FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD48 → Financial Depths

Financial Depths

By joh

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall9133.5133
Fun7463.4533
Innovation374.3233
Theme404.4333
Graphics13733.2133

Comments

ilprinny 2021-04-27 05:42

Really awesome entry and super unique take on the theme! I got up to week 24 and things did get a bit grindy but fun grindy if that makes sense, like I was caught up in keeping my strategy going. I eventually lost because I clicked the end week button as it was changing and got arrested. It did feel like I was just taking every card I could get since the differences between them didn't feel super substantial, I don't know if the minimum payment was ever above 10$. Minimum payment was the most important stat is seemed. Again fantastic game thats original, fun, and really good looking amazing work!

nyanpierre 2021-04-28 02:41

This game is fun x) gg !

matt-swieboda 2021-04-28 02:45

This is a cool unique idea! Making your bank balance as obvious as the credit cards would be nice, initially I didn't realize I was getting paid every week, maybe an animation of $$$ falling onto the bank balance value text would help. Nice work!

pascone 2021-04-28 02:51

My small brain couldn't fully understand what I was supposed to do, but I did have fun before I got arrested

superpokeunicorn 2021-04-28 03:01

Really like the creative take on the theme. Trying to manage your debt between a bunch of credit cards is a unique form of gameplay. You did a good job of capturing the feeling of helplessly spiraling into financial ruin.

silas-reinagel 2021-04-28 03:04

This is the most unique game I've played so far! Very creative concept.

As far as usability, it took me a couple losses before I figured out quite how the game worked. Also, I was a bit puzzled when I made my credit card payment (full balance) 1 week early, and get charged interest on my next month's balance. That was a bit of a surprise.

Congratulations on your very clever take on the theme, and for making a game that makes for an interesting intellectual juggle. I really love this entry!

jaiden-gerig 2021-04-28 03:08

Very interesting game, a neat take on the theme, excellent presentation, and also somehow a great financial literacy tool?!

joh 2021-04-28 05:11

@ilprinny Thanks for the feedback! congrats on 24! that was actually the campaign "you cleared game" intent, problem was a end-state felt wrong since bills remained and you could always get more dept! It then turn to survival with incremental difficulty. Minimum payment does increase in the later cards and it is a critical stat of the card. There was supposed to be a cap on cards 5 or 6, but I didnt get time to code it. From that would raise some actual pressure to choose wisely. the "double card offer" would then be more of a choice(cant take both). All this being said, thanks for the kind words, I am glad you appreciated it. Your game was great and clever too!

@matt-swieboda Thats a great idea, was totally intended but got lost under the cut-cut-cut pressure of jam time limit xD

@superpokeunicorn thank you, that was the intent and im glad it landed.

@silas-reinagel Haha! this is totally not representative of real life. It was for simplification purposes but somehow ends up weird in "real world parralele". Interest is applied on all red portion regardless of when it came from. Although Now that I think about some more, maybe I could have made use previous session balance! Good point!

The clever or at least "different" take on the theme was very intentional, but perhaps cost me too much time xD I am glad the inttelectual juggle could reach people as I did feel it might have ended up too deep. (pun not intended)

@jaiden-gerig Now you remind me of the discalimer I intended to have from the very start of this idea. "Nothing in this game is representative of real life nor should it be used as financial advice" Too bad I forgot about that :laughing:

galina 2021-04-28 22:41

all banks should gave this game before to their clients before credits cards! Great work with great meanings!

zuwu 2021-04-29 04:47

Super creative take on the theme, it took me a minute to fully understand how the mechanics worked but once I did it was really fun

blue-pin-studio 2021-04-30 08:08

Pretty cool submission! It was a lot harder than i thought it would be haha. I was getting deeper and deeper into debt because i only made like $60 per week and my bills were anywhere from 50-200 per week. Destined for debt :P

roboolet 2021-04-30 08:18

I never thought racking up thousands in credit card debt would be fun, but here we are. Very solid entry, good use of the theme, high praises for this one. I found myself getting stuck early on a lot, but once the ball started rolling it was smooth sailing

kapa6uh 2021-04-30 08:24

Very original entry. I woulв called this genre economic horror

yahay 2021-04-30 09:26

very original game really liked it

itsisaac 2021-04-30 15:35

great concept! So simple but really fun! good job!

madbarron 2021-04-30 19:29

Interesting setup for a game. I think the main issue is that there is not enough room for player choice. I felt like I was pretty much just doing what I had to do, maybe that is the point?

