Indoor Haul

polyhatsteve 2017-12-05 06:16

This is really an excellent game. The seemingly randomly generated malls are very fun to explore, and the control scheme for the core mechanic is really great once you get used to it. I got a little greedy in the 5 minute mode, stuffing probably 15 pc towers into my cart, only to find that rapidly pushing forward only inched me along. The graphics, sound, and music also have a lot of character. I especially love the goofy store signs.

One thing I would love to see would be one or two really pricey stores in every mall. That could definitely up the challenge and reward the player for exploring every area. Anyways, had a lot of fun with this one.

thx1342 2017-12-05 12:29

Seems like an awesome idea! The soundtrack is solid and if the mall is randomly generated... wow! I'll look into your source code because this could be awesome for a roguelike :)

In terms of playability, I'm not sure if this is what was intended but the cart is absurdly painfull to turn, even when empty. Holding down S or A (or spamming each key individually) lets me turn something like 1-2 degrees per second. Is this the goal or is it a bug for me?? This made me not ennjoy the game as much

But congratulations on the idea!

iseeicy 2017-12-05 20:16

@thx1342 hmm.. that's odd. Turning is supposed to be slow but not 1-2 degrees slow. [This is how it should be](https://i.gyazo.com/9c78331ba0a301b4cea0c8a3082b91af.mp4). What OS are you using?

Thanks for playing, btw :D

wheffle 2017-12-05 21:25

Really funny idea, and original. The map generator is really impressive, and the audio was really spot on. Held my attention for a long time, there's just something satisfying about looting a bunch of crap from a mall. It was a little difficult to get items into the cart, but I got used to it. Also, 5 minutes seemed a little short for exploring the mall, I feel like a 10 minute mode would have been cool (I suppose that would be easy to add in, so not a big deal). Overall, awesome job!

ghodan 2017-12-05 21:27

To do a randomly generated map for a jam - let alone one so big - boggles my mind. This game is pretty incredible for that reason alone. Its fun just to scramble and grab things, and the shopping cart controls feel really good! A sprint button may be helpful when on foot, but I can see where that may break the game a bit.

I love the idea of exploring an abandoned mall in real life, and the somewhat spooky tone of the game on top of that is awesome. If you keep working on this project I can see myself definitely buying a more finished version.

thx1342 2017-12-05 21:33

@iseeicy oh yeah, for me it's muuuuuuch slower! :O I ran it on Windows 10

iseeicy 2017-12-05 21:48

@wheffle That's what freeplay is for ;)

@ghodan There is a sprint button! I forgot to label it in controls, but it's shift!

@thx1342 Okay, that's super odd then. I guess I need to look into that, thanks for the heads up!

videojames 2017-12-05 22:55

The mall generating loading screen is a cool touch and kudos for the 3d game. The UI and graphics could use some work

potti 2017-12-06 10:00

Got a few computers and spent 90 seconds trying to wrestle a TV out of the store. Accurate representation of Christmas shopping. Would slam TV into window again.

A great game, even randomly generating the map. Fun to play. Nice work.

togis 2017-12-06 17:37

I uploaded my gameplay of this game on youtube, you can find it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPoX080kUj0

Thanks for being part of the stream :)

lekiy 2017-12-06 18:57

Interesting concept, I found the loading screen really cool. I ended up just sticking everything I could grab and attached it to the cart like it is a ball of tape, at which point it ended up getting hard to see where I was going. Great Job!

drazil100 2017-12-07 04:29

This has been yet another fantastic entry to your growing list of awesome jam games. I REALLY liked the procedural mall aspect and the general idea behind the game was fantastic.

I do wish however there was more time. The controls are quite clunky (except for the shopping carts which aren't clunky enough :wink: ) and it's a little difficult to get stuff into your shopping cart. The mall is huge from what I saw and I wish the time limit allowed more exploration than it does.

I will absolutely be playing more of this when I get a chance!

iseeicy 2017-12-07 05:12

@drazil100 check out the 5-minute and Free play modes! Free play removes the timer completely if you want to spend more time just exploring the place.

drazil100 2017-12-07 10:14

@iseeicy I am aware and I will check that out but i'm talking about the modes that you actually get scores on. I wish the procedural generation played a larger role than it seemed to. The procedural mall was the coolest part of your game and I feel it's only real spotlight is that awesome loading screen (that was probably your debug screen) and a mode that doesn't really count for anything (unless I am completely assuming the wrong thing about free mode)

An idea that you should have done (and probably could still do) is remove the timer and make the game about not getting caught. The more you get the more suspicious you are but you get as long as you like so long as you make it out with the loot safely. If you want to get really creative you can populate the mall with people who may or may not remember you or something.

Of course that's just an idea and I completely understand that you didn't have the time to do something like that. I am just sad that the main gameplay mode is so short that I didn't get to learn my surroundings :P

iseeicy 2017-12-07 20:16

@drazil100 You still get scores on the other modes as well. The different modes act as a sort of difficulty, making free-play the easiest to get a high score on.

Interesting ideas, although I'm not sure I want to take the game in that kind of direction. I really like the vibe of an abandon place that's supposed to be populated (such as a dead mall). Something I'm considering is making it multiplayer and creating a team V team kinda gamemode, although I'm not sure that's realistic as I would need to revise a lot of my code to make it multiplayer friendly. Still, it's not completely out of the question. First I need to get my shopping cart to handle better ^^;

linky439 2017-12-16 19:58

Nice idea! It was fun if a bit confusing at times as I was often not facing my cart when pressing E to let it go and enter a shop, but overall, nice idea, nice graphics, nice audio, nice everything! Good job, and I agree with someone here that said a couple of shops with expensive stuff would be a neat addition and a nice reward for exploring.

Congrats!