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A jam submission

HopeView game page

Can you survive and bring new hope?
Submitted by Digital Gamez — 8 hours, 4 minutes before the deadline
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Hope's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Story#733.5333.533
Sound#1363.3333.333
Music#1363.6003.600
Aesthetics#1483.8673.867
Mechanics#1743.4673.467
Fun#2403.3333.333
Theme#3463.0003.000

Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How many people worked on this game total?
1

Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
No

Link to your source?
https://github.com/AlfaDave/Hope

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Hey, nice submission! An entire survival game is quite an undertaking for a game jam, but you managed to make quite a nice submission in such a limited time! It took me a little to understand what I ave to do, so if you are planning to expand on this game in the future, a bit of a step-by-step tutorial would be neat. For the rest though, nice work!

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Already made a tutorial for it just nailing out some bugs and refactoring my code to be a much easier mass of code to read and expand on.

hopefully, I will have nailed out the bugs and refactored the code to remove the 999+ errors made by refactoring, by the time the voting period ends for the game jam and then upload the next build.


is there any chance you could copy your comment in the game voting area and put it on the actual game main wall. digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

ty in advance.

Submitted(+1)

Great fallout shelter style game! I saw the previous comments that you had to descope in order the meet the deadline, had pretty much the same feedback as others so I wont bore you with them as you already know :) I love what you did manage to put together in a short amount of time and hope you can continue to expand on your vision with this one!

Developer

Yes, i will do more on this game as i have not liked having to cut out many features for the game.

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Submitted(+1)

Sure, just copied it over to the main page. Hope it helps!

Submitted(+1)

I am not very familiar with this kind of games. With this said I enjoyed playing for a few turns.

I felt really overwhelmed at the beginning and it took me quite a while to realize that I was actually gathering resources when clicking on the icons. I think that a short timer bar and a simple animation for the resource number would make it a lot more obvious (nothing fancy, just the number popping up bigger than normal and thn shrinking together with a suitable SFX, like hammer on metal for metals, etc).

I think the game would also benefit by having the screen move a faster when you approach the cursor to the limits.

I loved the polish. The music and the SFX fit the atmosphere very well and there is really a lot of content. It's really solid.

Developer(+1)

There is a full tutorial in the version i'm working on now just nailing out some bugs in it then i will post it and name it post gamejam build and will be build v0.32.

Also have updated the ui after feedback from others.

Submitted(+1)

Nice! Let me know so I can try it again.

Developer

I might wait until it's after the rating time as it's only a few days, it wouldn't be fair on others if people rated from the post-gamejam version.

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Submitted(+1)

A very nice game you got in the workings here! I like the whole atmosphere you created with the visuals and the music good job on that! I would have liked an indicator on how many expeditions I went on each day. I also don't quite understand why the buildings have a cooldown in the beginning? I don't think it adds to the experience but rather drags it on in a negativ way. How exactly do the gardens work as it, at least visually, still looked like I need to collect 10 food per occupant? The number of occupants you have dictates the amount of actions you have each turn right? I feel like this is a little bit snowbally in the wrong direction as if you lose one you are more likely to lose another since you due to the lack of actions. Overall this has great potential and I am interested to see if you will work on it in the future!

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thank you for the feedback, the plan was to have indication of expedition but I was planning on having a little user interactive mini game to run that, end of game jam deadline so I had to dramatically down scope.

10 food per person is required but each person you have gives 3 task's per turn, so in theory you can gather one food and two other actions be that gathering resources or building/unlocking buildings.


There is a grace period of 20 days where you don't get attacked so the only way to lose people from day 0-20 is from starvation.


I have to admit the garden isn't active in the build I can't add the feature in the testing phase of the gamejam, but it will grant food per turn depending on upgrade level, it is a tiny bit of extra code I just forgot to add until too late and deadline. 

It will be added in 0.4 build tho. Which should answer your question of me working on it in the future.

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Developer

V0.32 is live please check it out as there have been many upgrades to it from the feedback i had from players who tried it.

