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'So bad it's good' Jam 2018

Hosted by Ned Reid · #SBIGJam
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A jam submission

Tactical Weapons And TacticsView game page

Cutting-edge tactical police simulation
Submitted by XCVG (@xcvgvcx) — 1 day, 18 hours before the deadline
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Tactical Weapons And Tactics's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Gameplay#23.9003.900
Overall#43.4503.450
Graphics#53.7003.700
Sound#53.4003.400
Overall Good#123.3003.300
Overall Bad#163.6003.600
Modifier#182.8002.800

Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

If you have implemented the modifier, how have you done so?
One mission has you taking down a "cyber punk", in an environment inspired by the best cyberpunk game of all time (Daikatana).

Any additional information for voters?
Read the readme, but don't take it too seriously. Except the tips section, that will actually help you. I also included a special gift for fans of The Wizardman 4 who are disppointed by the lack of a sequel this year.

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Comments

Ned ReidHost6 years ago

Well, I decided to leave this one until last, since I really wanted to dig my teeth into it. This is probably one of the most original games in the jam, and perfectly fits the definition of a 'So bad it's good' game. 

The graphics are hilariously terrible, and the voice acting is horrendous but funny. The actual levels are very well designed, and the fact it's built as a doom mod makes it feel surprisingly solid.

Where this game really excels is in the references. Everywhere I look there's a sign that makes me chuckle, or a line of dialogue that made me smile. The references to games like daikatana & Duke Nukem are very nice to see.

So obviously this is the sort of game that you'd never see on the store shelves. It is not a 'good' game. No amount of improvements could change the bad game at the heart of this project. However, that's exactly what we're looking for, and the game pushed me to play through to the end.

(Also, thanks for commenting & rating all the games! It's been really cool to see you supporting everyone else in the jam)

Reply
XCVGDeveloper6 years ago

Glad you liked it! Despite appearances, I actually worked really hard on this game. Project scope kept creeping before being slashed then creeping again, and I ended up spending way longer on this than I wanted to.

I'm pretty happy with the (MSPaint-esque) aesthetics, (badly made) sounds, and (mostly solid) level design, but I do feel the gameplay was too straightforward for this jam. I wanted something solid and fun to play but I wish I'd strayed off the beaten path a bit. I also wish I had time to build more levels (five were planned) and refine the ones that were there (Abandoned Factory has a weird side passage not because I thought it would be cool, but because I screwed up). I also wanted to do more with the characters and their abilities but I just didn't have the time and I feel they're very same-ish.

But, you know, it's a game jam.

I'm happy knowing that someone noticed all the little things I threw in- I do it in every game I make but I often feel they don't get seen. I prefer more subtlety than some other humour games and I wonder if a lot of it gets missed.

I take it you played as Spark? Also, how did you find the boss fight? A lot of people who tried the game had trouble with it, and I occasionally tripped up and died horribly during testing.

Anyway, I really like seeing what other people come up with, even if some of them aren't my cup of tea. There were some very interesting entries this year, some that I thought were good, some I thought were bad, and some that managed to do both. Thanks for getting this together again this year, it was a great jam and one of my personal favourites.

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cubeheroSubmitted6 years ago

Didn't expect a Doom mod, that was pretty fun and educational - I like how I had to restart twice before the first mission because I got stuck behind doors in the police station! The plotline seemed pretty real, and I liked the name of the game. Died on what might be the final boss without saving, so I couldn't finish it :(

Submitted
Cyberpunk Helpdesk
Reply
XCVGDeveloper6 years ago

Polyobjects have come a long way since Hexen but still have some... issues. They can be mitigated with careful level design, but as you could probably tell, I never actually finished that level.

Was it in the large room with the silver platform? That is the final boss and is meant to be challenging. The game is supposed to autosave at the beginning of every level, but it could be bugged. I could and should have set it up to autosave just before the boss fight but it just hadn't occurred to me.

But I mean, it's SBIG Jam, so these kinds of issues are to be expected. Glad you enjoyed it despite (or because of?) the issues.

Reply
cubeheroSubmitted6 years ago

I did some small amounts of Duke Nukem 3D modding back in the day, didn't even know Hexen had an editor!

Oh yeah then it was the final boss, I shot him with almost all of my ammo and made two of the bots explode next to him but it wasn't enough to kill him! Even if I hadn't facetanked a rocket I don't know if I wouldn't have run out of ammo before killing him. I failed to check for autosaves as I didn't expect them from something based on old shooters, so I can't comment whether they actually worked or not!

But yeah, with this jam, issues can indeed make the game more enjoyable!

Reply
XCVGDeveloper6 years ago

Hexen is based on the Doom engine and uses (mostly) the same tools, but adds a few more features to the mix. (G)ZDoom actually used the Hexen map format even for Doom maps (Doom in Hexen Format) because it was more capable, before eventually switching to UDMF which is even better. Polyobjects are a hacky way of doing 3d-ish moving geometry created for Hexen. It can be seen in the first map, with a pair of towering wooden doors that swing open ominously. (G)ZDoom extended them quite a bit and that's how the sliding and swinging doors are done here.

The final boss is (barely) killable with the ammo in the room. Old shooters didn't have autosaves, but there's a critical quality of life feature these days. On top of that, some of the more complex (G)ZDoom mods would break horribly with an oldschool pistol start.

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cubeheroSubmitted6 years ago

Oh, I think I might have read that some time but maybe I forgot about it. Shame on me, considering I played through Hexen like 30+ times! It did have lots of moving 3D stuff, which wasn't really standard yet back then.

Hmm, guess I failed the fight then, or maybe he was 1 HP from dying when I facetanked that rocket D:

Autosaves do seem really important, though they alleviate that feeling of "oh, I saved 0.5 seconds before a rocket hit me and killed me, nice" that many old games had a bit...

Reply
organicpencil6 years ago

I'm told this one was pretty good, BUT! I can't get the Linux binary to work.

Prob 1:
./twat.sh: line 1: ./gzdoom: No such file or directory

So I do this:
cp gzdoom_3.5.0_amd64.deb gzdoom

Re-running twat.sh:
./gzdoom: line 1: syntax error near unexpected token `newline'
./gzdoom: line 1: `!<arch>'

My system:
Linux Mint 18.3 64 bit
NVIDIA GTX 1060 w/ driver 390.77
29 available gigs o' RAM
>4GB disk space

Reply
organicpencil6 years ago

Ok I'm an idiot. That ".deb" was a package file. Extracted & installed to my little sandbox, now it works. Will give it a proper play-through later...

Reply
XCVGDeveloper6 years ago

Yeah, originally I was going to include an installer script that would automatically pick and install the right binary, then run the game. But I don't know Bash well, and I ran out of time. Still my bad for not at least including instructions!

Reply
GurgieSubmitted6 years ago

It was playable. Kinda like those early freeware games from 00's, made by 16 year old kids.

Sadly, not a bad game.

Submitted
Antivax Cyberpunk Dog
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XCVGDeveloper6 years ago

I tried to go for strong gameplay while making it bad in other ways. In my opinion a "so bad it's good" game still needs to be fun to play. It is very conventional, though, and some of the other games I've seen in the jam did stranger things that were "bad", but still fun which I agree would be a better fit.

I guess I'll take that as a compliment, though. Two of the inspirations for this were mid-late 90s shooters and early-mid 2000s Flash games, so pretty much spot on.

Reply
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