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A jam submission

E.C.C.: ENHANCED COMBAT CADAVERSView game page

In District 122, the dead are on the move.
Submitted by Chris | Indie Game Dev (@hypedoncoffee), anchorlight (@anchorlightdev) — 15 hours, 58 minutes before the deadline
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E.C.C.: ENHANCED COMBAT CADAVERS's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Sound#443.7213.721
Aesthetics#524.2794.279
Story#643.6513.651
Music#703.8143.814
Theme#2283.4423.442
Fun#3623.0003.000
Mechanics#3692.9072.907

Ranked from 43 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How many people worked on this game total?
2 (plus 2 voice actors)

Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
Kenneys Buildings and Mouse Cursor, Mixamo Animations, US Census Data (2021), City Generator by ProbableTrain, ambientCG textures

Link to your source?
https://github.com/hypedoncoffee/Gamedevtv-Jam-2022

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Comments

Viewing comments 37 to 18 of 37 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

This one reminded me of an early 2000's cyberpunk game. The visuals and animations are great, though there's too much stuff on the screen to really focus on gameplay, but for 10 days, this isn't bad at all! The voice acting is good, and I enjoyed the futuristic cyberpunk music. Overall, great game jam game, and I wouldn't mind seeing something like this develop further! :)

Submitted(+1)

Okay, wtf. How was this made in 10 days? You have a freaking intro sequence?? Voice actors??? Absolutely amazing. The quality on the graphics, story, sound, and music is just incredible. The actual game itself is a little difficult to play, although I probably had a much harder time since I'm playing with a trackpad lol. I also noticed at one point that my next target seemed to be inside a building? I'm not sure if the building IS the target, and I'm supposed to interact with it in some way, or maybe the target got glitched inside. But regardless, this is still one of the best submissions I've seen. Incredible job! :)

Developer(+1)

The VA work was a long night of editing. :’) Totally worth it though, I love how it came out. I highly recommend checking out the VAs here, Anubitek was responsible for the Patrol chatter you hear. Many of my favorite lines are quite rare as they’re bound to inactive/idle time per guard, and I’m not sure if they’re even possible to hear in the current version of the game.

I can’t account for trackpad vs. mouse, but you’re far from the first to have issues and an alternative WASD control scheme has been highly requested. As for VIPs spawning in buildings, it’s a regression from the 5.05 update which fixed the Patrol system so that patrol squads actually roam a desginated patrol path instead of sticking only to the F.O.B. patrol route. The change was too important to wait and test, and unfortunately this ended up being one of the side effects. Before this update, VIPs and patrols all spawned in the area where you drop off clearance codes and it made the first few VIPs agonizingly difficult while the rest of the game was a breeze.

Thankfully, the AIs don’t ever get trapped in buildings as buildings all carve obstacle zones into the navmesh. If you get their attention and run away, they should chase you out of the alley they got stuck in. That’s our stopgap for before the fix goes in.

Thank you for checking out our game!

Submitted(+1)

Super cool presentation! I think the graphics made it too hard to tell what was going on, but maybe it's because I played the WebGL version? The camera got blocked very often for me, as well. Love the sounds and voice! Awesome job!

Developer (1 edit)

There is a system in place that makes foreground buildings fade in opacity. Unfortunately, the Kenney assets we used as placeholders were never intended for this or for textured surfaces, and we didn’t have enough time to clean them up.

As far as I know the WebGL version is mostly accurate now, with the only difference being slight distortion on video quality and a noticeably worse framerate. There are issues with lighting as a result of rushing through the environment art, and I will be revisiting that at some point postjam.

Thanks for taking the time to check out our game!