(+1)

Nice management game, many things could be added or improved, but that is normal for a jam game.

Some tutorials or guidance at the start would improve the experience, as i felt a bit lost at the beginning. The UI could "pop" a little, showing what changed, to attract the player attention, especially in the "Survived another day " screen. I didn't notice that I've lost one person until the food consumption was 30 in the next day, and not 40 as I expected.

Overall a nice start. Good work and good luck!

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing.

Yeah I agree it needs a lot more done but time just ran out.

On the end of turn screen it does state the loss of a civilian which I should rename occupant. But people are just clicking past the end turn screen without reading it. I will have to look at ways to retain their attention on that screen but that was rushed, I might add a simple scrolling results in panel's on build 0.4 but I can't do that until gamejam is over.

I think I made the icons on screen suit the colour theme too much that they have blended into the game. I'm not an artist so my art skills are lacking but I'm learning, it's all made of Developer art  which took half the gamejam time up.

Developer(+1)

i have took the feedback and implemented a tutorial and a ui update but within still keeping the ui to theme colouring but hopefully it pops more and is easier to understand. i will over the next few days post an update v0.32 with a name of post gamejam. 

Developer(+1)

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

(1 edit) (+1)

Sure, done!

Did not have time to play the newer version, but will try it later.

Developer

i havnt released v0.32 as yet. still working on it as its a very big update in regards of getting the items i think were most desired into it :)
if you do post on the main game page comments then i can message you via the comments when i do push the update live as it will be outside the game dev.tv voting period

Submitted(+1)

Nice shelter resource collecting game, I didn't quite understand the expedition mechanics and mainly focused on getting enough food each turn, I did like that the rooms would visually change when upgrading them  and the overall aesthetics was nice!

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

the expedition mechanic is automated at the end of turn with random ranges for seeds, research and spare parts, i ran out of game jam time so couldn't have it as a gameplay mechanic as originally wanted.

Had to seriously down scope the project to meet the deadline.


funny enough focusing on food until the food icon in the right goes green is a good tactic as you never lose a shelter member, after turn 20 you can start to gain survivours who want to join.

Developer(+1)

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Submitted(+1)

Sure no problem!

Submitted(+1)

It took me a long time to figure out how many turns I had or where the turn counter was. I just clicked on things and then my turn was over. I think I made it around 20 or so turns before everyone was dead, never got enough seeds or science for the radio or garden upgrades even though I upgraded my expedition room as early as I could and then all my people died because 2 walls with 1 upgrade on each wasn't enough but there was never any indication that I was being attacked so it was hard to know how tough the walls should be. I know the little child's dialogue mentioned being scared and wanting walls but I had walls so it seemed to be ok but then someone died and the game gets even harder because you have less turns. 
I also didn't realise I was getting any seeds or science because the text was read and didn't have numbers in it. Not that it mattered because I still didn't have enough by the time I noticed. 
I couldn't tell if my expeditions were going out or how good they were, sometimes they got nothing, sometimes they got lots. 

Lovely visuals, I like the little story dialogues but the balance needs work.  Its a really good attempt at a prototype. But 20 turns were all basically the same, click the buttons until you run out of turns, upgrade when you can afford it, never got the radio or garden before everyone died.

Developer

Some great points and there were supposed to be actual end turn mechanics for the game but the deadline got seriously near so i had to add an automatic chance-based system for the seeds, research, spare parts, new survivours, and the attackers.
there are 10 levels of upgrades for the walls.
as it's random-based logic sometimes you will have the luck other times you won't, i felt it made it play like it would be in a real situation, sometimes you get dealt a bad hand.

A playthrough i just today i managed to get so many spare parts and seeds but my research was low.

Focus on the food, there is a grace period until turn 20 where you don't get attacked and after turn 20 you might or might not get attacked, after the testing time for the GDTV game jam im going to add a small mechanic to allow you to beat an attacker if you are unlucky to have one attack.

