Tin Can

rinta 2022-04-06 18:33

I was originally tempted by "survival" tag, but the game is definitely more a simulation than a survival. The core mechanics is there, but some important explanatory fluff is missing: - We are supposedly in space, but this is not apparent ingame - There's no indication of decreasing photosyntesis, which is perhaps the most important mechanics that's supposed to limit your ability to just survive off trees forever.

If I didn't read the description here - I would be very confused! Hard to say if the game is balanced, as finishing the run takes real dedication. The end doesn't feel inevitable - I spent good 20 minutes doing nothing but planting eggs, after which I got bored and killed everything manually, otherwise I fully expect it would self-sustain for at least an hour. It could well be a good simulation, but I am not dedicated enough to play it thoroughly. Pixel art is cute though.

kastaff 2022-04-06 20:17

Hi @rinta! Thanks for the feedback. Yeah your right we were focused on producing "good gameplay" and we didn't took the time to explain it :sweat_smile: Hope you enjoyed it anyway! (and thanks for the compliment on the art :smile_cat:)

morcado 2022-04-06 21:16

nice concept. it could have more game feedback on what are you doing and what you need to do

yusovv 2022-04-06 21:20

Guys, you did a good job, you had good gameplay, it's a pity that you didn't take enough time to convey the atmosphere of the game.

arihan10 2022-04-06 21:23

Nice game! Although I played for quite a while and managed to get to about 9 million km before dying, for most of the time I was completely unaware of what exactly it is I was supposed to do. With some basic in-game explanations, bump to the graphics, and sound effects (other than the stellar music of course :P ), I think this could make for a really fun simulator. Good job!

Btw I would appreciate if you could give my game a shot as well :grin:

kastaff 2022-04-06 21:26

Thanks @morcado! we thaught about it but a bit too late haha

haastregt 2022-04-06 21:30

I want to start of by saying that I think the concept is very interesting and could make for a very good game, as there is a lot of factors to manage for that add many layers of depth to the gameplay. There is also a big variety in the plants and animals which is really cool.

That said, I think there is currently something missing that makes it hard for the gameplay to live up to its potential (because once again, I really see the potential!), and that is that there is no feedback about anything that the player is doing. It could all seem to be going right, and suddenly it goes wrong without knowing what is causing it to go wrong. We don't know:

- Is a population to big or to small? - Which populations affect which other populations? - How fast does the photosynthesis effect get applied? - How fast can certain population types grow? - ..

Of course this can be figured out by many runs and experience, but having some feedback on this while playing might make it more enjoyable. For example: a quick fix would be a target value for each population, or an alert when a population is growing/shrinking.

Nonetheless I think you did a great job, the pixel art looks nice as well :). Let me know if you ever decide to reiterate on this!

sofignedova 2022-04-06 21:34

Poked at the eggs, beat the grass...) Had a great time! Nice soundtrack and visual. An interesting concept for the theme, but it is a pity that it is not disclosed in the game.

biku 2022-04-06 22:17

The concept and the idea is nice. One of the first problem for me is to have arrows, Space and mouse to play. An average player wants to have things at the left part of the keyboard and the other hand on the mouse. In this case I needed to be changing my hands all the time. That's not good. Second thing could be a signal of what kind of food the future eggs are gonna need. Third, I think your life bar should be at the top very visible because is you die is the end of the game and sometimes you can confuse your bar with enemies bar. Appart from all of this, I think the idea and the directions where the game is going is very good. I guess you just need to think a little more about how is the player gonna feel while playing your game.

mrbrainfed 2022-04-10 02:35

dfgdfg

Those damn herbavores!

lomna 2022-04-10 05:35

The artsytle and music really create relaxing environment. It's fun to just see animals interact with the environment. Though a small tutorial at the start will help.

dreamscale 2022-04-10 17:04

I like the idea of a "survival farming" game! I'd say the main issue was it wasn't really clear what your immediate objectives are. You kind of just plop eggs down and things apparently interact with each other but it's not clear why you want any of these things to happen.

xparker 2022-04-11 19:24

Surprisingly fun to play, though audio gets repetitive after a while. Also didn't get to the game over screen, but only played for about 10min.

The one thing I notices very early on and that I kept on noticing:

when you are facing left and move up or down, the facing turns to the right. thus you either have to face left again or move so that the right facing side is ok to hit something.

diego-escalante 2022-04-11 23:55

A little difficult to know what I am doing: I ended up doing things pretty randomly and seeing what would happen. Visuals are lovely! A very interesting game for sure. Nicely done!

orionhart 2022-04-14 09:03

Kind of enjoyed this one. Not really sure exactly what I was doing, but I popped down some eggs, slashed some stuff, and made some cows! I was confused by the "distance" counter, which just seemed to be a timer, and the overall gist of it. I think you did a great job on the menus and UI!

lychee 2022-04-15 23:39

I liked the graphics and it seemed like a cool concept, just needed more instructions on what I should be doing I think. I was unclear also how the eggs worked, maybe if there was a way to spend resources to buy eggs it could be interesting? Good job overall!

jeremy-selwyn 2022-04-17 14:05

I really enjoyed the game. It was neat how the game made interesting situations. There ended up being a lot of snakes in one of the corners and then they basically owned it, couldn't go near there. In other sections there was loads of bunnys (how did there get to be so many lol). Was impressed how many kinds of animals there were and how they all shared the environment. It was a really cool simulation to move around in and see how all the animals were doing.

bloodycoin 2022-04-21 16:15

I know from past experience how hard is it to get balance right, especially for multiple interconnected systems. So giving the choice to the player here is really smart move. I really all the effort added to this so far.

Then again, as others have mentioned, some feedback mechanisms would be really helpful to feel more invested into the game.

Some suggestions for `quick fixes` to a few layers of complexity and player investment: * Allow choosing what egg you want to use up. Basically egg inventory. So we don't need to put all the fox eggs only to be able to place snake eggs. * Allow partitioning space a bit more via trenches or barricades. So player could have one chicken-fox area to try to balance foxes; And another chicken-only area to keep health population of chickens for emergency case. There could a change that some animals can escape their areas and wreck havoc in others. * Allow player to move animals to other place. Via signaling, or just manually drag them to another place. That would play nice with different areas. * You need some actions to gain something from the animals. For example keep cows for milk and foxes for furs. * Some explanation / indication what causes player to lose health. I have no idea why I died. * Some emergency, space-related events, that would introduce player to the situation over time.

Overall this looks very promising, just needs some extra touches.

Did I say, I that I love space related games? I saw tech-y / space related themes, though I had to look for it actively. Looking to forward to future updates if any :slight_smile: