August 23rd-26th 2013 :: Theme: 10 Seconds
Ludum Dare 27 — August 23rd-26th, 2013
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No boxer is complete without a second in the corner to keep his spirits up between rounds. In Boxer's Seconds you're responsible for hiring as many seconds as you can. But there's a catch: the candidates will refuse to work for you as long as the other candidates they personally hate remain alive. Study the candidates and order assassinations and hire as many seconds as possible!
Features:
- Lose a few rounds and the difficulty will go down. Win a bunch and it'll go up.
- Mute audio with F4, toggle fullscreen with F11.
- Ants! They'll happily take a joyride on a piece of paper if you move it around. Or you can crush them.
- Autosave! Close the game and later you can pick up right where you left off.
- 4,000 possible names! 38,000 possible faces! GAZILLIONS of possible character descriptions!
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I wanted to interpret the theme in a way that didn't have to do with time. I googled the definition of "second" and learned that the guy in a corner who advises the boxer between rounds is, in fact, referred to as a second.
I tumbled the idea around in my head. I'd decided I was going to do something deliberately slower-paced and more to do with logic and strategy to contrast the direction most other entries have taken. I came up with Boxer's Seconds, in which you're a professional boxer tasked with hiring some seconds to replace the one that just quit on you. The problem is that each second hates some of the others and would never work for you while the ones they hate remain alive. Your job is to choose which candidates to order assassinations on and which ones to hire. You get points if you hired the maximum possible number of seconds, and you lose points when you didn't hire as many as you could have. It's not so simple as that, though - you'll have to read up on each candidate to determine who it is that hates who, first.
I hope you enjoy playing as much as I've enjoyed making it!
Tools used:
MS Paint - for all game art that isn't generated on-the-fly
GIMP and ResHack - for icon-ifying the application icon
Ableton Live - for a few percussion samples/synths
TED Notepad and Notepad++ - for text file editing
BlitzMax - for programming, naturally
A special thanks to Lucas Pope, who developed Papers, Please, for being one of the big inspirations for the interface and graphic style.
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Track my post-compo progress!
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=35589
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Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 100% |
| #93 | Innovation | 3.77 |
| #170 | Humor | 3.12 |
| #241 | Mood | 3.19 |
| #289 | Theme | 3.45 |
| #459 | Overall | 3.15 |
| #498 | Graphics | 2.97 |
| #753 | Audio | 2.16 |
| #830 | Fun | 2.60 |
Comments
Any more detail than that? The graphics are OpenGL and the audio is DirectSound.
Really really nice! I enjoyed it even though I think I am not smart enough for it.
Please make the text bigger or add a 2x size option, it's really hard to read.
Oh, you son of a... Those bugs almost gave me a heart attack!
Really original perspective on the theme. :)
Martze: try pressing F11. It should be easier to read in fullscreen. (Assuming your monitor supports a 1024x768 resolution, I didn't have the time to make it work with others.)
A logic problem. Nice implementation of logic statements. Graphics make enough mood but the notes keep getting on the top. Great game nonetheless. This I will play more!
DID I JUST KILLED AN ANT? (srsly, man, I thought it was some real deal 2-3 times)
Well, this one is pretty solidin the amidst of so many buggy and incomplete feeling games, it has that Dukope (www.dukope.com) feel to it, excellently polished, if It wasn't for a certain dose of repetition, I really would say that every man is pretty much unique (and has some pretty cool quirks)(Talking about man, you could've tried adding some females too, if it was supposed to have any, I didn't get them in my gameplay run).
In my opinion, you just got one thing wrong, and it was theme part, although you stimulate the hyperfast hiring/killing thing, this is a game that is best played slowly and patiently for achieving best results, I don't know if it was supposed to have a time bonus or something, if there is one, I'm sorry couldn't notice. (But I liked the tick tick clock-"oh shit, i'm out of time"-part)
This is yet, another game that I would recommend you, author, to implement and develop deeper, it would make an awesome full game if released with some story and/or other cool features ;D.
Nice game, and a hard one. I like the way you interpreted the theme. Good work.
Gus: I'm glad you liked it! I choose to take a definition of "second" other than time. The guy in the corner that advises a boxer is also called a second. There are no women because it would've been too much work to put hair on the faces.
I like the theme; it's an interesting twist. I just found the gameplay quite dull and drawn out. I suppose it might be better if I had a lot of time and weren't tired. :P
"my favourite pie is cherry pie. I hate people who make baked goods." but... where does he get his pie!?! :P
Good to see alternative interpretations of the theme. Love the little details, being able to add in notes and actually scribble in a signature. Well done :D
Shh, shh, pie is magicked into existence by pie gophers. Not baked.
