I think I caught a soft lock on my first try - I missed somehow red berries and no more red bushes could be spawned developer needed to think about this kind of situation and show game over or think about some recovering mechanic. Second thing that happened with - I just forgot about feeding Beary while was dived deep into main goal. Some sound clues about Beary's hunger coming to the end would be great.
Hard to believe that it was made solo in 9 days... So experienced dev. I agree with some previous commentators that - this game should be in Steam. Nice job!
You are right that some kind of note taking should be implemented and game tests showed it too but I wanted to stick to original concept of "retro" game. But future versions will definitely have it in some kind.
Cool and very original concept! There is some bug that is not allowing to get fully to the right with one press and I thought it's impossible and it made me close the game and read your game's page to understand what to do. But when I understood and got to the gameplay - I was shocked how interesting and engaging it was. Also I really liked the "AHA" moment when I begun to remember ingredients by associations not by visual differences. "Aha! Ok, tentacles, then pineapple, alien crossbow. Got it!"
Without considering that there is no settings and sounds were too loud on my system settings when I launched - music track ended and never begun again :( With music this game plays x2 times better, so I got disappointed when realized that music is not looped.
Cool cool cool concept! Sadly lacks polishing to be PERFECT for the jam but still very good entry! Your game could be a great mini game inside something big.
On my system the sounds on the start were so loud I needed to turn down volume through Windows sound mixer. For future games - my advice is to think and test your games on different computers with different people or , what's even better, add settings with at least sound/music volume sliders. Good luck on future projects!
I wish I would have such a great team of developers to make that good looking and polished games in a week. Only one minus of the game that I see - is genre, that is very niche.
To be honest... by cover/logo picture I was skeptical about your game but when I begun to play - I was charmed by it. Well polished, good amount of features and gameplay as for a jam game. I also think because of your visual style you could also tie a 3rd wild card to your game. I had awesome experience playing your game.
I also wanted to add dialogues so bad but I knew that I will need to sacrifice something in place. Doing this project alone in a week was already a tough task. Good I had music and sound assets. But anyways - dialogues planned and will be implemented in future.
I wanted to make this game challenging not just a math formulas: ingredient1 + ingredient2 = goblin etc. Ingredients don't change their effects/aspects and one of the hints on Day change screen says: "*By adding ingredients to a pot you taste and open one of it's aspects*" :)
One of the hints on the Day change screen answers your question/confusion: "*The more blood you keep for the foraging the more ingredients you will find*" so I made 1 liter to be always with a player to prevent his frustration to have no ingredients at all.
Yes you are right, but for this version without proper directed game loop I came to the mind that random customers will be a good self balancing thing. If you can't serve everyone perfectly - less customers will come on next day and you can prepare to them with full hands and make money. Same goes with ingredients - less customers = more blood for foraging = more well brewed drinks = more reputation = more customers = reputation loss = less customers... infinite self balancing loop :)
The "main" goal was calculated by the results of tests that's my family and friends provided, so I saw and knew that it's totally achievable as for new player same as challenging for player who played previously.
I can't promise to give you a chance for testing in near future but please add me on discord for future communications! @blindchaospanda
Cool concept on everything = ingredient. Haven't figured out even one single prefect potion tho. Game lacks tutorial imo at least for first potion. Something like, "I had something *item_name* in the house, and *item_name2* in the garden. This two ingredients would perfectly much the needs of the customer". Very good potential and I'm glad to read that you are planning to continue to work on this game. Good luck! P.S. This Jam made me to really think about pushing my game forward too. It needs total redesign (as I am not an artist) and additional features. I would be happy to see your review too!
Visual have some kind of charm but (for me personally) looked unpleasant, ingredient icons too small for a cupboard that is on full-screen. Refining stations forces a player to click on everything to finally understand what to do with them.
I made like 5 restarts before receiving a recipe without purple "leeches?" because I couldn't find them in the cupboard - bug?
Options/settings - wasn't working for me, looks like button is just a placeholder.
Lack visual polishing and QOL features but concept is great for a jam!
- Love - that author putted into the game. Interactive menu, character choice, smooth moving of objects, hand drawn sprites, object collisions and responsiveness on character movement.
- Responsive controls
- Understandable game loop
Disliked:
- Not much content
- Even with such amount of content game consists bugs. I wasn't able to build more than 3 farms and 2 brewing stations.
-Same as one of the commentators mentioned Tomatoes bugged once and I was not able to do anything with 3 tomatoes in my inventory, so I just sold them.
- Settings. At least sound + music sliders. You even have "Settings" button but it is not working (or was it only for me and it bugged?).
