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Spicy Scales's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #415 | 3.932 | 3.932 |
| Enjoyment | #526 | 3.773 | 3.773 |
| Creativity | #561 | 3.977 | 3.977 |
| Style | #676 | 4.045 | 4.045 |
Ranked from 44 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
The job of spice merchant forced us to be *built to scale* spices and weights for profit!
Development Time
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
https://freesound.org/people/775noise/sounds/494565/ - bell
https://freesound.org/people/clairinski/sounds/184372/ - coins for day end
https://freesound.org/people/altfuture/sounds/174629/ - coins for left side
https://freesound.org/people/haulaway/sounds/733333/ - coins for left side
https://freesound.org/people/15GPanskaKacovaBarbora/sounds/461170/ - 60 seconds left on the clock
https://freesound.org/people/egomassive/sounds/536787/ - door closing
"Thinking Music" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"Canon in D for Two Renaissance Harps" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"Evening" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
https://free-game-assets.itch.io/free-sky-with-clouds-background-pixel-art-set - skies
https://freesound.org/people/CapsLok/sounds/184438/ - cash buy sound
https://freesound.org/people/tc630/sounds/47836/ - fire
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Comments
This is fun, I enjoyed the game very much.
Thanks for submitting this to the stream! This was a really cool game. I probably could've played for a lot longer if I hadn't stopped myself. The idea is super cool and it's really fun to try and balance the scales. I think this also works really well as an educational game because you end up doing so much math in your head. I would love to see a similar concept with multiplication and division as well.
Amazing job!
Thank you for playing it! Was very interesting to see your experience with our game. I can see making multiplication in game, though division will be a bit hard to implement. Still, an interesting concept to explore!
I really enjoyed playing this game. The idea behind it is really interesting and funny. The art style is amazing (and the messages make it even better). Overall a great submission, well done :)
- Math is fun
Thanks for trying it out! We have a few ideas on how to make it even better~
This is so cool! Love the style, the idea and has a lot of potential!
The gameplay is fun! (Admittedly, it is just math but I had fun anyway...) Oh also Mark played this on stream if you missed it (the day 2 stream on GMTK Live). Cool stuff, good luck!
Thank you for giving it a shot! We saw Mark playing it, was important to see what he got immediately and what was the problems he found out, so we will be taking it into account later on!
Haha Great game! Who would've thought a normal 'weighning-things-on-a-scale'-game would be fun? Great art and funny dialogues of the customers... Made me feel a bit guilty when I scammed a few customers. I only realised after 10 days that I could put weights on the other side of the scale and earn bigger profits! A bit ashamed on that one xD.
However one thing I noticed was that the price of purchasing fake weights just kept on increasing day by day. (Is this inflation? xD Or am I earning quite low wares from this business? Or am I just too kind or fair at weighing resulting in me loosing this business? I'll never know.)
I remember that one same customer said that he'd buy a scale for his home and learn from me? Or something like that which resulted in me worrying whether I will encounter any undercover cops who'll monitor me and could possibly shut down my business. (Doesn't look like that's the case though.) I went on until Week 4 just in the hope of purchasing fake weights but it was always greater than the amount I obtained. Unfortunate that I couldn't try it out.
One thing I'd like to point out is that if the type of spice can also be mentioned along with the buy/sell price so that one can, at a glance, figure out that this is a profitable spice. The colours didn't help me much. And almost all spices have a buy/sell price difference of 2 or 3 so I couldn't really figure out how to each more profits apart from putting weights on both sides leading to balance and earning a gold coin. (Perhaps that's why I was going out of businesss)
Another thing that could be added, would be to send away a customer or to not provide them with the required spice in case we are not earning a desired profit? Also some customers pointed out that they were in a hurry so it could also be interesting to see an angry customer who storms off due to us not providing them with their desired spices on time.
Solid game! Fun to play!
Wow, thanks for that detailed review, and thank you for taking your time with our game!
Regarding placing weights on both sides - seems like it is a big misunderstanding for a lot of players, so it's high on our list of priorities to make player to understand that early on.
