Honestly the game is solid, the art is nice, the music is nice, there is a lot of potential with the concept.
General:
- It's decent game about fitting as much as possible into a tight space using tetraminos. This is the main core loop of the game, and it succeeds in that part in its execution. I mean there isn't much new for me to talk about placing tetriminos themselves since its familar design and easy to pick up. Although... I'll continue more in depth in Strategy here since it's a bit,
- You already know, um tutorial would be nice.
- (I'm still weirded out that mouse scroll isn't rotate the block, since usually rotation analog usually associated with rotation in the game).
- The music is nice with the feeling of being in a chaotic bakery. The strings are my favorite through the song, but the i guess the "wind/flute/clarinet" is a nice melody. The change in music as well when losing is a nice touch with the kitchen timer going down. And the game over not interrupting the song and only making it quieter and slower is a nice touch.
- The art is gorgeous. The dog is cute, (although its a tad bit blurry) and the baker is nice as well. The little food in the tetraminos, the bakery overall around it. The nice ui. Its well-polished, with chalkboards, a checkerboard background, muffins at the side... its nice. Also, the red surrounding as you are in danger, a nice touch.
- The theming is just right it's well done and makes sense as a singularity of food if you will kek.
Strategy (more indepth review):
I did check and test on what the description said along with the gameplay and here are my observations
- The main placing mechanic I guess is random and not predetermined? Hmm....
- There is a bit of leeway with the space conditions (okay...).
- Score is a separate system with the lose condition, expected...
- And there is a timer that cycles and tells when each round ends.
- There is an initial increase in size but tapers off eventually...
- "It's decent game about fitting as much as possible into a tight space using tetraminos." Is how I interpreted the main fun factor.
With that in preparation... comes the statements.
- The time constraint and leeway with the score, made the game more of a place as fast as you can (with the really well-made auto-placer, but I don't think that's the real issue), as you aren't incentivized to make the space more compact, and the timer forces you to place as fast as your can. (Quantity > Quality) so the balance is off.
- Idea 1: I kind of wished it also affected the "space" score where the lose condition matters, as you can start off focusing on certain regions and leave others to be done last as time ran out. As, the special regions do well in regard in keeping score diverse and can be a force of encouraging the player to focus on specific regions... why not have it for the space aspect as well.
- Idea 2: Something basic as making the space constraint tighter as mindless spam most of the time will not get you anywhere, and slightly counternerf the timer to adjust the difficulty would cause a similar dynamic of focus and spam... Which I do like as they both have different feels.
Or any other ideas you guys may think of, its just one of many after all.
Anyway, yeah I like the game kek. Thank you for submitting to the game jam!