Looks like author had not enough time because potentially this could be something bigger with multiple and may be even more complex production chains and end goal. Good luck and keep improving, I felt something warm inside me while was playing your game <3
I really love how you implemented the recipes! With a little bit of testing and polishing it could become a nice management game. By testing I mean - not for bugs but for small QOL features for the player. One example: I made 1 of each potion that Goblin mentioned before Day 1 and couldn't serve even 1 customer. Solution: make Goblin suggest a player to make a few of each potions or make game count approx. customer/potion count for day. Good entry overall.
I like minimalistic style graphic, I like how you prevented soft-lock - that player always makes wood gathering and rock gathering stations firstly. But...
If I would be testing the game I would point on some problems instantly (after 30 seconds of gameplay):
- No indication that resource gathering begun (at least "+1" disappearing text near the resource list)
- I placed planter on top row and planting menu opened off-screen
- Station menus can't be closed
- Upgrades can be purchased instantly and maxed out.
Good game but by doing VSurvivors-like game you missed the main hook - build creation mechanic. In your game - player can press any upgrade and become stronger without thinking about combinations/synergies/etc. I as a rogue-like/lite fan disappointed in lack of content and actual gameplay.
Cozy graphics, good sound and music choice and BIG thumbs up for a controls re-binding possibility I love when devs think about such thing as settings and get them seriously.
My 3 years old daughter enjoyed watching me playing it and even tried to play herself! <3
I like math, I really enjoyed playing it before opening Hexapple (because at this point game forced me to google hexadecimal value of F) I would like to have some EASY in game possibility to open/learn it by playing, not googling. When I opened second location, I'm sorry but, I closed the game because - again, it forcing me to google and secondly I realized that I will need to move ingredients back and further again and again to find right combination for EACH goblin. I would not quit playing if there would be some in-game mechanic that would allow me just to get any of the opened ingredients in cursor position to at least skip the moving part and focus on thinking/trying/combining. Conceptually I see it as one of the goblins becomes charmed and works as a familiar for you and harvests ingredients for you. I think tha game would become something even more enjoyable if it would be tested by more different people! Good luck!
First of all, my eyes hurt badly when I launched the first level. You thought about many different settings to gain accessibility points, but you didn't include an option to disable filters. Similar to other players' experiences, my jumps weren't registering at crucial moments (it seems the sphere is sometimes not considered 'on ground' even when it is). Also, I soft-locked myself by pressing 'F' on the first potion, which forced me to restart.
I really like the twist on the Jam theme, I haven't seen any dye-brewing games yet. I needed some kind of hint button to tell me which color to start with or which color to add next. The game could have some really good gameplay features, like being able to dye an object after brewing the color.
Nice entry! I would love to see what features game was planned to has. For next games please think about settings to let player at least set sound/music volume.
Guys, my suggestion (for future) is to not waste even 10 seconds on implementing unnecessary jump but stick to the games main features and enhance them! I wish this game would be with more mechanics/features. I like that you had a courage to try 3D project for this jam!
I wish colliders and overall level design would be better. I completed the whole game, but it was frustrating sometimes to stuck between trees where the gap is visually bigger than player. In some places you have straight line of trees (what obviously is the "wall") and in some places there is strange gaps that looks like a passage but it's not, what makes you to do mistakes and play one more extra day. Music isn't annoying what is good. Lacks polishing I would say but overall - fine.
Yes art needs to be re-drawn by the hand of artist not a coder that first time opened Aseprite :D I'm planning to find artist and develop the game further!
Thank you for trying it out and for the review. I have soooo much ideas what to add/implement, so I'm going to develop this game further. For this Jam I focused on MVP, bugs and current mechanic polishing.
Thanks for trying it out and for your feedback. I really like what this game became and I'm planning to develop it further. Had no time for a dialogue system for a Jam version of the game so I was focused on bringing MVP.
I think author chose to make too big game for a jam. Could be a good entry but looks like author drowned in scope creep.
To get to the actual gameplay I needed to scale up the browser page, after which I could get to the settings and set game to fullscreen to be able at least start to play. Godot is tricky in screen settings when exporting to web, and needs to be tested a lot on different browsers, systems and screen sizes - it's a tip for the future projects!
Great great great entry. Played till the end and have a feeling of a well spent time. I won't make it break your all 5 star rating - but I wish there would be more music tracks. My favorite for this jam!
Cozy game, but waiting actually MINUTES! for a tea to be prepared... you needed to think about FUN effect more. Good entry but this game could be potentially something more bigger/deep.
Papers, Please! and That's not my neighbor combined. Really cool idea. Played 3 times to finally find the 4th ingredient. This game have potential to become something bigger, think about scaling it somehow!
Thanks for trying it out. Ingredient aspects and races' likes/dislikes was intended to be memorized or written by the player self as in old/retro games when you bring notepad together with you when you launch a game.
