Loove the music, love the concept! I'd love to see a fullscreen mode, text was a bit small on my monitor, and then we could also have the status of all the gooblers along the bottom for example, so you can see them all at a glance!
Question: Is their erratic pathfinding intentional? It is kinda charming, but also kind of infuriating when we lose customers because of it..
Great job!
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Goobler's Magic Shop: a game by Shovel's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall polish | #42 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #65 | 3.797 | 3.797 |
| Engagement | #99 | 3.739 | 3.739 |
| Creative use of art assets | #111 | 3.652 | 3.652 |
Ranked from 46 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Yes, the erratic pathfinding was intentional, haha. I started with "perfect" pathfinding, but I wanted to have some semblance of "goofing off" that they would do, and I didn't have time to implement a more complete feature for that, so I decided that making them struggle to get where they're going would be a good stand-in! I think I might have made their IQs a little /too/ low though, which makes the game really hard as the difficulty ramps up. I think if I were to continue, I would make them get smarter as they complete tasks, so that once the store is really, really busy, they can actually make their way around competently. Something to limit the frustration but keep that "what are these goofballs even doing" kind of feeling!
And yeah, having goobler status along the bottom rather than needing to constantly switch between them is a great idea, definitely should have included that, haha!
I really appreciate the feedback, and taking the time to play my game! Thanks so much! :)
The tutorial at the beginning was very good. After the tutorial i felt well prepared but then there where to much costumers and i felt overwhelmed. Maybe slow down the customer rate at start and increase it more over time. Nice game. I had fun playing it! :)
Submitted
War DrivenThere actually is a difficulty ramping component! Every 30 seconds or so, one of the "difficulty parameters" increase. Those parameters are customer spawn rate, customer order count frequencies, custom patience loss rates, and customer reputation penalties - up to a maximum difficulty cap. I think showing this "current difficulty level" somewhere would definitely have been a useful piece of information to put in the UI somewhere, since right now that mechanic is totally invisible. And also, maybe the starting difficulty level should have been a bit lower, just to make the game more accessible.
Thanks so much for playing my game and for the feedback, it means a lot! :)
I like it! The graphics use is basic, but gives me nice Dwarf Fortress flashbacks, which I aprreciate. Sadly there is not much opportunity to look at the graphics, because all your attention is needed to manage the 3 gobbers you have. Sometimes it's hard to remember which one is doing what and being where. It could use some UI shortcut showing all three of them. And the customer patience is running out fast - which is not a problem, becausepenalty for unhappy customer is not significant, but I would rather have them have more patience and give bigger penalties.
Submitted
PaceLiteI like it! The graphics use is basic, but gives me nice Dwarf Fortress flashbacks, which I aprreciate. Sadly there is not much opportunity to look at the graphics, because all your attention is needed to manage the 3 gobbers you have. Sometimes it's hard to remember which one is doing what and being where. It could use some UI shortcut showing all three of them. And the customer patience is running out fast - which is not a problem, becausepenalty for unhappy customer is not significant, but I would rather have them have more patience and give bigger penalties.
Submitted
PaceLiteThis is a sweet game! I love this sort of multitasking game, and this is no exception. The little dialogue boxes on the workers were wonderful, and the music is great too. Sometimes I felt like my workers were forgetting their tasks, but it is possible that they just weren't saying in the dialogue which thing they were working on. All in all, this is a very polished game and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Submitted
Scunthorpe ScavengerI really appreciate you taking the time to play the game and leave your feedback! Thanks so much!
And glad to hear you enjoyed it!
After looking back on it, I definitely see how sometimes it's really unclear if the little gooblers are actually trying to accomplish their tasks or if they're goofing off - I think one major change I'd probably make moving forward is adding a very clear indicator to the UI that basically communicates "Hey I'm /NOT/ working right now", so that the player has a clear and immediate understanding of the pertinent gameplay information.
Great use of the art kit, you really took advantage of how many sprites there were :-) The game is very fun to play. My only feedback would be that it would be easier to control if idle employees didn't have a different text all the time, even though the idle texts are very funny :-D
Submitted
MAZEingThanks for playing, and thanks for the feedback!
Having a clearer distinction between idle employees and busy employees does seem useful. The idle text gives a lot of personality to the gooblers, so maybe there just needs to be some kind of quick indicator in the UI for "goofing off" so that you can focus on only the pertinent information when the shop gets busy.
Really impressive for a first game on Godot engine, I think that you have found the right tool for game developement!
I liked everything in your game, the usage of art assets, the music, etc., and more importantly I found that you built a really good ambiance for a shop game, it gave me the will to continue to play.
So, overall very nice work! Keep it up!
Submitted
RunVive!Thanks so much for your feedback, and thanks for playing! I appreciate all the kind words! :)
And yeah, Godot has a /lot/ of strengths that I appreciate, I'm planning on posting a devlog video here soon (once I finish editing it lol), and I'll make sure to cover everything I learned about the engine and my conclusions on it, but suffice it to say I think my next couple projects will be using this engine for sure!
This is a very well polished game! I sucked at it because I am garbage at multitasking, but I can see what you're going for and it definitely does have its target audience. The flavor text was all really charming, and the art style fit the game well. The text was slightly too small and I feel like you could have used more of the screen space, but overall very solid entry.