Submitted(+1)

Wow, the presentation of this is stunning - visuals, UI, audio, and the intro! I love the dynamic music based on the situation. With the gameplay itself, I had some difficulty working out what was actually going on since there was so much happening on screen. I like the overall theme of the game though. Good job on the submission 😎

Developer (1 edit)

Unfortunately the environment is a lot busier than it ought to be. I’m not satisfied with the buildings; there are some custom buildings that are okay, not the best, but the Kenney assets had some rough UV wrapping as they were never meant to be textured. Since I didn’t have time to fix the FBXs, I scrambled to throw whatever materials had already been made up on the buildings, and as a result the buildings’ neon windows are just as bright as the HUDs, characters, and other elements of essential gameplay. Even worse, these buildings have a tougher time fading for the camera because of the dark color hiding their rough edges.

In postjam I’ll be making a new set of less aggressive neon materials and I’ll take a little more time into the buildings’ quality. In the meantime, just try to let the objective marker take you in the right direction. I think the game definitely needs a panel or two of clear and concise gameplay explanations, but once you figure out the objectives loop it’s a very simple back-and-forth affair.

PRO TIP: With some exceptions, enemies can’t see in the dark and SHIFT will break line of sight– even when they’re already engaged in combat with you. You can use this to safely reload, get out of a tough firefight, or close the distance to your VIP target while avoiding the fire of their guards.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Excellent visuals/look and feel. It was a bit hard to see the player character at times, but overall looks really nice. Maybe I missed it, but it would be nice if movement and reloading could be controlled by wasd and r (for example) so you could dodge bullets while shooting.

Developer

You didn’t miss that, it’s the most commonly requested feature. I want to get alternate controls in there soon but I don’t have a timeline for when postjam support will start. I don’t think implementation will take too long.

Thanks for checking it out!

Submitted(+1)

Congratulations on your entry! I really liked the intro, it was impressively polished. The whole main menu UI was great!

I think the game could benefit from having a bit more contrast between the player and the world, as the player is a darker color and tends to blend in with the surroundings, at least on my screen. I think reducing the size and brightness of the UI during play would be a good place to start. Also, having hotkeys for abilities would be super nice, at least for me.

Overall, great job and congrats on your submission! I can see a lot of potential for the gameplay here.

Developer(+1)

Pretty much agreed on all points. Hotkeys sound like a wonderful idea; my first instinct would be 1,2,3 as hotkeys for abilities, but if we continue the game I think I’d prefer to have multiple playable characters at once which would definitely take priorities for numbers. I think the focus on the entirely world-space HUD was a gamble that people will love or hate in its current iteration.

While the emission helps with the character a little bit, I agree about the environment. We played around with a few different lighting levels and environment textures during development, and only the rain system and main characters shipped looking as they originally did in the early days. We probably would have actually accounted for the dark player model causing problems, but I fell way behind on the world generation until maybe the last Friday or Saturday; at that point it was all hands on deck for getting the game working properly.

Thanks for playing, and I appreciate the very thorough feedback!

Submitted(+1)

I gotta say, I've tried to play it a few times, and i just don't think it's for me. I can't get my head around the controls, camera, and UI design. I think I understand the concept though. That intro is amazing though! 

Developer(+1)

I greatly appreciate how many chances you gave this game. I understand it’s not for everyone and needs a little fine tuning to clear some of the gamejam jank.

The concept is pretty straightforward once you get into the loop, but I think this game would have benefitted greatly from a stronger tutorial like textboxes on the first spawn or a basic training room.

Submitted(+1)

Wow, what a visually stunning intro. Overall the production values were great. The vibe and story were interesting and pulled me in. I did find the gameplay a little overwhelming because I found it was hard to left click to move and right click to shoot.  Though with a bit of tweaking I can see a lot of potential!

Developer

Thanks for giving the game a shot!

If you play it now, 5.05 has made the initial shock of the game a little more bearable as an AI bug caused most enemies to crowd around the main forward base, making the initial VIP harder than any other sequence in the game. Now that this is dealt with, you’ll be able to avoid most encounters as intended and focus in on the enemies you need to take down. You’re not the only one to have issues with the control scheme and alternatives are being investigated, but it probably won’t be in time for GDTVJam.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

The intro scene was amazing - Definitely gets you hyped!