Thank you for the constructive feedback.
  

Submitted

I didn't think I got much past turn 20 and had 2 upgraded walls but I think 3 of my guys died to attackers. The first one starved because I wasn't paying attention.

Developer

up until turn 20 your people can only die of starvation, after the 20 days then they can be attacked. pretty unlucky if you lost them all very shortly after the 20 days.

Just end the game over scene then have another go at it you might have better luck on a second attempt. notch it as that small survival family lost the battle as many would in those circumstances. 

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Developer

V0.32 is live please check it out as there have been many upgrades to it from the feedback i had from players who tried it.

Submitted(+1)

This game has a really good foundation! I think the concept of it is fun, but I felt it was a little bit too frantic for me to do anything other than click things as fast as I could for resources. I never felt like I had the time to really take in the information. At least...I'm assuming it was timed per day. I wasn't quite sure if it was actions or time but I assumed it was timed because the actions for gathering took a certain amount of time before I could click them again. I think slowing the pace down a tad or giving the player the ability to pause, but still be able to read all the info would be really helpful for player onboarding. Great work with your submission though!

Developer(+1)

Not time-based.

It's turn-based you don't need to rush, the reasoning for the time for each click is due to the fact that you get 3 tasks per person in your shelter, so as the population increases you gain more tasks so having a lower wait time gives you the ability to click more often on each and saves time, but you could take as long as you like per turn.
Hope this helps and you play it again without the rush... :)

Submitted(+1)

Thank you for clearing this up! I actually did go back to the game and this time I gave it about an hour or so before I died. Maybe I was doing something wrong but I think the resources that can't be collected through the clickables are a bit stingy with how it's determined if your scouts find anything or not. I kept getting attacked an my people were killed with it telling me to build walls, but I upgraded my walls every chance I got when I had the spare parts available (I think they were level 3). The funny coincidence is that I started getting a ton of spare parts when I had 1 civilian but no resources to be able to upgrade the walls again. I still think it's a good foundation, but I think there might be a bit too much waiting for things to accumulate before noticing any progress. And, as stated earlier, a bit more tweaking to the numbers. Good job once again though! It's very clear that you put a lot of time and thought into the development!

Developer(+1)

yeah I need to do so much play testing and fine tuning of the variables, each wall upgrade reduces the chance of attacker getting through.

I think I need to increase the survivour intake rather than reduce the attack stats, I was planning on using the vault hatch as a detector and have enemy attack from each side taking damage on the walls to show the wall strength, but gamejam deadline lol

Submitted

Yup, of course, completely understandable. Good luck going forward with this!

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Developer

V0.32 is live please check it out as there have been many upgrades to it from the feedback i had from players who tried it.

Submitted(+1)

Very impressive. So much content. It must have been a serious headache to playtest but it looks like the coding doesn't need any debugging. Very well put together. I'm not a fan of turn-based games but i still enjoyed it. :) Great game.

Developer(+1)

v0.3 was a buggy mess, but v0.31 I managed to nail out most known issues. 

Yes a mega head ache so many hours lost by one item not working breaking another item.

Developer(+1)

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Submitted(+1)

Nice and relaxing game, good job!

Developer

thank you for the feedback, can you point out anything you didn't like??

Submitted(+1)

In all honesty I didn't play for too long, these types of games are not really my cup of tea, I liked the aesthetics, sounds and story but I didn't stick around too long with the gameplay loop.

Developer(+1)

Everyone has their own game taste's.

Thank you for atleast trying my game it's very appreciated especially as it's not your cup of tea.

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Developer

V0.32 is live please check it out as there have been many upgrades to it from the feedback i had from players who tried it.

Submitted(+1)

This is a decent prototype of a potentially good game. It was so confusing at the beginning, especially with all the icons looking so similar that I have to stare at it for a few seconds to know what I was looking at exactly. The music is alright, the story is humorous and I admire that you took the time to make some dialogue for this. Overall I think it needs more polish but is so far very good for the time constraints you had. You definitely deserve more ratings, but also,  maybe you aren't rating and commenting on others' work enough? It would definitely help.

