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Duck Race, you against 'quackpitalism''s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| ANTI-CAPITALIST POWER | #83 | 2.160 | 2.333 |
Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
It's a very cute game, but leaving me a bit confused.
Half of the Power Ups and all of the Power Downs are locked, and it appears you have to buy the Power Ups in order, which eliminates any purchasing strategy. Additionally with no way to gauge the opposing duck's progress it really seems like it's very much luck based. I also, don't really understand the tie to the theme of the jam. All of that being said I do think you have an interesting premise for a twist on the clicker genre and the visual and audio is solid! I'd be willing to check it out again.
Hi! Thanks for your comment.
I definitely understand what you mean. In fact, it was a risk we had in consideration during development. The thing is that the game tries to seem something it isn't, at the beginning it's just a cute clicker game, but once you get to the final runs you find out that it's not just that, it's a game about the absurdity of infinite accumulation and how frustrating it is.
One thing I get we should have explained better, is that it's thought to do a lot of small fast runs and different tries, more that just a few long runs.
Power Ups/Downs, we're blocked to incentivize not giving up and trying more times (they're unlocked though play through). But now I get that if you don't know that it may seem random and not well explained.
If it's not too much to ask, could you try again but thinking that each run must be between 5 or 10 minutes max?
I think you will be able to experience it better, and your next feedback will help us polish everything that doesn't work.
Thanks again for your feedback :)
I tried it out again with the information you provided, and I now see how it is tied to the theme quite well!
I do think the game needs to make it more clear that the point is short runs and that more tools are unlocked through more runs, since there isn't any real indication right now (or I'm missing it). Additionally you don't unlock anything until 5(?) failed runs, I can't imagine many players would stick around long enough to figure that out.
I think it works thematically for the jam, but as a game, it doesn't sit quite right with me. I tried 2 real runs, but hadn't unlocked anything so I ended up just spamming Finish - Reset until I had everything unlocked, then I tried another real run. Unfortunately even on that run, it ended up feeling like I had no real agency, I bought everything except the Rainbow, Golden Eggs, Nest, and Hunter. I skipped on those because I realized trying to get to those was going to take nearly as long as it took to get everything else, and since I had no way of gauging my chances of success I decided it wasn't worth it to try to get them.
I do like that you basically have to take out loans to buy the higher tier upgrades in any reasonable amount of time; however, I don't think the interest mechanic is clear enough. As far as I can tell, you would start your next run in the negative, buy you can just Finish - Reset to get rid of your debt, so it doesn't really matter.
Ultimately, I think you have an interesting premise and I can see the potential, but for me there just isn't enough sense of progress or agency to drive me to play. Off the top of my head, the easiest fix would be including multiple opponents; that way the player can start out finishing 10/10, but 9/10 on the next run, etc... That way there's some sort of progression for the player. Even more important, in my opinion would be including more player agency, likely in the form of allowing players to buy upgrades in whatever order they want and including more upgrades, that way their strategy can change in between runs. Maybe check out something like Idle Monster TD: Evolved for inspiration, I don't think it fits what you're doing 100%, but it does a good job of providing a lot of options that make it feel like the player's decisions matter.
very cute, i loved it. didnt finish the game, yet at least. it's funny cause i also made a "clicker but against an adversary" game, and I was thinking that its such a nice idea but I rarely see games like that.
I think maybe the beginning of the run is a bit slow though, and you should put some tooltip in game about what the powerups do (apologies if I missed it)
Hii!
Thanks for your comment, I agree with your feedback, we didn't have enough time to set some tooltip, but it's one of the next things we want to do. Also, maybe we can rebalance the power-ups to make the beginning less slow.
Thank you very much, and hope you can finish it one day (there's a little twist at the end) :)
We made a clicking game about infinite accumulation. It's also our first ever game, so please check it out and leave us a comment with your thoughts :)