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[Tom Sennett]

A funny little game about the last moments before a nuclear holocaust.

• Update 3/13 - Demo updated. Same link. Added about 10 sketches, bringing the total to 30. I think this will be the final count. Also went back and redid a couple sketches and made little tweaks all over the place. The mushroom cloud image is now tinted red or green depending on if you complete a task. Mute and Quit buttons implemented. "Real ending" added for 100% completion. You can now use spacebar to jump if you want to. Fixed a bug that was making each sketch actually last about 4.3 seconds. (Now you have the full 5, so difficulty should be a bit better adjusted)
• Update 2/26 - you can check out a demo of the game here.

is my second game in Flash and currently in development. It chronicles the last 5 seconds of a world blown to smithereens from the perspectives of many different people.



See, everybody has one last thing to do before they go.



And it's on you to make sure that these things get done.



Some things are more exciting than others,



And some are downright mundane.



But they all need to happen!

So what goes down is you take control of all these different characters, in different scenarios, and they each have something to do in the 5 seconds before the bomb goes off. These tasks take the form of platforming challenges, with nothing really in common except the controls (arrow keys) and that they all last for exactly 5 seconds.

You hit all of these challenges back-to-back and at the end you get the ratio of people who fulfilled their destinies to people who failed. You can call that your score if you want.

I must attribute influence to the WarioWare series on this one (if you haven't played them, check 'em out, they're a blast), though I believe this game has a different feel to it. Don't ask me where I got the idea for the whole bomb thing... I swear I don't sit around thinking about the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation all day, it just kind of popped into my head and I ran with it.

The engine for the game is built and right now I'm just making levels. I'm shooting for around 35, possibly more, but definitely not too many. This will be a short game, though not a simple one.

I will probably post a demo in a little while; if I do it will be near-complete. I'd like to hold off letting people play until I've amassed a decent amount of levels.

In the meantime, what do you think? I'm looking for general thoughts on the idea, as well as feelings on the visuals - I'm still new to Flash and trying out some new stuff. Any and all feedback will be met with love and good vibes.

[increpare]

the idea sounds pretty strong to me

[professor dead]

great idea really intriguing.

i don't have any real input or questions besides: how are you going to convey what the objective is in 5 secs?  obviously not reading - so i'm going to assume it's warioware understood? i'm also assuming there's one action key?

seriously cool

[Rory]

Cool! It's like Four Second Fury, except nuclear!

Umm... is that last person wanting to drink tomato sauce?

[Tom Sennett]

great idea really intriguing.

i don't have any real input or questions besides: how are you going to convey what the objective is in 5 secs?  obviously not reading - so i'm going to assume it's warioware understood? i'm also assuming there's one action key?

seriously cool

Thanks! In WarioWare, you get one word of instruction for each game. In this, there are no such instructions. But there's only platforming going on here - so you know how to control your character, etc. immediately in every stage.

But there is no indication of what each objective is. The challenge becomes figuring out what you have to do, and of course actually doing the platforming. In WarioWare you're called upon to switch rapidly between genres and playstyles, but that doesn't happen here, so it leads to different kinds of challenges.

At this point there is no action key - when you have to interact with things (for example pick up a ball) it happens automatically when you touch it. I was originally planning on having an action key, but all my ideas so far have worked naturally with this system.

Cool! It's like Four Second Fury, except nuclear!

Umm... is that last person wanting to drink tomato sauce?

Never heard of that game, but I just checked it out. It is very similar to WarioWare.

And it is actually a bottle of ketchup.

[professor dead]

At this point there is no action key - when you have to interact with things (for example pick up a ball) it happens automatically when you touch it. I was originally planning on having an action key, but all my ideas so far have worked naturally with this system.

that works

[GregWS]

Cool idea, and here's something you absolutely have to check out given that you're making this game:

Track down a copy of Douglas Coupland's book of short stories, Life After God, and read The Wrong Sun, the one about peoples' last few seconds after the bomb goes off.  I found it quite an emotional read, actually, both haunting, sad, and yet still beautiful somehow.



As an aside, I really hope that one day Coupland tries his hand at some game design, as he's been an industrial designer/artist longer than an author, and would probably come up with some pretty indie ideas.  Microserfs and jPod are absolutely brilliant, and almost everyone here would get a kick out of them (jPod had a crappy TV show made out of it, which really sucks because the book is so good).