The controls seemed a bit odd to me - both movement clicks and aim clicks make it so you have to move your mouse from 1 side to the other side constantly.

It was hard for me to focus on what to do with the overwhelming visuals and sounds.

Great job for creating a game and submitting!

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! In the most recent patch, the blue rings on the player HUD– they extend out further and only have two rims instead of three. The goal was to move it away from the player HUD and make sure you were focused on the actual center. It’s not a complete gamechanger, but things have improved.

I like the movement system as-is, but it does need some fine tuning and carries some general gamejam jank with it.

Submitted(+1)

Compaired to the Unfinished test I played mid time of the Jam it developed very great! Well done, just adjust your Sounds bit more :D - Keep it up!

Developer(+1)

It seems like I missed your comment earlier. Thanks for giving the game a go, and I’m glad you liked the final result! Development was a wild ride and I feel lucky for getting brought on to be a part of it, as I was originally going to skip GDTVJam for other ongoing projects.

Believe me, I’ve tried with the patrol audio. Really, those guys need better military radios. Ragtag resistance or not, walkie talkies? Seriously? It’s the late 21st century, act like it!

Jokes aside, I rushed through the audio filtering for anubitek’s dialogue in a single night and the system involves simple calls. I think the changes will be too sweeping to promise a deadline on, but I’m thinking I can fix them by doing the following:

  • Reprocess the original VA audio with a less aggressive set of filters (this will take time as the game has around 130 separate audio files for the patrols)
  • Break patrols into their own mixer with an adjustable slider on the menus
  • Have every PatrolVoices component report in to a Patrol Dialogue Master when speaking, and tell the DialogueMaster when it stops (most likely an int, currentPatrolVoices, that increments and decreases)
  • Don’t allow dialogue if too many are playing (only play if maxPatrolVoices > currentPatrolVoices)
  • Don’t play dialogue if the player is too far away to hear
  • Expose the maxPatrolVoices variable of PatrolVoices and allow the player to customize it in menus

Other audio in the game… I’ll wait for postjam since the lines that were in but bugged have already been dealt with. The rest were never implemented and remain on the cutting room floor. I believe we ended up only using 30-40% of the VA dialogue for the PA system, and many of the sounds for abilities or gameplay are unfinished or absent entirely. I’m not happy about that, but that’s just gamejam jank for you.

The point is, I think we have our work cut out for us if we go postjam. Again, thanks for giving it a go, and hopefully soon we can squash some of the more complicated problems!

Submitted(+1)

Great work on the aesthetics dig the vibe and everything but the play-ability has suffered a tad. For someone who made the game all the indicators might make intuitive sense but for someone who has not created the game it is a little overwhelming and convoluted. 

The story premise is phenomenal and I think if you put a little bit more time into the fine tuning this game has incredible potential. 

The distorted sound was a little bit much when you approached multiple enemies and became quite deafening. Respawning at the same place where I died because I was surrounded by so many enemies is also not the greatest idea as I just keep dying over and over again. I also think that I can be damaged before I get out of the respawn cutscene as I never am at full health?

Could not change setting mid run. Play game button restarted the game should maybe add a resume button to the pause menu and  name play game into restart run or so.

I always found myself confronted straight away with a VIP. I would have light a gentler maybe even a "fixed" tutorial in which you start in a linear part of the city and fight 1-2 enemies at a time so that one can get used to the hud and the overall layout of the game.

The stealth was a little counter intuitive as it worked for most enemies but not for VIPs I think? Could be communicated a little better.

Even though I mentioned a lot of possible improvements I can not stress enough how much potential this project has! I think you bit off more than you can chew in 10 days but give it a month with some rigorous playtesting and I think you could have a great game in the making! I'm looking forward to that!

Developer

I agree that there are some HUD issues in implementation. I stand by the world-space approach being a good idea, but I left out a lot of key things and hope to revise that a bit later on.

