Thank you for playing, and I'm so glad the cuteness came through.
I played your game earlier and shared feedback. I’d love to hear your impressions of mine too, I’m open to both positives and things that could be improved if you're open to it.
Viewing post in The Patchshop jam comments
Definitely EXTREMELY cute! Me and my friends were amazed by how many awesome characters you created for this jam game. I really liked that there is a little story to it, and each character's personality. Art and also sounds are great!
The hints are all in all good, some made me think more, some were easy to guess, and I think the mix is good- if all were easy or all were hard, it could be boring or frustrating. I also like that there is time pressure to decide. What surprised me, was that for repeat customers I had to remember their first patches sometimes, and I was really glad I did!
I like that there is a lose condition AND two different endings - I failed my first attempt, and on my second try I made it. What the heck - you made great animations there - by the way also cool expressions by the characters depending on my right/okay/wrong choice.
The only thing that stressed me a bit was that I didn't know if I can even still reach the goal, so how many customers/chances will I still have to make enough money? But I don't really have anything bad to say, the only general thing is that it's probably not so replayable, as for my second try I already knew what the characters each wanted.
And that the hints that included night sky and had both moon + star to choose from were hard, and felt a bit unfair (or I just didn't *get* the hint xD) And the one customer that says it's in the details - I felt like I didn't have enough time to look at his details to figure him out. This is all very nitpicky though, especially for a game jam game created in a couple of days.
Great, great job!
(edited comment bc I used the word "great" like 10 times hahaha)
Wow, thank you so much for such thoughtful feedback! I’m really glad you enjoyed the characters and their personalities... that was one of my favorite parts to work on. I hear you on the progress tracking and hint clarity. Those are super useful notes if I polish this more or take the idea further. Replayability is a tricky one for sure, so I appreciate you pointing that out too. I'm a hobbist game designer and have learned quickly it's not easy with all the different things to consider... most of the games I've made this far are not replayable and are either way too hard or way too easy... if you have tips on how to improve in that area, I'm all for it! Thanks again for taking the time to share such detailed thoughts, it truly means a lot 🙂
Yeah, from the games I played so far, this one is among my 2 favorites, if not my favorite overall!
I personally think that not all games need to be replayable, it's fine if they make me happy once or twice. Replayability in this case would probably come from more randomness?
But I'm not sure that would be a good fit, because your characters are so thoughtfully handcrafted and the patches fit their personalities so well. I'd hate to lose that part, I think that's kinda the core here. You could of course also handcraft multiple fitting patches + hints per character, but that means a lot of work.
It could also come from continuing the story and some branching, so then I'd want to explore the other story branches on the next playthrough (also a lot of work, and writing, haha). Btw I also liked customers coming back and learning more about them, even from just a short hint (great writing btw, so hard to communicate story/personality with such short phrases).
The difficulty part is a tricky one, because players feel sooooo differently about it depending on their personal skill. Balancing is one of the hardest parts of game design >.<