Where is my Belt?

Where is my Belt? is a twitch game made for Ludum Dare 50 on the theme "Delay the inevitable" in the Extra category.

In this game, you play as a teacher who forgot their belt and must run a class while keeping their pants up. But beware: the pupils are looking at you...

Caution: this game features humorous underwear.

Gameplay

In-game, you must run the class while paying attention to two stats: the pants falling progress, and the suspicion level.

Running the class

It consists in writing on the whiteboard, and is abstracted by a simple obstacle-dodging game where you must move the chalk up and down (input: up/down) to stay on a line clear of obstacles (vertical bars). It basically plays like an infinite runner. Each time you hit an obstacle, the suspicion level of your pupils, indicated by a eye filling with red, will increase.

Over time, obstacles will appear more frequently!

Known issues:

- Sometimes, 3 bars will arrive aligned vertically, forming an impenetrable wall and forcing you to hit it. A future update will try to avoid this situation.

Keeping your pants up

Your pants are falling slowly over time... Make sure to pull them (input: PICO-8 "O") before they fall completely! But be careful: doing this will also increase suspicion, even more than hitting an obstacle on the board. It will also make them fall a bit faster next time (until a certain limit). So only pull it when you need to!

If the pants completely fall, you lose.

Hint: there are 7 visible levels of pants falling progress, from 0 (initial state) to 7 (completely fallen). The game tracks a decimal number for a progressive fall, but it is floored to the nearest integer below to determine the visuals). Keep an eye on the pants and after the 6th change of visuals, get ready to pull the pants right before it falls! (or take a half second margin if you're unsure)

Suspicion level

When the suspicion level reaches the max value (eye completely red), you lose.

Game over

If you lose, have a look at the timer at the top-right. It indicates how much time you "survived" the class. The game is not tracking your high-score, but if you remember it, you can see if you improved!

Press PICO-8 "O" to restart.

Controls

You can play with keyboard or gamepad with those inputs:

Keyboard Gamepad Action Up/down arrows D-pad up/down Move chalk up/down to dodge obstacles Z/C/N Face button up/down PICO-8 "O": Confirm (menu), pull pants (in-game) X/V/M Face button left/right PICO-8 "X": Cancel (menu) Enter Start Open PICO-8 pause menu Alt+Enter
Toggle fullscreen Ctrl+R (standalone only)
Restart current cartridge Development notes

The Extra category extends the deadline by 16 days, but I started working quite a time after the standard LD 50 was over, so in fact, I only spent 6 days (26h) on this project.

Platforms

The game is avaiable on web (this page), PC (Windows, OSX, Linux), and as a cartridge for PICO-8 (version 0.2.2 and above). In addition, the web version can be played on mobile platforms thanks to the controller overlay.