itch.io

I really like the sound of this project. I'd like to see where this project goes after the jam is over.

That's actually a really good idea. I'll look into either making color sliders for the two atmosphere colors, or allowing custom hex codes.

Can you provide a link or alternate way to view the GDD? I can't seem to find the dev logs for this project

Excellent

Overall, I like the idea for this project. I think the concept as it is presented would make for a fun and engaging game. I especially like the way that time has been broken down into a resource that is used to perform moves, and the way that this is represented to the player.

I think it would be interesting to see this game in action. It took me a few reads to put together a good idea of what you were trying to explain in your document regarding how time works and how character movement would work (granted I am a bit tired lol). But I think that would become a lot more clear in an actual game setting when the player can see what's going on, as long as some amount of tutorial exists to explain the different moving parts to players.

I have a few concerns regarding the scope of the project. You've divided most of the content into 'things-necessary-for-the-prototype' and 'things-necessary-for-the-release' well enough. I'm mostly concerned about how you plan on using reinforcement learning to train the AI to pick moves. This seems like a fairly involved process that might take a while to implement if you're unfamiliar with how to do it. If this is something you've done before, and know how to implement quickly, and you can estimate roughly how well the AI will turn out, then be my guest. Otherwise, you may benefit from taking some time to look into how this sort of training is generally done in whichever program you're using, and then deciding whether you want to continue down that route, or perhaps instead implement some sort of weighted decision-making algorithm that grades cards based on what the AI thinks it needs to do, and then picks the best choice.

Mainly I would recommend estimating how long you think it would take you to implement the different systems necessary to get this game up and running. If it turns out some of the systems don't totally work by the end of the prototype phase, I wouldn't be too worried. I would also estimate how long you think it will take to draw the art; you could do that by simply drawing one card or UI element, and extrapolating the time to the number of parts you need to make. Ultimately, I think this is for the most part a very doable project.

In regards to the "Outstanding Questions" in your document: you may want to consider first implementing forward-backward-only movement for the prototype portion of the jam (since that seems more straightforward), and then seeing whether a move to an expanded 2D grid would be a good fit for your project later, or if it's one you have time to implement. For that decision, I would take into consideration the way in which you implement attack range. If your implementation would allow a character to hit their opponent directly behind them, and you want to change that but can't do that in an easy way, then you may just want to stay with a linear system. If you're up to the challenge of figuring out all those shenanigans though, it could be pretty fun and great practice to problem-solve.

I hope the project goes well!

I may have gotten wedged under the Barbarossa and just shot at it from there until it blew up...

I really like this game! Neat concept and great execution so far!

Thank you for the detailed report! I can actually comment on a few of the things you brought up:

• The up and down directions being somewhat confusing has been my most common feedback by far. I have a number of plans on how to handle that, some of which are a little silly but should work. I'm also planning on looking into whether I can highlight certain words in the phone call text (i.e. "up" or "down" or "has to wait") to make them stand out.
• The candles actually ward off a different demon that doesn't spawn correctly, a shadow demon that appears under the table the candles are on. I'm working on getting that fixed and working. The demon that DOES appear can be warded off by clicking on it with the book (I was hoping the chevrons on both the book and the demon may point that out).
• So far I've mostly viewed the first playable day as more of a "day 2" kind of thing, so hopefully in the final build (when I have day progression working correctly) I'll have an actual day 1 that isn't as breakneck. Also hopefully having a day to ease the player into the swing of things allows them to examine the stuff in the room more closely.

Thank you! I actually didn't even know in-browser builds were a thing until a bunch of people (including you) used them for the jam. I'll provide an alternate keyset for the online build.

Thanks for the feedback! This is all really helpful because of how detailed you are with the points. I can answer a lot of your suggestions:

• I originally considered mapping turning around to right-click, but wondered if not having a button made it less obvious. That being said I'll definitely implement right-click turnaround, and probably provide a menu option for de/activating the UI buttons.
  
• I also noticed the express trains could hit the backs of freight / locals since they're faster. I'll either slow them down in general, or make them go slower if there's a train right in front of them.
• The pause menu thing is a bug lol
• I can probably rename the locals to something like "the 8 o' clock local", but the issue should also be easier to avoid in the final game because there'll be an analog clock instead that starts at 11:50.
• Real signal boxes do allow you to look at the tracks out the window. I don't know how feasible it would be to implement and still keep the one-click turnaround option, but I'll look into it!
• I've made new 3D models for the different trains, so telling freight from passenger trains should be easier. But if two trains arrive of the same type (i.e. two local passengers), they can only be told apart by their direction. This is sort of on purpose, since I actually do want to make the players pay really close attention to the train announcements (which will be done over the phone in the final version).
• I will eventually make player to pass two trains in the same direction at once, i.e. stopping one train, then stopping another, both requiring a third to go by before they can go. I might even make then stop a fourth train in the other direction if I'm feeling evil >:)
• I wanted to implement the signals on the rail diagram as arrows, but ran out of pixels lol. Redrawing it should be easy though.
• The crash popup screen was ABSOLUTELY added last-minute (as was the entire scoring system, or any of the screens at all). Telling where it happened should be easy, given each piece of track has its own ID of sorts.
• As for an in-game notepad - I'd had an idea for an in-game log for departing trains, but that idea is actually really cool, letting the player type whatever they want onto a pad for note-keeping. I like it!

Also, thanks for the positive notes! I'm having a ton of fun making this game and every piece of feedback is great!

Is it possible to reupload only the "builds" folder as a zip? I think there are some issues caused by the folder path being as long as it is

I think you need to zip the entire build folder with the executable and other files in it