I read your comment about the bug related to the win condition, so now I understand why I kept losing progress. I think aside from that, the concept of your game is very creative. Balancing stress and progress in a life coach game is a very unique concept! I liked all the visual design, and little details like how the cards move when being selected or unselected.
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Life Coach's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Community's Voice | #86 | 3.115 | 3.115 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Creative Vision / Rationale / How Did You Incorporate the Theme
Life Coach helps people succeed in life by giving them their effort and time, to give clients happiness, success, and hope.
Comments
The concept for this is pretty fun, and the artstyle is super charming. I followed the instructions closely, but I don't think I understood how to play the game and how progress is gained (like one round its at 10 and the next it jumps to 600 and I have no idea why). Might be a skill issue, but I was still able to clear a few rounds so there's that. I still enjoyed trying to figure it out and it ties into the theme very well. Kudos to your team!
Submitted
Nyota & the Moon PalaceThanks for trying out our game. There was a bug in this prototype for the game jam where the progress is equal to stress. So getting positive 100 stress is the way to victory. We since fixed that issue for our latest iteration and are even planning different mechanics for the upcoming demo.
So you are right, it is a skill issue, a developer skill issue! But thanks to your feedback and support we are leveling up our skills!
Thanks again for your feedback and trying out our game. It's amazing people like you that make game jams great and a worthwhile experience :D
I went in with the mentality that I could just wing it... not a great idea. Went back, read the instructions and went it for a 2nd try and got the game over screen.
It kept me in the loop, more curious to see if I could get at least one person to feel better. Maybe I'll try again!
The soundtrack was nice, and I really like tu Ui. Maybe a lower target for the first person would have helped, because getting to 100 felt like a biiig ask.
Still, I enjoyed my time with the game! Thank you for making it!
Submitted
Blades and Beggarsthanks for trying our game and multiple times too. You had the same feedback my older brother had. I made a mistake with the progress calculation so it ends up equal to stress. Also our rushed balancing was off so the stress from cards are too high. So for this jam version, you can win by getting stress to positive 100.
We did make changes on the next iteration to accommodate the feedback we collected.
Really well polished game! I'm really bad at card games though xD
Great game nonetheless.
Submitted
Deer ForestStory - I couldn't find much of a story aside from the basic premise of you being a life coach. It would be great if the folks you were helping each had unique problems that you had to specifically help them with using the cards! Crafting a narrative that changes as you go based around their stress level vs. their progress would be a cool addition.
Mechanics - Took me a second to figure out how to get everything to work (like I didn't realize what the tools were used for until I accidentally clicked on my hand while a tool card was selected). I'm not sure I fully understood everything in the end (when my stress was in the negatives, my progress would always match my stress, but when my stress was in the positives, then any cards I played were multiplied by almost 50 and added to my progress lol. Once I pulled my stress to a positive number, I won the game with like 2 cards somehow), but I had a decent time playing.
Theme - Being a life coach is definitely committing your life to one of generosity and helping your fellow man!
Audio/Visual - Solid audio and I liked the hand-drawn visuals.
Overall - Pretty fun, if a bit confusing at times. Having the instructions on your itch page for ease of reference was really helpful as I was trying to figure out what the point of many of the cards were. Great submission!
Submitted
Still Watersthanks for the detailed review! I like your idea about unique problems and difference between clients. We had a whole progression and different areas of support each client needed, so it is in the works.
The stress was kinda finicky in this build because there was a progress calculation line I forgot to add, which I already fixed on the next iteration.
The UI was tricky to handle. Thanks to a lot of users feedback, we were able to adjust it more to be more user friendly and self explanatory.
Thanks for playing our game and your positive feedback!
Hey it's Chris!
I really loved the presentation of the game: the title, visual style, music, and sound effects all contributed to a cohesive experience. I think this is definitely the strongest idea for me in Life Coach.
That being said, I was really caught off guard with the deckbuilder gameplay. After playing, I also saw your comment asking about the feeling of combining this theme with deckbuilders similar to Balatro and Slay the Spire: For me, it's a 2/10--not impossible, but highly doubtful because there's a conflict between gameplay and the emotions you want to convey to the audience.
Deckbuilders, to me (I have hundreds of hours in Balatro, StS, Inscryption, Monster Train, Nubby's) is about the feeling of power and excess. If you look across these seemingly different games, you'll notice a pattern of "get big, get strong, get pretty numbers." That doesn't mean that's all there is, but I have a strong opinion that's a core promise. Of course, this genre could be missing out on other interesting themes, but I can only speak from my POV.
Life Coach, as you mentioned (and I can feel it in the presentation minus gameplay too) is about hope and compassion. These two ideas don't necessarily go against the feeling of big, strong, and powerful, but from my experiencing playing Life Coach, I feel cognitive dissonance constantly that pulls me away from enjoying the game. If I'm really trying to help someone--the first thing I'd do is lend them my time and listen to their struggles.
