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Shovel Master: Surprises in the Snow's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Vote on your favourite game! | #107 | 2.577 | 2.577 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I spent so much time digging into it
Fun concept, the digging mechanic was very satisfying!
The game looks nice, the mechanic was fun and worked really well :)
Really fun to play! Loved the snow digging mechanic :)
What a funny game!
Visual
The game looks cool, even though the snow looks a little weird when you dig it, but that's not a big issue. The winning screen is very low resolution though :(
Audio
I love all the audio of the game. You even got me dancing on the winning screen!
Tutorial
Unfortunately not much in game, but you thought of showing "press E to pickup", so big up for that!
Maybe say in the readme.txt that you need to use mouse wheel to switch between shovel and detector. Took me time to realize that.
Gameplay
Fun
The game is fun! I really liked searching for gifts and trying to guess what was in each box. Spoiler: I guessed nothing. Had pretty funny items too :)
Bugs
I didn't encounter any bugs, so that's a great point for me :)
Theme
Completely in the theme :) Good job!
Oh gosh, I didn't realise that I had missed the change tool control out of the readme! Let me update that now, lol.
Thanks for the detailed review, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! If I had a bit more time I'd probably mess around with the lighting and/or shaders to see if I could get rid of that strange square shadow that you get on the snow. I messed up with the end screen because I was still working out how to use static images in Unity (it ended up as a material rather than a raw image), but I worked it out for the presents themselves so next time I'll know better :-)
There's some crazy stuff down there in the snow, I hope my water-logged Game Cube still runs! For real though the lumpy snow digging effect is cool. I think to make it more "game-y" you could give players a time limit, or a limited number of shovel uses to give a bit more of a challenge. Nicely done :)
Thanks for the feedback :-) The stuff in the presents was one of the last things I added so I went a bit wacky with them.
A time limit is an interesting idea - maybe that gamecube really does end up waterlogged if the player takes too long to find it!
The digging was done really well! Had to look up how to dig at first, but after that all was clear. Threw up my hands to the victory song, nice job!
Thanks! I really wish I could have found time to get a controls screen into the game itself because I think a few people have been confused by that - a lesson for next time :-)
No worries, time is always the bane of games. And you learn something new each time, which is great!
Really liked this one. The digging is a fun mechanic.
Win screen got a giggle from me, maybe in future updates lock player movement while digging? Stops people like me just running about digging up the whole map!
Thanks for the feedback :-) Seems like a lot of people just dug up everything, lol. I don't really mind since the dig mechanic was what I spent the most time on, but halting the player movement is a good idea. If I expand on it later then I might also think about adding some 'bad' items that punish you if you dig them up.
Fantastic idea!
Just so everyone who hasn't tried it yet knows, use mouse wheel to switch between tools! I couldn't figure it out for a second because I have dunce brain, but I enjoyed this cute lil game and thought it was pretty charming. Also some good yog content in there
Thanks! I really should have put some instructions in the game itself, but I ran out of time :-)
Same thing happened to me mate, all good!
That victory music though :)
Played it through just to see all of the gifts. Cool project!
I like the way the terrain deforms when you dig, and I love the presents that you find. I think maybe there should be an energy metre or time-limit or something, as I found it was easier to just dig everywhere than use the metal detector. Laughed when I heard the victory music.
Thanks! Digging everywhere seems to be a common piece of feedback; I like the idea of an energy restriction on digging, and the metal detector could probably do with some visual feedback (like a 'Signal Strength' meter) so you're not just reliant on the sounds.
Neat!
The camera is a bit difficult to control, and i found myself just strip mining instead of using the dector.
otherwise not a bad entry.
useless coal... YEAH BABY THIS IS WHAT WEVE BEEN WAITING FOR!!!!
how did you do the digging feature, its really nice :)
Thanks :-) I generate the mesh for the snow surface in code so I can modify the vertices: when you dig it effectively subtracts an upside-down cone from the vertex heights.
The 'use tool' feature doesn't seem to work and also there is no cap for looking backwards.
The detector doesn't have a use function (only the shovel). You're right about mouselook not being capped, though (oops!)
Oh okay, thanks for responding