Controls are snappy! And I love the snappy little avatar. I like how I become a tiny square when I press down. This is hard, I'm not very good at platformers, but I had a good time! The art and sound strongly recall a retro style I appreciate, the sound really seals this. I'll try a few more times to get to the end, but I wanted to leave a comment here before the Jam was over.
Ah!!! You are the first player to finish a Heist!!!
First these are amazing. I need to find a new word, but that is all I have right now. I'm not the writer, that would be my partner.
• The stat system is not on much display in the Jam, but your point does stand to telegraph more clearly WHEN a stat is nudging the effects/behavior. For most of the heist Warm/Cold and Sub/Dom are the primary 2 stats. The other CAVES scores (based on Big 5 OCEAN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits) only affect skill checks, which are already baked in. Example: Persuasion is CHA + Agreeable. Shadowing is AGL + Careful. Warm and Dom are actually calculated from the CAVES scores, a vector sum and then renormalized. Upshot, we will need to keep the CAVES, but making it clearer when they are used will be important AND (my key takeaway here) they distract from the greater important Dom vs Warm plane, so we should highlight that more in the heist setting and downplay/hide the complexity of the full personality scores mid-heist.
• Oh no! Sorry about the gate. Yes, absolutely. We have a flag for "redoable" but that does not mean it is useful to do so. We should look into being a bit more stingy with the "redoable" flag, no need to keep running up that hill.
• Ah, I think this is the leader issue we are currently trying to find a good design for. When your leader (Isabelle) is acting, she can't command. The orders appear locked. We are not sure if we should keep this limitation, on the leader or not. Or go the other way and keep the leader from doing ANYTHING but command. TBD how to handle this. But beyond the leader, Movement seemed to be a point of friction for other folks too, I'll need to spend deeper thought on how to communicate it in a diegetic way that makes sense.
• We have a drawing of the map on paper we didn't manage to use. Hopefully the next version gets that and the paper texture so candle light flickers on the map. Rooms will then be NON-overlapping, which should help. The paths will be less clear tho
"I genuinely did feel like I was on a heist, which is like the thing you want your player to feel for this game."
Wonderful! The experience lens at work!
Definitely expand on this system [self assigned actions] more later
Yes, definitely. Right now it is a very simple system. Later it will be based on their goals, not just what they would rather do in this particular room. But again, we will need to be very careful to be sure we telegraph the why's of this. Kind of like Agreeable vs Warm/Dom... we need to make sure we are showing what is relevant when it is relevant. Knowing it to type it is one thing, I think your playthrough has helped me feel whento do it deeper, rather than just in general.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for sticking with it. It means so much to us, plus this is all very actionable feedback that will make the game better!
This was fun! Long download, but worth it. The upgrades on the timeline was a good combo, and I felt like I was able to select things that match playstyles I like without being catered to explicitly. I felt smart getting good things to line up, when I know that was the point. Well done! Very slick.
Yep! Very rooted in D&D, Gold Box games, Balder's Gate, Shadowrun, and other games in the CRPG space. I think we need to give bigger respect to the notion that making things more abstract does not in fact make them more clear. We will be working on making the screen more responsive. If you (or anyone else writing reading this (hullo)) can share examples of something you tried that didn't seem to work, that helps! But still, either way, thank you for the play and the encouragement! It is our first Jam and we happy to hear any kind of feedback, especially this late into the rating process. Happy Jam!
-_- Thanks I hate it. I love it. My feelings are in conflict.
I found the leash, I got the darn dog, forget my shoes and the keys, I live in a safe neighborhood and I'm up to date on my tetanus shots. ...am I locked in? I NEED the keys?... they could be anywhere... under... anywhere under all. that. poop.
