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?
Viewing post in Life Coach jam comments
Thanks 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!