Nicely done! From a purely FTUE point of view, having the very first item be e.g. at the centre of the screen, so that you have to move there would probably be good :D I spent a little too much time realizing I could actually move to the left (since it looked like it was the edge of the screen, but it wasn't!). Once I figured out the mechanic it was a fun time!
I know there wasn't any time during the jam for it, but this could've been a really fun semi-stealth game, where the goal is to steal items from oblivious humans in their natural environment (so e.g. stealing the cooking pan off the stove) - the challenge could be to wait until the humans turn their backs and then pick it up. Even just having the items in their natural environments though would've been super cool - and worked a little better with the 'exploration' theme.
Still, fully workable, and good work on the descriptions!
Viewing post in Earthly Souvenirs jam comments
Nice acronym there :P didn't know it beforehand. I agree the left movement was a bit of a gotcha thing especially for the hidden item on the very left. In the end we tried to resort to subliminal messages to do that tutorial part (placement of the sun after moving to toothbrush etc). :D turns out our mind control ability might have been insufficient. It was also brutal that game completion required all 8 of 10 items without showing any UI for found items e.g. 2/8 or item locator UI next to ship.
Our shortcoming was to provide secondary challenging game mechanic like you said. Stealth would have been amazing. We focused on finishing this time since it's devastating not to finish and some parts of crafting a good gaem were left out. The game design portion is very important. The items being in more believable setting would have been super cool (and making sure they pop out from their surrounding). Great idea.
If we have bigger team next jam we'll definitely try to improve on these kind of things. Originally we made the game for phones. That control scheme took about 1-2 hours of dev time.
I'll remember to pat Neo on the head on the descriptions once again. And thank you for this detailed report!! Very helpful.