No worries! You definitely didn't come off as mean at all. It's all constructive, actionable feedback and to me that is far more valuable than simple "I liked this game" (I still like those though lol). Yeah implementing reaction time is a good idea that we've been thinking about for a while, we'll try getting it and see how it goes. I'll definitely message you when the update is out!
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Good game.
Just kidding, but I ain't backing down yet lol, I do have some things to say (just want to say I made it to grand championship but couldn't beat it as I was too slow compared to the other sushi D:)
First of all music slaps as expected, I think it fits the game perfectly now, whatever score you got on audio should've been wayy higher. (one issue though, the music seems to cutoff near the final rounds of a map (did you forget to loop the track or is it a new bug))
Dialogue works like a charm!
Now the early/mid game is very good now, the delay on the sushi felt very nice, for the first time I could actually allow myself to strategize for items...BUT...I think the harder the sushi get and the quicker they go to the center the worse the game gets (at the moment), you just have no time to think, currently when going around the loop I'm holding the arrow keys to move towards the nearest plate the moment the music stops, and that still isn't enough most of the time, sure I could've got better upgrades but there's little I can do as I have no time to get items, I can't change upgrades, it just feels like a dead run, I even had a strategy of allowing myself to get pushed by the ai in the loop because that allowed me to cut them off really easily when we both headed to the center but even that didn't work that much as the ai got harder. Also the new addition of being able to see the offscreen opponents is very nice!
So I think there is a fundamental gameplay issue there HOWEVER I do believe it would not be hard to fix, to spitball some ideas: making items wayy more present (spawn far more, able to collect more at once), allowing Ai to use items, having the loop be bigger so getting to the center is longer might be a way to make items easier to handle if many are being used. (I think the dash ability is currently the best and most satisfying to use ability)
Really good job on such a quick update! I haven't even opened my project yet D:
Good job as always, I hope to see you three again in more jams!
We haven't really gotten to testing the difficulty curve near the end so I was slightly expecting this lol. I'll see if I have one last push in me to make that better. Good to hear that early/mid game is alright though.
The audio thing turned out to be way more nightmarish than we thought lol, it's just impossible to get that thing working properly. We'll try our best but no promises lol.
As for the other suggestions, they were all discussed at a point in the jam but not really sure how the gameplay will look with them. Imagine you're running to the chair and the ai drops a freeze on you lol. Ideas definitely get less black and white in terms of how well they fit the game from here. This is also a fresh release which would require more feedback to see if these things are actually necessary. They're all ideas that we should test if we want to continue development towards a release but that unfortunately seems pretty unlikely at this moment.
Also, that was definitely quick, nice to see you playing the game again lol. Glad you still are going with the long reviews!
No problem, long reviews are just kinda natural to me so I'm not trying I just have a lot to say lol.
Well fair enough on the difficulty, I didn't quite get it right either as you know XD. Sadly I don't have many ideas on gameplay, it is indeed hard to make ai feel fair using abilities as you don't want to create mario kart, the only duct-tape solution is just having a few basic abilities like dash or just placing a small wall down but yeah I can't think of many great things, mind you while writing this I just thought of permanent stage drops, like being able to place down a speed boost pad that stays there the entire map and other such things like dart traps that fire every "n" seconds in a straight line so you want to avoid that path when heading to the center, basically I'm thinking of the game "ultimate chicken horse" a little with this. Of course I hear you may not go forward with this project which yeah I imagine very few people will (me somewhat included but I think my main mechanic has potential so perhaps after some more jams and I've improved my skills I might consider it), so completely understand!
So after you posted this I played the game a little and you were NOT kidding when you said the final levels were hard. My god.
Anyway, to make the difficulty more sensible the enemies now increase their speed after every round, so the first rounds are easier but you're almost certain to use a powerup in the last. I think this change fits the game well and the difficulty curve should be a lot more reasonable now (I actually beat the game for the first time ever lol)
Also the audio is actually fixed now!!!! If it decides to break again I will have problems (no I won't but I will feel sad)
There's a couple smaller changes as well, but I hope this is the last time we need to release small bugfixes to the game.
It's 2 am right now and I'm only writing this because I am so used to the jam sleeping schedule by now that my body is not allowing me to return to normal and mid sleep I got up from bed and onto the computer to write the devlog and this comment.
In conclusion, the game is now verifiably "completable", go check it out and if there's anything else you're welcome to post another reply to this ever increasing chain lol
Perfect! I think the vision you had for this game has finally been made clear and it's pretty dang fun! The pacing of the upgrades is perfect now and I actually have to think a little when choosing now (I still think increasing your speed or lowering opponents speed is a bit too favorable compared to other upgrades or item picks so maybe make your speed increase a little more along with the AI, just to a lesser degree maybe), collecting items is now a huge part of the game and using them is just fun! By the end of the game you've got batman's toolkit you just need to use them the right way but it's still a fun challenge that you can still mess up if you're not careful, the AI is perfect now, their speed is on point for all the rounds. I finally got to use every item and see the benefits of every one of them and I was able to use items to collect even more items, using the chopsticks to block off the circle so I can guarantee that when the music stops I can get the item in front of me was very cool, having to teleport behind opponents within the circle to move further back towards an item was very cool too! Placing down oil in front of me to dash towards the plates in the center was awesome, getting others stuck in sauce was awesome, just everything feels awesome now! There's actually solid gameplay!
I did encounter one softlock however, on the final round of the grand championship two AI got stuck on each other and a barricade on the way to the plates and I had to reset the game, so might be worth having an invisible timer (10-15 seconds) to eliminate whatever sushi that's furthest away from the very center (including player) or perhaps you could just have a r to reset the round button, (glad this softlock happened though as my next run felt a lot different to my first due to the upgrades and items I was able to acquire being different from my first run (I had less player speed but had a higher item amount and had to use them more strategically))
The only thing I felt was missing was being able to see an item description when hovering over it in the inventory (or sidebar I guess) or having it selected, the text that appears when you pickup an item is perfect so I'd just like that to be visible when hovering over or selecting an item in your inventory.
Very glad you updated the gameplay, I thought there was an issue with it before these updates but this really cleared things up now that items are a core part of the game and difficulty is on point! Congrats for making your vision for the game become reality! Feels good to be a free sushi :D (wasn't expecting the ending music to have a unique track too! (that's also based on the main theme which is cool))
We are aware of the strange two sushi softlock. There is a restart button however (minus, -). No need to worry about missing that lol
I do agree with you on the item description in the bar. We have to add so many different things just to make sure the people understand what everything does which to us is basically second nature at this point lol. We can look into having the top left thing show up on hover.
That aside, I am so glad you are having so much fun with the game lol. Seeing this much praise for the gameplay feels great when it has been a core issue with the idea from day one. I think I can now officially rest easy knowing that the current version has the exact gameplay feel we were looking for from the very start. This probably is the best spot for us to leave the game in the meanwhile, I may look into implementing the hints but other than that this should be it. I'm happy to say that Sushical Chairs has become a game of creativity, enjoyment, narrative, artwork and audio. Glad you managed to stick through till the end! (for now)