preda 2018-12-03 03:03
Nice game. You can play trough it a few times. Good thing you learned that engine with Power MT.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD43 → The Sacrificial Trail
By philstrahl
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 85 | 3.76 | 36 | |
| Fun | 176 | 3.44 | 36 | |
| Innovation | 171 | 3.39 | 35 | |
| Theme | 127 | 3.83 | 36 | |
| Mood | 38 | 3.90 | 35 |
Nice game. You can play trough it a few times. Good thing you learned that engine with Power MT.
@preda Thank you so much for playing it pretty much the minute I published it :) And there are some similarities to Power, MT for sure, but this time there was a lot more programming involved and I had forgotten most of hos things work in Twine. But it's barely playable and that's enough for me.
This review cost me 65 additional fatigue, also the Unicorn took my coffee. 10/10 :D
haha pretty funny the sacrifice request. I really like this kind of management games, I'll play it again tomorrow to see the ending Congrats on the entry Phil!
Once again you just shpw that text games can be amazing! Thank you for this awesome text game (Yes i love it)
Of course there's a unicorn and coffee! I like the mood.
Interesting idea. I liked the unexpected unicorn requesting coffee. Definitely a Pixel Prophecy game! :)
I did run into what might be a bug. I had 1 fatigue and took a road in fair condition and it said I was overly fatigued afterwards. Not sure if that's expected or not.
Looking forward to the video!
Thanks everyone for playing so fat, I am glad you like it more than it deserves it ;) Nevertheless i think i will keep working on it a little more and do some more CSS polishing ;)
@jharler Did you choose a long, inclining road in a bad or terrible condition? Because those can single-handedly fatigue you over 100. My advice is to choose good, declining roads or when you can't avoid it, choose a the shortest bad road and make a run for it (provided you have enough gas)
It's an interesting concept, and the unicorn thing is quite weird and interesting. Of course, making a sacrifice without knowing its purpose is very different from making one for a known reason. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to find out what that's all about, because the game drags on too long, and it's just so repetitive. It's just so boring to calculate the most efficient route every time in an endless pattern of road choice, stats, shop. Sure, you can say no, but that's all it really is.
I know I'm being a bit harsh about it, but it feels too programmatic to me. Too robotic. Basically, it feels like a "give these inputs to win" type of game, and I don't like that.
Some other minor gripes are that the game is in the left corner, rather than the center, and that there are some spelling mistakes and grammatically awkward phrases and sentences. That's fine for an LD game, but it's something to be aware of.
So what did I like about it? I liked the idea of it, the intrigue of what happens at the "calamity", and the idea of resource management. I feel like this could've been so much better if it had some simple, pixelated graphics of a car on a lonely road, at a small pit stop, etc., and with some ambient audio.
In short, I don't like the execution, but I do very much like the idea. It's very innovative, and since I base my overall score on about the average of my other ratings, that raised this game up to a 3.5/5, though mostly just on innovation.
I really like your videos, and I enjoyed you playing my LD 41 and 42 games Rainy Day and Feedrun. You're very talented; this idea just needed more time and a different engine. Danke schön von Schweden! :)
Really enjoyable, good job!
@wfmg Hey, thanks for playing, rating, and your feedback!
I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy it too much for all the repetivity inherent in it. I meant to add a bit of variety with random incidents, more resources to manage, or "sacrificial stones" along the road where you could choose to sacrifice certain itemd for a chance to have a lucky break later down the journey, but, you guessed it: Not enough time towards the end. And to me it's curious that you find the idea innovative, as to me that is probably the game's weakest part. :sweat_smile:
As for presentation, well, you can certainly see that I ran out of time for polish. I still have some ideas for illustrations and music, so I might keep working on it and see how far I can take Twine with that.
Oh and let me know if you want me to add your game to the pool of potential games I play in my upcoming "Phil plays" series.
Med vänliga hälsningar till Sverige! :flag_se:
Nice Game Phil. As @preda mentioned it reminded me to Power M.T. too but it's really good.
After a vast number of deaths on the road I've finally made it to the end! I wasn't able to predict how much gasoline will a road take, so I played it safe and it paid off. I'm still thinking about what that creepy unicorn made with all that coffee I have gave him :) It's a shame you weren't able to make some music, but hey, a books don't have music as well and still can have great atmosphere :) Good job for given time!
The calamity is clearly a metaphor for the economic downfall of wherever we're supposed to live. I mean, in what world can you walk into a store, clean out all their gasoline, and pay less than you would for a single cup of coffee?
Joking aside, it was fun enough. I beat it on my second try, and it never really overstayed its welcome. Not too hard to beat, either. I would've liked seeing more random events, though. Maybe some random lore sprinkled in while buying at convenience stores?
Either way, neat little game.
Wow! Talk about sacrifice! Having to survive by drinking COFFEE!! (I'm a tea drinker :P)
Jokes aside (I watch your LD videos, I know how much you love your coffee :D), I died pretty quickly during my first playthrough, but it gave me an idea of what to watch out for. I have an innate fondness for analyzing data, so picking out the best path based on resources and time was fun for me. The ending was pretty cool! I got the best ending on the second try!
That Unicorn asking for all that coffee. Must have been you in your next life.
I do have to agree though that there is a good beginning and ending, but the middle (gameplay) has little personality. It's all calculations (which as I stated, I personally enjoyed) but a bit of life could have been breathed into it. Small snippets of text like the wind whipping the tops of the trees around, you drive by the body of a dead animal on the side of the road, or little comments from shopkeepers while you shop.
All in all though, I still liked it, and enjoyed playing it!
Yai best ending :)"You finished the game in 254 turns, ... and saw ending #1 of 6, (by the way #1 is the best ending)."
An interesting game, I liked it. But it's hard to figure out what could happen when I choose the different speeds and how do the road affect my journey. Also how much Gas do I need for what distance. The game could need some more information for all the different options.
But in general an interesting idea, a good game and of course there is coffee (and unicorns) in it :D
It took me a while to beat, but it was worth it. Wish there was music, but with some Dark Synthwave in the back I really got into the mood. A really good experience though. Btw. will you make a Post Mortem about this one?
Fun moments: * Starts playthrough - Unicorn shows up right away - Gives it all of the coffee I have (2) - Unicorn never comes back * Speedo shop sells coffee and (very expensive) gasoline
Oddness: * I gifted the unicorn 18 coffee halfway through a run, and 5 right before the end, and the end screen said I gave it 5 things. Huh. * Next good run I gave Unicorn 15 cups of coffee, then again right before the end Unicorn showed up. I had 2 coffee left, so I gave Unicorn 1, just in case it'd make a difference (Instead of giving all giving less? :shrug:) and the end screen said I gave it 151 items. Hm. ~~Gotta catch em all!~~
This was great fun to play through! Got the hang of the mechanics of what caused what stat to go down pretty quick and enjoyed the gameplay. Deciding whether to buy or hope for a better price and whatnot.
Nicely done! :D
BRILLIANT! Oh man. Phil... you did it again! Great job on balancing the mechanics in this. I feel that the length and the pacing also had a lot to do with what I like about it. I quickly lost count as to how many times I played in desperate efforts of beating my score and seeking out that majestic steed. The story was also quite good! As well as the nods to Power,MT. Again, Great job!
Thanks everyone for playing! And expect a FIXED Unicorn-sacrifice variable within the next hour. Oh boy, implicit data-types in Twine/Sugarcube/JavaScript are a pain as instead of summing up integers, I concatenated the numerals as string. Worse even: In the last check, only one digit gets evaluted because reasons I guess. So I'm terribly sorry for the game not respecting all your sacrifices!
This is great! I love the way every decision has a major effect on the end result, it creates a lot of tension and challenge. The writing is also fantastic. Good work as always, Phil! :)
@jiri-hysek @nanda I kept working on it and added some music and sound effects in a post-jam version which shuold also have some bugs fixed (and a lot of new ones added). And yes, there will be a post mortem!
