all of the atmosphere arts are sprites. basically images with transparent backgrounds, and they're all white. in runtime, they're tinted by picking the color at the center of the chosen planet. all of these white atmospheres are put into a Resources/ folder in unity so I can just do Resources.LoadAll that folder at the start of the game (which means i can just add atmospheres easily without ever manually wiring them in). I made them by applying various effects to glowing circles in Photoshop. The glow effect is, in fact, post processing. In Unity, if you go to your Render Settings, you can turn on Bloom. I just turned it on, adjusted it to a level that felt right, and that was all. I think I had to put the UI on a World Space/Camera Space Canvas instead of Screen Space to make sure it also got the bloom :)
I didn't play the re-published version (since that would go against the rules of the game jam), so this review is based on what you've published here: I got to like 300 time, but after the first few levels it's quite repetitive. I love the music/sfx and art style, but the gameplay itself wasn't very compelling to me- the jump felt a bit short and so could be frustrating at times, and i found myself never using the whale at all (i tried him once when i got him and decided that i was doing fine with my personal upgrades). I think it would have been a huge improvement just to see a few more enemy types- maybe one tank (can't attack but takes a lot of hits) and a fast enemy (also doesn't attack, but you kinda have to chase it around). The enemies that attacked would stun lock me pretty hard at times, but that wouldn't be a problem if there were different types of enemies mixed into each level. Overall, cute idea and good execution. :)
Super original concept- I thought that was really cool. However, I didn't really understand what I was doing or why. As in, I was shooting the circles, I didn't really understand what the different colors meant, nor the red and blue dots on the edge of my clock. Like you said, the balancing was confusing- is there no winning? It felt like I went into an endless mode at the end that just kept getting harder until I lost.
I love this concept! Simple yet very fun. The levels had the tendency to confuse me really bad, and then as soon as I'd figure it out, I'd feel completely stupid. lol
our biggest mistake last time was not perfecting the balance of our game- we tried really hard to get the "fun levels" just right this time. i'm glad you think it paid off :)
I love a lot of the concepts you had for this game. For example, the characters were cool and them having Pokemon-style natures when you buy them was really cool. But then I got into the first battle, all my guys and enemies went off the screen completely, and then I lost the game, after spending every single gold in the recruitment place before starting the fight. Also, I was pretty surprised by the way the fights were styled- it was completely different from the unique art style of the previous menus. And one quick thing-every time I hit the Esc key it would completely restart my game. This might have just been an artifact of testing but that really threw me off lol. Fingers crossed that you get your tenth vote in time! :)
Super impressed that you got to 9 lol. Also good on you for noticing that beef is more expensive. Once the jam ends and I can update the game, I'd like to add something that tells you the value of each item- I was just wary because I don't want people to try saving the most valuable items instead of saving the most common/useful ones. I have an update developed where you can buy single ingredients (so you could buy a random staple for $5 until you get rice, for example)- adds even more strategy to the game, in terms of balancing your economy and upgrades. The reason there are two dishes is that I was originally hoping to lean more into the "Date" part of the game, where people come to your restaurant for romantic dinners together, which makes it even funnier when one person gets a perfect steak platter and the other receives cream cheese pizza with apple sauce. Hopefully I can make this clearer in future updates. Thanks so much for your great feedback :)
technically different ingredients do have different prices, which changes the value of different dishes. it doesn't matter too much for the player because you're never actually paying differently for them, so the focus is just on keeping the right ingredients to fulfill your orders and stay alive. might add a price thing to the top item preview though, just so it's there
the solution we came up with was a "grocery run" system where you can pay $5 to get a random item of a certain type (e.g. if i'm missing beef, i would pay $5 for a meat grocery run, to get a random meat). this starts out being equal in value (or arguably slightly better than) the restocks, but can't be upgraded the same way the restocks can. i'm glad you had fun :)
Hey! That's really sweet that you showed your friends, and I'm glad you all enjoyed it so much! When you say you'd like to see what ingredient types can replace each other, do you mean inventory categories/filters? Currently, if you click on an item, it tells you the item's category at the top.
Since the game jam closed, I've been working on updates to the balancing, adding new recipes, and adding a "grocery run" system, where you can, for example, spend $5 to get a random kind of cheese if you're only missing that. In play tests, it's felt really good, but I have to wait until the jam ends to update the itch page. If you check on my profile next Friday, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how much better at feels- and I'll continue working on it throughout the week (top priority now is just adding more ingredients/recipes and maybe some more upgrades)
I appreciate your detailed feedback, and my wife will be really happy to hear how much you enjoyed the art :)
Thanks! We'll be putting out a balancing update after the jam ends, if you'd like to give it another shot in a week or so :) glad you had fun regardless!
Hey! Glad you had fun, and you're right, it definitely is a game that you improve at after a few repetitions.
We've had an idea before where you could pay for mini-restocks of specific ingredient types. You might pay $5 to get a single random veggie, or a random staple, etc. This would push the game just a bit further into the "money management" side of things, since you're then sacrificing that money from being able to potentially purchase upgrades, and balancing that with how many stars you think you can afford to lose.
The staples are honestly only in there because it just wouldn't make much sense to have certain things substitutable across a whole category (in the later game, this includes rice, milk, and we were considering some others). We did end up giving them double the drop rate compared to other items, but it still certainly comes down to luck. After the jam is over, we're planning on putting out another update that will shift the balancing more towards 10+ day runs and might add that "grocery run" (buy a single item per category) system.
it is definitely not ur fault, that seems to be the most common grievance by far. we had a team member who was going to spend the last day or so on trying to perfect the balancing, but it was just too little, too late. luckily, it seems like people are still able to enjoy the challenge- the best score i've seen so far was day 10, but i usually lose at day 7 or 8 </3
that's super valid. if i had more time, i was planning on putting out a last minute update to add sound effects and some balancing changes that would have made it easier to get to day 10+. unfortunately, i had apparently misread 1600 CET as 1600 CST and thought i had like 8 more hours lol
we had visited the idea before, but ended up deciding that, with bonus container upgrades, you could effectively do that yourself- trying to balance which ingredients you're keeping. of course, you might not always have every type, but hopefully that keeps the fun aspect of restock randomness. really glad you liked the art and music- the music was mine, and the art, my wife's. :)
Thanks so much for the awesome feedback! I was actually planning on adding side effects but I had confused CET for CST and thought i still had a few hours left... I totally resonate with that experience of feeling like the game flips from super easy to super difficult around day 6. My wife has the current record score, at 10 days. If I had the time, I definitely would have made some slight adjustments so that days 6-10 would be a bit easier. And you made a good point about re-rolling into the same orders (though this has a decently low chance of happening in later levels compared to earlier ones, after you've unlocked more ingredients and recipes). We're glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks again for sharing your thoughts and experience :)