Aw yes, this is what we are here for. Thank you deeply for the deep feedback. This is the kind of thing that is hard to get from friends/family. • We need to do a deeper run of the affordances. Especially for "Pull off current task". You and another person had a similar comment on this button. The intent (un-telegraphed) was this was a toggle between "Stack on their plan" and "Pull off current task", changing the effect of giving a new order. Does the new order stack? or does it replace what you have already told them to do. I think we will need to give this button some special attention on how to flag what is happening and why. • Timeline... is my brain trapped in its own realm. In my head it is clearly the AP for each character's queued actions with a red edge flagging the end of that action. What else could it be? Well... lots of things. A legend is simple and somehow I never thought of it. Most people I showed it to I would explain the clock verbally... and I missed that in game it is just a big confusing ticker. • The DC chances... I really thought was working. I'll do a deep dive. I have % comply and % succeed appearing in teal font on the block between the Order buttons and the (very confusing) Stack on/Pull off toggle button(s). Move... does not have a succeed chance... but it may later when/if we add Stealth to moving between rooms.
This is not meant to be a defense of these issues. I see a lot of comments where the dev nearly argues with the feedback. This is intended to communicate that your feedback is very helpful, and will improve both the game and my developing developer instincts. Thank you.
First: thank you for the play and the feedback! We didn't' realize until playing other games that sound was non-optional, we have been thinking of it as nice-to-have for a Jam... NOT THE CASE :, ). We feel silly having left out any.
The other item, very helpful!! Another post mentioned "Pull off current task" does nothing, and we likely would have dismissed it as they didn't have anything queued up to pull them off from. But between the two comments, we will do a deeper dive looking for bugs.
Thank you again for the encouragement and feedback. Thank you for your patience.
Lovely. Lovely sound, I like the clock. The menu swaps are very slick. I seemed to be able to jump on the pits if holding spacebar? Neat bug/exploit. I enjoyed it, thank you for making it. Made me want to go back and play some old JRPGs. : ) Good times.
That is very helpful!! Thank you! Move taking time is a good catch, I'm so used to it, I forget. We will try moving the character pawn to mid-door or showing a blue arrow to the room they are headed maybe... to try to show that the Order was received and is being acted upon. We need to actively avoid the notion that the UI is dead while the crew are working on things, and Movement is a topic I haven't thought enough about. Thank you very much!
Amazing! The tutorial was helpful and helped ease me into it. I've never actually played a platformer since the early 90s (odd to realize) so the wall and redirect mechanics were new but thankfully generous. I did have trouble reading the tutorial text once things started picking up speed (after the first 3 or 4). Not an issue for a Jam to be sure, everything here is very slick. But for a full rollout, I'm not sure how to solve this. Maybe keep the text until the character is still for 5 or 10 s? Or bigger fonts? I'm sure you'll think of something. Your page is amazing as well.
First, Thank You for playing! This is our first Jam and are just figuring out how all this works. I'm not sure how to get the instructions easy to see on all the pages, so I'll paste some of them here:
Quick start instructions:
1) Click "Begin the Heist" at the bottom of the into screen 2) Click a Crew member portrait in the bottom left (I'd recommend Claire to start b/c she is a good listener). 3) Give that Crew member an Order (wide button on the right, e.g. Scale the Gate). 4) ??? 5) Profit!
Known issues:
• The "Use" buttons don't really work anymore. • There is no sound. At all. Sorry about that. • The colors on the rows of tiles representing the AP points for the 4 characters should match the color or borders for the 4 portraits below, or at least their colored dots on the map (these are currently all the same color yellow).
This is THE BEST game I've played so far. Engrossing, solvable, but challenging. Each playthrough is different. This could easily expand out to a full game with even just an extra 3 people shuffling in and out per play through and slightly different maps. Counting down the dinner guests. This was great. I hope Mark sees it.
Good theme and well balanced. finished in 9:01, i hit the population target about 20 s before the temperature target, so very much aligned there. It could have been awkward if I hit population then had to wait for the temperature but it was close to lock step. Fun time, thank you!
Love the vision and style of this game! As a statement on the AI bubble it works well to have only a vague sense of causality and have the player feel like they're just frantically treading water. If you wanted it to function more as a *game*, then you'd need to give the player more immediate feedback on the results of their choices. Both work, but it's a tradeoff between concept and playability.
I could not figure out how to launch the rocket. I added different amounts of parts, but kept needing to reload the page when I got soft locked into watching the Earth spin. Very nice concept, good use of the theme! All Hail Helix!!!
