Beer in Mind

xmatos 2017-04-27 16:47

Hi, your game looks amazing! I can see this being an interesting game if has proper minigames and actually challenging to make a day profitable, it would make the story much more interesting. After I lost, I think in the 4th day, I couldn't restart the day, it just brought me to the first menu, but this time the "start the day" button wouldn't work. The dialog is funny and it feels like you get to know the regulars, like a bartender would. Oh well, so much you can do in 72 hours, but I'd look forward to see a finished product. Good luck on the competition and I'd love some feedback on my game as well if you have the time https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/mitoa Cheers :beers:

pixelstuff 2017-04-27 20:25

Hi @xmatos, thanks a lot for taking the time to give us a review, we will do the same for your game with pleasure! The bug you encountered when losing is identified and we will try to fix it quickly :)

It is funny you mention minigames, because if we had the time (which we hadn't in 72hours x) ) it was something we were planning to add. Also, we will try to work on it after the end of the competition, so be sure if there are improvements, we will be mentionning it on this very page.

And thanks again for your review! :beers:

turncoda 2017-04-28 03:27

Wow, I overdosed someone on alcohol! That miiight have had something to do with my spam clicking the beer on the tap :stuck_out_tongue:

The game looks gorgeous. I love the way the bar looks, the colors, and the silhouettes. I also like the character portraits, but it feels like the two styles don't mix. I can totally understand if that was more a result of limited time than an intentional choice.

As I play this game, I feel confused. There's the part of the game where I'm trying to satisfy my customers. At the same time, I'm talking to folks, trying to learn more about them. I was just about to learn more about why Amy wanted to meet her brown-haired friend (not to pry or anything, but it seems like the game wanted me to investigate). My curiosity was piqued when I heard a drunk Jane muttering about a serial killer (?) and "hiding a body". Then I suddenly lose because I sold beer to a minor. I feel like there's two games here, and I don't like playing the "Diner Dash" one.

I lost a couple times and gave up. I felt like I wasn't learning how to play the game better. I do wish I could watch the whole story unfold though.

undefinist 2017-04-28 11:24

The game looks absolutely beautiful! My biggest gripe with the game is how much I have to move my mouse just to finish the dialog (I feel like I should always be able to end the dialog just clicking on the same spot)

jk5000 2017-04-28 12:01

The art style in the game is really pretty and the music is great. The idea for the game is simple and good, but it is a difficult to know who you serve beer too, and how to send guests out of the bar.

navot 2017-04-28 14:11

Very nice game! Played this game a few times, but still wasn't able to win. Is it even possible?

I really like the concept, but I think you needed a bit more time. A few more diverse / personalised small talk options would have been nice. On one occasion two cats died in one night...

It's also irritating that the cops and cabs don't show up, unless the game lets you. One night Amy (If I got the name right) was telling me she was under police protection and to call the police if I knew anything, but nothing happened. Also telling the kid to get out didn't really seem to work

Then there are some minor bugs, like not being able to restart the game, the barrel on the bottom being below the bench, or there being tiny white outlines around the objects, some small spelling mistakes (I think one time you wrote in instead of on). One night I didn't have any customers at all, which was also a bit annoying.

I quite like the vagueness of the you got killed game over statements outside of the bar, as it lets you play the game again, and try to figure out what you missed. However the one were you are just in the bar with (no spoilers) that person and get killed should maybe have a bit more of an explanation, since it was a bit out of the blue in my opinion...

Apart from that, it is a really nice, visually stunning game with an interesting story.

elzach 2017-04-28 15:25

Stunning art-style and cool music. Did you guys record that during the ld? :D Gameplay left me a little confused at first. Really needed a second attempt to get a general idea. Also knowing that one guest would die, even if I took his keys got me to try the game again and look for hints, however after "I got killed" I didn't really felt the urge to get into it again.

I knew there was imminent danger because of the talk with the friend of "the tuesday girl", however I had a guest in the bar, who spoke about not seeing that one guy who he was suspicious of, so I felt somewhat misguided.

Anyways, nice interpretation of the theme and a cool idea for a game.

cheers~

samurai-spark 2017-04-28 15:38

Great game! As germans this just has to be one of our favorites. :wink: I love the visual style, did you drew the ink-like background in photoshop or is it a vector graphic?

