Thanks to everyone who participated in the jam! This was by far our best jam yet! Great games and so much great feedback!
Special recognition to our top commenters for commenting on every, or nearly every, game submitted to the jam!
Thanks for playing and the feedback.
We will be refining all of the tools and doing more balancing on the game. We certainly prefer to give the player choices in how to play. allowing them to choose the order they do things in and offering some freedom in how to deal with challenges.
For this game we plan to keep it simpler. It will all be within the dungeon environment. We are thinking about a larger game in the future with an overworld, and in that one we would add additional features like shops, and possibly crafting. For now, the only inventory planned is the tool selection and the display of consumable quantities. In the future game we may look at it further, but the style we are going for tends to have this limited inventory, rather than picking up lots of items. We will keep it in mind and if enough people want it we will see what we can do.
This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just over a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least one other submission.
I'm also acknowledging that you submitted this very early in the jam submission period, and your updates look to have been done in June, with nothing done for this jam in July. All I see from you for this jam is a single comment below acknowledging the feedback you have received. Please take the time to play and comment on a submission and help others as they have helped you.
This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just over a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least one other submission.
I see that you responded to one of the comments below 3 days ago, and did rate 1 game earlier today. I had hoped that meant you'be be leaving a comment soon as well, but as we approach 24 hours until end of voting I just went through all the submissions again and do not see any comments from you. Please leave some feedback on one of the games.
This jam is all about helping each other out by leaving comments with feedback. I've looked over the submissions and did not see any comments from you on other submissions. The voting period has just over a day left. Please take some time to play and leave feedback on at least one other submission.
I see that we also had to remind you in the May jam. Your devlogs comment on being busy and that you have not had much time to work on your project or get much done. If you do not have the time to be active in the jam, then please do not submit to the jam.
When submitting, only "Improvement Summary" is required. If you don't have a devlog ready, just leave the field blank instead of putting "Coming Soon".
I started by resetting so any past saved data would not interfere.
Having an intro cinematic is a nice touch, though the shaking feels a bit overdone. It was short enough that it wasn't too bad, but it could use with a bit less.
In the intro area after talking to people I am pressing space to end the dialogue and it is still shifting me one tile to the right. I much prefer the dialogue ending and leaving me on the tile to decide where to go. I see that you removed the dialogue for the person next to the traps that trigger a short time after you switch. It was good to have info on how they work, so just moving them 1 tile to the right, or getting rid of the moving 1 tile after dialogue, and restoring the info dialogue would be better.
After the time delay traps I went on the moving arrow section during the day time, and it pushed me off the path onto the brick-like area. I seem to be able to wander around anywhere currently, going to and from the path as I please.
I found a blue key. At first it felt like the game had locked up. Then it caused the camera to start moving to up and right, with the display quickly starting to have a tearing effect where the same image overlapped itself with a slight offset, while the camera was clearly still moving. The there was some blue on the screen and a blue effect in a spot, but I could not see the thing it was focusing on under the overlapping image. When it finished it went back to where I was, and the image was normal again.
The next blue key had the same lockup look for several seconds, then a nearby bit of blue, before the same message as the previous gave.
The game feels more jerky and laggy that I recall it being before, even when walking on the path.
The 3rd blue key scrolled over to the central area where I could see a blue tile with 2 blue keys on it and made one disappear. Aside from being a bit jerky, no real issues with this one.
I'm acknowledging that there is a lot of gold and yellow in the collectables, and the daytime world. It might be good to change some of the collectables to be a bit more distinctive.
I've explored around a bit. I've "completed" 42%. I have 1151 coins, 78 keys, and 35 of the ring/donut shaped coins. I did occasionally run into spots that blocked me, but they were easy to get around, and I pretty much had free reign to complete the game bypassing all of the challenges.
Obviously, my first recommendation would be to fix the maps so the player has to stay on the path/proper play area. I'd also suggest working on the jerkiness, The basic movement especially needs to feel smoother, but the laggy feeling was really noticeable when the camera was scrolling for the blue keys. I'd also tone down the shaking. Maybe it felt worse because of the lag/jerkiness of the game, but it was definitely more than I like. It also sounded like the background music had 2 track overlapping. Maybe that was a result of wandering off the path. Maybe it was just the music. I went back to the menu and pressed play again and it sounded better, but I did not play for long.
The addition of the tutorial is good. I like the name of "Hatalogue" for it. I would recommend improving the contrast on the first screen that says to click on the hat. The pale background with white text can be hard to read, especially for small text. Either black text or a darker background would help.
As you travel we will be expanding the Arm the Resistance quest to include more towns, and possibly more item types. Some towns may even ask for more of the same items as the situation changes. I also think the quests will feel better once you are getting rewards, and not just dialog. I want to expand the Traders' Depots to also include messages from the towns, with updates about the situation. People in Slimerise can send messages about how you are doing compared to other groups. At each town the main quest progress bars will be updated with the current stores of the town based on what others have provided, but also what has been used. We are thinking that at a certain point of progress Slimerise will start to distribute some of what it has to help nearby towns as well, so the town's overall stores can also go down, even as you are supplying them.
The main reason for currency is that as you travel further you will be leaving the area inhabited by Slimes and slowly move towards more human inhabited lands, eventually needing to travel through the lands of the invaders. That last area is going to bring plenty of its own challenges, as there is no way a group of Slimes would be able to enter an invader town without standing out. We have ideas for how the Slimes can use magical means to conceal their appearance to enter the towns and learn about what is happening, but interacting there with shops, inns, and taverns, would require using the invader's money. Some interactions might even involve paying bribes, though I suppose special items could work for those. It is certainly going to be a gameplay fun vs realism debate as we flesh out those interactions.
I like the idea of Slimes that can transmute/convert/craft items from others. That may just make an appearance in the game! I've been thinking on a crafting system, and this would be a great way to add it, while sticking with keeping the various Slime clans as a core part of the game. We need to be careful with feature creep, but I have ideas for how this may appear later when we have time to look into it. I'm thinking an alchemist clan that can convert raw resources into others, and a crafter clan that tales resources and makes them into finished items.
We are looking at adding an additional section to the compendium for items with more details on them. Some of the compendium sections will add more details as you play and interact. We will have to see if that works for the items, or if we just give all details to start.
Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback!
We are also classic JRPG players who hoard items. It amused us that we decided to create a game centered on using consumable items, when we like to hoard normally. Yet we found that it ended up working decent;y, even if we do still like to hoard things that are limited quantity, and expect many players will do the same with things they don't know are rare. We are thinking about adding a rarity to the items for players like us, along with possibly a new Bag for storing items you want to keep and not accidentally use in combat or the Traders' Depot.
With the status effects being added we are hoping to give Tanko a bit more use as a support character, giving some stat buffs. We certainly need to do a bit more work on balancing items so that the higher level items do feel more useful, but also leaving lower lever ones as reasonable when you just need a lower power attack or heal.
We initially added the quest to feed your village to fit the story. Then it grew and we added the Arm the Resistance quest as a way to make it not feel too boring just dumping items back to the one town throughout the whole game. With the recent updates it will be much easier to implement then next part of this, where the amount you Arm them will have an impact on the rest of the game. We've debated adding shops, and even started adding money, but the Traders' Depot makes it feel like shops would not really benefit the game, especially once we add in the rewards from completing quests. We may still add money, as it would make more sense for inns to require payment, especially as you leave the forest, but we still need to work things out so it doesn't feel wrong collecting a ton of money only to use a small amount for inns. Shops would help, but we need to decide what to have in them. It could just be allowing you to buy regular items so you can stock up on the ones you like the most. Maybe allowing the player to send money back as part of the quests, so the towns can buy what they need. I think this last would not work as well without also including other uses of money, as it would feel like an extra step for something that could be automatic since you only need a small set amount of money for each inn otherwise.
Yeah, we did ramp up the difficulty on that last fight and give the powerful items for it to compensate, as normally by the time you got there you would have more items of the proper level from normal fights. Glad the healing worked well for you though.
That final fight does need a bit of reworking on the amount the enemies heal. We are planning to adjust how often they can use their healing abilities to make it not feel so long, at least for the demo.
Glad you like the difficulty progression. We will be reworking it a bit as the game grows. It feels like it may be a bit too fast for the longer game being planned. We currently aim at having around 15 towns, with some camps, and maybe dungeons, along the way. Ideally we plan to have some side quests that will open up additional paths you can take to other places that are not on the main path, though we will see how that works out. The goal is to have at least 10 hours of gameplay. We don't want the party to grow so fast that it feels like you are constantly growing out of things shortly after getting them.
Part of the long intro was from comments that we did not do enough character building to draw the player in. We plan to break the current intro up into a prologue before the main story, that is optional. It may also be used as a free promo to learn about the world. At that point it will likely grow, allowing you to interact with more of the town. We are even thinking about adding mini-games as part of the celebration, thinking about the opening to games like Chrono Trigger and Wild Arms (well, opening after you complete the 3 individual bits). The main game would then start after the inn, as you are getting ready to leave town, with the Leader Leo dialogue being shortened and moved there.
I'll take a look at Golden Sun. Several Dragon Quest games also have really long intros.
We plan to work on the UI for showing power of abilities soon. While we were working things out we didn't want to show in-progress info that was changing as we tried to decide how to do it. I think that our current system of using multipliers on the abilities is what we will stick with. It allows even they lower level ones to scale with the character and remain useful later on, even if they do less. They will also require less AP/lower level items to use. I think the AP based ones will remain relevant longer, while the non-AP ones may become obsolete, unless they have status effects or other secondary reasons for using. I am thinking about ways to allow the player to adjust the in-combat icons to allow us more space for adding more. Some may get grouped. We may add a way to scroll. We may also add an option to hide those you don't want showing in combat, or even rearrange them. That will likely be added later after we build out more of the game and start to run out of space, but we expect we will.
As we add more art we are updating the towns. We will take another look at them and see about adding a bit more distinction. As you leave the forest you will also be seeing more distinction as we plan for each area and groups to have their own styles. We only added the Slimes living underground fairly recently. Before that all the buildings were wooden looking. As we add art for the other races in our world, Wildemore will be getting some of them added in, representing its diverse population.
