Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

Aliens Vs ZookeepersView game page

Submitted by WoodenBucket Games (@woodenbucket), rosabellew1254, KillerDbat, jake2022, rjh91, stonji, HoneyHop (@HoneyHop2) — 8 hours, 3 minutes before the deadline
Add to collection

Play game

Aliens Vs Zookeepers's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Potential for Post-Production#34.4294.429
Gameplay / Fun Factor#73.8573.857
Overall#133.5713.571
Likelihood to make money#163.1433.143
Art / Aesthetic#193.2863.286
Music & Sound#193.1433.143

Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Did you submit to all previous sprint jams?

Yes

Was this made by a team or a solo jammer?

Team

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted (1 edit)

Ended up playing this myself with two browsers. Incredibly polished, stable and from the limited playthrough seems bug free.

I love abducting the animals and their cute animations.  

However, I don't think I really understood the gameplay. I just went around and abducted the animals and won, no problems.  I noticed player one could tranquilize and stuff and they other player could transform into different animals.  But that all seemed unecassary.  As far as I could tell, there isn't much gameplay.  But I suppose that is because its multiplayer and adversarial and just playing by myslef I don't get the adversary.

But you have an incredible foundation to add plenty of gameplay.  Marked this as 5 stars for 'post-production' potential.

Great job.

Submitted

This is so great! I love that you guys chose to do a multiplayer game, I believe that takes quite a bit of coding effort and it's working very well!


The art is lovely and the game is very very fun. I had a great time playing, after figuring out all the mechanics. It could use a bit of polish, especially on the hitboxes to easy navigation in crowded spaces, but I would love to see it being develop further! Great work y'all!

Submitted(+1)

Very fun, Very Zany! My friends and I had a great time playing this! We hope you all keep working and polish this up even more!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing our game!! I hope we get to keep working on it as well! xD

Submitted(+1)

Liked it a lot once we got going.  Played with two other friends.  Love the fact that it was multiplayer.  Lots of potential here.  

Developer

Thank you so much for playing our game! I'm glad y'all had fun playing it! 

Submitted(+1)

Alright! I'm writing up as much feedback as I can, so here are my notes:

  • As we discovered in the playtest, the scanner that the zookeeper has is far too useful, to the point of overshadowing the other game mechanics (after all, why use the other game mechanics when you've got the position of the alien(s) right in the palm of your hand). I think there's a version of the scanner that works quite well, but I'm not sure what it is
  • I wish that the zookeeper could see what animals that the aliens have to abduct, I think it could add some interesting strategy of "hmm, I know that the alien needs to abduct a lion, and I've got this awfully suspicious-looking penguin in the lion pen". I don't know how that would work thematically (how would a humble zookeeper know the ambitions of an alien), but I think it might work mechanically pretty well
  • It really feels like the zookeeper should be punished if they accidentally tranq one of their own animals, at the moment there isn't any incentive for the zookeeper to not just machine-gun tranquilizer darts at every suspicious thing they see, which feels weird both narratively and mechanically (narratively, this zookeeper loves their animals so why are they fine with tranquilizing them, and mechanically, it lowers the tension if the zookeeper faces no consequences for an incorrect tranq)
  • I think the visuals are pretty good (as I'll speak on later) and perfectly fine for a jam game, but I think they could be a bit better if you decide you want to continue work on the game, mostly in terms of the environment (like if ya peek too far over the fence, you can spot the edge of the world)
  • I noticed (in solo playtesting) that on time-out, the aliens win, which is potentially dangerous balancing-wise (as if the aliens never abduct any animals, then all they have to do is manage to blend in for 5 minutes, which seems fairly-easy without the scanner, but also it sounds like no fun at all, so it'd be good to make sure that that isn't a valid strategy)
  • Burrowing doesn't work great as an escape strategy when you're one of the larger animals like the elephant, it's pretty easy to spot an elephant suddenly materialize into existence after the alien burrows. I dunno what there is to be done about that, but I figured I'd put it out there (maybe auto-transform the alien into a meerkat when using the burrows? who knows)
  • I think that abducting might take too long as an alien- if the zookeeper is on your trail, then you can't really risk the (what feels like) 5 seconds to abduct an animal. I feel like it could potentially be balanced where abducting takes less time, but has a longer cooldown
  • I wish that there was a crosshair for the zookeeper, as it is the tranq is reeeally hard to aim (sometimes it even feels like the dart is being shot somewhat downwards from where I'm aiming, which feels weird), and it feels a little strange when the zookeeper has found the alien, but the mechanism with which the zookeeper tells the game "hey! I found the alien!" malfunctions

In terms of positives:

  • This game is just plain fun. There's a reason why there are so many hide-and-seek games that let you shapeshift and blend into the environment, and I like the twist (which I haven't seen before) of the hiding player having to do things that drop their disguise.
  • I think all of the animals, aliens, and zookeepers are all very cute, and having all the animals just bob back and forth to walk is both cute and efficient (in terms of time spent developing)
  • There's a wonderful tension when you're an alien and you've got the zookeeper hot on your trail, and you're trying to transform or burrow to try and shake 'em off of you for long enough to snag another animal
  • There's also a lot of tension as the zookeeper, watching the alien gradually tick off their checklist as you go around watching the sky to try and get an indication of where the alien is
  • In particular, I really like the balancing decision of having the alien see from a third-person perspective while having the zookeeper see from first-person, it means that the alien always has the upper hand in terms of seeing the zookeeper coming, which serves to escalate the tension as you can watch the zookeeper narrow in on your position
  • I don't know what kinda dark magic you pulled to manage to get online play working (and working pretty flawlessly) in a game jam, but dang that's pretty impressive all on its own
  • Put simply, the game left me wanting to play more, and that's one of the best things a game can do
Developer

Thank you so much for all of this feedback! These are all definitely things we have considered or will consider adding in the future! Thank you so much for playing our game! Im also super happy you liked the art, I'm the artist on this game and I definitely want to update the art in the future! (I didn't have a lot of time to do the art cause of work, so a lot of things I wanted to add were rushed or scrapped lol) Thank you for playing our game!! 

Submitted(+1)

The web version doesn't seem to load.  I've tried a couple times and waited a while each time (2-3 minutes).  

If I get a chance I'll try to downloaded version later.

Developer(+1)

Hello! Thanks for reporting the bug. We are unsure about if this was caused by the compression method we chose before building. We have uploaded a newer version, and it does take me about 30s to load which is longer than expected. It would be very helpful if you don't mind trying it out one more time. Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

It did load for me this time.  Took like 45 seconds.

The presentation of the menu, music and models is really good.  I would like to play it.  I waited a while finding room, nothing, and then made a room and waiting a while, no one.  

Think I'll load it up on two machines when I get a chance just to try and get passed the menu.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback on the front end, and sorry about the inconvenience. We have sent out a message on Greenlight Jam discord General channel about having a group playing event this evening from 7-7:30 CST if you would like to join. We will have some devs around to help out and play if there's no one else showing up.