Duration: 2:07

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9

Player: DDRKirby(ISQ)
Raven Delivery Service 1.0.1 (Single-player Mode)
Play or download the game at: http://ddrkirby.com/games/raven-delivery-service/raven-delivery-service.html

Me and the rest of my team made Raven Delivery Service from scratch in 72 hours for round 38 of Ludum Dare. It's an Overcooked-style co-op game where you coordinate with a friend to brew potions. You can also play single-player mode where you can switch back and forth between the witches. All code and content was created from scratch within the 72-hour timeframe.

View the Ludum Dare submission page at: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/raven-delivery-service
Download the soundtrack at: https://ddrkirbyisq.bandcamp.com/album/raven-delivery-service-original-soundtrack
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A few general optimization notes for those who are trying to get high scores:

At any time when there are no awaiting requests, the tree that is chosen for the next request is completely random.

The requests that come in each level are shuffled, but NOT completely random.

The first potion in level 1 is always a mushroom potion.
The first potion in level 2 is always a demon.
The first potion in level 4 is always a mushroom flower.

After the initial potion (or right away, for level 3), the game uses a "bag" randomizer: It shuffles the list of possible potions, then goes through them in that randomized order. After all possible potions are dealt, it reshuffles the list again.

The bag list for each level is as follows:
Level 1: Mushroom potion, batwing potion
Level 2: Demon, demon, mushroom potion, batwing potion (yes, 2x demon)
Level 3: Enchanted mushroom potion, enchanted batwing potion
Level 4: Mushroom flower, batwing flower, enchanted mushroom potion, enchanted batwing potion

You can use this to predict information about the upcoming potion requests. For example, in level 2, if after the first initial demon you get a mushroom potion, you know that the next 3 requests will be batwing potion, demon, demon, in some order. All three of those require at least two batwings, so you can already start putting those in the cauldron.

This is why you sometimes you may see me "get lucky" in the videos by preparing the correct potion before it gets requested.

In general, the strategy for optimizing in single-player is to make sure that you are travelling the least distance in total, and also to have both witches be actively performing actions at all times whenever possible. That means finding a pattern where whenever you need to move one witch, the other witch is busy preparing an ingredient at the same time.

For co-op mode, the general concept is the same, but there are a few key differences:
- Both players can move at the same time.
- Due to the minigames, the timing for preparing ingredients is different. In particular, enchanting an object can potentially go much faster.
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Level 1 is very straightforward and is mostly a test of your execution...and more importantly, your luck. It's extremely inefficient to do anything other than use the left cauldron for mushrooms and the right cauldron for batwings. You just want to make sure that every time a witch is walking, the other witch is gathering an ingredient. One other thing that helps is to have the left witch fall instead of climbing down the vine, as it's faster.

Past that, it's basically down to luck, as you want the mushroom potions to be on the left and the batwing potions to be on the right to save you walking time.

This particular run is not perfect so I'd imagine 14 potions may be doable if you get good RNG.