The dialog is entertaining and it is great that you guys got to implement the change in difficulty through the different days! It may be my fault, but what kept me from playing more is that I wasn't sure how I could determine who I served the beer to? I always lost because I served it to a minor, some expanation of the process would have been great! Overall a really fun and artisticly polished game!

avon 2017-04-28 16:17

Love the art style, the music is great.

The gameplay is interesting, but also a bit confusing and hard to get into. There is a lot of funny dialogue, but its hard to avoid the events that lead to game over without prior knowledge, which means replaying the game several times is necessary, which takes a lot of time. When it comes to serving beer and other actions you perform on the customer I think a drag and drop interface would be more intuitive. I'm guessing right know the action is performed on the one you talked to last. I tried to get the boy to leave several times, didnt seem to work.

Overall this was a really cool entry.

holgk 2017-04-28 16:40

Wow the game looks polished. Very nice graphics and atmosphere.

pixelstuff 2017-04-28 17:55

Thanks everyone for your feedbacks, they are deeply appreciated!

@turncoda About the two graphic styles, you are absolutely right, it was easier to create more character using illustrator instead of drawing them all by hand. The game really needs some polishing and adjustments between both kind of gameplays, and your feedbacks will help a lot!

@undefinist The issue is identified and we are trying to solve it to make the game more fluid.

@jk5000 We took note of it, we will try to make that clearer in a future version!

@navot It's possible to win, but you have to follow a precise path which is for the moment not very flexible (mainly due of lack of time). Thank you for all your feedbacks, this will help a lot in a future version. If that can help you, you seem to have gotten very far in the game anyway ;)

@elzach Haha thanks a lot! We didn't recorded that, it was our sound designer who created it during the weekend ;) you can find its work here: https://soundcloud.com/alban-de-martin you got very far in the game btw, but it still really needs polishing in the interactions. We weren't able to do as many testing as it would have been necessary. Thanks for your feedbacks!

@samurai-spark Beer and friends, what's better ? ;) The whole background was all drawn by hand by one of our designer (@nantenai on twitter). We thought the minor would be obvious seeing his character design, but apparently not. If you want to go further (spoilers..........it's christopher) but we will look up to your advice to make it clearer.

@avon Thanks for all your feedbacks, we liked your suggestion of using drag and drop, we took note of that. We will check the boy main storyline to see why he didn't leave, thanks for mentionning it!

firewill 2017-04-29 08:30

Really impressive you managed to all this, graphics and audio, and you have a story too, Ill have to agree with @Turncoda the story and dialogue have my interest, clicking the tap hasnt, mostly because its very simple, and when dialogue is involved I prefer to be able to be relaxed and listen, not have to rush because someone might get grumpy.

I died day 2 because I picked some keys? not sure what happened, did I steal his keys? wasn't sure, I didnt pay that much attention but picking up keys didnt feel like a death flag to me >.<

As I said graphical style is GREAT, gives a very sordid bar image, I agree again the styles don't mesh too well, but Ill take that over no portraits any day, music was amazing, one of the most professional sounding games with original music, having to restart the game from scratch is a bit hard tough and makes replaying a chore for the first day especially.

Dialogue was okay, I like to see a story, and it looks pretty exiting, but some lines are a bit out of character, the initial hey buddy is a prime culprit.

If you do iron it out and turn it into a mystery/adventure game youre on! Great work.

jojocanard 2017-04-29 18:57

Great work with a really nice art style and mood. The gameplay is quite frustrating. It is so easy to loose without realising why that you have to be dedicated or lucky to reach the end. Especially given that the restart day button don't work on my machine (windows version). But I will try again !

alex-lutay 2017-05-01 04:28

Yeah, I've 'died' because of keys too. But it's fine (could've been cooler if there was some strikes system or something). I think I'm just not a good bartender :smile:

Anyway, the art direction, as said above is super great. Very vibrant. And black figures reminded me about Beholder.

Obviously there's some bugs in UI (like dialogue text not appearing), but the game as it is looks very complex and cool for an LD entry.