I feel like there's 2 distinctive games in Life Coach: One is using the presentation, the theme, the narrative and playtested with other gameplay genres and Two is building out the deckbuilder with other themes (to be playtested too).
Regardless, I look forward to what you guys are going to do with Life Coach next! Great effort for such a short jam!
P.S. Take a look at this weird, interesting combo between powerlifting and deckbuilding: https://gregs-games.itch.io/get-yoked-2
On the surface, a lot of their keywords might seem like they have something in common with Life Coach: Gains, Fatigue, Injury. But take a look at the presentation--how could your two games be more different?
Submitted
7 day ForestThanks for the honest feedback! We've been doing a lot of research and gathering a lot of feedback and trying to see how we can improve the game. We have A LOT of ideas floating around now to add to the pile of ideas we had to sideline to meet the jam deadline. One of the things I need to work on now is - a better elevator pitch. The idea I asked people around sound too vague - it sounds something like "What do you think about a game with a plumber jumping on turtles".
You're absolutely right about helping someone needs to spend time and listen to their struggles. We even talked about having a dialogue system or narrative with the cards, a visual novel aspect - but that already is scope creep. We can barely manage to fit in the features and polish we wanted in the game for the jam. We also floated around different types of cards like an investigation type or mechanic card where you try to find out more about the client.
You're right about deck builders about building power and excess. A couple ways I am thinking about that is:
- No limit card deck - design the cards around that
- The cards that life coaches to inspire others during the card game, buffs the player outside of the game that helps him get better cards
Another idea I am floating around is having the game split into 2:
- Life coach character development - where life coach collects cards outside of the card game, and each of these cards actually have different passive effects or uses outside of the card game
- Card game - build on the current life coach but still keeping it in simple to play format
The idea is that the life coach is power leveling himself in real life and the more successful he becomes, the better his advice he can give the clients then he can help clients with more challenging issues. (e.g. People would take advice more from a millionaire on how to be rich than someone who is in debt).
I played your game, and I can understand why you were talking about feeling and presentation. Your game was pure art! I really love that mentality and that's something I need to think about when designing the game for future iterations.
If you don't mind, would you please fill this feedback form? I am taking notes on what you said here. We are trying to get more data to weigh in on what we need to prioritize: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfvvJgsOXxi2XKAvV0os9mAo2sF0CcPwq_vXyVR...
P.S. Get Yoked was shared during our marketing research. It's fun to see devs being creative in many ways!
Pretty unique for a card game. Was hard to understand the mechanics at first but I got it after a few minutes. Overall, pretty good. I enjoyed it!
Submitted
Horns and Grace-103, let gooo! New record! 😄 I guess comforting isn’t really my thing. This is a great game!
Submitted
Bounty HunterReally like the vibe and the card game concept. I didn't really get why there were cards with 0 stats, but they felt satisfying to click!
Submitted
Operation: CatdayOh wow! Glad to see an actual coach playing our game! I would love to hear more from you. I know coaches do amazing things for people and I am hoping for this game to highlight those values. If you can expound more about the game feel you mean, please feel free to share and maybe I can incorporate some of those ideas to do justice on what coaches do. Thanks for playing our game!
Looking at the rules before starting the game was really overwhelming but as I started playing it, it kept making more sense. Unique idea!!
Submitted
The Weight of ThreadsGreat concept! Understanding how the score is calculated took me some time, but once I understood it, I made quick progress.
Letting you know, the ui have some bugs – cards and options page get misplaced after clicking (perhaps due to animation issues), and clicking the close button on the “how to play” crashed on the webgl version.
Overall, I liked the concept and it is fun! I think the game has potential.
Submitted
Verdant RelayThat a great idea/concept here. I wonder where you meditate to gain these brilliant idea!Keep it up bro!
Submitted
Ring Of ShadowI love the concept of the game, especially the card mechanic! The music is catchy, and the art style is unique.
As I mentioned, the card system is great, but I think it can be more intuitive. For example, you could add a bar representing the character’s well-being—with Stress on the left and Progress on the right. Or hovering over a card could preview the outcome.
This next idea is optional, but I think it would be fun to have the character’s expression change at certain stress or progress thresholds.
Other than that, this is a great prototype!
Submitted
For When Im GoneThanks for the feedback! We do have more art for character progression. We just ran out of time for polishing. Currently by selecting the card, you can preview the outcome but looks like that isn't clear so I'll try making it so it shows the preview like a plus then green colored value or minus and red colored value when selecting cards to play.
Thanks for the suggestions about the UI, we will definitely note that. We have been exploring ways to make UI more self-explanatory so your feedback helps!
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