April 20th-23rd 2012 :: 10 Year Anniversary! :: Theme: Tiny World
Tiny World: The Musical: The Game is an attempt by myself (Paul Sztajer) and Angus O'Sullivan, with the help of the talented Emma Lindley and Gideon M.K. (I'll get his last name right once I've slept) to put together a game that evokes the feel of a musical within a 72 hour timespan.
Specifically, we felt that it wasn't enough to directly involve lyrics in the gameplay: we wanted to tell the kind of stories that are told in musicals, with the same sort of tunes.
While a little rough around the edges (the time constraints were a big factor in this) we actually did it! We really didn't get a huge amount of chances to playtest this thing, so we'd love any and all feedback you can send our way. We're both really excited to look into doing more projects like this, so any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.
More info on how we put this all together will be coming by once sleep has been had.
Note that the post-comp version only added a small explanation on controls.
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Audio(Jam) | 4.66 |
 | Coolness | 71% |
| #14 | Humor(Jam) | 3.81 |
| #14 | Mood(Jam) | 3.73 |
| #15 | Innovation(Jam) | 3.91 |
| #21 | Theme(Jam) | 3.79 |
| #25 | Overall(Jam) | 3.82 |
| #76 | Fun(Jam) | 3.09 |
| #172 | Graphics(Jam) | 2.84 |
Comments
This is worth 5 stars for the music, its lyrics and the sound synchronization.
Nice musical guys! i love the loading screen and the game itself! well done :)
I predict this is getting #1 in audio category, regardless whether voices are 100% synchronized with the background tunes or not. :> The song is depending on how good you are playing, and this bought me. Awesome, awesome idea.
Thanks for all the feedback guys! glad you all liked it!
@liger13 - that's pretty much the long and the short of it. Specifically, the red things represent external influences to your 'tiny world' that you're trying to avoid (and thus bat away), and the green ones represent influences that are going past that you'd like.
@marudziik - yeah, we simply didnt have time to get the timing right, both from a making sure all the recordings were in time or lining them up perfectly in engine. You'll also notice that a lot of the lines don't run onto each other so smoothly coz we were recording a lot of the chunks seperately.
Very awesome. I figured out you could switch between paddles too late.
Unbelievably, without a doubt, one of the best games I've played! Good Job!
I love the originality of doing a musical, and you nailed the music. But, I didn't understand what the mechanics had to do with the musical portion. I could tell the Earth was the Earth, but I couldn't tell what the arkanoid paddle and green-and-red balls represented. The paddle game got a little bland after a while, but I kept playing to hear the music. I want to play it again though, my music-listening-brain-side apparently shares a room with my ball-deflecting-brain side!
Brilliant! Great tune too, although I'm glad it only took 2 runs to get through the screens. Was worried on the third one haha :) Great fun.
I'm a bit frustrated of my english level because I couldn't follow the lirics at 100%, I enjoyed it too much. Nice job!
Very unique idea. I wish there was more integration with the voices and the gameplay mechanic. Maybe some way for each paddle type to be associated with the male or female voice? Just trying to throw out an idea. Great work!
Commenting here so that this will be in my rated games so that I can come back to rate when I have sound. Looks very promising!
I really like the mood for this game. I only wish the controls for this game were more... tangible? It's a bit hard using a mouse to point a little barrier, my only difficulty with the game was based on controls, and I would've like to be able to play it perfectly to see what happened in the song.
Also this game NEEDS something to tell you that you use the mouse to change your paddle thingy.
Holy crap, so many comments!
@JaJ, @Jezzamon - yeah, I'm adding that in to go in a new version (which will pretty only add text like that to give a little more guidance) - should be up in the next day
Also @Jezzamon - would you have preferred a keyboard input?
@racarte - The metaphor was admittedly less clear than I'd like. The world actually represents the characters' 'tiny world' - the space they've created for their relationship. The balls represented outside influences: red ones being those that they wanted to keep out, and green ones being ones they wanted. The idea is that the lovers start out by secluding themselves from the world, then as they start learning each others quirks and annoyances, they begin to grasp at outside things to distract them. For the relationship to survive, they have to strike a balance. I was hoping to show this through the visuals, but simply didn't have time. (I'm gonna be recording a commentary for the game soon that'll go through this in more detail)
@Super Soul - Yeah, that would have definitely made the differences between the win and lose states more clear (I'm suddenly having a thought of a musical with a clear hero and villain, and how much air time they get determines who wins!). It would have been hard to pull off with the particular story I was telling, unless the goal was to balance out the voices rather than to have one of them dominate. Another way I was thinking of was to have the music itself change with winning and losing (though that would have been far too much to compose in the time allotted).