Weather is something we are thinking on. One of the kids started on a system for rain, and we also found a shader for it. We need to do a bit more review on how we want to implement it. We are debating if we will make it have an impact on gameplay. I suppose that using it for towns could be a good first use.
I'll take another look at the screenshots. I wanted to show off everything I could, but there are so many menu based elements that they do overwhelm. I added a screenshot of Slimerise. I took it before for something and really should have added it sooner. The screenshots do make the game look too menu heavy, when most action is the combat.
I'll take a look at the words per line. Currently, a lot of the design is centered around making everything fit, while still being readable. After we add all the features we will be taking another look and seeing how best to optimize the layout.
My partner loves world building. We have so much in mind for the world, and have been struggling to figure out how to best make it fit into the game in a way that makes things feel better and not forced or in the way. The Compendium was the best we came up with. Glad that the current systems are working well enough.
Good to hear you are not having any performance issues. This last set of updates changed a lot of code, and I took that opportunity to do some additional cleanup.
Thanks again for the great feedback! This gives us a lot to think on and will certainly help lead to a better game!
I like the recent update. There is now enough in the game to get a feel for the mechanic. I was able to get through to the end. It took me a few deaths at the start to get a feel for the controls and movement, but then it felt fine. The level layout was a decent amount of challenge for a short jam demo showing off the game mechanic. I'm used to air dash and double jump, but can't think of playing another game with an air glide, and only being able to do the second jump from the glide state. It is an interesting mechanic, and with good puzzle design can be fun. I would add other abilities so the gameplay doesn't get too repetitive, but this does feel like a good mechanic to be part of a platformer's base set of abilities. I like the umber of checkpoints you have, especially for an early demo. It lets the player do more experimenting, without needing to redo the whole level, even if it is short. A bit more explanation/tutorial would be good, but this was decent for such an early state.
We tried posting one of our games on CrazyGames and when looking things up for it they recommended the URL restrictions. It does mean needing to maintain a list of all the possible domains for anywhere you want to host, but once setup it shouldn't be too bad. For basic jam games we don't currently bother, but it is on our list to add to our template so it is always available when we need it.
Having extra pieces that make testing easier is often good, especially early on. We have plenty of debug extras in our games, with only some of them exposed for testers who know where we hide them (5 quick clicks on Development Preview to unlock and 1 more to open the unlocked menu). While trying to figure out the camera stuff I agree that the 2 camera approach is a good one. I can see how having both be cameras can make it easier to compare things when the math doesn't seem to be working. I'd so much rather be able to switch between the views and see how they compare than just look at the math and end result. You seem to be on the right track, experimenting with different ways to do things to find what works. Personally, the only issue I have with the current system is the small hops interfering with my jump timing as I approach an edge.
I agree with being prepared, and these days having an EULA is reasonable for a full game. Maybe keep it in game, but put it as a button to view it. Godot with GDScript does have an issue with being easy to steal as a non-compiled language. Using custom export templates with encryption does make it harder, but only so much. We do use the custom export templates option for all our games now. Those who are doing the ripping off of games aren't really going to care about any EULA agreements. Most are also likely going to be in places where any legal action will be difficult to take, and with or without an EULA, trying to get big companies like Google, Apple, or Steam to care about an indie claiming their game was stolen can be a pain. Each game having its own encryption key, and web exports using URL restrictions, seem to be among the best current options for indie devs. It won't stop those with the resources, but it will make it require more effort, which might stop some. Having a license agreement in the game is reasonable, and is something we should think of adding as well. We do have a basic copyright on the About/Credits page, but adding a bit more somewhere may help should any legal issues arise. Personally, I'm not ready for adding something that pops up on load, but having it from the main page might show up in the future in our games.
Honestly, the movement test's slippy movement was what drew most of my focus. I just retried it, and the tilt didn't seem too bad. The tilt was only odd in that I am controlling the camera with the mouse, so it changing was just an annoyance that was then adjusted as need by the mouse. Not doing 3D myself, why do you need 2 cameras for the workaround? Wouldn't you just have one outside the player that has its position adjusted to match the player's position every frame? Even with the dual (1st/3rd person) view options, I would think that you could have a single camera that tweens between the 2 positions as a smooth transition effect, rather than 2 dedicated cameras. Even with 2 cameras, Wouldn't they just have preset offsets from the player's position while moving with the player? Some day we will learn more about the 3D stuff. The kids really want to play around with it more, but it opens up so many additional details to work with, that we are sticking with the 2D stuff we know for now, and trying to have a solid base for the many aspects of game dev before opening a new can of worms.
Best of luck to you as well!
Glad to help. A lot of this was due to being tired and just letting random thoughts take on a life of their own and lead down trails I'd not considered before.
Our jam is all about feedback as the project grows, so don't feel that you submitted too early. This is meant to help each other at all stages, not just as you near final release. Even in an early state it can be important to hear about where people see the game going, or how it feels to them. If it doesn't align with the dev's vision, then it may be time to step back and consider why it comes off that way, and if it is an underlying aspect of the game, or simply the early state of the game. It can be annoying sometimes when you know that you need to add things so people can see the intended vision, but other times it can be an eye opener and help your refine the vision early on to save you from a hassle later. Itch is a great place to share early, in development work.
Having sleeping habits and personality does sound neat, but I don't think it is need now. There are more important aspect to work on now. Maybe later it can be looked at. I am a night owl, It is currently 5 AM here and will be a while before I get to bed. Still, my comments on the game where more about the change impacting gameplay and how I had been doing things than really thinking the game needed to accommodate night owls. Even fewer people do a polyphasic sleep cycle as I was doing in my plays of previous versions, than are just night owls, so the current design can work and for most people will feel normal.
My initial post was too long, so here is part 2.
On to Stage 3! The red of the background makes seeing the enemy indicators a bit tougher. However, this is even more open than the previous stage, and I found the gate in under a minute. This time when I activated the gate the boss was a ways away from it. It took a bit to find it, but I took it out in the first volley of regular fire. Unfortunately, it did not seem to register, as I am still seeing that I need to defeat the boss, though there is no longer a boss HP bar. I also no longer seem to be able to interact with Black Markets, Turret Fabricators, or similar.
I started from the Linux terminal. It has had plenty of errors and warnings from the start (UIDs, changed parent Nodes, viewport textures, and similar) but now I'm getting new ones. It looks like some of this might be AoE effects trying to be added to enemies that were already destroyed between triggering the AoE targeting and dealing damage.
And now I seem to be stuck on the ring. I was trying to head towards the bright shiny station looking thing in the distance to see if I could find another boss so the gate will finish charging, and while fighting off a swarm of enemies I probably backed or strafed my way into a situation where I seem to have very limited movement... OK, so it looks like I can move, but it felt like I could not because the ring did not appear to be moving, and to get back to the gate I had to head into the ring as if I was going to hit it or go through it. Still have no idea if I will be able to get through the gate.
Current stats:
HP: 414, Shield: 7890, Delay: 3.1625, Rate: 0.25, Energy: 140, Speed: 183, Acceleration: 1.12, Boost: 329, Rotation: 0.04489, Speed Scale: 1.0, Damage Scale: 225.09, Fire Rate Scale: 0.85, K. Armor: 290, E. Armor: 315.
I'm at 90 minutes. I've destroyed everything I can. I've beaten the 2 Restricted Zones I found. I've gone off in various directions, using the gate as a rough guide, and not found any boss or other way to advance. I can fight enemies, and could activate the Restricted Zones, but cannot interact with any of the shops. There is also a Throne that I thought about trying, but it did not seem to react either. At this point the enemies are not even a challenge anymore. They are just constantly there, with new ones arriving as I take out others. Eventually my shield gets taken out, and I use the invincibility several times while it recharges, then repeat. I can use the heavy attack fairly constantly as I regen enough energy when hitting enemies for the next shot.
Here are my current stats:
HP: 414, Shield: 7890, Delay: 3.1625, Rate: 0.25, Energy: 140, Speed: 183, Acceleration: 1.12, Boost: 329, Rotation: 0.04788, Speed Scale: 1.0, Damage Scale: 688.806, Fire Rate Scale: 0.85, K. Armor: 290, E. Armor: 315.
I'm going to charge into the enemies and end it to get a final score... And the ship AoE took out all the enemies... I charged into several and then just stopped so they could take me out, and then they were gone. All of them. I haven't seen the screen this empty in a while. The next wave spawned, and I just sat there. They took out my shield, and did nothing to my HP. I don't think they can get through my armor... Yeah, I did it again and they kept hitting me, but no damage at all. I'd like to end and see my final score stats, but I may have to simply quit, as I don't think there is a way for me to lose any more. Maybe one of the Restricted Zone enemies would have been enough, but they are gone now. Oh well, I ended it. I think I am done for now. I will pull it up again later to try out the Sandbox.
This has been an excellent update from the previous version. The bug preventing me from moving on was really annoying, as I was doing so well. Hopefully with my better understanding of just how important the Upgrades are I will be able to regularly do better in the future and get past that stage. This is a much faster paced and intense game than I generally play these days. I did pretty badly last time, and expected to do similar this time. I don't think I did that great, but I had some good luck on a couple runs and was able to take advantage of it to continue on. I enjoyed playing and look forward to seeing what the next update brings.
Primarily, is the game fun, and is replay value yet apparent? Is the game's onboarding effective?
Yes, the game is fun. I have not beaten all the levels yet, so I can't fully judge replay after beating them, but I would say that there is at least some replay value in trying different ships out. Much of the game is very random and luck based, so it will likely take several tries to win. Replaying to win is certainly there, as long as players don't get too frustrated at many early deaths from bad RNG.