Submitted
You are [UN] Dead, Enjoy Your StayThis was very well done I always love chaotic games in which u have to work fast and watching goobers run around with their random funny lines was really fun and making all deliveries at once and having no customers for 1 seconds is so relieving. Very FUN
Submitted
Detective MonochromeNice shop game you got there!
i'm not a big fan of the genre in general, but i can tell you've given alot of mind into this.
There's so much depth and content. And the tutorial helped alot.
All you need now is either more polishing^^(though it's not bad already).
Good stuff!
Submitted
Dog GaloreI would have reviewed this game sooner, but I was too busy pooping. XD It's charming and I adore the word "goobler". :D I did have some trouble with the pathfinding, and it is a bit hard to see in browser mode for me unfortunately. Going to check out the downloadable version! *update* well sadly it's also small. Still, I really like what you have here! I feel that the sheer amount of things you can make is a bit overwhelming. I'd almost say if this was scaled back a tad, with a slower progression curve, it would be perfect. It really oozes charm though, and I love the thoughts of the gooblers and their rather erratic behavior! Have you ever played Recettear? I got a bit of those vibes from it. :D Great work overall!
Submitted
OBAKEHaha, thanks so much for playing my game! I appreciate the feedback!
Yeah, I think the number one takeaway I have is that I needed to make the game bigger. Scaling everything up 2x would have totally solved the number one issue with my game XD
Also, yeah - I wanted to slowly increase the number of craftable items, but didn't have the time to include that feature, heh.
I haven't played Recettear, but it's on my radar as a game I think I'd enjoy playing! Thanks again!
Ah, fun game! Reminds me of when I was working in fast food and running around trying to get all the orders correct! Fun fun.
Submitted
ULTRAVIOLENT 2DCool game, been resetting a handful of times to get a little further every time. The pathfinding could use some tweaks, and maybe a few more doors through the shop, as the difficulty ramps up due to short timers, bad pathfinding to and from materials, and the length required to walk to get herbs on the far side of the shop. But it's addictive!
I encounter an issue for some reason. When I start the game, the menu is "normal" sized, it covers the whole game frame in browser. When I press play, the shop takes up like 1/4 of the screen in the center, and I can barely read the text how small it is.
I tried restarting the game and it didn't fix the issue. For some reason there's no fullscreen button on it either.
Submitted
Battle of the Bald MountainThanks for doing that for me! This is the first time I've used Godot, so I'm not sure if maybe I messed up the project settings or did something wrong while exporting.
EDIT: I also went and uploaded a version for mac so you should be able to download it and play it! Let me know if that works for you!
Thanks!
The screen issue is fixed with the mac build, so I was able to play. I really like the game. It feels like you had a clear design of what you want the game to be from the start, and you executed it. It's very creative to use this asset pack to make such a game. I also really liked the little "comments" the gooblers would make(like is mayonaise an instrument, and am I my own dad).
The only issue I experienced is I focused my vision a lot on the customers demands and on the menu on the left side, so I wouldn't notice when a new goobler arives(some sort of notification would help here!).
Simultaneously very pleasant and very frantic, is how I would describe the experience. Ideally would have liked the option to go fullscreen and for the screen to stretch to fit; was pretty straining on the eyes. It's funny, the gooblers pathfinding (or lack thereof) would normally be quite frustrating, but the chill music and the funny things they think about make it easy to laugh off. You definitely nailed the atmosphere. The bars are hard to read with the dark color choices. Tutorial was impressive; the system could have been very overwhelming (it still is somewhat) but you eased the player into it smoothly. In the end though I realized that the game is pretty forgiving of mistakes anyways. I am very impressed by the complexity you were able to achieve with the time you had (and on your first time using the engine as well), even if the complexity is in the end somewhat cosmetic. Great work!
Submitted
Castle of ImmortalsThank you so much for your feedback!
The pleasant and frantic vibe is definitely what I was going for! The goobler's pathfinding and personality was inspired by my cats, where the second I look away from them, they do something dumb (like knocking my mic off the desk) - so I wanted to capture that "adorable little idiot" feeling, and I'm glad to hear that it comes across!
And yeah, the UI I ended up with isn't that great, and everything is kind of small and hard to read, I'll definitely keep that in mind for my next game, need to improve on sizing and readability!
Nice Job!
You made quite a complex system and delivered quite well on it. Can't say i love busy work games but i do appreciate the amount of love (or rage?) that went into this game.
A few things though, i think that some sounds of your guys goofing off would have helped a lot. I had initially thought that the pathfinding was bugged lol. In addition i found myself having to squint a bit at certain icons. A little bit small.
I did find the amount of icons of things i needed to craft to be overwhelming as well. Perhaps we could have started with a few potions and stones and as the game progresses you gain the ability to make more and more things.
Anyway i think you did a great job.
Submitted
Defending Fort KenstoneThat's a great idea - introducing more craftables over time, maybe when the "late" gooblers showed up, they could have brought new potions/gemstones with them, to give players a chance to learn things at a more reasonable pace.
And yeah, I think my biggest regret for this game is the resolution it's at, I should have just scaled everything up by 2 - I'm not used to such small pixel sizes for assets, heh.
Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate it!
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