Developer

Thank you for the feedback, I have been playing and rating a fair few game giving the spare time I have.

But yes I do need to play more for more than just ratings the games Devs have made are quiet fun.


Could you expand please on the icon difficulty issues?

Submitted(+1)

So the resource icons on the UI looks really similar and they don't stand out much from the game scene. It would help to make them look more distinct from each other. A good example I could think of are the resource icons in Age of Empire games where you could clearly tell gold, wood, stone, and food without having to look at it closely. I hope this helps :)

Developer

I was trying to keep it in theme with the game art style, but I'm no artist it's all Dev art so I could and probably are wrong. 

If I make a changes to the Ui after the testing time would you be able to give feedback on the changes done???

Submitted(+1)

Sure! And my co-dev could probably give you a more constructive feedback  considering she's the artist. I'll tell her.

Developer

would love the extra feedback from someone who is an artist.

Developer(+1)

i have implemented a ui update and also a tutorial for the game. but wont be released until v0.32 post game jam version 

Submitted(+1)

Oh dang that looks so much better! We'll check it out once it goes live.

Developer

Great feedback allows me to have something good to work on and make the game better, so thank you very much for playing and taking the time to give very constructive feedback. 

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Developer

V0.32 is live please check it out as there have been many upgrades to it from the feedback i had from players who tried it.

Submitted(+1)

Wow, this game is big. Honestly, the game really needs a save feature, it's the kind of game I'd like to play over a few sessions.

Some thoughts:

  • Cool splash art at the beginning
  • I wasn't able to figure out how to send people on expeditions, and also I couldn't get enough seeds to progress my base (I needed 10 to be able to build a garden).
  • For a new player, it's a bit confusing to figure out what each area does. Perhaps it could be useful to leave the name of each area permanently one, and show the details when the player hovers over it.

I think you have a good prototype for a very interesting game here. Keep at it!

By the way, I'm not sure if it's allowed to do updates to the game while the rating period is on. You may want to talk to the organizers, they may ask you to resubmit your previous version. Just my two cents anyway, I don't have any problem with it :D.

Developer(+1)

I asked about bug fix updates before doing it and it was signed off as ok to fix issues, I havn't added any new features just fixed the game. 

Developer

the game should save, it saves for me after each turn it saves.

On each turn your expedition (scouts) automatically venture out depending on their upgrade level and return with a chance of finding Seeds, research, and spare parts.

Submitted(+1)

In my side I tried exiting and hitting play again, and it started at the beginning. It may be an issue on my side, or may be I did something wrong. In any case, I'll keep an eye on the game for the future :D.

About the update, I didn't mean it as an attack, just as a heads up. I'm happy it's all good!

Developer

I didn't take it as an attack don't worry. I would have asked the same question myself.

Developer

Hello again Alpaca i tested the build again and it seemed to save ok, you do have to pass turn 1 tho as it saves at end of the turn.

Maybe i could suggest you go to C:\Users\(your username)\AppData\LocalLow\Digital Gamez and delete the Hope folder.
Hope it works for you, pun intended lol.

Submitted(+1)

I played for around 15 minutes, and then I had to go. The funny thing is that the save files are there, in the directory you mentioned. My version is the portable one, I don't know if that could make a difference. I'll try deleting it and playing again in a few hours.

Developer (1 edit)

it shouldn't effect it but I will jot down to test the portable specific files, btw I would suggest the installer version anyway its just a nicer experience to be able to launch the game from the program files area, also at a much later time I hope, you can quiet easily uninstall the game via the uninstall programs system in Windows which means you don't have to remember which folder you put it in.

This feedback is very useful as I would like to get to the root of your issue.

Submitted

Ah, also, I played the portable version, perhaps the save issue could be there?

Developer

which version did you download? V0.3 or v0.31?

I will retest it on a different machine in a few hours.

