dallengd 2016-04-19 22:32
I'm not sure I understand the logic behind the game mechanics, especially the paper/mineral system. I liked the collection concept and the universe though.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD35 → The Incredible Vending Machine
By sunflower
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coolness | 1 | 100 | ||
| Humor | 418 | 2.67 | ||
| Innovation | 671 | 2.90 | ||
| Theme | 823 | 2.93 | ||
| Mood | 979 | 2.31 | ||
| Graphics | 1033 | 2.24 | ||
| Fun | 1071 | 2.29 | ||
| Overall | 1093 | 2.56 |
I'm not sure I understand the logic behind the game mechanics, especially the paper/mineral system. I liked the collection concept and the universe though.
Couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do.
Thank you for commenting on my game, that helped a lot. I really like the Idea of your game. But for me it got a bit boring after a few minutes, since you have to only do the same things over and over again (maybe I missed something, I played til I had ~20 recorded Items). But since you started on the second day, it's still a quite complex game. Maybe I will come back to this later and play a bit further.
Alright, got a first post-Jam update, mostly aesthetic for now. I dunno why I don't focus on mechanics instead, maybe that's because Richelle is so irresistible?
At SeaMonster and mooncalf: well, figuring out how the machine works is one of the big parts of the game (of course, if mooncalf couldn't even have fun, that'd be troublesome). Another matter altogether is that the game perhaps leaves a bit too much open to interpretation; I plan to make an easier introduction for the core elements in the game in one of upcoming updates (maybe even the next one).
@GameQuester: yeah, I'm afraid the gameplay at this point isn't that engaging. It probably would work better as something to casually go back to and play around with, rather than to complete in one go. However, until I implement saving (which might get broken when items list changes) that won't really work, huh...?
I love the mechanics you've put in place in such a time-frame. I felt the transformation was a bit too random, but I guess that's part of the exploration in this game. Good job overall.
Interesting idea.
As for execution (of course, I'm aware that 3 days or less can only go so far and you accomplished a lot on that time, this is more in case you keep on working on the post-jam version) some UI interactions feel slow, and this kind of game itself yields to some relaxed gameplay.
Of course, relaxed gameplay is perfectly fine, but if you need to spend half of the time you could be checking for new items switching screens one at a time it can eventually become annoying. Perhaps you could make the screens cycle or add some shortcuts for each one on the top bar. Also, have the thesaurus section work so that once you choose a synonym you retrieve the item automatically on the bar above.
@medidog: It's not really *that* random (I even implemented a queue of sort that prioritizes items not yet received), but I can see why the mechanics aren't that obvious (well, figuring it out is one of the key aspects).
Either way, I added some indicators to the machine in the recent build. Maybe with those in place you'll find it easier to figure out how the machine acts?
@Ithildin: thanks for constructive feedback, it helped me quite a bit. In the most recent build aside from prettifying the machine I've added some screen-switches so that one can jump between Newton/Richelle directly. Also, as per your suggestion, clicking on the synonym hides the list automatically.
(on a side note, funny that you mention "thesaurus" section, even though I don't recall using that name directly, aside from game code and files; did you perhaps decipher some pun out there...?)
Thanks for reviewing my game as well. Awesome feedback. If we were to make more I would 100% implement your suggestions.
And clearly looking now we should have used q,w,e for forms.
Yes the white screen is intended The narrator indicates deactivation ... but the audio seems to be broken for many players.
super cute game!!! I hope you expand on it! Excellent job!!
I tried to "get" it but I'm sorry to say that I didn't in the end. Not entirely at least (but I did manage to get some items after a while). It seems like an interesting idea but I need more handholding to get most out of it I'm afraid. :) But I think you did very well considering how little time you had to make it!
Cute handdraw pictures. A pity, I did not get very far!
Congrats for your cool game!
Couldn't figure this one out..
REally hard to understand on my own but once i figured it out was really nice.
Not sure how I'm supposed to play it?
Cool, I love fiddling with Alchemy-style games! Nice use of the theme as well. Thanks for this one.
Haha! I finally finished the game!
That was actually very very enjoyable. I was sceptical the first 20 minutes, but since you promised it was going to be fun once I play long enough, I kept on playing... I was right to trust you, that was awesome !
I tried both versions, but I'll only give comments on the post-Jam (I only played the Jam version for 15 minutes).
The first twenty minutes were slow. I can completely understand the other players giving up at this point, because you don't understand what's happening, you go back and forth and the game is repetitive. And then : you understand what is happening. I felt very intelligent at that time, then very stupid. The game is then played in a completely different way. Well done ! I had to grab a paper and pen to help myself find the last items.