I'm sorry I tried. I could not figure this out. Do I put it in the flashing thing in the lower right? It disappears? The instructions were helpful... I think I'm close... I guess the most helpful next thing would be some flash or ding or indication that I did one of the steps right. To give me a sense of progress, but mostly to help me learn what part of what i did was helpful. Keep going though! I like the cat.
I'm sorry I tried. I could not figure this out. Do I put it in the flashing thing in the lower right? It disappears? The instructions were helpful... I think I'm close... I guess the most helpful next thing would be some flash or ding or indication that I did one of the steps right. To give me a sense of progress, but mostly to help me learn what part of what i did was helpful. Keep going though! I like the cat.
I played until I beat the boss. Well done! Art style hangs together well. Only confusing part was it took me a while to realize my hand was emptied at the end of a round. I thought my hand persisted, but I'm not sure why I thought that. I've played a lot of Pokemon and Slay the Spire, so this was a very good time.
I haven't played a game in this genre before, but it's very satisfying and stylistically cohesive. It's definitely a game you easily could spend too much time on.
Amazing ambiance, especially the sound! Everything is very unsettling. If I were any good at platformers, I'd definitely play more of it, but instead I just keep hurling myself into holes.
I think I got the same bug that causes the re-occurring clues, but even with that problem the game is still fun and charming! It's got a good One Night Werewolf style pace where failure is whimsical instead of frustrating. The art is so cute and engaging!
Ok... seemed buggy on my setup so it never ran properly at full or partial screen (probably something about how the button clicks locate to the screen window (mine had issues with that)). But here is what I could come up with from what I could get to in the main loop screen.
The art is awesome! The theme and color pallets really well serve the mood. Youve put a lot into the tutorial section (something I should learn from). I do also see what folks mean by it being confusing, which is a bit broad, and it took me a while to figure out what could make it more specific. The screen is busy, that is fine, that matches the energy you are looking for. But with that I think it needs to be clearer what is a button and what is not. You have two primary button colors Yellow and Cyan, to code for the difference resources, so color is not a clear queue of what I can click on. You are also using both circle and rectangular buttons, which helps flag the kind of action. I think what has been hard to put a finger on is that when changing color AND shape of the buttons, it gets harder to use the UI, especially if the UI is already busy. If it were a crisp starfleet ship (boring layout) you would have more flexibility in the button colors and shapes. With a dynamic interesting layout... I think the buttons could stand to more standardized to help folks through it.
... Those are my thoughts, I hope they are helpful to you. Wonderful game. Inspirational for what I should do next year in my 2nd jam.
Thank you so much!!! Your comment means a lot to me. I don't want my reply to be a defense of its shortcomings, I see a lot of that. I will work on the Tutorial and Affordances. Well landed. Great to hear something positive about the AutoRun and concept. We will be making the inner logic of the NPCs more visible with more UI work, so AutoRun and them breaking ranks is more telegraphed.
But mostly, you are now the first person outside our team to give feedback. Thank you for that. Deeply, it really means a lot.
Very neat! It was tricky getting starting in Itch, but after that it was intuitive to play. I could not figure out how to rotate tiles. Very cohesive and fitting art style!
I played to round 35 with 20 min on the clock, then realized "You can not win"... well done, good game... I guess I was hoping that eventually something different would happen. Well art'ed though and it kept me going for a long time. Fun, good meta progression.
Nice game, thank you for making it! I wish the final score screen was up for longer so I could try to understand how I did and why. I think this is one of the only games this season I've played to the end. Thanks, things to think about.
Very fun! Jumping from planet to planet was a good time! Awkward the art at the start was in the way of the first jumps, but i really liked the way the tutorial was laid out.
I had to read the other comments to figure out what I was missing. At my resolution 1920x1080 I could not read the note in the briefcase. Fun idea! I got the first one after a few tries, but pretty tricky for me. I'm pretty tone deaf. fun though!
You are the leader of a small cadre of cut-throats and ne'er-do-wells. Run your crew through a heist in a 15th-century mansion, issuing orders and juggling the personalities of your henchmen. Race the clock to discover the secrets of the mansion before the guards find you. But be wary: your crew may have their own ideas.
I.E. They may argue with your Order or self assign Orders.