I haven’t touched the Pause canvas since maybe day 3 of the jam, so it doesn’t really surprise me that it doesn’t work. I’ll try to get the Resume Game working properly asap, for now just hit Escape a second time.

The patrol voices are definitely overwhelming, and while I’ve cut down the number of dialogue lines spoken per combat encounter I still need to set up a proper pooling system. I have some ideas but need to investigate further.

Unfortunately the respawn system isn’t as robust as we would have preferred. At some point, bad code came back to haunt me and we couldn’t really decouple the player from the core game without significant refactoring. Postjam I intend to force all patrols and the player to sample a new position and move them. This behavior has significantly improved with updates, and you will usually be able to get away cleanly from a fight gone wrong by using the Stealth key (SHIFT).

There’s also a bug where the Patrols like to crowd around the FOB, which isn’t exactly intentional behavior. The VIP itself only has two guards at first, while later VIPs begin to spawn 4, 6, 9, 12, 16, etc. The rest of the patrols you see are just static units roaming the map, at least in theory.

If you played v5.02 or another earlier version, I highly recommend either 5.0475 or 5.047 depending on platform. These versions have made significant improvements to prevent some of the more frustrating AI and objective bugs.

Thanks for giving our game a go!

Developer(+1)

5.05 is live and it fixes the FOB bug I mentioned. It’s not the complete 1-2 enemy limited trial run you’re asking for, but it does make the first VIP far less punishing. The respawn logic was also already in the game, but not being called; now that this has been fixed you’ll actually be moved out of the firefight when you respawn.

The Resume Game button also works as intended; once again, a case of “code was there but I forgot to call on it.” More importantly, it’s not a Play Scene 1 button anymore– it’s rather unfortunate that such a critical menu bug went unnoticed for this long, but once I set the scale on that menu for 0 I just forgot about it for the duration of jam time.

Hopefully this moves the game a little closer to its ideal state, there’s definitely jank and growing pains but I agree that there’s something there worth exploring.

Submitted(+1)

So far this has been the most visually stunning game I’ve played in the jam.

The visuals are a bit too busy and I definitely had a hard time figuring out what to do, but they look so bloody pretty, that I kind of didn’t care. Still, I’d definitely spend some time tightening that core gameplay loop, because the concept is quite interesting, but dying is a bit too easy.

Apart from that, the world-building and ambience are top-notch, and I think that you’re well on your way to a solid alpha build of a full game.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing! I hear everyone loud and clear– between the neon buildings and the triple ring HUD there’s way too much visual clutter, and cleanup is needed. I’m going to remodel the ring to be a single thinner torus in a future update, we’ll see what we can do about the rest.

Death can come quickly once you’re up against the VIP or multiple patrol groups, but you can exploit most of them to take on the opponents at your own pace. I highly recommend going invisible before reloading and holding the mouse to run as you can stay mobile and while the VIP won’t be fooled by your invisibility, the rest of the army will wait for you to reappear.

A large part of this is on me. We planned on abilities in the game, but I didn’t do a very good job balancing the requisition bar on your right and I think more opportunities to use the abilities would have gone a long way. All of them are quite effective as the smoke grenade will make enemies unable to fight back for a few seconds, the grenade waits a couple seconds then does wide radial damage, and the orbital laser… :)

Thanks for giving our game a go!

Submitted(+1)

I had no idea I could do all of that XD. It sounds like there is tons of good stuff in there, so definitely keep at it.

Developer(+1)

I knew it was unrealistic for jam time the moment I thought of it, but I originally wanted to have an optional tutorial accessible from the menu. More dark humor about the Ministry of Justice and a basic rundown of controls in a dark facility. If we go all-out on our postjam builds I’ll definitely get that put together.

