[SA Game Jam 2016] Helping Hand

BenCrooks

- SA Game Jam 2016
- Helping Hand
- Students
- 48hr entry

Members:
Aidan Cammell - @ErNerDragoon
Benjamin Crooks - @BenCrooks
Andrea Hayes - @PartyPanda

Hospital survival game using only your hand to express yourself.

Submission Build (mac and pc):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ie2s8q7x3ulldk7/AAD93wlURXdLvk5ZSjpwhtUZa?dl=0

Bracula

But is it art?

PartyPanda

A little sneak peek of the art work so far :D

Bracula

Mmmmm so good. It IS art

pieter

Loving the concept so far. Giving the player only a limited toolset to express themselves in creative ways. And your theme of being banged up in a hospital ties really well into that.

BenCrooks

We are handling ourselves alright.

BenCrooks

There are now people to express to.

CandyflossKid

I feel like this would satisfy inner itches many of us have to tell people to sod off. That last screenshot gave me a good laugh! (Probably the best way to get better sooner as the staff won't want to put up with you anymore!)
Looking forward to playing this! :D

Tightrope

Not that I am an artist, but I feel that the hand is probably the most difficult part of a human to draw so as to appear natural and proportionally correct. Your artist don't have this problem.
What mechanic will evolve around the drips? I see that the bags differ in terms of its content...

Also, this reminds me of the opening of MGSV... the perspective at least.

ErNerDragoon

@Tightrope, the drips are resources you have to look after (the yellow is urine and the orange is a food drip) if the yellow fills up too much, or if the orange runs out, you're in trouble. Calling the Nurse will allow you to manage these if they're running low. :)

Tightrope

A catheter in a game is always a pleasant sight.

ErNerDragoon

Characters - Done :D

FanieG

HAhahahahaaha. These screenshots have me very intrigued. All the characters ooze personality already. +1 for flipping people the bird. hahahahaha

Jelligeth

Ahh I'm looking forward to this one. Reminds me of the movie Diving Bell and the Butterfly, but more fun.

May I suggest moving the floor line down though? (Maybe remove it entirely?) Where it is now screws a bit with the perspective, also the door appears very large compared to the people in front.

Otherwise the arts looking cool, digging the characters. Like the first, simpler graphic for the heart rate monitor more though, matches the rest of the style.

Looking forward to more :)

ErNerDragoon

@Jelligeth, thanks for the feedback :)

The heart rate monitor in our images up till now was a placeholder, and its now been replaced with a much more suitable one ^^

BenCrooks

Final Build is in the description "Yay"!
Awesome jam xxo <3

its also here: ;)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ie2s8q7x3ulldk7/AAD93wlURXdLvk5ZSjpwhtUZa?dl=0

Stray_Train

That was freaking awesome! I lol'd irl :')

Crit:
* It would be nice if you could skip dialog (this might already be a thing but I couldn't figure it out)
* The aspect ratio of the menu UI doesn't scale to fit the screen it's on, so on my laptop the top and bottom of the menu were cut off
* There's only 1 angry nurse

BenCrooks

@Stray_Train skipping dialogue was suggested to us... Though we didn't have the time to implement it (we were thinking some kind of hand gesture would be cool.)
What do you mean "There's only 1 angry nurse"?

Kobusvdwalt9

Really enjoyed this ! Although I spent 90% of my time flipping people off. The grave stone middel finger was brilliant.
This is a very clever input mechanism IMO. Veels very raw. Sweet sound effects :) Sweet art. Well done !

PartyPanda

Thank you @Kobusvdwalt9 ! We figured a lot of people would flip the bird, but that's okay. I think that there's nothing much more *expressive* (Wink) than doing so, personally. But I hear you - the urge to zap is immense. Maybe we can figure out a way to make it more meaningful in the future. Thank you for such lovely feedback!

@Stray_Train @BenCrooks I think he means that there should be like millions of them. Can you imagine? :D

BenCrooks

@Stray_Train @PartyPanda Please no! :,D One is too many!

EvanGreenwood

I couldn't figure out how to press the blue button? (I tried pressing the first two fingers, the thumb and tried clicking on it)

Love the input mechanism and the story so far.

BenCrooks

@EvanGreenwood press "1", "2", "3", "SpaceBar". Like a pointing finger :)

Tuism

Played this at the joburg meetup, and just wanted to say I really dig the input scheme and the concept :) If there could throw in some rough voiceovers instead of reading that might be super awesome :P But yeah I realise that's difficult :)

Would love to see A/B testing on whether people prefer pressing to drop finger or pressing to raise finger :)

EvanGreenwood

@BenCrooks That makes sense!