Here are the errors I got later in the game:
Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120
Adding 0.120, total added 0.240, speed scale now 1.240
Adding 0.120, total added 0.360, speed scale now 1.360
Removing 0.000, speed scale now 1.000
SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid access to property or key 'global_position' on a base object of type 'Nil'.
at: Gift._ready (res://game_data/ui/Gift.gd:28)
GDScript backtrace (most recent call first):
[0] _ready (res://game_data/ui/Gift.gd:28)
[1] spawn_gift (res://game_data/entities/props/Breakable.gd:42)
[2] explode (res://game_data/entities/props/Breakable.gd:34)
[3] on_hit (res://game_data/entities/props/Station.gd:18)
[4] receive_hit (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hitbox.gd:28)
[5] collide (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hurtbox.gd:56)
[6] update (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hurtbox.gd:76)
[7] _physics_process (res://game_data/entities/ship_components/Hurtbox.gd:69)
SCRIPT ERROR: Out of bounds get index '6' (on base: 'Array[EnemyTier]')
at: EnemySpawner.spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)
GDScript backtrace (most recent call first):
[0] spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)
[1] _on_timer_timeout (res://game_data/worlds/EnemyManager.gd:51)
Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120
Adding 0.120, total added 0.240, speed scale now 1.240
Removing 0.000, speed scale now 1.000
Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120
Removing 0.000, speed scale now 1.000
Adding 0.120, total added 0.120, speed scale now 1.120
SCRIPT ERROR: Out of bounds get index '8' (on base: 'Array[EnemyTier]')
at: EnemySpawner.spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)
GDScript backtrace (most recent call first):
[0] spawn (res://game_data/entities/functional_objects/EnemySpawner.gd:20)
[1] _on_timer_timeout (res://game_data/worlds/EnemyManager.gd:51)
I am playing 0.40.5, on Linux, with a 4K monitor.
I went into the Options and set the Resolution to 2160x3840, leaving the rest alone. It resulted in very large black borders on each side, with the viewport only taking up about the center 1/4 to 1/3 of the screen. I could see part of the controls, but the edges were cut off, including the apply button. I changed the Resolution Scale down a lot, and used the arrow keys to select Apply. That did not help. I then changed the Resolution to 1920x1080. That made things better, though the Resolution Scale change left them still problematic. I dragged it back to the right as far as I could with the mouse, and then again used the arrows to apply. Then I could see everything, and I moved the slider all the way back to the right and applied. I'm going to try playing at 1080p and see how it does. If I run into problems, I'll switch back to your default.
The font size for the text of the tabs themselves on the Options screen is really big compared to everything else.
The menu screen transition feels a bit jerky, and I think it might be disorienting or headache inducing for some people. It is short enough and if only here may not be too bad overall, but it might be an area to look into for accessibility.
Next I went into the Sandbox, as I wanted to check everything out. The ship selection screen is so much nicer than last time I played!
Looking around, I did notice some display issues, so went back and changed the resolution to your default of 1355x768.
I like the Overview/Stats offering differing ways of looking at the ships' info. For someone starting fresh it certainly helps to translate how those numbers line up in comparison.
I am not certain what button is supposed to be used for the top ability from looking at the screen. The bottom is clearly R, but the top looks almost like an inverted Q, or maybe a fancy capital U. It looks like the font is a low res pixel font that was majorly scaled up. The F at the bottom right is clear and crisp, and neither the R nor F look fancy, which is why I did not initially think U, but a fancy U makes the most sense currently. I went back to the game's Itch page and looked at the images of the controls (these are awesome btw!), and the Heavy Ability is R, which makes this character a V for the Utility Ability. The bottom is too flat for me to see it as a V. Not trying to be nitpicky here, just being detailed with my thoughts. I went back and double checked the ship select on the Play screen to confirm this is the same there and not just for Sandbox.
Later on I skimmed through older devlogs and saw that F1 brings up an in-game copy of the controls, though only once in a run it seems. I did not see this mentioned in the game itself, nor on the game's page, including in the image of the controls. This would be helpful to include beyond the devlog so the average player will know about it.
That transition shake as I'm going back and forth between Play and Sandbox to compare is really unpleasant.
I'm going to go ahead and play through normal from here and come back to Sandbox after the tutorial.
So, I've skimmed the devlog, and obviously played the previous version, but I'm going into this looking at it fresh. It is afterall a pretty big update.
I'm starting out by comparing the ships to see what the options are like. The Overview shows the initial selection of Tank as the lowest Difficulty. Makes sense for the easiest to be the default for new players who just jump in. I notice that all 3 ships have Mass Drivers, but they are different. The damage and rounds per minute are different for each ship. Also, on the Dart, they do not have the target reticle that every other weapon has. My initial guess would be that weapons with the reticle can track, or at least slightly adjust their aim, while those without only fire straight ahead. Looking at the ship art, I would say that lines up with some looking like rotating turrets, but the Dart's wing Mass Drivers looking to be static hardpoints.
I did not do very well last time, so I'm going to stick with the Tank for now, but the Carrier intrigues me. I feel like my situational awareness is lacking, so having fighters able to find and hit the enemies for me may be just what I need. I will certainly be back to try that one out later.
Overall the tutorial feels better than before. I still had a bit of trouble with the moving while facing another direction, but my second try I got it. When I got to the controls for the Utility Ability, it showed the same fancy V button image and was just as unclear to me as before. The auto advance for dialogue text still feels a bit fast to me on some parts, but the arrow keys to advance are also inconvenient for also practicing the controls with the mouse, with constant swapping of positions, so not forcing players to press them is good. Maybe having a message log that the player can pull up to reread anything they missed or went by too fast. Possibly even something like you have for the combat log that fades, but gives you a bit more time to read. I don't know how much text there is to read beyond the tutorial, but for the tutorial I think it would be good to be able to pull your instructions back up if you missed, or misread, something.
I found the gate, and defeated the boss on the first level, then I stuck around to do a bit of testing before going through and was swarmed. My final score was 148,610. I feel like this first level is much more reasonable than the previous version. I was worried about going through the gate to see if the next area was as hard as I remembered the previous first area being, which is why I stuck around to practice with the Barrel Roll a bit, and then got swarmed.
I'm still having an issue with Barrel Rolls. Sometimes they work and others they don't. I think it is the timing. Using the Sandbox I did some more testing, and I think that the timing of the button presses just has to be so close that I am having a hard time in the heat of combat, when I need it the most, hitting them just right. Personally, I think that I'd prefer if you are boosting and press a Strafe input, it would do a Barrel Roll, without needing to let go of Boost and perfectly time hitting the key combo. Maybe you could make that an option players could toggle. After this I rarely even tried to use Barrel Role as it was not worth the risk.
I really like the Tank's 4 weapon slots. I see now that the weapons themselves define if they are rotating turrets or straight shooting, and not the hardpoint/weapon slot. I picked up 2 straight shooting 14 damage weapons, with ~180 firing rate. After playing with them a bit, I think next time I will only go with one higher powered straight shooter, and keep more targeting turrets. For the moment, however, I'm going to try out the Carrier on my next run.
I found the gate pretty quickly, but had very few upgrades, so stuck around trying to find more. I found the Carrier to be pretty good for me overall. I would like a UI element to quickly see how many fighters you have. I don't always notice the text when one is taken out, so a small dot under the ability for each fighter would be good, or even a number. I ended up losing when I was near an asteroid and hit T to target an enemy only end up targeting a Rock Crab on that asteroid and got a lot of camera shake. By the time I disabled targeting and tried to point away, it was too late. My score was 72,262,
I tried again with the Carrier. I really like the fighters dealing with most enemies for me, though I find trying to hit things myself is harder due to the slow movement, and the best thing to do is evade while the fighters do the work.
I see that the Tank's Shield is a huge benefit. I was doing fine, at full health, and then got hit hard and it was over. I'm going back to the Tank for now.
I replayed several times, and it felt like the difficulty was much harder than the first run. The first run I got a bunch of upgrades, and played for a while without feeling overwhelmed. I had 2 14 point energy weapons with decent rates of fire. Since then the Turret Fabricators have been offering mostly weaker or equal stuff to what I start with. Reading through the devlogs I see that you have random chances to spawn enemies of varying difficulties. It feels a bit extreme for Eldritch difficulty enemies to spawn on the first level. Their shields alone make damaging them difficult, and they hit hard. It is hard to be certain, but I'd say that most, if not all, of my deaths have been from them. I like the idea of varying difficulties, but I think the first level should prevent spawning the highest difficulty enemies, or at least drop the rate down a lot.
I took a break, and realized that the first time I played the tutorial was enabled. I'm now wondering if the tutorial gate takes you to an easier first zone than the regular game start without the tutorial. I don’t really want to redo the tutorial, but I think I need to test this. Not only am I more comfortable with starting there, but getting those upgrades from it would make this other level much easier.
I decided that before doing the tutorial again I would restart the game and do a normal no-tutorial run. The level feels better than the last several I have played. The turrets were not as generous as the first play, but I eventually did get better, so maybe it was just extreme RNG. Though that first run was very nice, compared to all the Turret Fabricators in the games played after. In this latest run after the restart I got a Beam Laser 3 Energy, 76 RPM. Pulse Gun 8 Energy, 95 RPM, and then non-targeting Pulse Gun 14 Energy, 246 RPM. This run and the first I also got Coccoon of the Gods, which is awesome and so far my favorite upgrade. This run my score was 55,434.
On the loss screen it would be nice if you had an option to go to the menu, rather than quit the game entirely, as I may want to switch to the Sandbox. Not a major hassle to restart, or get into the game and quit to menu, but shouldn't need to, just to get to the menu.
Now I am retrying and enabling the tutorial. The down arrow advances dialog, but the right arrow does not skip. After getting to the controls for forward and reverse I saw the gate, so went for it and skipped the rest of the tutorial. The Strafe commands are showing and the Gate is not accepting F to charge, even though it does show the interaction text saying to press it. I have pressed the Strafe keys, but it is not clearing that box, likely since I am nowhere near the asteroid. I'm not sure the way back to the tutorial asteroid from here, so am restarting. I tried again after being told to go here for some fun, but the Gate still would not charge, so I guess I'm going through the rest of the tutorial. I paused to write this last note, and when I resumed the indicator of where to go was gone. I had turned off Inertia dampening, and was able to use the direction indicator to resume traveling roughly where I was headed, and eventually the indicator showed up again. I'm guessing it was distance related and had stayed up before, but resuming from pause something rechecked and decided it was too far away to show. Once I got there the targets spawned right on top of me, causing them to launch off away from me, so I had to chase them down. The zoom in crate was also moving when it spawned. And now when it tells me to Boost over to a new area, the indicator is not showing. I caught a flicker of the gate around the curve of the planet, so I headed that way, angled away from the planet, hoping to get a better angle that might let me see something more. That worked and eventually a marker showed up. I made it there, but it did not advance. I probably missed boosting enough or through the right area. Either I followed the wrong indicator, or the detection is not at the marker arrow, as I've been flying around and it won't advance. I'm guessing the detection is based on expecting the player to come from the previous tutorial step, so not having a good orientation for that, I don't know which way to travel to trigger it. So much for my attempt to speed through the tutorial. It looks like I am starting over again. I'm thinking I had gone to an earlier marker, and did not see the correct marker for where I needed to go, and that is why I could not proceed. It would be nice if the tutorial markers where set to always show for cases where people may play around testing things out and lose their way.
