No Minor Task: Party of a Lifetime

Can you invite 200 classmates and make it home to host the party of a lifetime?

Retro visual-novel / action-arcade game with a 8-bit / jazz mixed soundtrack.

CONTROLS:

- W/A/S/D or LEFT/RIGHT/UP/DOWN to move.

- SHIFT to sprint (if you have enough stamina- see yellow bar above your head).

- SHIFT/ENTER/SPACE to make dialogue faster.
- TAB to make dialogue normal speed again.

- ESC to skip a scene (except for the action level).

- If you want to skip the action level press 'P' (but this is cheating so try and beat it normally!)

GAMEPLAY:

Collect ('invite') 200 of your classmates (by walking into them).
Then find your way home and get the party started!

Enemies ('adults') will get suspicious of you if you are in their radius (i.e. line-of-sight). Enemies will change colour when their suspicion reaches 25% (green), 50% (purple + sound), and 75% (red + sound). If their suspicion of you reaches 100%, you lose. Their suspicion level will go down if you stay out of their radius.

You can block line-of-sight by hiding behind obstacles such as trash cans, cars, and bushes, as well as other school kids! All obstacles can be pushed around by walking into them, except trees or those that are coloured red.

You can sprint in burst using SHIFT. Use it to quickly run to a new bush for cover, or to quickly collect ('invite') a bunch of classmates. Sprinting reduces your stamina, which will recover over time. It will also recover slightly each time you invite a classmate, so by collecting lots of classmates during your sprint, you can sprint for longer!

Each adult enemy has their own A.I., speed, sight range, and maximum suspicion. See if you can master their movements!

Finally, develop your own strategy and learn how things work, and you'll definitely succeed!

By the way, yes we know the intro is long! It was meant to be an interactive 2nd half of the gameplay, but unfortunately our 2nd programmer didn't turn up, so think of the game as half-movie half-game :) People complained about difficulty so I made it easier than before. It was also meant to have five smaller levels of progressing difficulty (Monday to Friday), but due to time constraints we made it one big level. Pls forgiv.

STORY:

You are a schoolkid, promising to host an epic party on Friday night, granting you eternal coolness.

There's just one problem: you aren't old enough to buy alcohol.

You put on a convincing disguise and buy lots of alcoholic beverages from the local liquor store. But the ADULTS see through your clever Groucho Marx disguise and all hell breaks loose.

The neighbourhood POLICE FORCE are on the hunt for an underage purchaser; meanwhile the presence of police officers has forced THE HOMELESS to find a new street to live on, and they blame you! PARENTS are on the lookout, wanting to protect their kids from your bad influence. GOLF BUGGY DRIVERS from the local golf course are also on high alert.
Not to mention, you still have to send out the invites...

THEME:

The theme for the 38th Ludum Dare Game Jam was 'A Small World'. We wanted to pursue a creative interpretation, and thus decided our 'small world' would be where you bump into someone by coincidence in a situation you wouldn't expect, and you say 'Wow, what are you doing here??? What a small world!'. In our game, our kid uses a fake ID to buy some alcohol for a party the following night, but must avoid the suspicion of adults encountered the night before whilst travelling home from school. This 'small world phenomenon' can thus be seen as the 'enemy' of our game's protagonist.

CREDITS:

Art: Hyungbin Kang, Peter Gietl
Code / Game Design / Writing: Xavier Ekkel (follow me on Twitter)
Sound: Dustin Krefft, Travis Hendrix, Tye Hastings
Game Engine: Unity

Our team was formed through Reddit and the entire game was completed remotely in less than 72 hours!

Hope you enjoy the game:)