Group Pug (@grouppug) takes on Ludum Dare together for the first time to bring you proof of concept for Chance Encounter! An absolutely ludicrous, stupid idea to get an entire RPG epic on one screen during a GAME JAM, Chance Encounter is a combination of the thematic inspirations of Dungeons & Dragons-like games, the thrilling chance of a slot machine and a healthy dose of why the hell did we do this. Really.
We're opting out of Audio as we didn't create the SFX or track (credits below), but please feel free to leave us constructive feedback, comments, and share how you progressed through your adventure!
Code - @AquiLaX/Michael Vermeulen
Art/Content - @lucyamorris/Lucy Morris
both designed it, terribly <3
TOPHAT DUCK 4EVER
Music by Matthew Pablo
http://www.matthewpablo.com
SFX from freesfx.co.uk
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 93% |
| #27 | Humor(Jam) | 4.05 |
| #91 | Innovation(Jam) | 3.83 |
| #129 | Theme(Jam) | 4.02 |
| #154 | Graphics(Jam) | 4.04 |
| #178 | Overall(Jam) | 3.65 |
| #259 | Mood(Jam) | 3.39 |
| #313 | Fun(Jam) | 3.30 |
Comments
(Grungi here :p) Had a lot of fun just using that lever, so so good. I love the idea behind the game, good choice for the theme. It is just too bad that when you complete the quest, you do not get another one via the objective slot machine at the top. Good job though!
Your game turned out really great! Love the art-style and the way you guys handled the theme I feel is a really good take on "Entire Game on One Screen". I've never seen an RPG that plays on one screen, on a slot machine, but this one is a good one!
character art is so lovely! it was certainly a privilege to be a duck hero! :)
The game got stuck a few times for me, but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless! It was quite humorous and I liked the little tweet the game gave you to send.
Nice work! Came out really well, though some additional polish is required I think it stands its ground pretty well for what it is! :D
I killed the Pug Queen! This has loads of potential to be fleshed out into something bigger and looks great.
I really love this concept I think you can make a really good game out of this with more options :)
You can test my game if you want, it's an horror point and click adventure. I hope you like it.
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-31/?action=preview&uid=22486
I can't see my stats. I lose life and morale but how many I have?
The game is too big for my resolution (1366* 768) not pleasant.
I don't undestand why I died and I to completed the main quest.
Thank you for all the constructive comments, guys! There are a few known bugs because our scope got a little big (i.e. fights lasting so long that you can't see the end because it doesn't scroll, an enemy without a name string etc.) and we didn't have time to make the Objective thing super clear - but you can keep playing after you beat the main quest! It's definitely something we want to polish and work on a bit more. :)
@Prox: It's supposed to be a game with short rounds! Ideally we'd like to show those stats somehow in the future, but it was a bit tough trying to find a layout for the screen that displayed everything but remained uncluttered. If the game is a bit too big, I suggest zooming out inside your browser window. :) The deaths are mostly random (and silly), like the rest of the game. Thank you for your comments!
Great concept, Smooth fluid gameplay, nice art work and great music...... However the game crashed for me after 2 pulls of the lever :(
If you click on "pick an action" twice it bugs the game. On the whole though a well thought out game that promises to be a solid game.
Really, really amazing job done with this game! Love the random nature of it and humour. The only thing though, next time consider people with smaller monitors (i had to scroll the page up and down constantly, my resolution is 1600x900)
Had to play it because it had my (real) name in it...
I do no regret this decision. Very good, well enjoyed. :D
I'm Poopy Soldier the Snowman and I love every part of it. Short lifespan due to bad choices. I should've figured I shouldn't make a boat if I don't know how to do it. Stupid me.
One of the best games I played so far. Great graphics & humour. I like it very much. :)
A great little title, but quickly becomes "samey" when you know the answers? I at least got the same results a couple of times. Would have been great with a "random sentence" generator.
It's a fun way to spend some time, very nice art on the interface and funny writing. A very good use of the theme as well, good job!
Great humorous adventure game that I enjoyed exploring :)
I'm very impressed with the amount of content you have put in. Unfortunately I encountered a but where the "choose action" menu just froze.
Lovely art and quite funny :)
Sometimes a little confusing what is happening though, but overall a very solid and fun entry.
Thanks.
The choose action menu bug is also known. ;_; Sorry about that, guys! You can always refresh, but yeah, it's a bit of a shit.
