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Laika's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #1 | 4.636 | 4.636 |
| Overall | #5 | 3.545 | 3.545 |
| Visuals | #5 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Thematic Relevance | #6 | 4.182 | 4.182 |
| Gameplay | #7 | 3.091 | 3.091 |
| Accuracy & Authenticity | #8 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Historical Accuracy
This game is about Laika the dog, who was the first animal sent into orbit during the space race in 1957. The world at large reacted negatively at the time, with many reports of individuals and animal rights groups in the US and London specifically urging the public to protest.
Level one of the game takes place in November of 1957 during a fictional press conference in the Soviet Embassy in London where you play as an Ambassador from the Soviet Union speaking to the press about the mission and it's successes. London press were particularly outraged by the mission. According to TIME in 1957:
Predictably, the loudest outcry came from Britain. THE DOG WILL DIE, WE CAN’T SAVE IT, wailed London’s mass-minded Daily Mirror. Before BBC’s announcer had even finished reading the Russian bulletin, more than 50 irate telephone calls began jamming the switchboard. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals averted complete telephone paralysis only when a quick-thinking operator urged all callers to “make your protest direct to the Soviet embassy, Bayswater 3628.” [...] At the beleaguered Soviet embassy in London’s “Millionaires’ Row,” First Secretary Yuri Modin protested in vain to massed dog lovers: “The Russians love dogs. This has been done not for the sake of cruelty but for the benefit of humanity.” Britain’s public was not to be soothed.
https://time.com/archive/6805615/animals-the-she-hound-of-heaven/
Level two takes you through history into 2002, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as Dr. Dimitri Malashenkov, one of the scientists who worked on Sputnik 2, delivers a report to the World Space Congress in Houston Texas detailing the tragic demise of Laika that was hidden for decades. It is unclear whether or not Dr. Malashenkov gave a presentation on his report, but it was at minimum published at the event and made headlines.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002iaf..confE.288M/abstract
The art was created with reference to images from the 50s, including fashion, technology (microphones and cameras), as well as popular images of Laika. Architecture references are from the 50's as well, with some references to modern Russia such as Putin's famous giant table room with greenish curtains and gold trim. (Image References: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EYv5kAullJhdOog0TI_4SQZMlHEF7Faq?usp=sharing)
The music was made using samples from a documentary on Laika, an interview with Rod Serling from 1959, as well as the national anthem of the USSR.
Thematic Relevance
The theme was Space Race, which took place from 1955-1975 between the US and the USSR. Laika was the first animal sent into orbit by the Soviets, and is widely considered a tragic event during the Space Race. Additionally, all of the music is space/soviet inspired.
Disclaimers
Godot Plugin: Godot MIDI Player for Godot Engine 4; No AI generation was used
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Comments
The music and art style combined for a nice vibe, too difficult for my un-rhythmic brain but neat nonetheless.
I really enjoyed the soviet anthem remix! This was a fun concept and definitely hit the strange theme! It was a bit too difficult for me to beat, but I still very much enjoyed.
Awesome game - thank you for making it!
It's really nice to see a rhythm game. I am not great with timing but I think the controls are a bit too much on the strictness side. You can add some allowance (+/- 200 miliseconds for example) before and after the ideal time.
Also it seems that the second level is somewhat worse calibrated than the first?... Not sure..
Probably you didn't have time to implement more feedback - visual, auditory. But for a rhythm game with precise timing this is vital - it makes or breaks the experience.
I liked how at the beginning of level 2 there is a circular pattern which counts down in clockwise direction. That is manageable. But when there are arrows all over the screen it becomes way too hard to keep track of everything.
You definitely put a lot of effort for this and it would be great to see how you polish it after the jam. Good luck! Keep it going!
Very well polished entry that unfortunately I found way too hard to play.
Being a musician, I have a reasonably good grasp of rhythm :) and I am not a stranger to EDM.
It looks like there are 2 problems here:
First, the pacing is off - it becomes virtually impossible within a few seconds on the first level.
The other is the random placement of the arrows on screen appears completely disconnected from the music track.
Maybe this is why these games normally use a track where the timer events progress towards you in a predictable fashion. I didn't feel like I was playing along to the track at all - in fact scanning the screen for the arrows 'shut off' my listening to the music.
On one of my attempts, I thought I had completed the level as it seemed I hadn't done too bad - but I had failed it!
The graphics, sounds and presentation are fantastic though!
Ok I gave it another go on the download version.
I still found it way too hard. It's also annoying have to wait through the sample each time on restart. Would be nice to be able to click past that like for the text.
I didn't hear a sound played when I hit the keys. If there were sounds for each of the 4 directions - e.g. snare, kick, hi-hat and toms then it would feel a lot more like playing along to the track. This should increase the immersion too.
As it it now, the buttons change position, the same button is synched sometime with kick drum, sometimes with snare - it's too much change all at once.
Maybe keep the 4 buttons in the same place on the screen and oriented in the same 4 cardinal points (up/down/left/right) at least on the earlier levels.
You might have to remix your track though.
Now what would be really interesting would be if you used more theme appropriate music such as the trolololol song or a Russian folk song from the time.
I REALLY love the idea of adding a true guitar hero style hit noise drums for a successful or unsuccessful hit. I think that was something I struggled with making the beats of “hit” match up with the rhythms in the music while also making sense from a left right up down pov. AND trying to make patterns some of it was like where’s the downbeat or a note when there may not be percussion which was surprisingly hard to feel when you’re multitasking. So we REALLY understand why most of those games have a simple track of four arrows. I think if we make another rhythm game I’d love to implement a touch sound. Thank youuuuuuu for that feedback :P
Even before opening the game, kudos on the cute page and the press-start-full-screen feature.
Scoring seemed broken on the browser but fully operational in download.
Buckle up everyone! Play this game to grin like a madman. At first I was struck by the SFX (the cough and picture bulb were nice and cheeky). But then the music! Fantastic sync with the mechanic, but you really got us with the shift into Level 2. This game is hard and flamboyantly hilarious. ^_^
“Laika deserved better” but we have been served. Seriously, well done you two.
Awesome job! It looks and sounds great, and it’s really tough. Very cool idea :) RIP Laika
great idea for the theme!
I loved the art and music ascept was great, looking forward to listen to soundtrack when it drops on spotify.
I do find the game pretty hard, and couple of sentences of tutorial would be helpful.
great stuff!
I was expecting more laika, but I was not disappointed. it would have been good to have a little more visual variety between the 2 levels, but overall a really solid entry. Something I would have changed is perhaps the font. It looks great on the title. but it is quite hard to read, so I believe it does not belong to more "gameplay-relevant" text.