Awesome! Now I feel inspired to sing!!! Amazing and great humour in the lyrics, really enjoyed it. Oh, now my girlfriend's telling me to stop singing. Fine. Fantastic game, well done!
I did not find this fun enough to play it again and listen how the lyrics change, and did not exactly knew if I was winning, losing or the stage was ending. But I did really dig the minimalistic graphic style! And well, the audio it's unbeatable awesomentastical. I had to create a word to express myself, since it's really that good. +1 for the idea!
Jeez, why does the guy hate cats? Kind of a silly thing to fret about. The voices were asynchronous at parts and I cringed, but otherwise the gameplay was well linked to the beat.
Very cool. I also would have liked keyboard controls (though maybe then it'd be too easy?) since it was tricky with a touchpad. A subtitle option would be neat too.
Oh, this is awesome. I only ever heard fragments of the actualy lyrics, which somehow always were non-sequiturs :D
I was a bit confused if I was meant to be blocking the green balls or not. I got that they were "good", I just didn't know what to do about that.
Would have LOVED subtitles or a transcript (admittedly harder if segments change), but I picked up enough of the lyrics to enjoy it immensely.
The ambition and technique behind the song almost stands on its own without the gameplay. You could have just given me a slider to play with and I'd be happy listening to it over and over.
@RHY3756547 - so the thing with the cats is that it IS a petty thing to get mad at, but its the kind of petty thing that can and will lead to fights in a relationship.
@dokidoki, @gritfish - yeah, subtitles would be good. I might get a transcript together (it's a bit complex coz of the various branchings)
Also @gritfish - the green balls were good :D. I'd hoped that being green was enough to communicate that.
@matthais_zarzecki - yeah, those do exist. I did what i could to keep everything making sense, but at some point you just have to allow for (and, to be honest, utilise) the non-sequiturs
Very interesting concept! I can't say I've seen anyone try this before. I just wasn't sure what I was supposed to do (collect vs. reflect; well, didn't understand before reading the comments).
It was so great I played it thrice. This is one the the best ideas I've seen on this LD, and one of the best games I've played.
Very cool. Reminds me of Ikaruga, but maybe just because I have Ikaruga on my mind these days :)
Red-green colour-blind, no idea what to block or not. Definitely got further just trying to block everything than by blocking about 50/50...
Figured it all out when I got a friend to come over and they told me that in the first two stages all of the balls were the same colour - once I survived to stage three it turned out I could tell them apart on my own :D
Loved it!
Music is good, the game itself isn't.
It isn't innovative and you cannot lose in this game.
Figured out you could switch the paddles by clicking. Does the game switch music tracks depending on how well you do? Because I only played it once and couldn't tell... Love the concept, but I couldn't understand 90% of the words.
Wow. what an experience.
The game was quite polished, i liked the bit where it mixed the good and bad bullets.
The song was awesome and funny.
I want to like this, but I've played it twice and I'm still not exactly sure how my actions affect the music. Maybe I'm just musically illiterate and therefore not the target audience. But the idea is really awesome!
It's hard not to give you 5 starts in Audio, because I know how difficult is to write a song. Actually. I had a similar idea for this LD (believe me or not ;) ) but I realized that was almost impossible to execute... maybe because I was in the solo competition, anyway... you did it so congrats. Regarding the gameplay, I agree with most comments, so you already know :)
It's REALLY innovative and funny. I think it's actually more interactive than it seems, which is a shame :).
Ugh this sucks so hard without a mouse. My wireless mouse died, so I had to use this crappy little pad that I never use. Totally not a knock against your game, just an observation from me. Rad song, rad idea, rad game! Good work!
Bravo!
Trackpad in the dead center of the world gives you lightning fast pinpoint control.
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very unique. Wasn't sure if I was supposed to be collecting any of them or not though ( collect your the same color as your paddle? or only when it's curved outward?)