Thanks again for all the awesome comments! <3
Nice! There was a few oddities like killing the pug queen but it not seeming to get anything from it. I really see the potential here though!
Great work :)
Game looks great and was fun to play.
The way combat was handled reminded me of the time I played a multi-user dungeon (mud), very cool!
The slotmachine idea is a pretty nifty one altough I was slightly disappointed I had to click instead of "pull" (i.e. drag) it. ;)
The humor was good in this one. The slot machine part of the adventure objective didn't realy pull it off as being a major part of the game. Liked the overall thing though.
Ahhhh!!! I was level 10 and the game failed on me when I was washing my breeches! Also, the prince goes missing a LOT.
Laughed a lot, this is super cool. Great job!
Lovely game. I wish I could play with the character creation a bit before it gets locked. And I'm not sure if the slot machine is a bit buggy: do the graphics rotate only 1 time per game session? Cute graphics anyway!
Cool game, it's a bit like my ProcJam game Infini-Quest, but with a slot machine and more duck warriors!
Very well polished game with fitting art-style. However, there is a small bug when you click "Pick an action" and then click it again (instead of picking one of the options).
Liked the concept and the game. Bit confuse to have rescued the prince two times, shouldn't the quest change once it is completed ?
A slot-machine RPG is a great idea; I had great fun with this one! If you choose to develop it further, maybe you could consider including some illustrations to accompany the events (I understand that'd be a lot to ask for in only 72 hours). Well done on an awesome interpretation of the theme.
Funny game. Even if it's very buggy and glitchy it has lots of potential. The slot machine objectives work very well and most results are hilarious. Hope you continue this for more polish, stat views, content.
Love this! An RPG condensed into one screen is brilliant use of the theme, I think you could definitely develop a full game out of this idea. Lovely art too.
The Pug Queen is OP though :P
I like the idea of the leaver, and the attempt to fit an entire rpg in a weekend.
I think though that you needed more space for the "And..." or maybe even better remove it entirely and have the and stuff attached to the end of fight etc in the main area.
A health bar would have been great and some way to play it smart and recuperate health. Now it was a bit too random and sudden death for me to be able to progress in any serious manner.
Plus one for three genders.
What a fun, silly little game! It's a pity you don't get a quest log to look back on at the end.
hilarious and fun! any plans of a mobile version? i could easily see myself playing this while on transit etc :)
I love the idea of an RPG slot-machine, thats a pretty cool concept. Good use of theme and a good sense of humour as well. Love it!
Whaat.. how.. xD i like it! (Race snowman? Mate that kill me XD )
Fun game! I laughed quite a few times at what would happen, and I absolutely love the character portraits!
It's weird giving criticism on a jam game because I know it wouldn've been solved with more time, but here were a couple thoughts:
-A lot of the time I don't read the "And..." until a lot later. If in a battle, I end up just looking at that. If I get a game over screen, I can't see it at all! Something just killed me. :O
-Once selecting a race/gender (female duck of course!) I can't change it, but can still click the button.
But overall it's an awesome jam game! Good job you guys. :D
Thanks for the comments, guys! <3 Addressing a few points:
- the race/gender selection is supposed to be locked after selection. We wanted to make it changeable after you died, but I'm not sure we got there in time.
- I agree the 'And' box is too small. We ran out of time and squished the text in, but making everything better laid out/visible would definitely be a crucial design point if we polished the game more.
- We are considering a mobile/PC release because we really enjoyed this concept!
- Quest log idea really good idea. <3
- I agree, not being able to see how you died is shitty (because there are a couple of random death scenarios in the game), definitely a design error. Again attributed to running out of time... aren't jams fun. :D
- More illustrations/better generated content would be a thing in a more polished version. I love drawing shinies.
- Quest was supposed to change once you finished it but we know atm that the slot machine images bug.
- We had an inventory/trade system also programmed, but couldn't implement it in time in any meaningful way (you would've just been getting the crown and trading it out repeatedly).
- I'm glad the gender thing was okay! I did a bit of sourcing on Twitter on how best to approach it, and while I didn't have much time to research it deeply b/c of jam time constraints, the least I wanted to do was make gender non-binary because, well, life is non-binary.
- Please feel free to suggest anything else you think would improve the game or you'd like to see! All this constructive crit has been great and we really appreciate it. <3
(Pug Queen is indeed OP.)
Very nice art style and a good idea for a game. That Pug Queen is vicious!
