Solid game, all things considered, definitely deserved third place at least, but I do have some suggestions I think could improve the game.
- I’m 99% sure something is wrong with whatever algorithm assigns daily events. I had multiple times where the same event happened twice in a row, and by the time I got the cosplay event at all, Ellie was Invisible,
at which point it happened twice.
- Following from 1, I’m sure you already know that Ellie becomes Invisible at some point past 100. There’s also just general jank with the rpgmaker interface. (Level display, weapon select, etc.). Some art (Ellie playing the console at night, car minigame art) doesn’t reflect her current weight stage. Some more night cutscenes/events could also be cool, it feels like the driving portions are 50% of the game, with the minigames being the other half. I’m imagining these just stem from time constraints with it being made for a jam, so they’re all lumped together.
- This is a big one. The minigames really just aren’t fun or interesting enough to justify having to sit through them after every drive. Once you’ve played them once you’ve basically done everything. The car minigame also has insanely janky hitboxes for some reason. I think rebalancing the game to decrease money gain from minigames, but leaving them in as an optional thing to make money or get some other optional benefits could help. There’d then need to be some other way of making money, of course. I think having Ellie join you at the arcade and having it build happiness or affection instead could work. Maybe give an item that builds happiness daily like the consoles after beating a boss in the arcade or something? Maybe an alternate outfit for making it really far into the witch game, which could make playing the minigame all the time more important since you actually need to grind it out to “git gud”. Right now having the minigames happen so often and be your primary source of money just feels like a grind.
- It’s possible for Ellie to outgrow her default clothes, use the diet pill to go down a weight stage, and then she’s just left with no clothes. At this point you just have to fatten her up so she has any clothes to wear at all. This one’s kinda funny.
- The game feels a little too easy, if you’re willing to sit through the minigames every time you’ll never come close to running out of fuel or food. If Ellie’s weight went down over time and you needed to constantly buy food to keep it up, or if the whole money system was revamped and you had to be more deliberate with how you get and spend your money this could improve the core gameplay I think. One idea I have is having “healthy” foods or something that don’t increase happiness or weight, but decrease hunger by a larger amount. Obviously not as much as some of the premium items but they would be your best choice for hunger per dollar, at the cost of not raising, or barely raising anything else. I don’t know how difficult you really plan to make the game, so these could just be your own design decisions, but I think having to choose more often between managing hunger, keeping weight up (if there’s a decay system), and increasing happiness would make it “more of a game”, where you can actually lose without pretty much actively trying. Happiness also feels way too easy to increase. What I’m saying is that I never had to worry about running out of fuel, happiness, weight, or hunger getting too high in my run.
- It’s a bit of a strange feeling to pick up a fat girl game and suddenly be greeted by [[NUMBER ONE RATED SALESMAN 1997]] but alright I guess.
I made a lot of points here so I so want to reiterate that I really liked the game and I’m not trying to tear you down or anything. I think it’s a great concept and I love the way Ellie’s written, and the artstyle in general. Obviously, there’s a lack of content because this was a jam game and so that’s not really an issue, but aside from that, these were just things that stuck out to me while playing.