DeskBuddy by Rambar
Live your best 2000s' kid fantasy with DeskBuddy! :space_invader:
Take care of a lil critter that has a lifespan of 1 hour. Keep your Buddy on the side of your screen while you go about your daily occupations, and react to their needs (or not) whenever they call for you. :grey_exclamation:
Be the coolest of the ~~playground~~ desktop with accessories that speak up about YOU! :blue_heart:
Pro-tips :bulb:
:point_right: To play, download the build and launch it! You can move around the DeskBuddy, who will stay on the side of the screen. You can keep doing whatever your want with your computer in the meantime.
:sunflower: To customize your DeskBuddy, just play for a bit! Once you start unlocking items, you'll be able to equip them via the UI toggle.
:heart_exclamation: Sometimes, the Buddy may call for attention! If they cry, you can console them by clicking the button. If they come close to you, they're bored, and you can switch your customization to entertain them. It's up to you whether you intervene or not!
:mortar_board: Your DeskBuddy cannot die! Even if you ignore their calls for attention. After 1 hour, they will automatically Graduate.
:floppy_disk: Nothing is lost! After they earn their independence and leave, you'll be able to adopt another DeskBuddy and carry your unlocks over. Closing the DeskBuddy will not lose your progress!
:openfilefolder: Need to access your save? You will find it in Users(your username)\AppData\Roaming\Godotpp_userdata. This way, you can transfer it to another computer or delete it for a fresh start.
:family_mmbb: There are 4 possible Buddies to adopt from! Every time you adopt, one will be randomly pulled for you. We hope each one conquers your heart.
What's YOUR vibe? :sparkles:
Share your DeskBuddy setup! Where do you tuck it away on your screen? How did you customize it?
Known Issues :skull_crossbones:
My game is crashing a while after starting: Your antivirus software may be force closing the game while it's trying to save. Try and launch it in administrator mode!
Credits :medal:
Simon Gigant - Programming
Bérénice Guérin - Art
Rémi Bordet - Art
Chiara Rosmarino - Game Design & Sound
All visual and sound assets are our own! As realistic as some of our visual assets may look, they're not touched up photos, but were drawn from scratch and applied a filter! :crayon:
In-game fonts are Russo One and Stopbuck.
Softwares used: Godot, Adobe Photoshop, Bosca Ceoil.
| Itch | https://rambar.itch.io/desk-buddy |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/deskbuddy |
Ratings
| Overall | 111th | 4.05⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 454th | 3.5⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 138th | 3.842⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 5th | 4.605⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 74th | 4.474⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 281th | 3.639⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 67th | 4⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 40th | 4.306⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 11🗳️ | 20🗨️ |
The strap slightly bouncing when shaking the device is a subtle but nice touch! ~~Don't ask me how I know that, I definitely didn't shake the device expecting the buddy to get a bit dizzy~~
Picture of my guy right before they graduated. Hope you live a good life out there, buddy.
As goood as it simple
Sadly I launched this game as the last one of the evening. Little did I knew I could have had Finn playing games with me all night long :/
It's a really nice idea and being able to customize your buddy is super cool.
The only "downsides" I could see is that I couldn't resize the game, so on my 2K screen, the font is actually quite small. And at the beggining of the game, lots of notification would come up and prevent me from reading all the funny lines you wrote for the unlocks.
It's a really cool game, great job everyone !
I particularly liked the item descriptions, which are very witty - and that's easier said than done. These types of games often seem simpler that they actually are: here, I assume you had to plan for the accessories to appear at the right place regardless of the creature and pose. Overall, it's an impressive amount of content and polish.
It's too bad we can't interact much with the Buddy, as the main button is only used in the rare event that it's crying. It'd be funny if it had some random reactions to the button, or to you moving the window. The tribute would be complete if you could play some basic minigames with your Buddy, but that seems out of scope for a jam.
(Also, I had no idea you could use Rider for GDScript! Another point for Rider... :smile:)