My wife made a "Mum plays ...." video of her playing this game: http://youtu.be/D6crKskdeFQ
@badlydrawnrod: Give your wife a hi-five from us, the video was great! Poor Mum the Duck. :(
"I, Ludipe the Duck perished while in the forest. I was only level 4 and carried 30 gold at the time"
The narrative in this game was really funny and the art is very nice. Mechanics were a bit too random for my taste but it's a cool game.
Gorgeous and hilarious! With a bit of refinement and further development of the mechanics I could spend a lot of time playing this game.
Wow, really fresh and fun game! Great art and good comic writing. I hit a game-breaking but while taking a bath but hey, it's a game jam.
Really happy to have played this!!
Really cool rpg! I love the way how combined it with slot-machine! Pretty innovative approach! Nicely done!
I didn't really get what to do with the objective, and at the star I tried to click on everything, maybe bit of an effect on hover would solve that.
Despite a lack of animation, graphics are lovely.
The game's really silly, like funny silly. I really liked that some things take health from you, others morale, etcetera. Like those RPGs where there's many stats being hidden from you that you should somehow be aware of.
a super fun concept, sadly hindered a bit by the time circumstances on it's conception as others have also pointed out. i would love to see a "fuller" release, with some art to accompany events and fights. having this on your phone with a save feature could result in something really addictive - LukasErritsoe
Beautiful artwork. It was a little confusing, I thought I killed the pug queen but it just continued as normal.
Also couldn't fit the whole game on my screen (15" retina macbook).
Great idea though, just needs a little bit more polish.
Just dropping by to say I'm still having fun with the game. Goose the duck made it to level 13! :D
It's really cool how you take criticism so well and actually start discussion in the comments! Haven't seen anything this constructive in any other LD game. :)
Fun game with interesting design, liked the art and music and thought the concept worked really well. As you've mentioned I did run into the issue with fights going too long that you couldn't see the end. Looking forward to seeing an expanded version though.
This game looks great and I really wanted to test it, but sadly there is no unity player on linux.
Any chance you can do a linux build?
@ibilon: Put up Windows and Linux standalone builds! Hope you enjoy. (:
@allurious: thanks! works great
I enjoyed playing it, wish there was a health bar though.
I think this is the most original, nice and weird game I've seen so far.
I love this graphics, and process are very fun, so nicely done game!
Really beautiful graphics! I Included it in part 10 of my Ludum Dare 31 compilation video series, if you would like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/YpdCMKphEUw
Haha, I needed to draw a butt to rescue the prince ! How AWESOME is that ? :D
Funny concept, reminds me of some other game I once played, but I can't remember how it was called. But there are so many tiny annoyances that kept me from enjoying it. Like not being able to see why I died. And after a while I kept seeing the same messages, and it seemed like my decisions didn't even matter. Also, finding all that gold all the time felt hardly rewarding, since there was no use for it anyway.
But it's fun for some minutes though.
And you probably want to know: Clicking on the "Pick Action" button twice, bugs the game out.
@klianc09: Thank you! We address all those issues some way up the page. Cheers for the constructive crit (:
I broke it - had no options to select when taking a bath :s
Was fun at first but then it soon got very repetitive.
Player graphics and music is great!
This is an intriguing game. I am not sure the controls work 100%. Often I would select "take them off" when washing my boots and it would have me look for water. Also, I wanted to check out the different character types, but you have to restart the game to change race. The concept is good, and the art is great. Tough to understand what the real goal is. I think I had to explore a village, raid a castle and become a princess?
I think it's a shame you opted out of the audio category: even if you didn't make the sounds yourselves, the choice of audio is really important.
As for the game...
- It is a bit too big for some screens
- It crashed several time (or at least the game was not responding to any input), which made it a bit of a pain to play since it happened almost every round I played
- The idea is great, but there is a real lack of feedback : I never understood how the slot-machine part was interacting with the rest of the game, and I didn't felt my actions mattered. When it wasn't crashing it felt like I was reading a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book ... while tossing a coin for each choice.
Appart from that, the packaging is really good, and as I said earlier I love the concept. I am curious to see what this could lead to. Good job!
Made me smile! The idea is great, I loved the graphics and music. The writing was funny, really enjoyed this one, good job!
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My duck warrior died when I was cleaning my boots :(
Very nice entry, filled with quirk humor and fantastic art and music. I'm not sure if I understood how the "adventure objective" slot machine works, however.
All in all, very good fun, would kill pug queen 5 more times :D