LudumData

The Earth Treasures Show: Season 4 by Rolly

[raw]
made by Rolly for Ludum Dare 57 (COMPO)

You're on TV now. Make it count.

You’ve been selected to participate in Season 4 of The Earth Treasures Show! No need to tell you what an honor that is — billions of viewers across the galaxy are watching.

Each episode, a new contestant dives into Earth’s mysterious oceans in search of strange and valuable stuff. You’ll be accompanied by the PeepCube™, a hovering audience-eye that must stay with you during your descent. Keep the crowd entertained, collect as much as you can in 5 minutes, and maybe — just maybe — you’ll go down in history.

TETSS4_peepcube.png

Goal

Control a clumsy alien underwater and collect bizarre Earth junk. Drop your treasures on top of the PeepCube™ to score points and impress viewers.

There are also interesting places to discover. Bring the PeepCube™ close to them to score even more points!

You can’t push the PeepCube™ directly. Instead, - Grab its anchor (press E) - Attach it to nearby solid surfaces (press E) - Activate the winch to drag it along (hold E)

It’s slow, awkward, and dangerously entertaining — just how the audience likes it.

tetss4.gif

Note

There is an online leaderboard. Your name/color and position at the end of the episode are saved in a database. When you start a new game, you can find the top 10 players while you explore!

I didn't have time to show the leaderboard in game...

Controls

  • WASD – Move (on land)
  • Space (hold & release) – Propulsion (underwater)
  • Mouse – Aim for propulsion direction (underwater)
  • E – Interact / Attach things
  • F – Drop held object

Known Issues

Sometimes the anchor’s rope can get stuck in tricky spots. If that happens, simply return the anchor to its slot on the PeepCube™ — the rope will reset automatically.

Changelog

3 builds are provided: one original (10), one with fixes only (12), and one with additional features (2_0).

1_2 (Fixes)

  • Fixed an issue allowing the player to move before validating the new game screen.
  • Changed the game duration to 5 minutes instead of 7.
  • Changed in-game tutorial texts to be clearer.
  • Fixed SFX when enabling the winch.

2_0 (Fixes + Features)

  • Added the leaderboard in game.
Link https://github.com/nistace/ld57
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/the-earth-treasures-show-season-4

Ratings

Overall 80th 3.684⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 74th 3.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 128th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 147th 3.579⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 111th 3.658⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 77th 3.605⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 89th 3.167⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 145th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

ImmortalFox
07. Apr 2025 · 10:17 UTC
Love the gameplay and style. One of the coolest games I have seen on this jam so far. But movement and controls are a bit unusual and odd. Anyway, was nice to play it.
Spexxilove
07. Apr 2025 · 19:08 UTC
I do like the movement especially.
it takes a minute to get used to but by the end of the 5 min playtime you get into this nice rhythm to zoom around and pick up things.
Game-mon
08. Apr 2025 · 22:14 UTC
Nice game! In my first playthrough i jumped in the water right away without selecting the character nor triggering the tutorial though. But overall i do like the take on the theme and gameplay, nice job!
Dingbat
08. Apr 2025 · 23:08 UTC
Really interesting game! I love games with physics and interesting movement mechanics and honestly this game does both of those great. Moving the PeepCube™ was a bit confusing at first. I didn't realize you had to hit E on the little switch on the cable. I also spent a couple minutes figuring out you had to press E, not F, to put the item into the PeepCube™. After all that I realized the things basically got a health bar/timer that I had completely drained lol Really great game though, you've got a lot of moving parts here. Nice job!
EvilScotsman
08. Apr 2025 · 23:10 UTC
Cool concept, I really liked the framing of it as a TV show. I was wondering if the blue bar is a hard time limit or if there was a way to increase it, always felt there was still a ton more to collect when time ran out.
JamesGames1000
08. Apr 2025 · 23:15 UTC
Loved it very fun and felt very short in a good way. This is one of my favorite games for the LD so far.
Goiaba Games
12. Apr 2025 · 21:54 UTC
This was really cute and fun. I love the premise and the little touches like the viewer commentary at the end. The game is relaxing but at the time you can compete for the leaderboards if you want to. Great job!
LDJam user 399564
14. Apr 2025 · 12:08 UTC
the game is really fun I enjoyed it a lot! Hope you have more further development!
bob152
14. Apr 2025 · 12:39 UTC
Good fun - peepcube and the alien are super cute, and the music and art makes for a chill vibe! Becomes a bit hectic as the blue bar runs out, which is cool and theres some good strategy involved with going deeper with the peepcube to go for more valuable objects or picking up everything around it. Played a couple times to hit the leaderboard which was a fun touch as well :D. Took me the first play to figure out the winch though haha, would be nice to have a tooltip for that (hopefully I didn't miss it!)
milq
14. Apr 2025 · 22:05 UTC
Wow! What an original idea! The PeepCube™ mechanic is absolutely brilliant. The graphics are super polished, and the music ties everything together beautifully. And you did all of this solo in just 48 hours? That's seriously impressive. Sure, it takes a bit of time at first to get the hang of the mechanics, but once you do, it feels incredibly smooth and intuitive. I'd love to see PeepCube™ expanded with new levels and challenges, it has so much potential! I already have a bunch of ideas just thinking about it. Fantastic entry, great, great game!
Eugenik
15. Apr 2025 · 11:14 UTC
Atmosphere is very impressive, so love it
LDJam user 280624
16. Apr 2025 · 17:14 UTC
I fell in love with this game! Such a satisfying and unique cube-moving mechanic. This could totally be expanded into a full-fledged game. And the alien TV concept was brilliant =)
henk
17. Apr 2025 · 21:24 UTC
Quite unique! The gameplay felt a bit tedious at times but the graphics, audio,
and winch mechanics are all very impressive. I would have appreciated spending more time scavenging than
dragging the cube around, but the latter took much longer and the items were very far apart.
Color and Form
19. Apr 2025 · 13:42 UTC
Wow! cool mechanics
oller125
19. Apr 2025 · 15:41 UTC
Cool game and looks great for a compo game. The underwater movement took a bit to get used to but other that I enjoyed it.
commanderstitch
19. Apr 2025 · 17:34 UTC
This game is so neat. I loved it. Felt a little slow, but it's so interesting. I wanted to put on a great show for the viewers. <3![gotRank7.png](///raw/b24/z/6c552.png)
Frogman
20. Apr 2025 · 18:03 UTC
Managed to get 360 points on my second attempt! It's not much, but I blame it on the PeepCube getting stuck here:
![a.png](///raw/5d0/72/z/6c5af.png)
Anyway, this was fun! The concept is awesome - I love the idea of a fake alien TV show obsessed with garbage. The game itself reminded me a lot of Lethal Company-style games but without the horror element, which was really nice since I'm not good with horror. In general, the game felt very relaxed despite the time limit thanks to the music & atmosphere, which worked out great. I also appreciate the little details such as the face changing when you put something in or the short end messages. I didn't really get what the red bar was about, and the map felt a bit too big & empty to me, but otherwise, great entry!