Fake weights might or might not actually be fake!~
They were a feature we wanted added, but unfortunately had to cut out from the game jam version of the game due to time limitations.Undercover cops might have also been a feature attached to these fake weights, so that you wouldn't overuse them!Buy/sell text is shown ingame for more meticulous calculation during the game, but it wasn't put on the buy screen due to space limitation of our buttons and to not overload the player with more info (that casual player usually won't think about too hard). Spices themselves also come at different amounts, which is also an important stat when thinking about their profit. I believe this system should be reworked a bit to make it more clear for the player.
Angry customers are also an idea we had that wasn't implemented due to time constraints. Ideally, different customers should have different tips, buying spice types and their patience.
Thank you for these suggestions, we will be taking them into account!
"our game, if everyone understood at once how to use the second bowl." P.S. I believe that it is possible to save up for fake scales. It just hasn't worked out for anyone yet ;) P.P.S 4 week :0, The previous record was broken twice!
I like the concept, and the art style fits it well. I can see this being part of other mechanics working together for some grander experience.
Great gameloop! Sucks you in, like a proper roguelike would!
such an adorable concept and game!
I really like this art style. Clever gameplay! Great job
Thanks!
Nice challengea and great settings page. Enjoyed the challenge!
Thank you for the review, we are very grateful to hear that!
I enjoyed the mathematical challenge of quickly calculating sums and differences. It feels quite good to get perfect balances, and the customers are suitably impressed when it happens.
The price of fake weights was always larger than my current money, even when I saved money from previous rounds, and even after I bought cinnamon and earned 6600 in tips for 7700 profit in a single round. (I played until day 9 or 10 with way more money than rent before I chose to stop)
Thieves randomly robbed me early on, so maybe that caused me to be unable to afford some early purchases that snowballed into me earning less money each round.
Not sure if tipping is about speed or accuracy, but I always wanted to be more accurate.
It also would have been nice if it was more obvious which scale had the more valuable spice on it, so that I could know which one to prioritize. I often threw a small weight on every scale so that I could hover to see the buy/sell price.
Thank you very much for the comment. It's really nice to read long reviews from people who have properly experienced most of the mechanics of the game! As for tips, customers leave them for the perfect balance (a gold coin), so you chose the right tactic, trying to be more accurate! You're absolutely right about displaying the benefits of spices, too, and we'll try to fix it. And about the fake weights...
There are suspicions that they are fake, but I'm not sure)My favorite game from the jam, so far. It's a simple idea but it turned out way more fun than I expected, with enough polish to make the experience enjoyable for at least 20 minutes. (longer review on game page)
Like the game. The game becomes more fun when you have more spices and when you have enough clients that the timer ends up being a challenge.
Yes, you're right. Now the start of the game is quite easy and it is quite difficult to lose money or miss the time. It would not be bad to raise the rent and make fewer weights so that the player would have to try harder > :).
I love the balance (pun intended) between finding the perfect balance and getting orders in on time.
Thanks! We still need to work on the balance, but we are glad that you appreciated it.
Never thought I would enjoy dragging weights onto a scale, but here I am writing a comment about it. My one critique is that there were too many weights to sift through and half of them were far too heavy to be used in the first place.
Thanks for the comment! Yes, there are quite a few very large weights. Their weight can most often be offset by the weight of other weights (for this, you can just put weights on the second bowl). For example, putting 66 and 60 on different bowls will result in 6! Anyway, thanks for the feedback, we appreciate it!
Great game! Well polished in all aspects, I think the progression was paced well too
Thank you!
Very nice game! The only downsides are the pixel font which is a bit hard to read in places and the fact that everything is brown. Also upgrades in the result screen don't really attract your attention.
Thank you for the review! We had back and forth arguments about the font used, but didn't have enough time to properly evaluate it and change it. And I agree that upgrades should've been highlighted better, but that can all be fixed with a new version. Thank you for bringing these to our attention!
VOD https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2231090655
The scales were very spicy and the game was very enjoyable and neat. Not really an authority on judging how unique the concept is but it makes sense in the context of literal scales and the gameplay loop is nice to go along with it. The art is also very appealing and really adds to the polish of it.
The only issue I've had was a minor confusion trying to parse the results screen, and figuring out what the upgrades on sale do but nothing that can't be easily ironed out.
Had a good time with it!
Thank you, it's very nice to hear! As for the results screen, there is really a lot here. In the future, we will try to remove a lot of text from there and present some game events, such as thefts (95% of players do not know that money can be stolen), visually, and not as text.
cute and very cozy game, loved the art :)
Thank you, glad to try!