Submitted(+1)

amazing visuals and audio. I had a hard time having to use the mouse to move attack and interact with hud components(for reloading & abilities) all simultaneously. 

that said. movements and shooting felt smooth. Well done and congrats on the accomplishment of putting this game together so quickly

Developer

Thanks for playing! I’m not exactly happy with the abilities implementation, and that’s entirely on me. It’s hard to click on them and it doesn’t communicate their abilities particularly well. If we get a chance to fix it postjam, it’s getting reworked immediately.

I like the idea of clicking on the HUD for reloads, but the implementation leaves something to be desired and I’ll see what I can do to refine that part of the controls.

Submitted(+1)

Played and rated. Impressive submission for 10 days!

I'm impressed by the visuals and overall quality of the game. Voice acting is great. Very well done on that part.
I'm not used to this kind of gameplay so I didn't really figure out and enjoy how to mix the movement and combat, it was pretty difficult for me.

Overall congrats on making this in 10 days, it's qualitative!

Would appreciate if you check out and rate our game as well: https://hadilepanda.itch.io/rise-of-necromancy

Developer(+1)

I noticed that a lot of people are clicking around like a MOBA or RTS instead of holding the mouse button. Personally, once I started testing the game while holding the mouse it felt a lot better. The game has some jank to it and definitely could have used a day or two of fine tuning in this regard.

Thanks for giving our game a go!

Submitted(+1)

Good game. Visuals on player are a bit distracting but I really like the idea of hunting down V.I.P's. Good game

Submitted(+1)

Thematically and aesthetically, possibly the best entry I've played so far! Great job! I had no idea what to expect diving into this, but I was definitely not disappointed! I did struggle a bit with the controls, I had a hard time mixing up running/gunning/reloading altogether, but besides that, great entry!

The sounds, musics, everything just seemed to work so well together. Great job!

Developer

Hey there, awesome work on your game!

I think as far as the mixing up goes, I got exactly what I wanted out of the design and wished I didn’t. I actually intended for you to get jumbled up and distracted by the reload in combat, and by deliberately making it a burden I hoped players would either get away from the enemy formation to safely reload or exploit the hilariously overpowered stealth system to do it safely. The Reload button doesn’t block the Mover script though, and that’s not okay.

Since a lot of people have asked about a different/better/traditional control scheme, I’ll try to look into getting that in before the jam ends. Thanks for giving our game a go!

Submitted(+1)

Very good entry!! Only thing I noticed was some overlapping text issue but I played on the WebGL version so that's probably why. The intro was excellent though!! I can tell a lot of effort went into this submission.

Developer

Thank you! I think we caught the overlapping bug by accident, but there are a few potential fixes in place just in case. I can’t reproduce it at all on newer builds, only the current web version. Videos are a mixed bag, and they might be a little broken in this next build.

Developer

FYI: Several people have commented on a bug about overlapping text in-game. It affects all HUDs and the Assignment screen. Here’s what I can gather on it:

  • Specifically happens to names
  • Web browsers primarily affected, possibly Chrome
  • Unable to reproduce bug as of yet

If anyone has more info, feel free to reach out! I’m also happy to report that I might be able to get videos working in the next WebGL patch. They’ve been significantly reduced in size and quality to maintain performance.

Submitted(+1)

I think you're onto something thematically, I hope you keep at it

Submitted(+1)

Whoever made the intro knows what they're doing. Very well put together. 

I had trouble with the point and click to move and using the mouse to fire. Like another comment I think the movement would be better on WASD or controller left stick as I found it difficult to do both at the same time with the mouse.  Other than that I enjoyed my time with it.

Developer(+1)

I’m honestly surprised the mouse controls work as well as they do. I’m hesitant to say it needs to be scrapped because it introduces some classic jank that I’m all for, but there’s definitely room for improvement. At one point the game had more of an RTS-lite/MOBA spin, which would be the actual reason behind the control scheme. I think an alternate WASD mode wouldn’t be too hard to throw in there, but I’ll wait until postjam to be safe.

Thanks for giving our game a go!

Viewing comments 37 to 18 of 37 · Next page · Last page