LudumData

Courtroom Conjurer by kalibrated

[raw]
made by kalibrated for Ludum Dare 55 (JAM)

Welcome to Courtroom Conjurer!

You are a wizard monster summoner and you've recently lost your job due to the recession. Desperate to make a living, you applied for the role of Court Summoner. However, soon into the job you realized it's not the kind of summoning you expected. Stuck with a boring job where your skills are vastly underappreciated, you decide to change things up and start summoning unsuspecting victims from the nearby city to act as jurors in your cases.

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How to play: W/A/S/D or Arrow Keys - Move around the city SHIFT to move faster Left Click - Menu interactions / Select a citizen to summon from the city

​ Goal of the game: Make it through 6 court cases using your cruel new methods. Each case has a required number of jurors for you to summon as well as a score for you to reach based on the diversity of your summons. If your jurors are not diverse enough, you're likely to get a mistrial. Diversity - A diverse set of jurors are different shapes and colours and have different hats with different colours.

Credits: Simon "Catlard" ​Braunstein, Keith Thomas (City Wizard Games), Mathew Sherry​, beardedkoala, Sophie Shen, Shivam Patel​!

Itch.io (Web) https://catlard.itch.io/court-conjurer
Bitbucket https://bitbucket.org/Catlard/ludum-dare-55/commits/branch/main
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/courtroom-conjurer

Ratings

Overall 409th 3.72⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 629th 3.4⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 199th 3.84⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 197th 4.16⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 663th 3.62⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 378th 3.56⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 145th 3.9⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 627th 3.5⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

MythrilMinestein
16. Apr 2024 · 01:43 UTC
This game is adorable. I LOVED the sounds. I got a few of the ones that go "Oh no!!!" all at once. I appreciate the scribbly art style. Fun idea- I'm happy to have stumbled upon this. :)
VioletDreams
16. Apr 2024 · 01:47 UTC
So cute!!
vivid-hallucination
18. Apr 2024 · 00:38 UTC
Hits the theme, fun art and I love the presentation.
cheesepencil
18. Apr 2024 · 00:42 UTC
I didn't really understand how to get a good juror score, frequently I'd see that I need, say, 4 jurors, but when i go out to select jurors it takes me back to the court room after I only selected 3. The cityscape frequently obscured the camera even when i zoom in, making it hard to select jurors. Pretty confusing, or I just don't get it.

Art is great and the noises are fun!
🎤 kalibrated
18. Apr 2024 · 00:50 UTC
@cheesepencil Sorry about that! There's a time limit, so maybe you were hitting that and getting sent back early. The cityscape being in the way was partially laziness and partially game design :) That way it's a bit of a challenge to select the right juror. As for getting a good juror skill, it's just selecting the most different possible jurors across four dimensions - color/type/hat color/hat type.

@mythrilminestein Thanks a ton for the kind words!

@violetdreams thank you!

@vivid-hallucination appreciate it!
Gabriel Bissonnette
18. Apr 2024 · 02:10 UTC
I managed to get a good score on the first few levels, but when it got to 24 points it got harder for me! That is an interesting interpretation of the theme combined with fun gameplay, good job on this entry:)
ursagames
18. Apr 2024 · 06:36 UTC
Absolutely love the art! So much fun to look at the jury members! It took me a couple times to realize how the scoring was being done and then when I got to needing 24 points I realized my memory is not good enough to prevent duplicates :grin: Still had fun though, great entry! Sfx were really amusing too.
Cievers
18. Apr 2024 · 11:51 UTC
Fantastic interpretation of the theme, with another fantastic twist and execution on that idea!
Roitchie
18. Apr 2024 · 11:57 UTC
I like this a lot. Very unique take on the theme. I love a good pun. The character designs are all unique and funny, especially important given the entire game is based around having them be as unique as possible. I wish I could've seen the score during the round itself though to know how well I'm doing but that's a very minor nit-pick.
F13
18. Apr 2024 · 11:59 UTC
Whoa! Great idea! And the drawing is funny
Dissonance Generator
18. Apr 2024 · 14:15 UTC
Took me a while to figure out what the scoring criteria was, and I still have trouble quickly seeing what I'm clicking on. A little more in-game description of what the diversity criteria are would go a long way here. Any sort of indication of what I've already collected would be nice too.

It's also mildly frustrating to have to go back to level 1 if I fail at level 4. Can't I just retry level 4 again?

I love all the cute monster sounds once they poof into the courthouse. Definitely a highlight of the game. And your entire game concept is an adorable interpretation of the theme! Much fun!
Risminator
19. Apr 2024 · 14:49 UTC
A very fun game! However, because we have to pay attention to a lot of details, it'd be nice if it were easier to differentiate between them. Still, the art is very fun and cute, and gameplay is captivating; a unique and humorous take on the theme!
TPace
19. Apr 2024 · 17:13 UTC
The game was really fun to play and I really loved the visuals-- particularly of the paper monsters! I agree that it could be a bit easier when it comes to remembering the details, but overall it was engaging and a great interpretation of the theme. Good job!
LDJam user 250426
22. Apr 2024 · 07:36 UTC
love all the lil monsties and sounds they makes haha so cutes! i tried a bunch of times but couldnt get past the one where u need 24 score, closest i got was 24 i mean 23. i think it's difficult enough without timer too especially since have to restart from beginning. clever reusing same anim for all the guys to give it a lil more life in such a short time. am curious if theres cool anim, screen, or story stuff im missing out on cuz i couldnt make it as a court summoner
🎤 kalibrated
22. Apr 2024 · 22:24 UTC
@itsboats Nope you're not missing much! Just a game over screen which is pretty simple. Thanks for the nice words! We definitely made it too difficult, I don't know of anybody that has beaten the game yet lol. We might update the Itch version after the voting is done to be easier.
LDJam user 374168
27. Apr 2024 · 19:48 UTC
This is pretty cool, I like that it's kind of like a memory-matching game where you want to avoid matches; I think I only got past 3 or 4 cases (got stuck at 6 jurors/24 score), as I had trouble memorizing what I already picked, but this was a really cool idea. I think having a bit more leeway for the score requirement would be less punishing, as when the number of jurors goes up, it becomes really hard to remember all your choices, so easing into it a bit more would help. The art is fun and wacky, so it was never boring seeing what came up on the streets. Nice job!
EloraBrynn
30. Apr 2024 · 02:01 UTC
Great concept, I loved the art style and the sound effects. Well done!
Shredmer
30. Apr 2024 · 02:14 UTC
I appreciated the difficulty it actually made it more interesting to me. At first I struggled to pass stage 3, but once I started getting the hang of it was able to easily. However I was never able to finish the last level. I think there's not enough time. I felt that I had to click pretty quickly so if I did win it would be after several tries and more luck based.

That said I actually really enjoyed this art style, nice feedback on the animations and sfx. I really enjoyed this entry, great job!