During my next tutorial run I had a Giga Harmless Drone, which meant it took a while to deal with the shields and then take it out. Initially I thought I was missing when the health bar didn't change, then I noticed Giga in the name and it got close enough to see the shields. Then I got a Mega on the Turret Mode step.
I did several runs through the tutorial, but did not do as well in the following level as my first run, so went back to the normal mode without the tutorial, rather than deal with it each time. I finally had a decent run with the Tank. It took me almost half an hour to find the gate as I was constantly feeling bombarded, but I seemed to get enough good upgrades from random drops, along with a single Turret upgrade, that I was dealing enough damage that even the Eldritch enemies were dying reasonably fast. It still felt overwhelming with the constant enemy swarms, and like I never had a chance to hunt for the gate. Eventually I was again near the edge, and just started going around the perimeter taking out what I had to and destroying every asteroid I could until I saw the gate particles. It was still a fight to get there, though the boss was fairly easy. I'm not really sure what I have that makes my hits so powerful. The one moderate weapon upgrade certainly didn't do it. Must have been some of the upgrades that I didn't have time to read. I'm not sure how to view the upgrades outside of a Turret Fabricator, and I haven't seen one in a while. I just made it to the second stage, so maybe I'll find one here and can see what all I have... I just glanced at the controls image and it looks like Tab might be what I was wanting.
Here are my stats as I start the second area:
Max HP: 414, Max Shield: 2630, Shield Recharge Delay: 4.25, Rate: 0.25, Max Energy: 110, Max Speed: 167, Acceleration: 0.92, Boost Max Speed: 313, Rotation Speed: 0.03, Speed Scale: 1.0, Damage Scale: 76.534, Fire Rate Scale: 0.85, Kinetic Armour: 220, Energy Armour: 315.
Upgrades:
Grave Robber x3, Two Horses x2, Transmutation x3, Engine Tuning Nanobots x2, Chumbawamba's Best Friend, Bounty Guzzler x2, Chromatic Chainmail x2, Old Boomerang x3, Cocoon x2, Don't Jinx It x2, Hopes and Dreams x2, An Extension Cord Plugged Into Itself x2, A Case Of The Zoomies x4, Vampire's Blessing x3, Weight Of Existence, Not Today x3, Demolition Permit x2, Fame x2, Hal > 9000, Noise-Cancelling Headphones x2, Spice x2, Griffiron, Nothing x3, Cocoon of the Gods, Pure Gumption x2, Phaser x2, Sadistic Cannon x2, Fresh Cabbages x2, Garish Christmas Jumper, Unhinged Collector, Virus Injection, Polarised Sunglasses x2, A Single Horse x2, Shiny New Weight Set, Avarice x2, Green Vegetables, Black Market Fuel x2, The Secrets of Manifestation, Aura Farm, Touch of Bloodlust.
I replaced one of the starting Mass Drivers with a Pulse Gun 9 Energy, 116 RPM, non-targeting.
I guess the key to this game is to start destroying every asteroid you can as soon as possible, stopping to upgrade your weapons if you can, and hope you get lucky in the drops. Getting good early drops can set up the rest of the game.
Stage 2 was much more open, though it also quickly became a swarm of incoming enemies. Thankfully, all my upgrades made it fairly easy. And being so open, it was also easy to spot the purple of the gate from rather far away. I manged to get another weapon upgrade (Mass Driver 17 Kinetic, 132 RPM), it was also non-targeting, but with the damage boosts I have, I think that is fine now. I've also taken to largely moving backwards and strafing while firing as my way of dealing with enemies I can see. I rarely do any targeting mode any more, and instead just spray over the area, often in a bit of a spiral, if there is no direction indicator.
First of all, I'd like to comment on your submission to the jam. It would be good if you gave a brief summary of what changed in the "Improvement Summary". It doesn't need to be detailed, or include any images, and for this one something as simple as "Added new power-ups." would be fine. People can see your game name and "Short description or tagline" on the jam Submissions page. If you want people to see "a top-down arcade shooter", then you should put that in the Itch "Short description or tagline" when editing your game's page, so it shows up on the jam Submissions page. The thumbnail/screenshot images also give a pretty clear idea of what the base game is. It is good that you are now doing separate devlogs beyond the one big one you keep updating. Unless you have a bunch of updates for the month, it would be best if you linked to the most recent devlog so people can see what is new. anyone who wants to read more can look through them. That big one is very long.
Based on your most recent devlog, it looks like all that has been done recently is adding 2 new pickups, one of which is majorly negative, and what you call the "WORST on yet". In the month before that it looks like the updates were also just some new pickups. Right now the game is not needing more powerups, and especially not new negative pickups. A new negative pickup to avoid doesn't really add to the gameplay or fun. Part of that comes from the overall gameplay making it so easy to avoid the pickups, so it is really just another minor inconvenience, rather than a major concern. Yes, once you get to the later stages things do get harder, but the early game needs to be engaging enough to get there. I understand that life can get busy and we don't always have time to do a lot of work, but since you submitted this to our feedback jam, I'm offering my feedback on it.
I played to a score of around 25,000. I did not see the new pickups, nor much of the score boosting ones. The core gameplay still just doesn't draw me in. I'm still just spinning around near the center, constantly shooting, only moving to avoid the negative pickups, then returning. There is no challenge or feeling of success, just a sore finger from lots of clicking.
I'm not really a fan of the background music that plays when you start combat. It doesn't feel, to me, like it fits the game. Personally, I'd expect something a bit more action/fast paced. Sound Effects and Background Music are personal preferences, of course, so go with what fits your vision for the game. The music also stopped after a short time. I'm not familiar with Game Maker, but you may want to check if your audio is set to loop or not.
Also, your install instructions mention VirtualBox and describe it as "a replica of Windows and uses all of your files to replicate your desktop, OS and etc. ". This is inaccurate. It is just an emulator that you can install your OS inside of, which requires going through the entire OS installation process. It does not include an OS, and legally you must own a license for Windows to use VirtualBox to run Windows. All around, this is not something most people are going to want to do to play a jam game. I'd remove this comment and just leave the bit about Wine and Crossover, as they are the simpler, legal, and more common tools for this for the average player.
For most cards I think the expected damage is obvious. You generally mention the number of projectiles and often how much damage each does. That is such basic math that most people will intrinsically know the total without even thinking about doing math, especially since most are 1 damage each. The ones that don't mention these things could use with having that added. Also, some of them would be hard to give a single value for, since the damage is based on something that is variable. How would you list Fibonacci Strike, for example? There isn't a single value, and giving an average/estimated amount could be confusing to players. That is one where listing out the first set of the sequence would be more helpful. The Sniper line is another, where the range matters for damage, so what range would you use to calculate it? Lasers have a base amount based on if all beams hit a single target, but what if some miss, and others hit multiple? I like the idea in principal, I'm just not sure it will work for the cards that most need it. I think that for it to be viable, it can't be a static number, but needs to have a slider or other controls to allow the player to see the estimated value under different conditions, such as the amount of Energy used or # of ships hit.
Glad to help. I was enjoying the game and just kind of went with stream of consciousness, writing things as they came to mind while playing. When I saw how much I had at the end I figured it made sense to break it up into the separate posts.
Yeah, fighting a really powerful boss who has a time limit before they either wipe you out or reset the battle can be unpleasant, and is usually best for an optional side boss, though as a final boss fight can work. The strategy just kind of evolved from how I'd been doing previous fights. The side bits were clearly the easiest targets, and based on previous fights were likely tied to the shield. Taking them out first, but not wasting too much energy on them, seemed obvious. After that, I just went with my previous strategy, adjusting for having used 1 of the specials already. I had intended to replace it by using the Therapeutic Grapple on turn 2, but the way things played out I realized that it was not the best use of my abilities.
I knew I'd read about the Card hover toggle in a devlog, but I couldn't remember which as I was writing this. I had read the devlog when it came out, and forgot to refresh myself on it before playing, as I normally try to do. By the time I was done, the review was so long that I didn't think it needed going back to comment on the devlog itself, though probably should have double checked on that bit. So many great updated games were released this week, and recently before, that all the devlogs kind of blur, and I need to reread them to keep track of what was recent in each game. I've also been slightly distracted, playing games during breaks in a weekend-long livestreamed event, which is part of why it has taken so long to get through reviewing games. I'm only around halfway through the games so far.
The increased use of Shotgun is due to the nerfing of the Blast Gun. Before I used Blast Gun to deal so much damage with my initial attack that I used the other ships less. Also, abilities that previously went to the other ships were now being used in its place, which meant the ships I'd previously had them on needed replacements. Considering energy costs, the Shotgun abilities were the ones swapped in. With less one shot kills from the initial attack, that also meant the other ships were more often doing attacks, resulting in the use of the Shotguns. In the future I will look at other options as well. When I'm not feeling so tired I will see about trying a Sniper run, which would then let the other abilities go back to where I'd had them.
I did not end up using Therapeutic Grapple. I had a plan for it, but as I started doing things it ended up not making sense. Part of that was I felt like I messed up the order of how to do things, and it no longer made sense, so I adapted the plan. It still finished the fight in the expected 2 turns. At some point I will probably retry, as it sounds like a potentially powerful tool.
On the Phantom Ray, it would be nice if the card mentioned the damage amount so players can do that objective comparison before choosing it, especially if the cost is going up.