@dwam Nailed it! ;) And I am working on adding more story and, well, gameplay. But first: Music! ;)
@ladymistleaf Thank you so much for playing and your thorough feedback! Sorry you had to deal with that much of coffee ;) I am still working on the game, trying to add some more variety and story to the whole thing, hopefully making it more interesting to play and also giving players more interesting choices to make than the monotone road selection. And I am totally going to steal your suggestions for "roadside incidents".
@deathstorm Noted! Yes, currently the "fun" is for players to figure out what's the best choice by looking at a road's properties. I want to keep working on it and give players more options and not straight up kill them the first time they make a bad choice.
@mrpiedpiper Thank you for the review and feedback. The bug should be fixed in version 1.01. There are different bugs now, but none as devastatingly destructive to the ending as before ;)
Hey Phil,
your writing is very good. The beginning was emotional and my imagination did the rest! Your idea and implementation is unique.
What the game is missing are some nice graphics :) Like a comment above, just a car - moving - then a fade out, little graphic of the upcoming event (for example a gas station)... This would crank up the mood so much more :)
I am curious how you did came up with that idea - i think, i just have to wait for your next post mortem video :heart_eyes:
Good job Phil, looking forward to the next LD!
nice game. Got every ending but #3 i believe. Wasn't sure what i needed for #1 but i eventually got it. Took like 45minutes to do it too. xD Enjoy the rest of ludumdare!
@marin0104 Thank you for playing! I agree that it would be much nicer with some kind of flavor-illustrations and music. But I am still committed to expanding on what I have for a post-jam version, so there's still hope for that :)
@commanderstitch Oh wow, 45 minutes! You're tough for sticking with the game such long! Glad you managed to appease the unicorn at last :)
Enjoyed the game a lot!
The writing is really good, and I liked the challenge of balancing between the gasoline usage, the fatigue level, and the money.
Two problems I had: 1. When you find the unicorn, if you choose to only give him a single coffee and press confirm it says "the unicorn takes your coffee, nods, and leaves", but then if you press "confirm" again before it goes to the next page (it takes a second to go to the next page), the unicorn will take one additional coffee. In my first game, I lost all my coffee to the unicorn a few times because of this (I was just mashing the button and didn't notice the text, and was then surprised I didn't have any coffee :) ) 2. On my second playthrough, I've only met the unicorn once, before visiting any shop, when I only had 2 coffees. I gave them all the coffees I have, but it wasn't enough to appease him and get the good ending. So, essentially I had no way of getting the good ending on my second playthrough. It would be nice if the unicorn was guaranteed to show up at least once during your travels so you'll have a chance.
I eventually managed to get the best ending on my third attempy.
Coffee and unicorns. Of course @philstrahl. That's the life blood of Pixel Prophecy.
The game is interesting, and for a period it is fun. There was also a few minor typos, but understandable when made in 48 hours. Some of the large dialogue parts feel very drawn out, and honestly, I skipped some. I understand that it is a text adventure, and there needs to be story, but personally, I don't see the need for huge chunks of intro text. Many good books that I have read throw you straight into the action and inform you along the way, and I think that this technique is something that you could have used in your game. Maybe as well as the shops, you could provide short snippets of story that randomly pop up along the way, and trash the intro? I liked the large final conclusion though, because it is interesting to see the results of all of my choices.
I would also love to see more options. Maybe there could be flash events that occur along the way, like hitch-hikers, downed trees and obstacles etc. It also doesn't feel like much of a resource management game when there are only three resources (fuel, fatigue and money). Could have maybe been a 'passengers' stat and food?
