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A jam submission

Odd JobsView game page

A physics based driving game with crane mechanics!
Submitted by Brandon Ehrman, PsychoSoldier, envirowafer, Juice_Baby (@Juice_Baby0) — 24 seconds before the deadline
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Odd Jobs's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Engagement#83.7333.733
SICKNESS#114.1334.133
Sound#143.2673.267
Overall#153.5173.517
Visuals#212.9332.933

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

Beeee the crane! Beeeee the crane!!!! I really enjoyed this! Any awkwardness with controls or camera is forgiven for the fun crane puzzles. With some polishing up and the right art direction, I could totally see this becoming a fleshed out experience! Really enjoyed it! 

Submitted(+1)

Great idea for a physics driving game! My primary complaint is really the camera. It being tied to the car's rotation combined with the (appropriately) janky driving leads to an experience that I would expect to trigger motion sickness in a good few people. The driving controls themselves also were a little awkward at times to me, beyond just the fun silliness of the crane constantly threatening to tip the car over (that part is great). I think the car's friction is maybe a bit low - it make it difficult to come to an actual stop to use the crane, since there's also no brake button, only accelerate and reverse. I think this ends up making things feel more finicky than they need to as you're still getting used to things, since I frequently ended up slowly drifting past the thing I wanted to pick up as I was adjusting the crane. You could even consider having the controls be even more arcadey, with forward and reverse just being forward and backwards on the control stick, and then have neutral on the stick bring the car to a halt more quickly, or a brake button or something. 

But the puzzles are a great introduction to the mechanics of the game - none of them are finicky enough to be frustrating, and instead push the fun of the goofy core concept and direct the player pretty well! I particularly enjoyed "helping" the guard open the gate.

There were only a couple points where there wasn't quite enough clarity for me - the shovel being green meant it blended in to the lawn a bit too much for me, and it took me a second to realize what I was looking for. The shovel also promptly clipped out of the map and I lost it. I didn't realize that the pause menu had an option to respawn items so I restarted the game. And then at the end, it wasn't clear to me what the building was that should be destroyed - I didn't realize right away that the checkered texture was the building.

All in all, a great core mechanism that I think has a lot of room for continued exploration! 

(+2)

ha, this was really fun! Kinda janky here and there, but i love the idea here and it'd be really cool to see more! I think my only major gripe is that the tutorial area was crazy hard to navigate just the ground/walls/ceiling were just two flat materials

Submitted(+2)

Such a neat idea, reminded me of Power Shovel for ps1 in a way. I had a glance at the controls and worried that the game was gonna be a biiiit too complex for me to grasp, but after the tutorial I had it all down, and it was surprisingly intuitive on controller. The complexity in the puzzles comes from actually performing them as opposed to figuring out what to do, which made me carefully lay out my next moves in my head as i was executing them. Only thing that confused me was the building at the end, I wa trying to demolish the wrong one for a few minutes but then I realized my mistake and cleared the game. I'm willing to chalk this up to me being a stinky smelly chopped ass baby who knows nothing. Anyway, Great work!

Submitted(+2)

this game is so good, i love games with goofy gimmicks and funny mechanics, definitely would make great as a full polished game!

(1 edit) (+1)

I really like the driving, it's clunky but really fun! The crane arm mechanic is so interesting.

Submitted(+2)

i am a huge sucker for silly physics-based games, and this for sure scratched that itch! i'm super glad that y'all started the game with pushing yourself off the ground with the crane, that was a great way to explain the mechanic, and would've gotten me stuck once or twice otherwise.

there was one point that i accidentally threw the security guard past the button in the lil hut they were in, and i had to restart since i couldn't reach them. i wasn't upset at all though, since that gave me an excuse to go back to the dogs by the raking section:)

overall, super fun! if the team ever plans to expand this game, i'll be here to play it again!!

Submitted(+1)

Loved the intro!  And I liked that the car physics were a little wonky, and as a result using the crane arm essentially became part of the movement - really enjoyed trying to coordinate driving and manipulating the crane arm at the same time (I was NOT good at it).  

I think I may have bugged out the barrels? I got as far as trying to use one to push the button on the wall, but each time I picked one up they vanished - perhaps I got them below the level when I flipped the car or something?   The crane hook was still green.  

Anyways, very cool, had fun with it!

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks for playing and glad to hear you had fun overall! We definitely went for slightly wonky controls to match the sheer impracticality of a crane car lol.


The barrels are meant to be explosive. We never got to a point of coding it in a way that made that clear and we ended up not having a practical use for them, so they're really just confusing set dressing lol. 

Submitted (5 edits) (+2)

Oh hey a fellow funky car-based game! The crane arm is an absolute delight, and so is the self-righting mechanic that comes with it (it made for a cool / surprising first tutorial instruction). I think one small thing that could potentially go a long way for your game would be having a camera that follows the car at a slight lag and with somewhat dampened movement, because the frantic movement of the vehicle—while wacky and awesome—was a little disconcerting at times when translated to the camera.

But also just wanna reiterate that y’all did a great job making a game that feels wonderfully silly and playful to control! And you tutorialized the mechanics of the game really well

Developer

Thank you for the positive feedback! I was the programmer on this project. I did want to upgrade the camera system (particularly, I wanted to make the camera stay vertical), but I never got a chance to because of time constraints. Having the camera lag behind the car is a really good suggestion and I will be sure to add that to a future version. :)