I think it needs some refining, but it's a solid game.
The art and music are cute, and I found the UI to be pretty intuitive. I think the area in which this game need the most tuning is the trading mechanic itself; making trades more difficult or having 'customers' leave after a while if you take too long because they're bored could maybe make the game a bit more enjoyable. Even trades as they are now are a bit clunky (I had a guy wanting to trade a ladybug and his notebook, and he accepted a single ladybug of my own in return, effectively giving me a notebook for free). Despite that, I had fun playing!
Play game
Nina`s Garage Tradle's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Design | #67 | 4.140 | 4.140 |
Ranked from 43 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
It turns out that refining and balancing a game with random elements (the items the "customers" carry) is quite complex and time demanding, even if it's a simple game with a simple mechanic. The random picking of items was way too simple(aka pick any one) because of time constraints, and this made interesting trades indeed hard to come by.
About the illogical trade of a ladybug for another ladybug + notebook, I guess Nina is just that charismatic and has mad bargaining skills ;)
Jokes aside, it is an unforeseen consequence of the way we rate trades as fair/unfair under the hood. I (who programmed the game) had to think for a while to get why this was happening... Thanks for pointing it out!
Fixing the above issues would take some extra thought and effort, but your idea of making "customers" leave after a while would be quite simple to implement and maybe make the game more dynamic.
As a little sidenote, I love that you referred to the traders in game as "customers", in quotes. We tried to distance the situation of the game from that of a "real shop", so you being uncomfortable in naming them customers is proof we got it right somehow.
Anyway, we thank you a lot for playing the game and sharing your thoughts!
Nice concept!
I think it was a very original take on the theme of the jam.
The aesthetic is on point and it captivated my curiosity enough to want more and see what a more complex version of the game would be.
Solid entry! Congrats.
Submitted
The Tragic Story of Don CoelhoniIt could have been explained better, and I wish it had more tricky decisions, but I like the idea of only being able to get binary "fair/unfair" response from customers. Good job!
Submitted
0.5 A PressesThanks for the feedback!
It would have been great to refine the UI and game feel to make the game more understandable from the get go. Things like making it clearer that the customers are offering the items for trade(and not asking for them) were in our plans, but we couldn't get it in the game in time.
But indeed our greatest challenge may well be trying to add tricky decisions to this binary "fair/unfair" system.
Anyway, we thank you for playing!
That was definitely an interesting take on the theme. You really seemed to put a lot of work into the art, and the music fit fairly well.
The gameplay though I did have some trouble with. A lot of this game is spent waiting for the next customer which is realistic but not really enjoyable. The game's not complicated enough for me to need this extra time to consider my options. The trades were also all really straightforward. I'm not sure how the concept could be made more strategic without building a lot more gameplay than 48 hours allows, but the whole game focusing on a single mechanic that boils down to mainly yes/no questions is just a bit too simple.
I appreciate that you all actually built a story around your mechanics and you presented it very well. I just though the gameplay was a bit too simple.
Thank you for the thorough feedback.
We did put a lot of effort in the art side of the game, trying to add many bizarre items that would contrast with the game's silly and childish premise and make it feel funny and lighthearted, even if the strategic depth wasn't really there. Also, you're totally right about the wait times...
Anyway, hope you had some fun, and we thank you for playing!
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.