Don't let Marvin die, we all love him.

May 17, 2013 12:20 PM

Flash Friday: Gods Will Be Watching
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 (21 comments total)

For reference, this game is a sci-fi 8-bit Oregon trail.

I have died of hypothermia. It was great.
posted by The Whelk at 12:35 PM on May 17, 2013

Long, misspelled scrolling intro... horrible music... and then I died because of something I didn't know I was supposed to do.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 12:48 PM on May 17, 2013

Screw it, shoot everyone.
posted by Old'n'Busted at 12:53 PM on May 17, 2013

Long, misspelled scrolling intro... horrible music...

To be fair, the game was made in one weekend. Pretty impressive considering.
posted by Conductor71 at 12:57 PM on May 17, 2013

(As part of the Ludum Dare contest. That weekend's theme was 'minimalism')
posted by Conductor71 at 1:00 PM on May 17, 2013

My doctor died of disease and my psychiatrist went mad. Stop being ironic at me, damnit!
posted by RobotHero at 1:03 PM on May 17, 2013 [3 favorites]

Sigh, another game trying to tel me that shooting everyone but the dog and the robot won't solve my problem.
posted by The Whelk at 1:08 PM on May 17, 2013 [2 favorites]

The Whelk: "Sigh, another game trying to tel me that shooting everyone but the dog and the robot won't solve my problem."

I know, right? First Candy Land and now this.
posted by The White Hat at 1:11 PM on May 17, 2013 [4 favorites]

So here are the things to monitor:

1. Fire. If you go to sleep and it's out you die of hypothermia

2. Food. If you run out you starve

3. Medicine. Only the doctor can make more. Administer to anyone who isn't moving or they die.

4. Radio. It needs to be repaired. Engineer is best at this.

5. Morale. Robot gives rating for each person. Each person also has 3 separate physical behaviors to indicate state of mind. Talk to them to improve morale. Psychiatrist can hold group therapy session to improve morale of all.
posted by leotrotsky at 1:17 PM on May 17, 2013

5. Morale. Robot gives rating for each person.

And keep in mind the order the robot gives them are: Soldier, Doctor, Engineer, and then the Psychiatrist.
posted by FJT at 1:44 PM on May 17, 2013

horrible music...

Just play this over it.
posted by Iridic at 3:05 PM on May 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm still waiting for the scroll to get past the date. I clicked to try to speed it up and jumped straight to the title, then the game.

Can there please be something other than an intro that takes multiple minutes to show up on my screen for an introduction? I know I have an older computer, but this is a flash game, FFS.
posted by Hactar at 3:25 PM on May 17, 2013

For me, I just got frustrated since the "five move" thing didn't really make sense given the story? I don't know, I just think too much about that. Perhaps that's why they're going mad, they're led by a power-hungry moron who won't let them do ANYTHING to keep their minds active. I'd go mad too if I couldn't do anything without someone telling me precisely to do it.

(not to mention that it doesn't seem to make sense that the doctor can't make vaccines while the engineer fixes the radio while the dog hunts while the shrink talks to the soldier and the robot goes beep-boop)
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 3:59 PM on May 17, 2013

Iridic: "horrible music...

Just play this over it."

I love MetaFilter. In the middle of a discussion of an overly hard game, I find ANOTHER new band I really dig. (Frustrated ex-Art Of Noise fan IN DA HIZZZZZZZOUSE!)
posted by Samizdata at 4:04 PM on May 17, 2013

This sounds great, but the loading bar gets stuck at about 75% and I don't get to play. Anyone else having this problem?
posted by vibratory manner of working at 8:02 PM on May 17, 2013

It did that to me a few times, but if I just kept reloading, it'd eventually work.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me at 8:09 PM on May 17, 2013

Has anyone won so far? I once got into less than 20 days left and then the Soldier finally quit on me and I killed myself out of shame. Now who's going to take care of Marvin?
posted by A Bad Catholic at 11:18 PM on May 17, 2013

Yeah, I have no idea what's going on there.
posted by Decani at 12:58 AM on May 18, 2013

I wasted five actions and held a group therapy session for my frazzled teammates. That very night the psychiatrist broke down and ran away. What are you trying to tell me?
posted by sixohsix at 5:09 AM on May 18, 2013

I did manage to escape, but only with the engineer, the psychiatrist, the robot, and the dog. I was expecting it to berate me at the end for not saving all of these weak-willed fools, but no, all that happens (spoiler alert) is that it says something like "the space-pod is descent!" and you watch a big spaceship land across the lake from your characters. Then the game title gets overlayed on the screen and Sgt. Burden is free to continue walking around, contemplating with heavy heart the forty in-game days and two out-of-game hours he wasted on this.

Most of the game is based on dumb luck--how much vaccine the doctor decides to create, how much sanity your characters decide to lose each turn, who decides to get the virus and when, and, most significantly, whether Marvin made his attack roll or whatever when you told him to hunt.

Marvin leering at me while the game sadly proclaims that he "couldn't catch any animal" reminds me strongly of that bastard dog from Duck Hunt on the NES.
posted by lorddimwit at 7:02 AM on May 18, 2013

(not to mention that it doesn't seem to make sense that the doctor can't make vaccines while the engineer fixes the radio while the dog hunts while the shrink talks to the soldier and the robot goes beep-boop)

Obviously the robot fetches some damn firewood.
posted by RobotHero at 12:51 PM on May 18, 2013 [1 favorite]