Obviously this is feedback for post-jam. But what you could do for critical gestures like that is have a situation in the game where you need to use the critical gesture to progress. Obviously you don't want it to feel like a tutorial (as the game currently treats the player with a lot of respect I feel), and if the player works it out first time they should quickly progress (and be allowed to feel smart), but if they get stuck it can be made part of the narrative (with the doctor maybe suggesting to try call the nurse and even suggesting to use just the index finger if the player doesn't work it out quickly)... Maybe even the game could start with calling in the doctor or something like that <--- This might not be the best solution, I think this is very boiler-plate tutorializing advice, but losing due to not knowing the correct gesture didn't seem in line with the rest of the experience being delivered.

BenCrooks

@Tuism @EvanGreenwood thanks for the awesome feedback :)
I'm excited to work on this further when I find some time.

I'm curious to see how pushing the buttons to lift your finger will feel. I would also like to look at the inputs seeing if the buttons could be placed more naturally so that it feels like natural hand movement.

As an introduction to pointing, we were thinking about having the doctor bring in a chart and you can point out letters to spell out your own name. The name could then be brought into the dialogue. The idea was obviously too much for us to do :,D but besides that we also felt it was contrary to how the rest of the input works. So pointing to call the nurse is quite a good idea I feel. It could also be replace the doctor calling her in.

Tuism

I was a bit confused when some combinations worked and some didn't, was that the hardware jamming up (the famous keyboard jam that we have problems with with multiplayer games of yore) or was it a time constraint that not all combinations triggered a state?

BenCrooks

@Tuism it was actually that we had so many hand frames to draw, we lost track of some. We lost some either just not realizing they were missing or in implementation. So there are a few hand frames not there. It was also the hardware at MGSA meetup, my laptop has strange max key input settings.

Elyaradine

Haha, this was great! I could imagine Youtubers playing this for the laughs. Played it a few times to see how much the game changed with different gestures and enjoyed seeing the differences too. :)

Pressing keys to clench felt pretty natural to me (although the key placement not so much).

PartyPanda

@Elyaradine I'm glad that you enjoyed the different outcomes of dialogue :) I actually planned out all the dialogue in Twine and then Ben came up with a really clever way to put it into the game. We were going to use the Twine plugin but it turns out we had some issues with it. I think that the game would feel pretty awesome if we added some custom controllers for the fingers (maybe one day!).

@Tuism I told @BenCrooks we should have done rag doll fingers but he just wouldn't budge :,(

BenCrooks

@PartyPanda , you give me ragdoll tears :'D ' '
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blacksheepZA

Hey guys, I just saw your game featured on RPS! Congrats ^_^

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/01/21/free-games-helping-hand/

blacksheepZA

Thought I would upload this image as well for kicks :)

SUGBOERIE

@Elyaradine said:

Haha, this was great! I could imagine Youtubers playing this for the laughs. Played it a few times to see how much the game changed with different gestures and enjoyed seeing the differences too. :)

Called it.

BenCrooks

Hi all,
Needing some advice here:
We are working up to our Helping Hand steam release and we are wondering; "How offensive are zap signs?"

Steam says: Since achievements can appear in various places throughout the Steam Community, the names and icons you enter must be appropriate for all ages and audiences. Valve may remove games from the store entirely if their achievements violate community content guidelines or are otherwise offensive.

We were looking at putting zap signs (and have done pre steam visibility: see attached image). Will we be flagged for offensive content? Is this something we should be worried about or ignore.

I tried to get hold of a steam representative but got no reply

Bensonance

I think you'll be fine (linked via the store page) ;)

BenCrooks

Hahaha XD
There is nothing offensive about a penis @Bensonance, its natural!

Yeah but Genital Jousting has an age restriction, @EvanGreenwood says to avoid that if you can.

BenCrooks

Steam got back to me.
just for future reference if anybody needs.

EvanGreenwood

That's good news. Yeah, I think there's plenty of pieces of capsule art with pointing guns at people, and I think a zap sign is closer to that than putting a penis on your store page. Hopefully it goes smoothly!

BenCrooks

Just an extra follow up!
I was reading this article today : https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/6/17435324/valve-steam-policy-games
And they quoted this: “...We’ve decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling,” Valve’s Erik Johnson said in a blog post.

BenCrooks

We have released a game! <3
Its out!!! Thank you all for your feedback and help along the way!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/820880/Helping_Hand/

EvanGreenwood

Great trailer btw. Actually made me laugh (which feels like more game trailers should do, but almost none actually do).

Looking forward to getting my hands on it! (sorry, I know you must be tired of hand puns now).

critic

Just came across this on my Twitter feed, you got covered by PC Gamer, nice one.

https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-only-move-your-left-hand-in-this-game-so-i-flipped-off-my-mean-nurse/