[Loren Schmidt]

This looks fun, I'll definitely give this a whirl once it's playable.

I like the idea of having a series of different tasks within a consistent framework. Somehow this appeals to me more than a WarioWare style affair where every game has its own unfamiliar interface. I'm not big on making people guess how the interface works as 'gameplay.' It seems you're avoiding a large part of this problem while still retaining enough unpredictability that each task will feel different and interesting. It'll be interesting to see where you take this.

I'm curious, do the tasks appear in the same order with each playthrough? Or are they shuffled around?

[moi]

excellent idea

[Gainsworthy]

Ah, I wondered how'd you deal with the topic! That's a rather sweet take on the idea. Sounds fun too. You have to potential for an interesting look at snippets of life AND hilarious manic gameplay.

Nice.

[PureQuestion]

That's dark.

[Fuzz]

That looks a bit hard to navigate in 5 seconds... This game sounds awesome, though. The art style is nicely simplistic, quite different from the art in your other games. It reminds me of XKCD. :D

[Tom Sennett]

Thanks for all the comments, gentlemen. I have posted a pretty full-featured build for you guys to check out. Please oh please let me know what you think. Link is at the top of the topic.

Right now there is music and no sound. (Original Rags by Scott Joplin, for those curious.) I aim to keep it that way - am I mad?

Cool idea, and here's something you absolutely have to check out given that you're making this game:

Track down a copy of Douglas Coupland's book of short stories, Life After God, and read The Wrong Sun, the one about peoples' last few seconds after the bomb goes off.  I found it quite an emotional read, actually, both haunting, sad, and yet still beautiful somehow.

As an aside, I really hope that one day Coupland tries his hand at some game design, as he's been an industrial designer/artist longer than an author, and would probably come up with some pretty indie ideas.  Microserfs and jPod are absolutely brilliant, and almost everyone here would get a kick out of them (jPod had a crappy TV show made out of it, which really sucks because the book is so good).

I've actually read JPod. I got it as a gift and thought it was pretty good, though I never read anything else by the guy. I will definitely have to check this out.

[Alec]

The JPod tv show was actually pretty awesome, IMO!

It had its shitty moments, but overall I liked it a lot.

[Inanimate]

Sometimes it was unclear, but for the most part fine. Also, some of them were quite annoying to do in 5 seconds. Maybe 10?

[GregWS]

Wow, I just played the demo and that music is incredible.  I think it makes it all the more disturbing.  You're definitely doing the topic justice.  Good luck finishing the thing! 

The JPod tv show was actually pretty awesome, IMO!

It had its shitty moments, but overall I liked it a lot.

OK, I more or less agree with that.  I thought it started getting really good after about the 5th episode, and yeah, there were still some amazing moments near the beginning.  I guess I was just disappointed that it wasn't more like the book; I think the problem was that the show tried to have too much of a narrative, while the book's narrative was there but incredibly non-intrusive.

But yeah, I wish it hadn't ended just as it started to hit some peaks (that manly gift basket thing with Kam Fong was great; actually, pretty much everything with Kam Fong, in both the book and show was great  ).

[ElTipejoLoco]

Jumping is unresponsive at times, making parts of the game really frustrating.

That aside, I loved the game. Could never get over 80% in one go because jumping sometimes didn't work, but at least I managed to do each of the different things in separate runs.

The "you have to land on and stay on the bird one" is probably the hardest one to do consistently.

[SaintXi]

The screenshots made me think 'charming' and the music fitted that perfectly. I enjoyed the concept and replayed to improve my score. Although some levels are tricky (or bewildering) I like the variety of puzzles, skill challenges, and simple story ones too. I preferred the levels with clear graphical feedback when I won, they were more satisfying than a glimpse of a green '1' in the countdown. Look forward to seeing more of this one

[agj]

I'd like this more if every 'sketch' felt like it had a backstory. For instance, the 'stomp on turtles' ones didn't satisfy me. Also, many are simply too hard for the 5-second restriction. It also definitely needs sound effects to know when one has screwed up or done well (or at the very least a clear visual indication that remains even when the mushroom image appears)! But anyway, it's a very good idea for a game!

[Alec S.]

I liked the game.  I would have definitely liked more feedback regarding success or failure on each level (maybe have both an audio cue and a more obvious visual cue).  I also agree that the jumping on turtles levels seemed out of place with the concept of the game.  All in all, though, it was an enjoyable game and I'm interested to see how it develops.