So, being greeted with a big EULA right at the start is not something I'm used to for a jam game. I did read through it, and it seems to be typical CYA legalese. Of course, "agreeing" to EULAs and T&C is also considered to be one of the most commonly told lies in the world, so plenty will just click and play without reading. I will say that starting a jam game and seeing something like this would generally have me just stop there and move on, as most jam games aren't really worth "agreeing" to random EULAs. Between our past interactions and this being a submission to our jam I am willing to take the time to read through it, but it is something to consider. Of course, these days people are crazy sue happy and adding something like this to protect yourself is understandable.
In the intro text, the edges are being clipped. The left edge is most notable.
The intro story has me questioning who your character is, who you are dealing with, and if this is a bad deal to agree to.
When you are close to an interactable object it shows text telling you to press E to interact, but if you cannot interact, then nothing happens. There should be some form of player feedback that you can't currently interact. Either the text saying you can/lack the required item to interact, or even a negative sound when you try to convey that the key press did nothing. I know this is in an early state and may be on the list of things to deal with, but still want to point out the things I notice.
3D platformers are not really my thing. I often find I have a hard time translating the camera view into real world positioning that my brain can process well for judging where edges are and when to jump. In this game, I think the platform textures could use with additional texturing/shading to give more definition, and help judge distances. As bad as I normally find 3D games, the fairly plain surfaces made it harder to judge. I will say that the background was good and allowed enough contrast that adjusting the camera I was able to get enough detail to make some progress.
I made it through the green zone, but it took several tries and was a challenge. I almost lost when going down an angled platform and it suddenly had me doing small hops, right before reaching the edge. I landed just before going over and was able to make the jump to the next platform.
I used W, and sometimes S for movement, and the mouse for almost all rotation/direction changes, except when testing the controls. The mouse being able to adjust your direction was helpful in landing some jumps where it was hard to judge the next platform exactly from the previous one, as I could respond faster, and by just the right amount, with it.
I did try your other movement test. The inertia/friction on it made it feel like the PC was running on ice or oil. That would not be fun to play, at least for me. I also had trouble getting it to release the mouse cursor and ended up using keyboard shortcuts to close the tab to exit.
I tried the blue level and got to about 4 platforms from the end. With more attempts, and slowing down a bit to do more estimating distances at the end, I'm sure I could make it. However, it is really taking a lot to focus on the edges and timing things, and I'm not up for more right now. One of the kids has already played, and they got further, so will be able to provide some feedback on later levels.
The slope movement definitely needs work. Those hops are very problematic. I don't do much with 3D, so don't know enough to be sure about might fix it. I have some thoughts, and maybe they will translate into something that can help. My take on the issue is that as you are running down a hill your forward velocity is greater than the gravity pulling you down, resulting in you being off the ground, which is causing your character to switch to a jumping/falling/in air state. Obviously, messing with the overall gravity would affect the feel of the game and be a pain to balance properly. Maybe you could do a local increase in gravity on the sloped platforms, but even that would mess with timing. I'm not sure if the 3D models can be refined to fix the issue. With this in mind, my "fix" would be to add some logic to the checks for if you are in the air to consider if you just pressed the jump button to start leaving the ground, and if not, check if you are a short distance above the ground, probably with a Ray Cast. If you did not jump, and are above ground, and the distance is small enough, then treat it like being on solid ground. You could also limit this to only trigger if the ground is marked as a slope, and even based on travel direction being downhill. Maybe also add some logic to adjust the position so you actually are on the ground. This could be a manual calculation of the Z position so the player stays touching the ground, or possibly increasing the gravity a small amount for a short time, maybe a single frame at a time, to pull the character down. Again, 3D is not my thing, so my thinking here could be completely off, but maybe something in it can be a seed for something that will work.
This seems like a good start. There is already a bit of story, even in its early state. They layout of starting from a central location and going out to each zone to get the next key works. The music fits the game. The geometric platforms work for the game style. It is a challenge, but I was able to complete the first level without too many retries. I can't speak to later levels or level progression, but it was decent. It may be a bit tough for a first level, and you may want to start things off with more of a tutorial/training level, but it wasn't so difficult that I gave up before finishing it.
I'm just starting the game, and after playing so often with the old layout, it is a bit odd seeing things moved around. I think it works, but it will take some getting used to.
The Control Tips overlap the road a bit when there are 2 lines of text, and the first is long. It looks like there is space that it could be moved down a bit to fix this. There is also a blank tip right before "On Campaign Day". With the tips sometimes auto-advancing, I'm guessing this is meant to be used to clear the tip display at some point, before then moving to the Campaign Day tips when the first starts.
I like the new UI for your room. The hover text is very helpful, especially for Sleep not being available before 15:00. The upgradable furniture sounds like a neat concept, though I am just at the beginning so have not yet seen any upgrades.
It looks like after a certain time, 21:00?, you can no longer just Rest, but only Sleep is available. This will certainly alter my strategy a bit. As a person who is a night owl in real life, my gameplay involving nighttime activity felt natural to me, though I know it is not the norm, and may not reflect your standard politician. I'm acknowledging in writing this review that I view your character as a politician, maybe a mayor. More on this below.
Due to not being able to be as active at night, and my normal gameplay using the night to do several things, I was not as prepared this time for the second campaign day. I will be needing to rethink my strategy for this new limitation.
By the third Campaign Day I had enough of a crowd that I put 10 to block agents along the road going down, and then protested at each of the BigRealty locations before moving on to finish off their HQ. My blockade did get overrun at some point, but it didn't matter. I had a total of 73 Residents. I got SAF and LOG to Marginal, but the rest were still at Poor. I forgot to look at how large my crowd was to start with.
Having now played through, I think the new UI works. I did regularly find myself glancing to the top first out of habit to look for things where they used to be, but then looked down to the new location. Any major change is going to take time to adjust to, so it didn't feel problematic, just will need to play a bit more to get used to the new locations.
In your devlog you comment "Because the game has a top-down view, it has the impression that it is a city-builder game where players act as an omniscient God placing buildings and whatnot.". I don't think it is just the top down view. A core gameplay mechanic is city building. You may be controlling a character who moves around the map, but you are picking the zoning for areas and selecting what buildings to place in each location. There is a small delay as you build things, but you are still building large structures that would normally take months in reality, in hours. The map may be smaller and have more predefined elements than most "City Builder" games, but there is a lot of overlap and similar feel that goes beyond the top-down view. Even the goal has overlap. In this game you are focused on pushing out BigRealty, but to do so you need to build up the "city" (neighborhood) to get enough resources (gathered crowd) to push them out. You do not have "omniscient God" powers to instantly reshape the land, yet even there in games like SimCity you are managing earthmoving projects that are simply done unrealistically fast, just like the building construction is. There are some other limits that are not common in most city builders, such as preset roads and zone areas. Still, at the core this is about building up your city to the point where you have enough of a resource to overcome the negative element/challenge. The new features you are adding are focusing on improving the city further. Eventually the player will fill out all of the available building space, and it will be more about interacting with the buildings, but even there you are building up your city's stats. Your character may not have god-like powers, but they are a very powerful person. We have the afore-mentioned speed building (which is needed for gameplay feel), but also your character is making unilateral decisions for the city. You may need to move to a spot to interact with it, and have a limited amount of energy to do things, but many of the things you do are classic city builder things. The player needs to rally support from the community to gather the crowd, but that feels more like a politician doing a PR campaign, rather than really being a part of the community. You may not be playing as a god-like character, but you are playing as a power who doesn't really answer to anyone.
After writing this I am now viewing your character as a mayor, or other local authority over the community. They have a lot more power than a typical mayor, being able to direct the construction of all individual buildings, as well as the zoning, which does make them feel like more than your average person. Not god-like, but super-powered in their authority. With my viewing them as a politician, I now have to look at my biases and question their motives. We come back to my above comment about the rallying feeling like just PR and not a real commitment to the community. Corporations are problematic and big corps buying up land and housing is a serious problem, but viewing the PC as a politician, I now have to question what their motives are. Are they kicking out BigRealty with the plan to replace them with their donors who will do the same? Please don't take this paragraph too strongly. With everything going on in the world today, and politicians and their corp donors being behind most of the world's problems, now viewing the PC through this lens automatically raises questions for me. To be fair, the room you are showing does not look like the mansion of a wealthy politician, but that does raise the question of who are you playing as that has so much power and influence? Maybe fleshing that part out will add a missing piece to help bring the player into the world more and feeling connected to the PC.
Continuing with previous thoughts, maybe you could add something where the community tells the player what they want. You currently have the Goals on the side, but they are just a general list and don't feel like the community asking for these things. Maybe they could get some flavor text associated with them. As new ones are added there could be something talking about why the community wants this, and more of a reason for who gives you the reward and why. I'm thinking of city builders where as the game progresses, the population grows, and start demanding the things that have been unlocked by the growth. You could have something where the people say what they most want to see built, with limits on how soon after a demand the next can show up. Maybe it could be posted on a Community Board so the player has to go check on it from time to time. Or maybe it is just in the UI somewhere and shows up automatically as they want something, to simplify things and make sure the player sees it. If the player builds what is requested, or otherwise meets the request, then it could give a boost of some sort. This doesn't just need to be money and fame, though those would be an obvious choice. Maybe if it was for a building, the building gets a boost for a short time. Similarly, there can be negatives from not meeting demands in a reasonable time, such as the community has a negative view of you, making it harder to rally, or them showing more support for BigRealty. I think this actually leads into another point. Before you added Campaign Days, there was always a bar showing favorability between the 2 sides. Maybe you need to have something like that which is always active. The largest impact can be made on Campaign Days, but allow other events to influence it over time so that on Campaign Day you may not start at the middle. Maybe you do have the Campaign Day bar start at the middle, but it is separate from the non-Campaign Day bar. The non-CD bar will show your favorability with the community and will influence how effective you are at rallying (how much it costs to rally a building), at gathering a crowd from rallied buildings (how many people you get for the crowd when gathering), at protesting (how effective is each member of the crowd), and so on. You would need to do more in the community to earn their support, with their demands continuing to grow as the number of residents goes up. Right now with the support only mattering on Campaign Day, it is easy to just do what you want, as long as you build enough residential buildings and rally them, to have enough support to win.