But i programmed it to save so if it doesn't then I might have broken it on the bug fix update, Dev woes fix a bug create 10 more.....

Submitted(+1)

Hahaha, indeed. I played version 0.31, I will try it again in a few hours to see if I just did something wrong.

Developer

can I suggest you play the installer version and then let me know if it still doesn't save, just delete the folder Hope in the folder Digital Gamez the path I posted earlier, then run the installer version up until turn 3 then exit via the exit button and quit the game from the main menu, then boot it back up and check. Please reply your findings 🙂👍

Developer

I have tested the portable build and it worked the same way as the installer. it worked correctly in terms of it saved I played until turn 11 then saved it and returned and it was still on turn 11, so save functioned as desired.

When the unity debug request comes up to pass the firewall do you accept it? or decline it? or just ignore it??
As that could potentially cause an issue as the game is built to debug mode(development) so I'm unsure if you decline the game might miss behave. As I can't think of any other reason why it's not working for you.
I do suggest deleting the Hope folder of the save game and installing the installer version of the game then try that hopefully you have the game as it is intended to work then.
I hope you resolve your save issue as I'm planning on expanding the game after the testing time for the game jam so it would be nice for you to still enjoy the game as it progresses.
 

Submitted(+1)

Thanks for all the tips! In the end I don't have time to check it tonight, but I'll try deleting the folder and playing it again tomorrow morning. Cheers man!

Submitted

Alright, after trying it again, I realized that my old save had actually saved my resources, but not the things I had built. I had built improvements for wood and metal, among others, but they weren't there. Gathering those would give me 10 materials and take 3 seconds, consistent with the room not being built.

After deleting the Hope folder as you told me, I played a few turns and the same thing happened again. I built stairs, then left, and on playing again the stairs were not there (but my resources were).

I will try again in the next update. And, if I'm the only one having the issue, don't worry too much, it may be something on my end.

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Submitted(+1)

I copied a slightly edited version of it. Cheers man!

Developer

Just pushed a huge update to the game. please uninstall your current version and re-download v0.31 version. major changes have been made that the game runs well and plays fairly nice also. features are still the same but now they are working as intended....

Developer (1 edit)

I'm soon to push a bug fix update to the game. with a few quality of gameplay changes to make it more enjoyable.  just testing the game in editor before i push the update.

Submitted(+1)

I enjoyed playing your game! 

Developer

Thank you, Pen. I'm soon to be pushing a new fixed build as there are a fair few quality-of-life improvements that were buggy in it, such as the 6-second wait time on clicks for resources.
I didn't get to playtest the game before the submitting deadline, so I'm taking the little grace period for bugs to level things out a bit.

Developer (1 edit)

Do you mind me asking if you installed it via the installer or the standalone/portable files? and I hope you continue to enjoy the game as the save system saves after every turn so you can return another day and continue your progress. have you been lucky enough to find a settlement and win the game?? its a very rare chance like I would assume it would be in the situation of a world order collapse. 

Submitted

I used your installer and it worked great. Haven't won yet though I'm sure as I get to understand the mechanics more I'll die less. haha

Developer(+1)

when I nail out this evasive null reference which I think is down to script execution ordering, I will then push an update which adds room names and should update the building requirements in the little hover over popup boxes, also a fair few gameplay feel changes.

The best way not to die is to keep a good eye on the food 10 food per person per end turn.

You don't start getting new people until turn 20 if you have increased your capacity by unlocking bedrooms, Attacks/raids are also held back until turn 20. Upto turn 20 is an ease into the mechanic with a few end of turn quick tips in the text that's above the end turn button.


Glad the installer was a nice process, shame about the unknown software issues with windows tho regarding anything new as potential hazard.

Developer

Could you copy/add your initial comment into my games main page comments please, it would be very helpful. thank you

digitalgamez.itch.io/hope

Developer

V0.32 is live please check it out as there have been many upgrades to it from the feedback i had from players who tried it.