Helpless
This game was made as part of the 14th Pirate Software Jam.
Theme: It's Spreading
You are a machine with a single purpose; survive. Helpless is a single-player experimental simulation game designed to allow players to experience the existential dread of being a machine tasked to clean up its mess for an eternity.
What's spreading you might ask. Well the oil that keeps you alive!
Inspired heavily by the art piece “Can’t Help Myself” by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, currently on display at the Guggenheim in New York City. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/34812
Controls
Mouse: Left Click/Drag
Team lead and UI/UX: Justin Looman
Programmers: Sami Chamberlain, Iain Roach
Tech Art: Will Jeon
Artist: Claire Wang
Status | Released |
Platforms | HTML5, Windows |
Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 total ratings) |
Authors | ifaicgu, Iain-Roach, sciencedoge, WillyJeon, ursamajjor |
Genre | Simulation |
Made with | Unity |
Tags | Experimental, Singleplayer |
Comments
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Cool idea! Funnily enough, I almost went with a game mechanically (not thematically) similar to this :) love the background image
A great tribute to the original art installation, as well as how damaging a bored audience can be. was a little hard to measure where the fail point was, but well done
This is a wonderful tribute to games, art, and games as art, I say. Here are some of the things I loved about your game: I loved purposefully pushing oil away from my robot arm just to be different. I loved the attention to detail in the menu section and the sound design/gfx. I loved how the audience pelt the robot with rubbish when they are bored with it. I can tell you put your soul into this game and I think you did a great job.
Some minor constructive criticism would be things like a) not spawning anywhere the player has *just* touched, so they get to feel the satisfaction of cleaning/scraping b) having the audience be more fervent fans when the player is doing well, c) have the player understand when their oil is low (i think thats how the player loses the game?)
I also find the controls a little inaccessible as I have some hand disabilities that make it a bit challenging to play for the amount of time it is asking me to.
Still though, great game! Very awesome.
All great criticism that will defiantly be looked into if we spend more time working on the game.
I can't get over how happy this game makes me. Wonderful idea, and incredible execution.
Fantastic job!
What a cool game. Whenever I see this art piece in a video online, it is always so mesmerizing to watch. Super satisfying to play. Love that the audience can throw objects into your oil!
Thanks
Love this idea! So cool to see this art piece in game form, and excellent job with the fluid physics!
Thanks, we hope we did a good job representing the piece.