I've played the game enough that I know how the mechanics work and that the most important thing is to build residential buildings to increase your crowd size, along with free buildings of the other types. I think that if you want to encourage building up the town more, you need to limit residential growth. Going back to the above comments about how the player makes unilateral decisions, maybe there needs to be community pushback if you do things not good for the community. As I'm fleshing this idea out I am acknowledging that it goes even closer to core city builder concepts, but you may need some of those mechanics for balancing different zones and buildings. If you build a bunch of residential, but don't have anything else, then people won't move in and you won't gather enough crowd. Currently, you don't need to really build anything other than the free stuff for unlocking a zone and reclaiming a lot.
The game currently feels balanced toward taking advantage of the free buildings. Making enough money to build things, especially residential, is slow and time consuming. It is far easier to just spend $1000 to unlock the next zoning area and build some expensive building. Sure, that is limited by the available zones you can unlock, but you can quickly get the 3 residential buildings that way, which goes a long way toward having enough population. Then go unlock each of the remaining zones you can, collecting the free cash around the map to unlock more. This gives you a pretty good start on building up the town very quickly. Add in the free buildings from reclaimed lots, which allow more residential buildings (I pick apartments), and it is game over by the 3rd Campaign Day.
To build up the town, once you have enough residential buildings, you can just let BigRealty build, then each Campaign Day you gather a large crowd and protest at each of their buildings, except the HQ, and use the reclaimed lots to get the additional buildings. I rarely do any jobs, beyond when it is to complete a goal. I rarely get beyond the first bonus for completing goals, and the reward cash from that one is used to build another house. As much as it is nice to get the free building from reclaiming a lot, it makes it feel like that is the main way to build things, as it is so much quicker and easier than earning money to pay for things. By the second campaign day there are enough buildings to protest at, that if you built your 3 free residential buildings, and maybe 1 more, you should have enough crowd to be able to reclaim enough of them to make Campaign Day 3 be victory. Maybe instead of a free building, each should give you some money, such as $1000. Enough that it is helpful, but not enough to simply build anything you want.
Sorry if this is a bit rambly or going off on a side path that may be to full of feature creep. We're not getting a lot of sleep this week, so I'm a bit tired, and I'm not sure if I'm conveying things well. I think you have a good core here. It is just a matter of what you want to present to the player. When you start, the game tells you that your goal is to drive out BigRealty. It does mention building up the neighborhood, but it feels like it is part of how you get to the main goal and not a goal in itself. With that focus it feels natural to try to protest and defeat them fast, which then ends the game.
Maybe there needs to be more to the game after beating them? Perhaps just an option to keep playing to build up your neighborhood. It would probably need some other mechanics added in. Perhaps every so often an outside group, or parent of BigRealty, will show up and try to gain a new foothold. Later ones may be stronger, to account for your increased growth and having beaten the previous one(s). You may need to reserve some spaces for these to be placed. Or, for gameplay simplicity, you simply cannot build on the HQ spot, so it always goes there. They would also need to be able to do something to claim a building location from an existing structure and turn it into one of theirs. I'm pretty sure you mentioned eventually having additional maps and moving on from one to the next, which would help to add more game length. Still, that doesn't get to the core of what is the intended gameplay for each map. Is it all about quickly pushing out BigRealty from each map, or about the community building? If you want more focus on building the neighborhood and players having a stronger connection to each neighborhood, then I think BigRealty needs to spread more slowly, and the player should be encouraged to make money in other ways to pay for buildings, rather than having so many free ones. It may also help to make it so that a basic protest is not enough to defeat BigRealty's HQ. You need to build up the community to unlock the additional protest options before you get the one that can fully defeat them.
I do enjoy the game, and overall like the changes you have been making. I'm just taking a step back here and asking, "What is the intended gameplay experience?". I like city builder games. I like strategy games in general. Right now I look at this game as a strategy game with the goal of defeating BigRealty. Any city building is done solely for that end goal, but it is a core part of reaching it. With this in mind, I play to win quick. Nothing in the game really makes me feel invested in building up a great neighborhood first, and with the speed BigRealty expands, it feels like the best thing for the neighborhood (if it were real world) would be to get BigRealty out fast, then let the community building be the focus.
Thanks for playing and the feedback.
We did use (S)NES Zelda as part of our inspiration for what defines the style of game. With that as our inspiration, picking up items as you walk over them, even if you don't need them, feels more in line with the style. We are working on adding a way to heal in the dungeons beyond finding food, as well as better spreading the healing items out. Currently the plan is to add another tool you can find in the dungeon, such as a wand, that has a limited number of uses before needing to be recharged. When you first find it, it will have a max of 1 charge. Later, in the final dungeon, you will find an upgrade to increase the max charges to 2. In each dungeon there will be a limited number of recharge items. These will be like bombs where you can't pick them up if don't have the Tool, and also if you are at max charges.
Having a shop to buy stuff is a neat idea, but may be beyond the scope we want for this game. We will need to see how it goes. If the game does well, we will likely create a bigger game of the style with an overworld. That would have shops and other features. We will see how the game feels as we flesh it out, as to what, and how much, more is needed.
We definitely need to add a bit of story. We haven't decided what it will be yet, but it will be kept small and simple. Just a little something to add life to the world.
Glad you enjoyed. The kids have been having fun working on this. After almost a year mostly working on Hungry, it has been nice to do something different.
Thanks for playing and the feedback.
We plan to make it a commercial game, but it is very early in development. We only have less than 2 weeks of work on it so far. Maybe we didn't need to include the comments about where it is headed, but it also helps to get early feedback that can help to shape it and make sure we aren't missing anything that might be obvious to others.
We plan to add an option to continue playing with some progress kept, such as gained Tools & Abilities, and probably a save feature. We agree that it is not fun to lose everything and start over, but all of our time working on it so far has gone into getting the core in place.
For now you have to select your Tools on the menu. The default to show it is E. We are thinking about options for changing tools and how best to implement it.
All Tools & Abilities are going to be refined. We will take another look at the whistle duration, and check on the sword damage. We intentionally limited the bomb radius to make sure it wasn't too powerful, though we will continue to evaluate it and maybe it can get a small bump in size.
We don't currently have any story, but do acknowledge that there will need to be something. We want to get a good core gameplay working before we do any story so we don't go down the same feature creep rabbit hole we did with Hungry For Loot and let the game get out of hand. We are taking inspiration from (S)NES Zelda games and similar games from the era. Right now we are using an asset pack, but are likely going to do at least some art of our own, and maybe do fully custom to have a more distinct look, depending on time. We will definitely be doing a lot more polish before we put this up for sale.
Thanks again for giving great feedback to us, and to the other games in our jam!
In this post I will answer the questions you have here, on the game page, and one from the Discord server.
What are the 4 key gameplay elements in Anachronium?
I'm having a hard time breaking things down into 4 points. The core is strategy. First strategy in picking the cards you will have for the upcoming combat, based on what you think, or know, may be there. There is an intriguing story to the game, and I enjoy following it, but I'm not sure it is a "gameplay element" as you, so far, don't influence it, and you could play the game with no story, such as for replaying, and it would still be a fun game. After selecting your cards, you then have to decide how best to use them in combat. Your first time facing a new combat you need to analyze the enemies and form an initial plan based on what you know or think about them. As they show you new behavior you may need to adjust. There are many cards and many ways to use them, so picking and how you use the cards would be the top 2 key gameplay elements. If you add more to use the credits on, then balancing the use of your credits could become an important element as well. In the end I keep coming back to strategy being the key, and anything else is just a part of the overall strategy of the game. Maybe I'm just not in the right mindset right now to break things down into finer elements that this is probably meaning.
Is the game generally fun?
Yes. I've played through the game several times now, and enjoy playing each time.
What cards seemed the most appealing to play?
Lasers are essential for some fights with shields. I personally liked the Laser of Lament and Phantom Ray, as well as the Remorse Flower and Phantom Flower, though the cost of 5 meant that I didn't really get to use the Phantom Flower.
Which cards seemed pointless for your experience?
Self Destruct. I see no reason to use it over any other damage dealing option. It is the kind of thing that I would only use as a last resort, and with only 4 card slots there is no way I'd waste one on it. If it was like the basic attack and always available, then I might find a situation where it would be the best choice.
How difficult is the game?
I find the game to be quite easy. I have not lost any ships, and in this playthrough I only once had 1 ship get down to 1 HP, right before I ended the fight.
How engaging is the story? At what point were you hooked(if at all)?
I like the story. It has real world comparisons and feels genuine. I am looking forward to seeing the rest of it. I can't say I was hooked at a certain point, as I don't recall my first playthrough.
Did you complete the game? If not what was the major reason?
Yes.
Does the game feel replayable? Or more of a one and done experience?
I think there is some replay value in trying out different cards, but there needs to be an option to skip all the story for those who just want to try to get a better score on a level, or want to try different cards. I was not able to skip the in combat story with E, so adding support for that would be a start. But I think it would be good to have a mode or setting somewhere, possibly unlocked after beating the game, that allows auto skipping all dialogue and cinematics for replays.
Another thing that would help with replay would be some randomness to the enemies you face, or even a procedurally generated mode. There is significantly more challenge when you are going into the next combat blind about what you will face and have to pick your cards. There can be fun in trying to do better on a known fight, but I think it has a limit and an option for random fights would help. This could be a Battle Arena that you unlock after beating the main game where you can select the difficulty and how many fights there will be, and it will be randomly generated from that.
Balance of the cards.
I didn't really test out a lot of cards this time. I think they have a decent balance currently. There are many different ways to play, partly based on the player's skill. I used a somewhat different set of cards early on this time due to the better balancing of the Blast Gun. There are many I have not tried yet, so can't judge.
In this post I will comment on the story/dialogue. There were a number of typos, though I did not track them. This is mostly going to be on impressions of the story and characters. The early part is more detailed. I was a bit less focused on the story notes as I played further.
Even though I have played through before, I am going to try to look at the story fresh as I play.
The cinematic is a great way to get things started. It does a good job of conveying the horror of what is happening, without showing the actual event.
First Party Chat
I like the group. They feel like a good team that has worked together and built up a solid team dynamic and trust. I really like Gwen and how you show her intelligence by pointing out the detail that so many would miss.