Hope you'll release post-LD version!

sgadrat 2017-05-01 07:57

It looks great on the screenshots, but ... It fails to start for me. On the title screen, clicking "START THE DAY" does absolutely nothing (not even a click animation on the button.) Running it on ArchLinux with Gnome 3 desktop.

jk5000 2017-05-01 08:42

I have now also rated your game.

yami-no-tenshi-8 2017-05-01 11:11

Really nice graphics and atmosphere on in this game ! Really good idea. A bit hard to play though, with a lot of characters talking at the same time, you don't always know with which one you will interact when you perform some actions (like calling the cops or serving a beer), so it becomes a bit confusing. With a bit more polishing (for example adding a cursor on the current customer we are dealing with, or making him appear in a different color), this game can become really funny to play ! :thumbsup:

But definitely great arts in your entry !

tinyworlds 2017-05-01 14:44

Can't play the game :/ Unity games have this weird glitch right now on my system (Linux Mint 18.1), that mouse input does not work in Fullscreen mode. Maybe you could enable the menu for choosing the screen resolution, that usually shows when starting Unity games.

plumepox 2017-05-01 17:11

I really like the idea of the game, this was fun but imo some feedbacks were missing. But a lot of people already talk about it. Really good and funny anyway, good job !

gozz 2017-05-01 18:15

Really cool interpretation of the theme ! Really !

I do love the graphics and sounds. The only thing were I was a bit disappointed is by seing the pub graphics I was hoping for something else for the characters as they are quite simple but the main idea is really cool.

The gameplay is nice. I hope to see more of this !

Great job ! Rated good !

togimaro 2017-05-01 22:47

Awesome theme interpretation :smile: Great atmosphere, lovely arts and good scenario idea!

Like previous peoples said, more feedback would make the perfect game Maybe for a Post-Jam version!

Good job! :beer:

cvetk0 2017-05-02 20:07

Great game, has huge potential in my opinion. I love the looks of the pub itself and how characters are represented (the silhouettes). I managed to kill someone on day two though, how terrible I am! :scream:

I hope you decide to finish this game! Keep up the good work! :smile:

conk 2017-05-04 11:43

Graphics are awesome! The colours and style (par the character portraits, which are fantastic, just a different style) work really well together. The audio is also great setting a good mood for a bar environment. The gameplay at the start wasn't well directed, the stars on the interact-able objects helped a bit, the multiple pumps also confused me as I was only able to make a single drink, not sure if that is a bug or not. As others have stated, after failing once you need to restart the game to play again, not a massive issue but a bit annoying. Overall an incredibly polished game, simplicity would work well for mobile and as others said, a few minigame type events would really be amazing!

david-cookie 2017-05-09 17:10

Contrary to others, I have a hard time to find the connection with the theme :/ I guess it's because we see the same people each day in this place but I find that a bit clunky. Anyway.. the game in itself is really interesting and quite original. This small pub has a unique mood to it, with these flashy graphics and enjoyable music. This idea of knowing better customers, until we find some secrets (unwanted or not) is really good. The characters and dialogs really picked my interest.

And there's the "management" game. This system of clicking 1st on the customer then on what he needs is a bit strange, the drag and drop could be a solution like someone said. Or maybe click on a customer and have a selection wheel between different actions (talk, serve, kick out etc..). It lacks some indications too, we can't really predict what will happen by doing this or that action. We have to wait until a game over to know we didn't succeed and even then it's not really clear why we lost. Some feedbacks and texts hover objects could do the trick.

In any case, well done for this unique entry!

vodzik 2017-05-14 12:48

Very nice game. I realy like art style and mood :)

Unfortunately, a few things are not clear to me.

I did not know what to do when Amy asked me to close the bar.

I do not know what the bell function is.

Also I tryed moving kid out of the bar by clicking door, but it wasn't working. Likely i did something wrongly or this interaction is there for other situation, but it feel like it doesn't working.

daisy 2017-05-16 20:23

This looks and sounds gorgeous, you've really goT the atmosphere down pat. All the sounds and images feel really lovely and cohesive. Especially digging the style of the characters... well and everything else. I would like to eat the art please.

I honestly felt at a bit of a loss with the gameplay. First I don't feel the things I could interact with were clear enough (took me a while to spot the sparkles, as lovely as they look). I couldn't really tell if what I was doing was having an impact or what drinks I was giving to what customers, if at all. I couldn't seem to get rid of that child either. xD

I really love the whole concept though and it's something I'd be super interested in seeing you guys develop further, if that's what you wanted to do! :D

lazygamedevza 2017-05-17 15:31

Looks like a very sleek game with quite a beautiful art style for the bar. I agree that the portrait art style does not quite match the rest of the game, but this is definitely a solid effort with a lot of hidden gems to be unlocked. I do feel confused at times when I don't know who I'm pouring a beer for, but it's definitely something that should be easy to fix I believe. I'm very curious to see where this is going! Well done!