This is a rather ambitious genre, and consequently, I don't see many text adventures. In many ways it is refreshing, but these text-based games seem to generally lack innovation. I suppose literature is like that? Anyway, the 'escape the apocalypse' thing is kind of overdone, and could certainly use some innovation. Otherwise a very interesting text adventure. :thumbsup:
It's always a pleasure to play your games! I really enjoy reading your texts, they feel super polished. I will be honest and say I didn't really find very interesting the resource management part. But I know these games are extremely hard to make because they rely so much on the writing (it's already a ton of work), and the coding aspect isn't easy at all (not sure how it's handled in Twine). You might want to check TigerJ's entry "Quest for the West" as it's exactly the same concept, just pushed in a slightly different direction. Great work! Looking forward for your next game <3
A rather strange but potent combination of coffee, unicorns and sacrifices. Managed to get to the good end. I would say that the cost of each road in terms of fatigue and gasoline feels a little arbitrary, and the roads felt a little too RNG, but its always interesting to see gameplay structured in the form of a text adventure although its not usually my cup of tea. Nicely done twine entry!
I reached endings #5, #4, and finally #1!
:thumbsup: It's really neat that the game starts with all the information on the table, but manages not to be overwhelming (you can delay your understanding of the various elements), and also manages to not be boring by the end... the choices and data provided are enough. I really liked that the game-over screen gave hints that helped you get further in the next play through.
:point_right: Audio, and/or graphics would have added a lot to the overall feeling of the game. It would be nice if there was a bit more flavor text while on the road.
:star: Overall excellent job, I really enjoyed playing this!
@matank Thanks for playing and enjoying the game! And also thanks for catching and reporting that nasty unicorn bug and the balancing problems. The unicorn has a higher chance to appear later in the game, yet it's never 100% and it seems like you got very unlucky. Will fix! So thank you for hanging in there and making it to the end!
@justcamh Thanks for your feedback! I was running short on time (as so often before) and would have loved to add some more variety and flavor text along the road, so that's definitely something I'll implement in further versions. And I am sorry that you had to skip all the text. Without time for music or pretty pictures I tried my best to evoke some mood with writing and the only part I am certain every player sees is the intro. But when starting over, a "skip intro" button or something would make sense. You mentioned that text adventures lack innovation and while mine certainly does, I urge you to have a look at Inkle Studios' "80 Days", or "Sorcery!" where it's just baffling how the game keeps track of your choices along the way. And then there are the old Infocom adventures, some of which had a formidably detailed world model underneath their crude text-only surface.
@spacemonkey The pleasure is mine! And no worries about not enjoying the rather drab resource management part. I wanted to try for a game with a little more mechanics and that was all I could muster given the time I had. Then again, writing is fast and cheap, though hooking everything up to the game systems is the tedious part, nevertheless I think I'll keep working on it and adding encounters and offering players more interesting things to manage and ponder than just "which road is most declining?". Thanks for recommending @tigers ’s game! I bet there's a lot good stuff to steal in there ;)
@randomphantom Congrats for making it to the end! I agree that the "fun" is figuring out how things are connected and until you get a feel for it, it can be frustrating and random, so sorry for all the pain it might have caused you!
@hitchh1k3r Thank you for playing and reaching the best ending! I am glad you didn't find it boring despite the many opportunities the game offers for it ;) There was no time for graphics nor sound, but I made a post-jam version with music, sound, and some moody pictures in place. If you are curious, please give it a try: ► https://www.pixelprophecy.com/games/sacrificial-trail/game.php?game=sacrificial-trail&s=ldcomment&v=1.04 (you might need "Restart" if the game complains about unresolved references, thanks caching!)
The "unicorn sacrifice" is funny and the game is pretty fun! I was kinda sad that you didn't put any creepy music.
Good old text adventures! When it comes to spooky games, this is the kind I prefer. Should be a lot better with corresponding music (I listened to _Nox Arcana_ when playing, it fits perfectly) and a bit of sound effects. I really enjoyed the mechanics: right enough information to make an intuitive choice rather than a calculated one. Also, the fact player doesn't know what exactly is happening gives a good space for random encounters and observations that would provide clues of what's going on. No idea how to fit it into the game though. =) So, I'll be around to see the post-jam version if you decide to work on it. Great job!
An interesting entry! The resource management really helps make this game fit the theme strongly!