First Encounter
My initial thoughts when we meet the attackers is that they are the rebels fighting back against a government they oppose. It is unclear at this point who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Looking at it from the point of view of today in the real world, governments, especially "united" ones with big militaries, are usually the bad guys. While rebel groups often have legit reasons for opposing them, even if their methods may be problematic. The intro cinematic showing what they did makes the current situation feel like they are the bad guys here, though still leaves the question of if your party are also serving an evil empire.
Post First Combat
The enemies come off as very arrogant and clearly view themselves as superior. There is no effort to try to explain to the government forces their position or try to recruit them to their side. Just the view that they know best and will "free" people by killing anyone who gets in their way. Classic bad guys who want to claim to be good.
Second Combat
Flinn comments on being happy to have an excuse to fire, making him seem like a typical soldier who just loves combat and doesn't really care about who or why he's shooting.
I like that you use the dialog to mention the asteroid field, teaching the player a bit as part of it.
Post Combat
Nothing much to comment here. Felt like expected continuation of dialogue.
Third Combat
The dialogue gives the player a warning that the enemy has something powerful and to be cautious about some big unknown threat.
Post Combat
The Mysterious Voice being less aggressive adds a nice additional angle from the enemy group. The troops are more aggressive and ready to fight. They still give warnings, but in a self-confident arrogance that is unlikely to convince other soldiers to back down. You have only words and they have just as much reason to believe in their superiority. Unless you can show far greater power, why would they listen to such a threat? This feels realistic. Just look at the posturing in current real world wars where everyone thinks they are the greatest and have the upper hand.
The post-combat cinematic on Dronghur really shows the horrors of what the enemy has done and removes any question that they are bad guys.
The dialogue here give the initial information that the invaders are here for mining resources. The line about peaceful protest and getting killed feels quite relevant to the modern world. I like the Dronghur leader's pointed comments about hoping they can do enough, but admitting they are likely going to die trying.
The Crusher
1st Combat
Again, nice to have warning about enemy ships.
2nd Combat
The dialogue mentions the supply lines, along with red boxes, though I had already encountered both red and green boxes.
3rd Combat
This dialogue starts to hint at what the invaders think the resource can do. The way they are talking implies more than just reversing time, at least what Crusher thinks of it.
Post Combat
The Mysterious Voice makes some good points on the typical government arrangements where they can't actually live up to promised protection. At best they typically just get revenge, usually as an excuse to do violence they wanted to do anyway. None of that can justify their actions, but it may be that both sides are bad, just in different ways. So far Gwen seems like someone who cares and wants to protect people, but may be serving a typically bad government.
The Signal
1st Combat
Again, nice offering advice on the combat. The dialogue fits with the characters.
Post Combat
Again the dialogue does a good job of arrogant people says doing what I say, but not explaining the reason and just acting like they are superior and should be obeyed without needing to actually discuss with people.
2nd Combat
Dialogue seems to repeat from the 2nd combat of the first mission.
Post Combat
Also a repeat.
3rd Combat
Not much to comment right now. Dialogue works.
Post Combat
Warning about boss fight is helpful.
Signal Combat
Short and to the point. Enough has been said, mostly repeats, so it makes sense to end the connection and get to taking out the invaders.
Post Combat
The mention of a "cut Primordial Stone" hints that such might be what they are mining here.
Final Cinematic
Intimidating. Can't wait to try to win the fight!
This comment I will list how I did in each fight, what cards were unlocked, and which cards I used. I was pretty tired when playing, so the accuracy is lower than I'd like. The game was still fairly easy, and only once was I concerned about possibly losing a ship. I'd say that Remorse Flower and Laser of Lament were my most used power cards. For basic/early attacks I used Shotgun & Laser depending on situation for Oyster W. Morningstar A used Double/Triple Attack. Valkyrie S mostly used Recharge Ally and Energy Infusion, with occasional attacks using the currently equipped Shotgun, Laser, or Flower.
Rion The Destroyer
Battle 1
Unlocks: Bounty SG, Barrage SG, Blast Gun
My initial card selections, top to bottom:
Battle 2
Unlocks: Recharge Ally, Solar Power, Remorse Flower
I swapped Remorse Flower in, replacing Uplifting Aura.
Battle 3
Unlocks: Snipers Dream, Doom Cannon, Laser of Lamentation
I replaced Penta Laser with Doom Cannon.
I debated swapping in Snipers Dream, but I'm tired and my accuracy has not been great, so I'm skipping it for now.
I really liked the Blast Gun before, but the damage reduction makes it less useful. In most fights the enemies also have not been positioned well for its use. I'm replacing it with Laser of Lamentation.
The Crusher
Battle 1:
U: Self Destruct, Godrin's Ring, Snipers Legacy
Battle 2:
Unlocks: Quick Repairs, Wolverine, Pravarshan
Battle 3:
Unlocks: Hexa Shot, Destroyer, Pravarshan
I replaced Tri Laser with Penta Laser.
The Phantom
Unlocks: Phantom Ray, Phantom Flower, Nona Shot
I replaced Penta Laser with Phantom Ray, and Doom Cannon with Phantom Flower.
The Signal
Combat 1:
Unlocks: Fuel Shot, Anachronium Beam, Fibonacci Strike
Replaced Barrage Shotgun with Penta Laser so every ship has a laser.
Combat 2:
U: Irmozius, Theraputic Grapple, The Flower
Replaced Bounty Shotgun with Therapeutic Grapple.
Combat 3:
Unlocks: Recycle Self, Recycle Parts, Recharge.
Signal:
Unlocks: Overcharge, Anachroniser, Recycle Fuel
I am going to break up my review into several posts each focusing on different things. This first one will be my general thoughts and comments as I play through the game.
The Badges, Abilities, and Tutorials have no BG music. You have such nice music, that it feels oddly quiet when you go to any of these from the menu screen, especially the tutorial. Many people will start with the Tutorial, so may think the main game doesn't have BG music, which could deter some people.
The tutorial looks like it hasn't been updated in a while, and could use some work. I'm pretty sure I mentioned several issues with it in the past, but let me know if you'd like me to share my thoughts again, as I did play through.
When starting the first mission, and the music stops, it feels abrupt. Maybe add a short fade out.
The Press E to skip message is largely covered by the character dialog. It did show before, so players may know about it, but may not have caught it before, or notice that it also applies here. It seems that the in combat dialog cannot be skipped with E.
Having played through before, I'm acknowledging that you don't get to pick your cards for this first fight. That is probably the right choice as players won't know what to pick before getting a fell for the game, and this also gives an idea of how you recommend outfitting each ship.
I found Shotgun to be fairly useful here as the biggest damage dealer. I only had to move about 1/3 of the way across the screen for all 3 projectiles to hit such a big target.
In combat I had the Blast Gun, though did not last long enough to use it. It was also one of my unlocked card after the combat.
After combat you get to outfit your ships. It would be nice if they started with the same loadout as you had in the combat. It is good to encourage players to experiment, but some players may also like to have something to start with and just modify, instead of having to fully pick every card. Many likely did not pay a lot of attention to the initial cards, and some may feel a bit overwhelmed at suddenly trying to pick a full loadout.
I really like the toggle for Card Hover. Being able to them bigger can be nice if you have a smaller screen, but it also can feel a bit laggy and in the way. I don't recall when you added the toggle, and initially I missed/forgot it on this playthrough, but before I finished my first ship's loadout I toggled it and personally prefer this way.
Second Combat:
The enemies' first turn they each used a different card to build up energy for the other, which was an interesting tactic.
Third Combat:
The lower enemy is cover up by the UI and might be initially overlooked by some people. They become clear once you take any action that hides the bottom UI, so it is probably not too big of an issue.
The Crusher
It would be nice if the between battle card select screen listed what battle you are on out of how many. I took a break and when I came back I couldn't remember which battle I was on, until I looked at my notes.
Now that I've swapped out the Blast Gun, this level has smaller enemies close enough together that it might have been more useful, though I forget their HP, so maybe not as much. I'd probably have tried it out if I still had it equipped, but also don't really regret not having it.
I had a Primordial Stone show up. I wasn't sure what it did, and forgot to right click to check it. I hit it in one of my attacks. Not what I was expecting, but the fight wasn't my best work at that point, so starting over wasn't a terrible result. Except that my fuel did not seem to reset, so I was unable to reposition my units that had already used all their fuel that turn. I'm assuming this is a bug, and fuel should also be reset.
For the boss fight I went back to my strategy from previous games of using all the special abilities to open the fight, then hitting with the strongest things I had.
The Phantom
Nothing of note here. Simple, straightforward boss fight.
The Signal
Signal Boss Fight:
Started with Energy Avalanche, but did not do normal combo, as wanted to focus on taking out the healers, rather than main combo on boss. Took out both healers on the first turn, doing some damage to Signal as well. Next turn used Energy Infusion, Laser of Lament, Sheer Gumption, Energy Infusion, Phantom Ray, Doom Pulse, and that ended the fight.
We don't specifically have a plan for poison at the moment. There are certain other ones that we have bigger plans for, and they are the ones that needed the combat updates to implement. We started with Poison/Regen because they were easy to implement and let us test our initial code, which is when we found the weaknesses that would be problematic for the other effects. We will probably add some enemies, likely a boss, that has high defenses where something like Poison will be the best way to deal with them, but nothing is set yet for that.
Going between dungeons to get the shinies is a valid tactic! It can make the bosses easier, especially if you get some of the extra HP boosts.
The current rough plan is for this to stay short so we can get something out, with this being intended for the co-op bundle. Then we will look at either starting on a larger game in this style with an overworld and more story. We may also first look at restarting and finishing Recharge Your Rocket. We were still very early in learning Godot with that one, so had to cut a lot for the jam. In the current version you mostly only play in the overworld, with a bit of the initial building having been added. We had planned for you to enter the buildings at each energy site as well, with them being short dungeons. With our current skills it should not take too long to rebuild the game in Godot 4 and finish the additional content we wanted for it.
Glad you are enjoying the game! It is still early, but we are happy with how it is shaping up.
Thanks for playing and the feedback.
