Foon →
Ludum Dare Explorer →
LD50 →
Princess: Unwed
Princess: Unwed
By saintchristopher777
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | | | 56 | |
| Fun | | | 57 | |
| Innovation | | | 56 | |
| Theme | | | 57 | |
| Graphics | | | 55 | |
| Audio | | | 54 | |
| Humor | | | 55 | |
| Mood | | | 56 | |
Comments
gbgames
2022-04-11 03:52
I discovered the table with the book and papers late in my playthrough. Since the colors and lands aren't all represented, I didn't know how to tell where my suitor went to next. Sometimes I was able to piece it together from the messages I received, but other times what I thought would make sense would result in being told he hasn't been seen in a long time.
Even when I did manage to find the suitor's next location, I found that the only clues I received were along the lines of where he was going next, and so when I ran out of weeks and talked to dear old mother, I guessed and managed to avoid that arrangement.
I tried a new game and tried to pay more attention, and this time I did get clues about my suitor being a penny-pincher and arguer. So I guess part of the challenge is finding the next area, which is hard when the description seems to take you to a land that doesn't have a known banner.
I love the pigeon, by the way.
rashcan
2022-04-11 08:19
The concept is fun, because it's like solving a mystery through deduction. Though in truth, I spent most of my time confused whether or not I'm actually playing correctly. For instance, I don't know if I should be sending messages to every recipient in a particular region, how quickly the suitors are moving around, or what to do with information about the suitors' crests, especially if it doesn't match any known crests. And it seems that, in order for an accusation to be valid, they must exhibit all of the telltale traits (I attempted to accuse one of bullying when I discovered cruelty and dogma, but the queen didn't seem to be troubled at all because he didn't have confidence, lol). Clarification for these mechanics would be much appreciated!
@gbgames @rashcan Great feedback, thanks! I've added some additional supplemental tips and charts that might make it easier to get figured out.
rmrvar
2022-04-11 13:00
Very unique and interesting concept. I enjoyed the worldbuilding and using the map/crests to figure out the suitor's whereabouts. I'm going to give it a more thorough playthrough when I have time.
perrin
2022-04-11 13:39
I think the core of what you're aiming for here is really interesting and quite fresh. However in practice it's all a bit confusing and overwhelming. I know it's tough with a strict gamejam timeline but I think some more gradual onboarding and tutorialising inside the game would make this a lot more playable.
suchista
2022-04-11 13:57
Very nice idea! I was a bit confused by the fact that the numer of weeks left doesn't change immidiately after the queen plans another wedding. I also didn't know what to do when I got only one clue and a person from the other kingdom claimed not to have seen the guy, but maybe this was my mistake somehow. Anyway I had so much fun!
hilkojj
2022-04-11 17:43
Good job on the art! It was a lot of drawing I suppose.
joror
2022-04-11 18:07
Very fun premise! Figuring out information was quite interesting. Got a bit of a Carmen Sandiego vibe. :spy: Would have been nice to get a bit of extra variation after a few discarded suitors. Maybe even 'unlocking' hints through information so that people don't have to keep their own notes. Fun concept tho, well done!
Interesting idea, neat game.
super nice, really brought a nice feeling of discorvery that i really love in games
ironfred
2022-04-12 08:11
Really interesting concept and I really appreciate how much effort you put into fleshing out the lore/story. The only thing I think didn't really fit in was the music. It's a nice track but I think it would fit better into a pixel art beat 'em up game if that makes sense.
It took me a while to figure out exactly how the letter writing mechanic worked. At first, I thought I should track the suitor through all the regions he went to, and then go back and write to the other people in each region--but when I went back to write to the others, they said they hadn't seen him. That's when I realized that you have to send all the messages you want from a particular region at once--I think that clarifying the way this mechanic works would be the best way to make the game easier to get into.
Once I realized that I should basically just be writing a letter to every person every time, the game started making a lot more sense, and I started writing down notes about each region. This was fun, as I was building up some documentation about every region, and so there was sort of an implicit goal of just finding all the information about each region.
I did note that this started to become less interesting once I already had most of the information on a region--at this point I was still writing down every clue, but then I just had to find which of my existing clues that already matched. This started to become more tedious. In particular, I kept tabbing out of the game to a notepad and tabbing back in, and at some point this starts getting more annoying.
I think one way to make this work better could be to just have the map be the only source of info. Then, as we get clues throughout the game, we could, say, draw the crest for each country on the map, and write down which alliances it had. That way we could figure out which country was next just by looking at the map, instead of having to write down multiple pieces of information that are difficult to visually scan quickly, and without having to keep context switching to notes written outside of the game.
I do have one specific complaint about the gameplay, which is that, once you hit zero weeks, if you send another letter, you just lose. I think there should definitely be a UI warning for this, saying "if you send this letter you will be lose and be married" or something, because I wasn't sure what would happen, meaning I lost my first game and had to redo the entire first suitor.
Overall, though, I do think the information collection process in this game is pretty fun at its core. It just needs to be streamlined a bit to really shine. Good job!
marvis
2022-04-12 17:30
this game reminded me of the story of rapunzel, good job!
I had a hard time figuring out how to actually get any information. My initial assumption was that the suitors moved every week, so I'd have to pick one person to write only, and I was confused when I'd only get location information and nothing on his traits. I had to read other people's comments to realize that you can write everyone in a row without the suitor moving 4 times and being somewhere random. Because of that, I restarted multiple times when I thought I'd lost him and would have to keep making random guesses in the hopes that I'd get lucky and guess somewhere the singular week he was there. Once I figured more out, I was able to get rid of one suitor, but it took a while just to understand the basic premise.
If you were to keep working on this, I'd suggest adding an in-game notepad, almost like the game Clue/Cluedo, where the player can keep track of traits and location info. Just a simple series of checkboxes would do for a lot of it, and maybe some way to note down crest and alliance info. So you can figure out oh, he must be going to X kingdom next, and a letter said that he was going somewhere with Y on the crest and in Z alliance, so I can mark down X - crest has Y, part of Z. It'd also be really nice to be able to group letters by location, so you're not accidentally looking at old clues to find out the next destination. In general, I'm of the opinion that players shouldn't need to take notes outside of the game, although that's more of a personal preference.
As for glitches, I found I could still move around freely while clues were open. Also, the whole time I was playing there was a weird repetitive noise almost like flapping? It was loudest at the start and when the menu was open, but was still audible for the entire game and also seemed to change in speed/frequency with different screens and actions as well. It made it hard for me to hear the music.
I did enjoy the art, and it's a really good concept! Jams are so time-constrained it's hard to reach perfection, but I'd certainly check out an updated version with clearer controls!
@honey-pony @acearcher Thanks for the feedback - great ideas in there! There's definitely room to add more mechanics clarification in. I always have trouble predicting what people will have trouble with, developing and testing alone. I might see about adding an in-game notepad or even a way to "draw" on the map (never tried coding anything like that before - need to look into it)!
The sound glitch is interesting. It's probably the walking audio (supposed to be the swooshing of the dress). It _should_ only play while walking, but the way I coded it _seemed_ backwards, like it logically ought to play when _not_ moving. But it worked that way, so I shrugged it off as a "late-night" code mystery. I'll have to check and see if I can figure out if there's something in there to explain the bug.
Anyway, thanks again for the feedback!
Great artstyle and storytelling! good job.
ulisses
2022-04-15 01:11
wow,I think it have a complex mechanic to be implemented in a short time. The storytelling is great to. The controls are responsive and I liked of art style.
magus77
2022-04-15 07:53
games with a good story are few in the LD, a lot of ppl and teams just focus on the game mechanics and add story elements later. With this one i get the feeling the story was there first :D
I am amazed at this work! A really interesting idea for a game with lots of possibilities.
lpettler
2022-04-15 16:02
i was pretty surprised by how engrossing this game was. The text based gameplay was very well put together and offered enough variety and misdirection to keep it all interesting. I, like some other commenters, was a bit overwhelmed at first by the sheer amount of information that is thrown your way at the beginning. Perhaps a **little** tutorial would have been a big help just to get your bearings. For instance, I didn't see all the paper at the bottom until I had already sent out a couple letters...but that's also my fault for just jumping in and not getting fully familiar.
A quick note that the graphics, music, and sound while rather simple fit extremely well with the "princess" theme. It'd be easy to see this with polish going from charming to a beautiful homage (or parody given the premise) of the cultural juggernaut that is Disney.
This game has a lot of possibility in terms of further world building and affixing more mechanics onto a solid framework of a game.
Ha-ha! It's really good story, I had a lot of fun while playing this game!
Great game! I had some fun playing it, amazing art!
Nice game, I like how the character movement made it feel like a pop-up book or paper doll play. Some of the font was a little hard to read, but in general I like the way you tied the theme into your game. Great entry!
frosty
2022-04-18 04:08
This is a really interesting take on the theme, and I kind of liked the Carmen Sandiego-style gameplay around the fictional map (great names!). It got tedious pretty fast though. Maybe if there were only 2 or 3 characters in each region to talk to. Some music would really help with the mood, too, since there isn't much visual action. Nice work!
lilkrit
2022-04-18 10:23
Very unique idea. I have no idea how you did it all so quickly. I liked the investigation process!
interesting anti-dating game and also quite a lot of content in the game, good job! :thumbsup:
the biggest issue I had was that the music felt a bit repetitive.
I remember playing a board game as a kid where you dial numbers into a large, pink phone, and they give you clues regarding who had a crush on you. This game has a pigeon, and the point is that you *don't* have a crush on him, but the feel of contacting people for gossip brought me back.
As I was playing, though, it started to feel a bit repetitive. Getting good dirt got a bit harder, but the overall gameplay didn't seem to change. Some sort of story evolution might help? Like, who is giving the queen the names of these terrible people, for example. (Seriously, tho, that royal advisor sucks.)
@fionnabhair Thanks for the feedback. I think you're right, it _does_ get repetitive after a bit. No idea if I'll do anything with it beyond this jam, but if so I'll need to develop some sort of 2nd and/or 3dr tier elements to deepen the gameplay.
Interesting concept-I liked the idea of gathering information on a suitor while never being quite sure of where they were, and never actually interacting with them. However, I did struggle a lot with getting information, or properly guessing where the suitor is going. I feel like having the actual map pop up when pressing 'Select Destination' and being able to choose from there would help streamline things, especially if it was possible to look at the letters at the same time (if they were off on the right side of the screen and the map for select a destination was on the left). As is, it feels like the information needed to pull everything off is a bit too segmented and separated from each other-a revised and streamlined UI system that makes it easier for the player to survey all the information they have at once would help the player focus on the strategic gameplay. Beyond that, the only other thing is that the music does start to get repetitive after a while. Despite those issues, this is a very nicely done entry, and I love the unique gameplay loop in this game.
koalatte
2022-04-19 13:53
fun concept and mechanics, definitely something worth building upon, the font of the letter being sent by the princess could be difficult to read at times, but it seems like it's by design to simulate handwriting
the documents around the courtroom add to the charm, though perhaps some kind of optional and "portable" docs for reducing some of the walking might be handy in the future after sacking a few suitors and getting a lot more familiar with the mechanics, like a quality-of-life enhancement of sorts
definitely liked the sleuthing/geo-locating of suitors :map:
overall it was a fun game!
Won game by randomly pressing red answers to mother. I had no need to "dig dirt" at all.
Безымянный.png
psytron
2022-04-19 21:07
I was totally surprised by the complexity of the jam you were able to deliver - very cool. I got pretty into this Briar Rose look alike saucy dating sim. It's a bit sad she inevitably has to marry though ;) but fun none the less. Nice jam
@proxy-games @koalatte Thanks for the great feedback! I think you're right - a more centralized UI would be a good change.
@gdesecrate lol, congrats! Blessed by the RNG gods, I guess!
@psytron Thanks so much, I'm glad you liked it!
I like the messenger bird. Good concept. Humorous game.
albertoz
2022-04-21 00:42
Interesting concept but it is not a quick game.