You should be able to streamline the interface. It shouldn't take more than 2 clicks or a click-and-drag to choose a payment source, destination, and amount.

Nice jam game though. I think the arrows look great, and I like having the entire background be your net worth.

yamzho 2021-04-30 19:42

Oh well, feels like I'm in debt... Great job !

joh 2021-05-01 16:06

@galina Then they would have one using credit cards! xD

@zuwu thank you!

@blue-pin-studio that was the intent xD Although I was scare of "What if someone plays so well they dont get in depth?!" With the way the campaign is set up I'm pretty sure its impossible.

@roboolet Thanks for the kind words. I think its a bit confusing at first, I quickly threw instructions together but even I'm not convinced those are clear.

@kapa6uh I like that term. Used it in a post, It really does carry the true essence of the game.

@yahay @yamzho @itsisaac Thanks everyone!

@madbarron Very interesting, yet probably true. At the start that is definitely the case; thats a subtle way to teach the basics and also easy balancing. However you do have choices, they just have minimal impact until later on. You dont HAVE to accept every card, but since they dont really have downsides until later on, its an obvious choice.(later ones have fees and higher minimal payment).

Quite honestly real challenge starts at week 25, once its no longer curated to be possible by me and just random.

You are absolutely right about the double click. Payment click exists doe to an other option that was cut (Reward aka Skill), should have removed that button. Pay Full/Pay min makes sense when both options are availble, but doesn't when only one does. small oversights -.-'

Thanks I like the arrow too, I actually saw it in a game during another LD and asked the dev how the made it. And I like the background idea too, though I wish it was a bit more alive. Thanks for the feedback!

duck-reaction 2021-05-01 19:58

OMG what a surprise, the idea is very original :clap: ! This game make me laught (I should not, I was arrested :laughing: :moneybag: ), it's hard but also very fun ! This game remember me "Democraty 3".

I would like a mini tutorial and maybe more effect to make the game more juicy. Maybe add more dilema like : "Invite you girlfriend to restaurant and get more debt or keep your money and loose your girlfriend :smile_cat: "

Good job :thumbsup:

ninsky 2021-05-01 20:58

I very much looove the concept behind this. At first, like others said here, I didn't see that you could also pay from your own bank balance. But once I got that it was very fun game to play! :)

simex 2021-05-01 21:29

I never knew credit was the solution to all my money problems as I've never owned one. as other have said this was a really cool take in the theme. I made it to week 73 be for I just stopped as it didn't seems like the game was going to get much harder. I think it's fine as is, but I got so invested that I'd like some more end game content as it didn't seem like I could lose past a certain point.financial-depths.png

6smith 2021-05-02 02:17

i like the concept a lot, really unique take on the theme!

joh 2021-05-02 15:27

@duck-reaction Thank you! The game is a bit dry in juiciness; I initially intended for a full persona5 style UI and presentation to lay in on the "its an RPG" part, but dropped that early on, and went for bank like minilast ui. (still I did want a bit more juice)

And I did have such activity plans but didn't have time to add them. Although it wasn't choices per-say, more like choices through paying. If you failed to pay dates, you would get dumped. if you failed to pay hang outs you would lose friends etc. (Back then not every bill missed would lead to game over)

@ninsky I guess I wasn't clear on thar, my bad. But thanks for giving it a chance and figuring it out!

@simex Wow this is super impressive, I'm surprised that you reach a safe state, but I did code some difficulty ceilings so maybe that's why. Did you ever reject cards? I know some cards could potentially get hard to pay (fees/high mininal payment). I had more gameplay in mind, although they are more on the make game easier side: Cashback rewards, Travel points (skip weeks) & manually asking for cards. But yeah, perhaps relaxing the difficulty ceiling; higher bills, more bills, shorter pay times. Would also be wise.

Thanks a lot and congratulations!

@6smith Thank you!

jorgegamedev 2021-05-05 00:30

Financial Depths

[Gene Cycle](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/gene-cycle) was one of my surprise favourites from the last _Ludum Dare_, so I was really looking forward to trying out this new puzzle-like game from you as well! Needless to say, just like your former entry, this one takes a very specific sort of themes, and tries to adapt them to interesting mechanics and I think the game successfully achieves just that! :raised_hands:

The interpretation of _Deeper and Deeper_ as going further and further into financial debt, especially with the line in the background showing your ever decaying net worth, is a genuinely curious one! Micromanaging and continuously stacking new cards while paying off the debt and old cards felt like a tip-the-scales sort of situation and a considerable exercise. Like some of the previous comments, it took me a while to notice that, in addition to the cards, you also had a small bank account. I possibly would have made the bank balance a button at the beginning of the queue just like the rest of the cards to make the feature more obvious to starting players.

I assume that it isn't possible given the theme, but it'd have been curious to see if there was a way to carry the game with a positive net worth until the end somehow. Maybe through extremely rewarding play. :thinking: I also know you're not being rated in audio, but I think some slight background music, even if royalty-free would have a nice addition!

At the end, after having played the game, I have to ponder. Are we all doomed to unpayable debt and credit? To see our bank accounts plummet endlessly downward as capitalistic mega-corps and the government cash-us out from all of our hard-earned cash? Or am I just being exaggeratively nihilistic for the sake of ending a comment in a funny ironic tone? One has to ponder. Cheers! :whale:

kotzi 2021-05-06 16:51

Great take on the theme! I had some issues with the UI scale on Chrome on macOS, but it was fun to play. Congrats!

wanderix 2021-05-06 16:52

Loved the idea of associating "deeper and deeper" to debt! The premise is hilarious. I had problems with the UI so everything looked really tiny on my screen. This could have been nicer, but overall, loved the idea!

joh 2021-05-09 02:27

@kotzi @wanderix Thank you and thank you! I have attempted to fix the UI scaling for the browser version. Thanks a lot for pointing it out, had no problem on my dev computer, so I would have never known. It seems the way I coded things was not friendly to chrome... or high dpi; not sure what it was. If you ever get the chance let me know if the issue has been properly remedied.

@jorgegamedev Hey! good to see you again! It feels good to have cross jam recurrent encounters. especially when they lead to high expectations. I feel like I made the same "mistake" as last time with a seemingly too deep/complex game (although when you get it it really isn't that complex). Thanks a lot for the feedback; while fixing the browser resolution problem, ive attempted to increase emphasis on bank account and payments.

I do not believe it is possible to remain the positives, It is by design and for the theme, but initially it was something I "feared" because I had planned more ways to have "positive" income: Cashback, Job promotions and skipping bills without game overs. Unfortunately, since I didn't have time to add these, I dont even need to worry, you cant stay in the positives. :rofl:

And yeah, music was a time thing and although I did fix some things, i do try to remain in the "spirit" of the initial jam entry. Perhaps post-jam? or maybe If I need to do another quick fix, musicless is certainly dry; hope it wont hurt too much.

Thanks for all the feedback and your nihilistic take! You're game is pretty impressive, so you are certainly not doomed to see your bank account(s) plummet :wink: cheers!

kotzi 2021-05-09 11:08

@joh yeah, it's working fine now!

villanelle 2021-05-11 06:00

Man, this game is so hard, definitely was not expecting this (i thought it would be some kind of Monopoly difficulty level) hahahah the financial line on the background was a nice and soft touch. Great take on the theme, hilarious actually. Great job!

2021-08-02 09:34

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2021-12-22 11:21

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2022-09-28 20:20

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