This game has been pretty quick to work on. This update was about a week of work for the kids, and about 2 days for me as I only joined in after the Hungry update. We absolutely want to finish Hungry, but may need to consider if this style is where we are better suited currently. Our first ever jam game, Recharge Your Rocket, was also more of this style.
Without being able to continue after defeat it can be tough to get through until you learn the dungeons and enemy patterns. There is also a bit of trying each and seeing which is easiest for you and your play style, so you can unlock things to make the others easier. In some cases you may find a certain tool you really like and want to partially complete certain dungeons to get the upgrades before going through to complete any of them.
Drat. I saw the projectile issue while testing something else and forgot to fix it or put in a ticket. It will be fixed in the next update. The projectiles are always spawning pointing to the right, which can cause them to collide with things they shouldn't before they get rotated to point where they should. I'll take a look at the boulder as well and see about improving the visuals and collision detection of these. Maybe we will have the boulders use a smaller collision shape for detecting walls to despawn so it can better go down paths, while still having a good size for detecting enemies.
For this game we are currently working with an asset pack, so the kids just scaled the images up when they wanted bigger enemies. We haven't decided if we are going to stick with the asset pack or make our own. Likely it will be a hybrid to not delay the game while we try make all the art.
We will think about the HP bars, probably making it a difficulty option. They can be nice, but sometimes it is also nice to not know exactly how much HP they have/have left. For the games that inspired this one HP bars are not as common, but making a modern game they ado tend to be preferred.
I need to do more work on the enemy path finding/navigation. I also want to add some logic to make them less likely to simply walk into a pit, especially around the corners.
I'm not sure on collecting food, but we do plan to add your classic healing potions/spells as an option with the ability to refill somewhere. The kids did the large pile of food at the start, and I'm not sure what I think of it. We will probably reduce that, and instead better balance the food/healing throughout the dungeons. The core gameplay is inspired by classic (S)NES games like Zelda.
Thanks again. This was great feedback!
Thanks for playing and the feedback.
Glad the change to the AP display helped. We still need do a bit of tweaking with it, but it is coming along fairly well.
Yeah, we need to redo the tutorial from the current bloated version that made people feel overwhelmed to something simpler. I may even change the current on/off setting to one that allows selecting how detailed the player wants them to be, with our current more detailed version being the detailed option, but a lite version with just a quick summary.
Thanks!
Thanks for playing and the feedback. Glad you liked it.
A lot of the gameplay grew with the story as it became the guiding force. There are still several mechanics on our wishlist that are only meant to come into play as you leave the forest at the end of the current demo.
Tutorials have been our bane. We over did them and had to turn them off. We used to have a combat tutorial that took you through each action you could take one by one. That was with our old system with fewer unique abilities. A lot of the feedback we've gotten was wanting to get into the gameplay sooner. We plan to eventually update that old combat tutorial for the new systems and make it optionally start from somewhere like the Training Hall. There are also some popup tutorials, but as we redesigned features we'd up that them just before releasing and were too tired so they were very wordy and need to be cleaned up. Those are still in the game, but have to be turned on from the Settings before starting the game.
None of the upgrades felt awkward. The costs maybe could use some adjusting as it did feel like they went up by less than the gain I was getting and it did not take long to get enough money to buy multiple, so maybe increasing them to have more time before upgrades could work. At the same time, it did not feel too extreme, and doesn't need to be changed.
I think the tutorial popups are good. They convey enough info to guide the player, without being too much. The game is pretty intuitive, so it doesn't need much guidance.
The game is cute. I'm not big on idle/clicker games, really only having started to play them in jams, so my experience is somewhat limited. For the style it does feel like a good base, to me. The changes you've been making are making it feel more complete and enjoyable. I like the upgrades, it adds more to do and lets you keep unlocking things after adopting all the cats. The automation upgrades feel like an important addition. Since I I don't play a lot of this style I may be wrong, but it does seem like automation upgrades are a staple of the genre. I like the progress bars showing how long until the automation will complete.
I do think that it would be nice if after upgrading it would stay on the upgrade so that I can keep pressing the upgrade button. If letting they game go for a while and building up a bunch of cash I will often upgrade the same thing many times in a row, so not needing to go reselect the upgrade each time would be preferred. I know there was an issue before with free upgrades and deselecting was likely part of the fix, but staying selected and updating the info feels like it would work better.
With the automation it is far easier to simply leave the game up in the background, on a side monitor, or even in the corner of your screen as you work on other things. While I don't do it, I have seen that some people like to have companion apps open while they work. Having the cafe off to the side with the cats running around can work well for that kind of companionship app. I'm not sure if it would be worth it, or how much effort it would take, but something you may want to consider is having a mode where much of the UI is hidden and the view is reduced for that kind of sitting in a small window off to the side to watch the cats and customers. I wouldn't focus on this now, but just think about it for the future as a possibility depending on how the game grows.
The stats screen is another great addition. It is nice to be able to see the big total numbers for everything. The stats could use with some number formatting, such as thousands separators and 2 digits for cents. The money on the main UI could use it as well. While writing this out I left the game going and have made it up to Cafe Level 78, earning $350k.
I think the planned future addition of adding multiple cafes will be a nice growth of what you already have.
This was a nice upgrade. Everything feels better.
I see on the manual page that this was designed for mobile. It does not display properly on desktop. When I started the game the first row of buttons, starting with Swap Turn, had the bottom 1/3 cut off. I initially thought that was going to be the bottom and it was a slight issue. Adjusting the window size did not do much to fix things. I had to reduce the window width to very small before it started to scale. I used the browser's developer tools to go into mobile view, and that showed me that there was a lot more not shown in the desktop mode. I resized the mobile display until it looked like everything that should be displayed was. Then I clicked on one of the tiles with more stats and had to readjust again as it became taller and some elements got pushed off screen. As I tried to figure the game out I kept going back to the manual page, so I tiled the game and manual tabs side-by-side, and that also worked for making the game display decently.
I tried playing a bit, but it was not making sense to me. I could click on tiles on the game board, giving them a dotted border. Clicking on a button would then make it turn the tile background solidly the goldenrod color, but it did not seem to always do anything. I could get the plus button (Build Infrastructure) to change the displayed balance. There is a goldenrod colored bar at the bottom with a black square. Apparently I can click on it in different places to move the square, and on some tiles it will change numbers, such as for Investment.
It looks like an interesting minimalist game, but I just wasn't able to get figure things out enough. I admit that I am tired right now, so maybe it would make more sense after some rest. I used to play a lot of grand strategy games back when I had the time for them. I have a general feel for things, but feel like I'd need to dedicate a fair bit of time to really learning the game. The manual is also fairly minimalist, which fits with the game, but also makes it a bit harder for new players to pick up the game. It might help to make a video showing some gameplay.
Your games web page starts with "Same controls as my past games.". As someone who has not played your past games, I have no idea what those controls are. You should make each game page standalone with all the info players need for it. Many people aren't going to want to go looking through other projects to find the controls. I am writing this before playing, so maybe the controls are shown in game, but his is my first reaction to seeing that text.
Upon starting there is text that says "Press X or / to FREEZE!". Pressing either button does nothing. No other controls are mentioned. Your game pages mentions the "cool move" can only be done in the air, so I jumped and pressed X, and it did something. I would suggest adding some text with the basic controls above the start, along with updating the exiting text to "Press X or / while in the air to FREEZE!", or something similar making it clear it only works while jumping/in the air.
The mechanic of maintaining your height and gliding across, almost like an air dash, is something I have seen in plenty of platformer games and can be part of a fun game. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy a game with that being the only/core move, but as part of a normal set of platformer moves it is nice to have, especially as something you unlock as you play. I often associate air dash alongside double jump as good companion abilities. You implementation seems to work fine. I tried it several times and was not able to make it to the flag over the ice, but I see that there is just a cliff after that, so it looks like even if I did make it, it would be the end anyway. The general movement also feels decent, from what I can test in the small area. There would need to be more to the level to really get a good feel for how it works with the level design, as that can have an impact on how good everything feels as a whole.
Thanks for playing and the feedback.
I appreciate the feedback looking at it from a commercial viewpoint. It does change how to look at a project. While we are planning it to be commercial, the current project has less than 2 weeks of work in it, so is pretty rough. Still, keeping the goal in mind will help to shape it properly. You have some good points that we need to think on.
I agree with you on the movement. I do not like how it feels right now, and it is high on my list of things to refine, but ran out of time before the jam after fixing bugs.
Glad you like the flute, We wanted to have unique enemies and different ways to defeat them, and are happy with how that turned out.
We will look into better feedback when your weapon in ineffective.
We are trying to balance the bombs more as utility, and less as a main damage dealer. They can get good for groups of enemies, and needed for some, but generally take a bit more timing and effort to use well. We will be refining them further, but don't want them to be too powerful.
We were inspired by classic (S)NES Zelda and similar games, which is where falling in the pits causing damage came from. In the original jam version of this game you lost as soon as you fell in, but we changed it to do damage and respawn at the entry in this version, as the instant loss felt too harsh. I agree that taking damage and respawning does feel a bit unrealistic. We will think on it. Lava will likely be added at some point to give more variety.
We will double check the boss room unlocks. It could be a bug. Which boss was it that you had trouble with?
We are aware that some attacks can go through barriers, especially if you are close. We haven't decided if we want them to be half-height walls that you can attack over or not. Plenty of the classic games we are taking inspiration from do allow attacking through some barriers, so we are debating how it feels and which way to go with it.
I really need to work on an in-game menu for settings in our template. It keeps getting pushed down the road.
We will check the spike traps for any that are not working.
I'm not familiar with Necesse. We will take a look at it.
Right now we are focusing more on making the core game feel good. There isn't any story yet. The jam theme was "Spin to Win", which is where some of the spinning things come from. We are thinking of keeping some of that and adding rooms where the whirlwind is used to spin things as a puzzle mechanic. Beyond that we don't really have anything distinctive to market on. We will need to think on that. This is meant to be a smaller game that we don't want to let ourselves go crazy with scope creep, like we did with our main one, so we need to find a good balance of something fun that will be worth buying, but also not make it too big. If it does well enough we may do a larger game in this style with an overworld and exploring to find different dungeons, and likely other mechanics for outside the dungeons.
Thanks again for the great feedback!