I spent half an hour reading the notes and making notes... then I accidentally signed the contract because I thought it was just another note and wanted to drag it, and all my planning and making notes was worth nothing. Frustrating as hell.
michail: And that's why you read the tutorial! Sorry, I suppose I could've added some undo to the signature space.
(And others: thanks for the feedback!)
Nice logic puzzle implementation, would be nice if I didn't have to keep side notes to solve it.
Oh maaan... Killing all those poor people for not liking Batman. If the "10 Seconds" would know the game rules, I'm sure they'd have agreed on something and worked for you.
Love the randomized character generation, btw!
opimality: Pfff, games where you have to think and take notes down are the best ones. Just be glad I made it so you can take the notes in-game instead of needing paper and a pen.
X-Or: Awesome! I spent a lot of time trying to get the generation just right. I think I could have improved it more if I had more time, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Haha, great way of taking the theme on! Got 2 out of max 3 (darn) and love the graphics (big fan of Papers, Please)
Clever twist on the theme! Crashed once while I was making my notes. I just tried guessing after that. Anyone got any tips on how to quickly parse that much info? I enjoyed squashing the bugs.
10 seconds... I like your take!
It's a nice concept and well executed
Haha, I immediately thought it was a dukope game.
It was very cool and the first bug scares me so much oO
Nice concept, but i dont like to read in games, fun and very enjoyable anyway
I was doing searches for meanings for second and found this definition. So it's cool that someone took and made a game about it. :) Ten seconds.
From a technical viewpoint, this game is quite good. It's well thought out, everything works, and so on.
But for some reason, it just doesn't feel fun to me. Maybe it just isn't my kind of game, but the auto-generated walls of text aren't that interesting to read, and solving the puzzle doesn't really feel rewarding to me.
It really made me feel like I was at a desk doing this lol. I love the random bugs you can squash. Really interesting take on the theme. Well done. :)
Ahhhh! I drew a logic grid for this! It was awesome. I haven't done that in ages.
Thank you so much for not making a twitch/timed game. I really liked that I could sit down and be thoughtful and think through it. I didn't know a boxer had 'seconds', so you learn something knew every day. I did feel bad signing my name, though, since it sent some people to their deaths just because they had different ideas about the role of Pluto as a planet :_(
Those ants, though...
Really liked the interpretation of the theme, of not using the "time" meaning, very original gameplay too!
I wonder how many "Too long, didn't read" comments you will receive for that..
The wall of text is a bit scary at first, but it's well worth the time. Innovative idea, good interpretation of the theme.
excuse me, sir, may I ask which font did you use? I find it awesome.
brogrammers: It's a font I made myself. Incidentally, I named it "mackerel".
This is one of my favourites so far. It's clever, funny, nicely written and planned, and just really satisfying to play. I loved all the little touches like squashing ants and signing your name too. Great work!
Interesting idea. Very complicated way of determining a puzzle that I did not find very interesting to solve though.
I felt like there were too many attributes per second for it to be fun, rather than grueling, and I don't really buy that it's particularly based on logic and strategy. Observation and memory, definitely.
The effects like ants sticking to notes and stuff were great, though.
Gazok: the first part of the puzzle, figuring out who hates, who, is less logic and more to do with just reading each one and searching the others for conflicting traits. The second part, finding an optimal way to hire and kill, is the real logic puzzle. You know you can keep notes on each paper, right? It shouldn't be necessary to memorize anything at all.
An honest to goodness "sleuthing" game - very nice, and quite an original take on the theme!
The game is really interesting and I had fun matching up who would be ok with who and whether it was better to choose a different group. Unfortunately when I signed the invoice (which was a great touch) the text that appeared was all the letter A. I assume that's a bug and it would normally tell me how well I'd done.
Very innovative concept, well done!
Starspell: yep, that isn't supposed to happen. I'm not sure what could have caused it. Sorry!
Interesting interpretation of the theme and a great game. I got 4 people hired. The wall of text might put some people off, but it's actually surprisingly fun.
Very funny idea and take on the theme, but the text is sooooo small! :D Besides the score, a better classification or label how well I done would be nice. The ants are a great way to break the reading for a short second - nice idea!
Definitely a fresh take on the theme, I really enjoyed this one.
Jeremias: the invoice, once signed, should provide a full report describing who you killed, who you left alive, who refused to work, and who you hired. As well as the maximum number of people who could have been hired, and the number that you did end up hiring. Also, as to the text size: have you tried fullscreen? (Press F11.)
This is... different. Not a very fun activity, but really creative and unusual. Kudos for that!
I'm extremely sorry for not actually playing this game.
It's so well made that I'd have to either:
1) Make a zillion spreadsheets
2) Program a solver :)
Both would be a bit overkill...
Seriously, this is one original entry!
Playing this game is hard work! I like the spin you gave on the theme, and I loved the clock and the ants, great touches!
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COuldnt open it, crashes when double clicking the exe