ΗΠΛ Debate Club
Ethos, pathos, logos. Deliver the best speech to a flip-flopping audience!
Two-player rhythm game where both share one keyboard (WASD/ZQSD for P1, arrows for P2). See below for info on combos and items. The goal is to have more than 50% favour from the audience by the end.
Made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 53. The theme was delivery.
⚠️ Notes
- Audio desynchronises, it seems, if window is resized while playing! Please resize while still on the title screen if needed.
- Web lags a bit for me. Threw in some last-minute resync measures but do try desktop version if input seems bad/unfair.
🌈 Basics
On every beat you press a directional key to use either ethos, pathos, or logos. You have a limited amount of each. You only have four attempts each turn, even if you miss, so you can’t spam to hit a beat.
After four beats of downtime, it’s the opponent’s turn, telegraphed by the moving spotlight.
A thought bubble above each individual audience member tells you which of the three you need to include to gain their favour. The contrast of their silhouette shows which side they’re on, brighter for P1 and darker for P2.
⭐️ Combos
Didn’t have time to explain it in the game but fill the star meter using one of these:
- AAAA: four of the same
- AAAX: three of the same, plus any
- ABAB: every other
- AABB: two pairs
- ABCX: each different, plus any
The last (4th) slot scores you bonus favour from fans of its type. And the special item moves can only be used there.
🌟 Items
By filling the star meter, on your next turn you’ll have star power during which performing a successful combo grants you one of these special item moves:
- Crickets: doubles any minus points on opponent’s next turn
- Mic drop: turns any minus you get this turn into a plus
- Blow kiss: spectators in your favour become more so, but those not less so
🎭 Credits
- Ava Skoog
- Marte Kvamme Strømmen
- Free font Mont (DEMO) by Fontfabric
- Free font Sheila Crayon by cove703
- Free foley from zapsplat.com
- Voices from GNUstep speech engine (
saycommand)- Laura
- Paulina
Download
Comments
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I love this!
FYI, when I try to run the Mac version, it says it's "damaged and can't be opened". I'm on Monterey 12.3.1, with Apple M1 chip. I had to use the web version for now, which did indeed have some lag as you mentioned, but there's only so much that can be done to help that, especially in a rhythm game and especially especially in a game jam. I know first-hand how tough that can be, so great job! What engine did you use?
Anyways, lots of cool concepts in this. I especially like how well-integrated the debate theme is with the mechanics. You literally have to read the audience to know what's worth your effort, but you also can't just mindlessly hammer on the same points over and over again. So cool! I enjoy the flow of players taking turns too.
The visuals are lovely. I'm really surprised how polished and cohesive it all looks, considering it was a game jam! The sfx and crowd chanting in-rhythm when things heat up is super super good too.
So far I'v only played this by myself (handling input for both players), so take these next points with a grain of salt.
I imagine all of the above could be dealt with through some sort of tutorialization/practice area/etc, which of course isn't much of a priority for a game jam.
This is possibly my favorite jam game I've played from you/Marte. It's really, really good! I personally think it would be very cool to see it polished up and given a full release at some point. :)
Thank you!! I was really unsure about this one because there was pretty much no time to test it properly, implementing stuff up until the last minute, making concessions and having to explain it outside the game, so I'm glad it wasn't a disaster 🥲
I'm glad the sound stuff didn't go unnoticed. Had a lot of fun with that, especially the chanting.
Maybe assigning a vertical row of keys would've been better. I struggled a bit too. And it's definitely hard to make real decisions so quickly!
Quoting myself from the LD page: my biggest regret is that I didn’t make it clearer how much a given individual favours you, which makes the kiss move a bit of a gamble. Another thought bubble that clearly stated P1 or P2 would’ve worked. Currently it's only shown—not so clearly—by the contrast of their silhouette (added this to the instructions now).
Really glad you liked it! As usual I probably won't work more on anything else at least before I can finally get Ao out the door, but this is definitely one that would be fun to try and polish at some point~
I did try again to build on Monterey M2 but I can't even get it running on itself… :c Reading online it seems like it's something Godot devs have thought of and it's supposed to do "ad-hoc signing" but I just wasn't able to figure it out. Altho reading this I'm not sure it would help on a different computer anyway. And with Rosetta, for me, the Intel build will open only to crash immediately, which I'm guessing is the same for you? Very annoying .-.
Far from a disaster! An excellent proof-of-concept for a very interesting idea :)
Regarding the presentation of keys/notes, perhaps give the icons some sort of arrow shape? Also FWIW, I think most rhythm games (or at least DDR and Pump It Up, off the top of my head) present directions in the order of left, down, up, right.
Totally reasonable to stay focused on Ao. Hope that's going well!
The Mac stuff is annoying... I've definitely had issues with Godot builds. I've yet to get a web export working, so I'm curious how you've been doing it. TBF, I haven't dug into it too much yet though :P
Omg, incorporating the arrows into the icons is so obvious I can't believe I didn't think of it at all 💀 Thank you!
Godot on web has been a little tricky. For LD51 I just couldn't do it, then for LD52 I figured it out as I went along and had to spend a bunch of time on it, and now finally for LD53 I basically knew what I needed to do (and not do) and it went smoothly. I wrote down what I found out last time in a reply to this post which also has some other info.
Someone got a macOS build to work for me on the M2 for another game yesterday, so I hope they'll get back to me on how they did it, and I can pass it on to you.
Oh this is incredibly helpful. I'd definitely love to hear your findings on macOS stuff too. Thank you! What Godot version(s) have you used for recent jams?
No reply yet unfortunately. But Godot is 3.5, as 4 didn't seem ready for this stuff yet (new web build troubles etc)