I think you had a really innovative idea. However, you can't really grasp it unless you had the awkward 15 minutes first try. It's really hard to make the game more accessible without ruining it... I saw you added an indicator in the post-jam version : That didn't really help me, but it was pretty!
The post-jam version was also more colourful, had more images, and you could quickly switch from Newton to Richelle. I was a little scared because you added an animation when you switch page next to Richelle, but it wasn't really bothersome. I was a little confused by the extra buttons on the vending machine too, but it turned out alright. I would have personally have the "start" button be the same as the "reroll", and not on the "accept", but that's my personal choice. It's just that I was often picking items I didn't want at the beginning because my hand clicked on the button again thinking it would make something new appear.
You improved the graphics, but I'm surprised you didn't make a sort of animation when the vending machine presents something, especially during the re-roll. A sort of the-new-item-swipes-the-unwanted-one-down type of thing doesn't seem too complicated and would look nice (I think... I might have bad taste... I hope not...).
The thing that was really a pain when I played was that I didn't know which items I had registered at Richelle's and which I didn't. 3 out of the last 5 items I needed to finish the game where actually items I had already discovered but never added to the library. Having the items automatically registered might be a little overkill, but maybe having a small indicator next to the image (a small "New" in a corner for example) stay until that item type has been registered would make the end-game far less frustrating.
So... I think I wrote enough already...
Very good job! Here, have my lame suggestions! Hopefully they will be a little useful to you in your next builds. If they're not, I will at least wish you good luck!
Thanks for the feedback people. I'm not sure if the tutorial makes the gameplay easier to figure out or not, but since then I didn't get complaints about that, so yay...?
@Swynfel: really thanks for the awesome and detailed feedback. Glad people are able to figure the mechanics on their own; one of the biggest challenges of pattern-finding puzzles is balancing them so that they're neither too easy nor too hard to figure out (as opposed to constrained puzzles, such as Sokoban or Sudoku, where solver is familiar with the entire domain and just needs to narrow down the solution). What I like the most about the vending machine mechanics is that they're fundamentally simple - their essence can be captured in one sentence with two verbs.
As for the indicators, I guess they don't really help that much with determining the nature of the machine, but they can be helpful once you figure it out. Especially if you poke the indicator board (i.e. left-click on it) - all the lights then become stable, reflecting the actual state, until you move the mouse elsewhere. I used it to determine what sort of ingredients are needed to get the item I want.
As for the animation on presenting something: I dunno, I did make an animation for dropping an item into the machine, and sliding an item that's served; and the reroll button even has the effect you seem to describe, i.e. current items slides out, the next item slides in. It lasts for about 0.2 seconds, but it's there.
(in such case, I guess you don't have a bad taste, then?)
As for the reroll/accept buttons - I can see what you mean here, but that change would kinda go against the buttons' expressions. The green is meant to "encourage" (give me something/I like that item), while the red is meant to "complain" (I don't like it, give me something else).
As for the hoarded items registrations... I think I might make it more convenient in the full project, though not immediately available. Still, at later point you have a good chance of getting the previously-unregistered items, anyway, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks again for the feedback! Your suggestions are not lame at all!
Takes a while to "grind" the game and obtain every single item but the concept itself was rather interesting.
Hey Alphish, thanks for commenting our entry (we answered to it on our page!).
Concerning your game, the global mechanic is easy to learn and pretty interesting at first glance, but quite repetitive after a few "shapeshiftings".
The fact that I need to collect stuff is fine, but not enough rewarding to give me motivation to keep playing.
Also, in my opinion, the "slides" are not the best way to separate the different interactions.
Making a bigger screen with three different spaces could have create more enjoyable and fluid interactions in my items management.
Considering the lack of time to create this entry, I find it pretty interesting, but with a lack of time to give it a proper presentation :) ! +1 for all the item descriptions, you had to be creative on this point!
Cheers !
@Xanjos: just curious, have you collected all the items, or gave up because it takes too long? Just curious.
In proper version I plan to add a few features that would make the grinding more bearable. Also, saving, so that one could do it in a few goes.
@Lullaby: thanks for the comment.
"Concerning your game, the global mechanic is easy to learn and pretty interesting at first glance, but quite repetitive after a few "shapeshiftings"."
Just curious, by "global mechanic" do you mean the mere fact that items can be inserted into vending machine, renamed and hoarded, or the specific rules governing the machine (and making it easier to predict how to obtain unknown items)?
