Parking Ltd. by Hawkin
You run a valet car lot: Parking Ltd. Usually you run a tight operation, but your usual valet drivers have taken some time off. Your cousin Ernie needs a summer job, and you are desperate. The problem is that you think he just got his license recently.
Ernie will park the cars the best he can as they are dropped off, and you need to return each car to the right patron when they show their ticket.
A few dents and scratches should go unnoticed, right?
Can you keep up with all the traffic for the 3 days until your usual drivers return to the job?
Controls
- On foot: WASD / Arrow keys
- Enter/Exit vehicle: E
- Driving: W/Up - Forward, S/Down - Reverse, A-D/Left-Right - Turn
- Settings Menu: Esc (or gear button)
Windows:
- ALT+ENTER to maximize Windows version.
Changelog (Bug Fixes)
- Version 0.5.2 - LD54 Submission
- Version 0.5.3 - Fixed crash in days 2 and 3 when player hits the gear button.
- Version 0.5.4 - Disabled navigation in settings menu, because player input was able to change values during gameplay.
- Version 0.5.5 - Fixed issue where pressing Space/Enter during tutorial would block game start.
Post-Jam Update
Version 0.6.0 * Added patron drop-off and pick-up voiceovers * Added radio stations when driving cars! * Increased patron return time variability * Added Day counter to UI * Spawn characters at driver side door * Added screen shake on collisions * Rotate car wheels when turning
Credits:
@tempest-smh - Lead Developer, Shaders and Dynamic Body Deformation
@hawkinberry - UI, Sound Design and Foley, Level Design, Player Controls
Graphics:
- City Pack by 255 pixel studios
- Characters by Polygon Blacksmith
- Vehicles by Rgsdev
| Link | https://hawkinberry.itch.io/ld54 |
| Link | https://hawkinberry.itch.io/ld54 |
| Post-Jam Update | https://hawkinberry.itch.io/parking-ltd |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/parking-ltd |
Ratings
| Overall | 245th | 3.897⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 169th | 3.937⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 326th | 3.645⭐ | 64🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 332th | 3.984⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 565th | 3.086⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 80th | 4.042⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 408th | 3.721⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 41🗳️ | 80🗨️ |
I found it difficult the first time but realized, I could just get in a car as soon as the cousin steps out and just park it in the "delivery"-area and get a checkmark :sweat_smile: Unsure if intended or not.
It was quite funny to see the cars getting squashed from time to time. The controls felt cool, I would like to play a sort of racing game with controls like these. Keep up the good work :)
It would've been nicer if the interval between new cars arriving was a bit bigger, but overall very good :)
On my first playthrough I got stuck without any cars arriving (not sure why), so I got bored and figured out that I can just keep walking to the right without anything stopping me.
After reloading the game it seemed to work fine though, and it showed me how bad of a driver I really am. Awesome job! The controls feel smooth and chaotic without being unfair or frustrating, and the humor of the game is great.
@haste06 hey that's a great suggestion. We spent a little time on balancing the levels, but we didn't play with the arrival time too much. We'll try out some variations, especially in the first level!
@don-fouts very kind words, thank you so much!
@skoprimon that's an odd one! There is a link between the tutorial and the level activation, so I can look at that. We also have colliders bounding the player, but I think you might have just hit the ones off screen. I'll take a look at that also haha! Thank you so much for all the feedback. I'm glad you feel like we hit the right balance of quirkiness.
Happy parking!!
I managed to beat the game and i noticed that it stayed a bit repetitive. While the driving is fun, the levels didnt really feel different from one another. I think this would have been a thing to improve on with more time.
And another (small) gripe i have is the missing visual uniformity: While the actual game world has a coherent style, the texts/ui really lack one. We have the handdrawn font and the post it style for time and score, but then the very standard font blue on white for the car identifiers. And also a tiny light blue settings icon in the bottom left corner. I would suggest sticking to the post it format for all of the ui. It fits the game better and is nicer to look at if it's uniform.
The handling of the cars felt quite tight. I think for this scenario that made sense. Ssomehow i managed to make my cars airborn on numerous ocasions anyway xD
We were definitely okay with the "cheese" strategy for the jam, as there was enough risk/reward involved if you filled up the workable space too much.
The level progression was a Sunday addition, and I think our dev got the difficulty curve right. I agree that there isn't much variation beyond that. We imagined being able to improve your lot somehow, and our dev even had a prototype for a car elevator!
Great notes on the UI. The claim tickets were an item that I ran out of time to update the prototype graphics on! I'm glad you're noticing the little details that would help improve the game. Cheers!
https://youtu.be/OMFzVKOU-1I?si=kOz_OBL-5bWmuJq-&t=3910
Thank you for the feedback! We will think of how we can improve that without making the game too easy.
https://youtu.be/VqfbLq_3xJM
the only issue for me was the sound: it got mute after like 10 sec of game and never got it back. that's sad because during these 10 seconds, i heard crash sounds, and i'm sure it would have make my adventure even funnier!
That's an odd issue with the sound. I may have seen other players have similar issues.
Edit: WOW! Thank you for pointing this out, seriously. It turned out to be a silly issue where the settings menu was navigating when the player was hitting input keys. So just by moving around, you could end up changing the volume. We'll get a fix uploaded for that!!
What a joyously chaotic experience, easily one of my favorites of yours. :smile: Fantastic work!
Was very challenging tho : D
Hard to catch up with the speed of spawning new cars.
See you on the next jam!
Like others, I found it difficult and hectic at first but quickly realised the optimal strategy. Actually I kind of agree with some comments that it might be a bit *too* cheesy - but that could be fixed pretty easily with the addition of a physics object that limits how many cars you can 'check out'. Not really a criticism, though - it's really hard to get game balance right in such a short time. I've upped the rating I gave for audio now that the bug has been fixed - nice work finding out the cause! Which reminds me - only music would have made the audio better (not that I can talk, I didn't even do any audio for my game because of time pressure :P)
As far as strategy goes, my teammate and I realized at some point that we were playing the game differently. I was waiting for patrons, being a bit more careful, and finding it hard. He was flinging cars around, and a lot sooner, and found it easy. I figured better a bit easy than a bit hard!
For the post jam update, I'm going to try prohibiting early delivery and see how that changes gameplay. Thank you for the suggestions!!
The sounds worked well and added that little extra something that really made the experience. A very well done entry!
And I liked the difference between the days/levels. Good job!
It's good that you can clearly identify patrons (I've played another entry that fell short on this).
However, it looks like they come back in the exact same order they leave their cars,
a little randomness here is the only thing I really missed.
Funnily enough, there is some randomness to the return order. I've observed it sometimes, but we didn't spend much time tuning the value, so I think you end up being right most of the time. I definitely want to experiment with different values, and also prohibiting early delivery, because I think that would increase the challenge!
Simple, funny and good theme use!
Well done! Take a candy! :candy:
@strega so glad you had fun! We really decided to embrace the chaos to keep the energy high!
But like it's a game, it's a lot of fun 😄
It would make a really good coop game... not a good game for friendships though :laughing: