responsibility to keep the earth clean. While AI and technology can help, we shouldn't blindly rely on automation to solve environmental problems. Human awareness and action remain essential.

All assets (including graphics, sounds, music, ...) were created during the jam.

Special Thanks

  • Mini-Nockal for the title voice
  • Nocki for choosing the color palette and writing the introduction and end screen texts

 

https://youtu.be/aOjL1OQRjsA

 

Ratings

Overall 21th 3.975⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 27th 3.75⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 106th 3.275⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 24th 4.075⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 44th 4.025⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 17th 3.95⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 78th 3.15⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 49th 3.775⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 32🗳️ 6🗨️

Feedback

bereg
Oct 05th · 23:03 UTC
Wow! I definitely wasn’t expecting to stumble upon a masterpiece when I clicked on a post with no description or screenshots. This is a seriously cool and polished game. great sound, fantastic visuals, everything’s on point! The gameplay is a bit repetitive, but hey, that’s just the nature of the genre. Amazing work!
StaticRose
Oct 06th · 11:00 UTC
Like it a lot! At first I wasn't shure you could win, but after a few upgrades the tides turned and everything cleared up. A small note: I really don't like that the game always forced itself into fullscreen mode with no way to disable that.
🎤 MelekTaus
Oct 06th · 13:06 UTC
@bereg Thank you for your kind words :heart: (... and the page is now filled)

@staticrose Thanks for playing and for not giving up :smile: ... and you're right, the forced full-screen mode is annoying, so I disabled it.
mdotedot
Oct 06th · 16:01 UTC
This was really nice. The music is great! I had fun dragging the tire and I experimented with dropping stuff outside of the area to be punished. Good game design! Well done!
designernap
Oct 06th · 16:02 UTC
Great job. LOVED the "TRAASH OOOUT!" voice!
Audio and visuals are excellent and great gameplay.
It was very tricky to carry the tires though!
Solid entry.
arkicade
Oct 06th · 20:50 UTC
This game is adorable!! I love Pops (the trash bot), their animations are so fluid and their design is very cute. The music sounds incredible and despite it looping frequently was very pleasant to listen to. I also appreciate the unique gameplay of having to drag things around. At the beginning it was quite frantic/hectic (so the music mismatched) but on another replay I got a lot of trash sorted and then entered a state where collecting the new trash was easier and the gameplay became very relaxing (maybe a metaphor for how beginning environmental efforts may be difficult but gradually become easier with more support?). I never used the longer range upgrades but I found speed to be essential. Great job :)
LDJam user 384191
Oct 07th · 05:01 UTC
Oh I love it! The visuals, music and little voice lines are adorable and give the game a very polished feel. The game feels nicely balanced. I had to retry a couple of times before finding a good upgrade path, but then collecting the trash felt easier and very smooth (I also appreciate how the grabber only grabs one kind of trash). Well done!
NekoBones
Oct 07th · 13:42 UTC
It's super cute. I failed once and cleared the game at my second try, so the balance is great - not too hard, not too easy. And the voice of "Traaaash~ OUT!" is surprising lol, very cool game!
guillaumepauli
Oct 07th · 20:04 UTC
very cool concept! i had fun ! but i lost :'(
MrV
Oct 07th · 22:04 UTC
how good it looks! the animations are amazing
grid96
Oct 08th · 21:04 UTC
Very good game and cool interpretation of the theme. Feeling good that I did something for the environment today! :)
Emmatw
Oct 09th · 21:18 UTC
Super cute and relaxing game! I loved the art style, the trash cans are so adorable! The controls felt really smooth as well. I could really see this game being extended by adding more levels of difficulty, more different types of trash and things like that, I managed to clean out the lake but would definitely have played it for longer if there were more levels!
Rewzu
Oct 12th · 11:27 UTC
I've managed to clean it all! Cute little game with a nice progression. Really polished! Good entry!
FrozenDude
Oct 13th · 22:36 UTC
Really nice game. The upgrades are at a very nice level where you feel the improvment every time. Love the "Traaaaash out!"
Jimbly
Oct 14th · 22:38 UTC
Nice game! The progression felt pretty good. My first game I lost unexpectedly, I didn't feel like I was going slow, but apparently I was too slow -_-. Some better feedback for being about to lose (screen going red, blinking meter - I didn't even see the meter during the first game =) or something probably would have helped. I managed to win my second game though, and enjoyed it. Trash out!
Linus Lindberg
Oct 15th · 19:08 UTC
This to me feels like a perfect jam game! Perfectly scoped and very polished! Well done! It felt a little too difficult to me so I couldn't finish it even after 4 or 5 attempts, but I will be back later to try again! :smile:
Shoalmuse
Oct 20th · 18:28 UTC
Loved this one! Super cute graphics and sound and there was some strategy in drafting upgrades and figuring out how to get many of the same type of garbage in one go.
LDJam user 214618
Oct 21st · 12:16 UTC
Traaaaaaaaash out!
Wow, that was great! Super polished, well balanced and oddly satifying! Great entry overall!
ChuChuGeralt
Oct 21st · 12:59 UTC
Really nice game! I liked the smooth game loop, the crisp art, and the relaxing music.

The game could be improved with a more challenging game loop, as it tended to get easier toward the end.

But considering the time constraint of the jam, it's a really nice entry that I enjoyed a lot!
Cthulhu5227
Oct 24th · 20:43 UTC
Very nice!