As for the rewarding/motivation, I guess if someone doesn't find that sort of gameplay appealing, they won't really feel motivated to keep going. Once you figure the game out, its complexity is more akin to incrementals rather than, say, puzzles or strategies. I plan implement a bunch of features to make the grinding more bearable and some additional content/dialogue to make it more rewarding, but it'll still be grinding. Then again, saving might help a lot here, too... maybe?
As for the "slides" vs bigger screen - I think I can see where you come from, though I'm not sure it's doable in this particular game. I'd either need to make the screen really, really big (which probably wouldn't make laptop/mobile/browser players very happy) or give smaller space for particular features, and thus for characters representing them (Richelle, Newton, heck, even the machine kinda counts) as well, and they are going to be quite important. It's not like those features cannot be neatly arranged in a sort of vending management window, but I'm afraid it'd harm the charm this particular game has. ^^'
Still, I plan to add some features that would eventually keep hoard recording and synonyms swapping contained in the vending machine window, so you wouldn't need to switch the windows so often. I do have some general plans about it, I hope they'll work out in the end.
Thanks for the feedback, anyway. ^^
Oh this is a very nice game! Really liked the take on the theme and concept! Artwork are simple but very nice (Richelle is adorable! Kkk). Humor was great too! Unfortunately I wasn't able to understand the pattern of the machine >.< (Guess I'm too stupid?) I got to collect around 40 objects but then I got stuck (in one try I had a item that suddenly disappeared, while duplicating another one?... Really don't know what happened).. But I'll try again later!
As @Swynfel suggested, I think it would be nice to Start and Re-roll button were the same, sometimes I would accidentally keep pressing the same button to change it the outcome but then I collected them xp I know it wouldn't make sense to the layout now, but just one suggestion... Maybe not make the start button the smile one?
Some indication if the item is new would also be nice too, or maybe just keep the image of the item in the catalog would already help~
When I played the post-jam version I totally skipped the tutorial thinking that the change screen button wasn't working xp (which, btw, the direct change button is very welcomed!)
I think that's it. Congrats on your entry! I'll keep track of your updates!
You got my point with the swapping windows stuff :) sorry it was late at my place, and hard to think properly !
Just a few lines of text as a reward each time I discover a specific object would give me à feeling of progression !
Thanks for responding to my feedback! It's always interesting to talk with the creator of a game for a better understanding of the design choices when we're facing a prototype ! ^^
i like the potencial of your game mechanic but it was a little hard to understand the logic.
Reminds me of Doodle God / Doodle Devil, in a way, only way wackier :D
The logic behind the transmutations feels a bit random, but that's probably because the player isn't offered too much information about the process.
How I remember the people who made Doodle Devil handled it, there was a clear sense of progression based on the items you unlocked (i.e. from fire/earth/sin all the way to technology)
Curious where this is going :D
Congrats and good luck!
The mechanic is pretty hard to understand, but once I got it everything turned out to be very enjoyable!
Really liked the idea and the complexity was a charm after all.
Well done!
Played the 'jam-like' version
Deliciously surreal - would be even lovelier with some weird/jazzy/elevator music. Nice take on the theme!
It's very unique.
Rather unusual GameMaker project. I found it a bit difficult to figure out how to play. I'd recommend making the help text a little bit more helpful. I get that this is supposed to be a puzzle, but figuring out the UI shouldn't be the puzzle -- figuring out what to do in the game should be.
After I put "nothing" into the vending machine, it gave me "Thing", but then the machine seemed to break. I couldn't really tell how to operate it. So I went over to a different room for a while, and tried coming back later, but the machine was still out of order. At that point, I pretty much lost interest.
Thanks for the comments, people.
@nihilaleph: About the screen change and dialogue - yeah, I think I should have made it so that during dialogue the room-switching buttons are hidden. In the next version, probably.
@CtrlAltTea: I like your thinking, especially that jazzy/elevator music suggestion; I might include something like that, eventually...
@csanyk: Sorry you couldn't figure it out. That "out of order" thing was put in place to make sure people won't stay around the machine, constantly exchanging "Nothing" and "Thing" and assuming that's everything the game has to offer (I know it happened to at least one person); instead pushing player to explore other screens, and discover Newton's ability to use synonyms, without which the game basically cannot advance anyhow.
Also, I tried to avoid too explicit tutorial, instead of relying on "out of order" segment and heavy use of tooltip, so that the learning isn't too intrusive and doesn't kinda treat the player like an idiot. The tutorial section definitely will be polished (e.g. Richelle's section doesn't have any proper explanation yet), but if you have some specific suggestions how to make the explanation more helpful without being intrusive or "condescending", I'd like to read about them.
