There’s a theory there, but it was a lil too frustrating for me
Character moves too slowly for day 6. And by Day 8, I was getting shoulder barged out of the way, while the customers got upset at me. Added to by the fact you had to return books in an exact order, AND you couldn’t return them from the back of the shelf. Overall, it feels like you’re just meant to fail.
Also, awkward if not fullscreened. Some of the colours were similar, but icons too small :o
Thank you for your comment! And your thoughts on the game
At some point I wish we added some sprint mechanic too ;} We will be better next time!
"Getting shoulder barged out of the way" was our plan and we laugh in evil every each time someone get bumped in the RetroBlock. Wuahahah!
"You had to return books in an exact order" - you don't! At this point we decided we were evil enough and added cycle between items. It's in a tutorial.
"You couldn’t return them from the back of the shelf" - you cannot, correct :
"Awkward if not fullscreened" - there should be a button on the bottom right of a game to enter fullscreen, If you didn't have it... Ooogh! Sorry. Something went wrong.
It's supposed to be challenging to make it all the way to the end of day 10 :)
But it's a little less challenging, if you know that you can cycle your held items with 'Q' and 'E', so you don't have to return items in order.
Also... I mean this in the nicest way possible, but this is a wildly critical comment given the state of your submission. XD
Fantasy and Romance are the colours I mixed up the first time I played!
wildly critical comment given the state of your submission
Absolutely. Mine’s a complete trash fire. But this feedback wasn’t meant to insult, or say someone’s game is better than the other. It’s from the view of a player or play tester. And it’s what might be improved - from my point of view. Which, again, is not perfect, or universal. It’s one data point. Feel free to discard it. Having said that - this is what my experience was, and what you may or may not want to take in to account if you wanted to work further on the project. Or to inform future projects.
I know mine has barely any “gameplay” I’m working on it, over time :)
Your one, the resolution didn’t work very well on smaller screen sizes (will also apply to phones). The colours weren’t that distinct - someone who’s colour blind might have more difficulty. And icons for genres were too small - you might have posters, or “labels” or floor panels or …… etc that might smooth the gameplay. Or you might not. It might work better for diehard fans to leave it like this.
Yup. Totally didn’t catch that you could “cycle” with q/e. From the initial playthrough, I think I got WASD, and interact, and that’s it. Might be helpful to dynamically pop up small letters ‘q’ ‘e’ by the sides of the character’s head - Or by the book stack - once it gets over size 2. OR not. Again, it’s your game, and your decision. It might take too much screen real estate. It might not be diagetic UI. …. etc. I’m saying what I had difficulty being communicated / intuitive. Maybe other people don’t have that issue. Maybe it’s “not worth fixing” given time constraints.
And yeah. There is no sprint. The AI moves faster than you. It seems like you’re meant to aim for “perfection” I found this incredibly frustrating from a gameplay perspective. You might think this is hilarious. That’s your prerogative. I mean, there are rage games out there - Getting Over It. This doesn’t quite have that vibe. Nor does it quite work as a power fantasy for me. Again, one data point. Game may or may not be for me. Or maybe I didn’t play the game in the right context: with other people around.
World’s your oyster man :)
Be free!
I appreciate the follow up! And for the record, I have absolutely no issue with the criticism :) I am genuinely happy to hear what players struggled with, or suggestions for improvements. And a number of things you brought up (shelving from the other side, or showing UI interaction prompts for example) were things I questioned during development, we just simply didn't have time to play around with some ideas or make adjustments.
I personally disagree with your complaint about movement speed, in my opinion that's where the challenge comes from as you get to later days. Customers are all unique characters with individually set stats. And we only have 4 customer "stats" to work with, so naturally when trying to present a variety of customers and introduce some difficulty scale, some are going to be faster than the player. We tried to balance customers with higher speeds so they also have lower min/max shelf visits (what leads to them mixing up shelves before going to the register), and made customers with higher combined stats not show up until later days.
For sure, the game would be easier if the player was faster than all of the customers, but I don't personally think it would be more fun.
It's in no way supposed to be a "rage game", but it is supposed to be a bit of a challenge to make it the full 10 days. If everyone beat it on their first try, I would personally want to increase the difficulty. Again, just my opinion, but I think you should have to learn better strategies, and improve how you do some things before "mastering" a game (of this genre).
Just for a bit of perspective on that side of things, it is actually quite easy to not bump into customers, once you know to be careful in front of the return box, the paths customers move along, and that you can use the indents in the decor shelves on the left to avoid traffic.
All that said, I have no issue hearing that you had difficulty running into customers, or that you have other suggestions to make. I was simply sharing that I find it "wildly critical" that you would submit a game that is incredibly unfinished, with the same team size, state that you didn't have time to get further than you did, and then post a comment that included nothing but critiques of our submission.
Again critiques are fine, and even encouraged. But given the experience that you clearly had with your submission for the jam, I just find it odd that at no point did you say anything along the lines of a compliment, beyond "There’s a theory there" (which I guess is almost a compliment lol). You didn't comment on any aspects of it that were polished, that you felt were well done, or even acknowledge that we were able to put together a fully working game loop.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, and have the right to share it, and conduct yourself however you choose. But I find it interesting that you would point out so many pieces of constructive criticism, and failed to mention a single positive about the submission.
But genuinely, you do you, the world’s your oyster, be free! <3