Very nice entry! Loved the graphics and the humor. But this game seems huge. I've only managed to record 72 things (sorry for not finishing it). Amazing how you managed to include all this.
I played both Jam and Post, and the idea is interesting, but it gets repetitive. I would suggest putting a slot on the side of the main window to automatically have the dragon assess the Item and give it back to you. I would also have put The Lizard on the main page as well.
Made a video review for you: https://youtu.be/cov2SmkSm4E
@PinkIndian: wow, 72 is actually quite a lot, I'm glad you sticked for that long (especially since there's no saving yet, some day...). ^^
@TheCain: I have some ideas for quality of life upgrades in the next version,
@General: Yay, thanks a lot! Good to see someone trying it out live; thankfully, you did well figuring out the core mechanics. I will do my best to keep it up. ^^
Nice game!
It took me a VERY LONG time, but I finally managed to understand the machine state lights. :P
I didn't have the patience to collect all words after that. Interesting concept, though! You might want to make some milestones to keep the player motivated, and maybe hint at the word(s) the player should seek next.
By the way, thanks for rating my entry. :)
I've done some small gameplay changes to try and improve the platforming and make it more playable. You can try it again if you want to. Thank you very much anyways!
wow! why i found this game so late~! to be honest,at first several minute i feel so difficulty to understand this game's mechanic and what it want to express...
but when i hold my breath and keep to explore in this game! wala~ when the third paper[voice/sound/..] appears in my mechine,i found that i got it!
of course, in this process, i also think if my english could be more good, maybe i could understand and feel this game more fast and more easy,but fortunately there still have so many graphic to help me and to enhence these meanning in this game...
i think it provide a unique perspective to expand the [shapeshift], and i think i just dig out tip of the iceberg ^^ also nearly understanding is not good enough(mainly because my english ithink，otherwise i may could provide more worthy feedback here ToT)
but although this is a problem. but not the biggest problem. i will try more in future(i may need to spend more time to feel and communicate with this game in rencently, ) and hope you give it more polish!
finally, thanks your unique design and the full lovely meaning's injection, enlighten me a lot. cheers!
hi~!Alphish i am back^ ^
in the yesterday and the day before yesterday. I have played <The Incredible Vending Machine> twice, ehh,i must to say really got so many new feeling in the process which i communicated with it ,really wonderful and interesting this process (dictionary is my good friend and help me alot in this process haha!>u< this is a brave battle, although i was seized up at the 62?/87 temporary.. the last/newest item i got seems the popcorn...from the printer &paper? not suere enough...i think there may some core key was missed by me ,but just not found currently...orz )
number to combine more new number,and MIA->different ways in the next step.approximant/ synonyms,clue to clue and also change in each different change... also the encouragement be contains these!very surprising and full of inovation!
at the first time i play this game, deep night,and Brain full paste...orz was confused with the MIA... but after that,i found that MIA means so many things...(really fun design this point,not sure the mia was just a placeholder?but i think this let me feel so fun and easy to let my eyes attach it as a symbol )
also,i think there are so many good design-points let me feel nice,for example these little indicators,now i may just not sure enough the function of it ,but through the experience,i just feel that the exisit of it gives so many additional viusal clue and feedbacks to players,also let these moment became more vivid ,which when it change and we choose (although these visual stimulation not very big)
then, these itmes's symbols really easy but interesting!the moment really full of fun when i got these new items (but i think that may different with the box of Skinner) ,just like the world become bigger than bigger and the number also more and more.
other aspect, i also think, if there could be more effects or additional-events to be built when some core-item appears,and also let these additional-events as cutting-points for this main process, it may could let the process more intriguing/arresting ? ( you konw,if we see the recorded as a progress bar,it may let us feel there is a really long long journey...)
so,as the same principle,if with these new item's built or with the main process's development,the world also could appears some new evolution/changes to echo them,maybe the power of this game could get some new multipling growth! (for example ,let these items gets some clear when the process development to a new level?fexp when the recorded >40/87?then clear some items which will not useful? all maybe they all useful?haha ToT After all i was not stage clear,so maybethis point not correct enough )
of course, i also could feel these rhythm and development now,just by these item's self-evolution. the only difference between them,just may from there are different apparent degree....
At this point,these may all the feedbacks after my twice play experience...i really think this game may really easily to be underestimated, but it is really genius and interesting to play.
all in all，Sincerely hope you could polish it more and more beauty and let the process have more rhythm. Cheers!