thestoff 2022-10-04 04:17
Fun game! Really dug the pacing and how the music would ease back when you were waiting on orders. The text on the objects could have been a bit bigger since they were hard to read but overall ya did well :)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → Sweetheart Speedrun
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 844 | 3.25 | 20 | |
| Fun | 1012 | 2.86 | 20 | |
| Innovation | 767 | 3.11 | 20 | |
| Theme | 434 | 3.80 | 20 | |
| Graphics | 751 | 3.36 | 20 | |
| Audio | 214 | 3.77 | 20 | |
| Humor | 203 | 3.61 | 20 | |
| Mood | 786 | 3.22 | 20 |
Fun game! Really dug the pacing and how the music would ease back when you were waiting on orders. The text on the objects could have been a bit bigger since they were hard to read but overall ya did well :)
@thestoff Yeah, I realized after I uploaded that the build version scales the renderer down a bunch, so they become illegible, especially if you play in the window and don't full screen.
The music came out amazing, originally I was just going to use it for like menus and outside normal gameplay like it would pull back when paused, but when I realized it would work perfect to tell with an audio clue when the timer was paused and not paused, it just worked great.
Anyway Thanks for playing!
This is a really cool game. Music matches perfectliy the gameplay, movement is super smooth. Also i like the idea that every 10 seconds you got a heart removed hehe.
Fun little game. I'd love it if you had some sort of indicators where the right shops are on the map. The idea of this game cracked me up. Well done xD
I'm sorry but I found this game quite confusing. The rooms did not map to the phonemap and when I brought what the woman wanted she did not accept it. Maybe she could have said like cool you got me at least the hat. Let me try again, maybe I missed some indicators or something but so far I can't get past the first level. Ok this time she only asked for two things and I got a score of 2600.
@yirsi Thanks! I had intended to make the map have like store names on them so that you could see roughly where items might be so if they asked for a hat, you could see a store named like "Caps-R-Us" or something.
@jhoffis The map was basically a canceled feature, Originally the partner character would wander the mall and go to various stores and you'd have to use the phone to find out where they were to deliver the items rather than them standing in the coffee shop the whole time. So yeah the map is basically pointless due to cutting that feature, and then like I mentioned in the above comment, it would have had like store names and such on it so you'd have a better idea of what stores have what items in them like "Coffee Donuts" and "Pursetopia"
It makes sense to have added like dialog where it's like "I didn't ask for a hat" when you turn items in, especially when the items text isn't readable like the Quadcopter in the upper right, but I didn't do that for speed reasons, if I were to do that there'd be a line per item that you brought, and the timer doesn't wait if you bring an incorrect item so for brevity, I made it a single line that covers all items. This could eventually be mitigated too by just having the item names be readable so you know what you shouldn't pick up.
Maybe if there was a more complex system, you would be allowed to trash items out of the inventory so you don't deliver the wrong item but there'd need to be some kind of penalty for doing that, so maybe you needs to spend points/money to buy items? There's some stuff that could be done but in the end this is what we ended up with.
Overall though the game is intended to be difficult and so it's not expected for you to get high scores on your first play. I didn't really playtest much until after the jam beyond making that the game was playable. My first few game I ended up getting like 5400 points likely because I had remembered where some of the items had been. It's expected that it would take 3-4 plays to memorize all the item locations, at which point I started getting over 10k points. My goals this time were to make the game have a steep learning curve in that you need to memorize where all 23 items are and memorize the layout of the mall and have ramping difficulty in that the partner asks for increasing numbers of items over time.
Some tips for another playthrough would be, use the time in the tutorial to go look at each item the timer doesn't start until you bring the coffee, and that you should keep in mind that you can bring partial orders, if they ask for a purse and an ice cream, you can bring the purse, without the ice cream for partial points and patience up, and then grab the ice cream after.
@snowdrama Understand so it's a memory game. It was not obvious for a stupid player like me that you could go around and look in the tutorial. Btw the menu controls were very understandable though. Not sure if you already said this but wouldn't it be better if the phone showed the items where you last saw them?
You need a good memory to not be overtaken. And you need to move fast, too. I'm good at none of this, so I hardly get 7000+ points, but it was fun to try. Neat realisation, even if I would have use a way to remember the current pending goods list, and bigger labels to ease the read. Well done anyways!
@jhoffis Yeah it would likely instead have a list of like store names or something similar rather than DIRECTLY listing what items are where, while some would be obvious like "Pizza Planet" some would be like "Lakestone" which would be where you can buy expensive massagers and drones, or "The Orange Store" which would be like an Apple Store knock off where you buy Tablets and Phones. The goal being that you still need to learn to associate the store name with the item that it contains and not a 1 to 1 comparison.
The reason I put the coffee in the main room with you and forced it to be the first item was as a tutorial on like how to pick up items, but nothing stops you from wandering around. It's not really hinted at that you could ignore the tutorial to wander around casually, that's just something that I know is possible.
@lereveur It does happen, I also don't do well with remembering things so I can understand that. Bigger labels for sure since the icons were clearly not enough to be able to know what the item was. The UI for items you were asked for was something I considered and omitted it intentionally, it was going to be one of the pages on the phone UI, but I opted to not have it specifically because it would make the game significantly easier.
Such an interesting and unique concept, I liked it! It was quite hard at first but later I got the hang of it. I like the running vfx and it was quite engaging to run around and search for the right item :D Really cool game for a 3-days-work of just two people. Good job and keep up the good work!
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I like the core idea! It does take some time to get the gist of what's where, and after that it becomes pretty fun.
While the game works well, the rooms are big and empty, you have to enter some to see what's sold there, and that kinda breaks the pace of frantically running around for me. To enjoy the game I had to switch to a vertical display, where it felt immensely better to play.
A few thoughts:
• Teleporting the Sweetheart from place to place every now and then (followed by a "I'm going to look at %itemname%" message) would help bring some variety, and while I see why there are two maps, I wish one would show both player and the date, and the other would show a color-coded map of the mall (i.e. all food colored yellow, all tech green etc.), as that'd be enough of a clue to not get completely lost while searching.
• I also think it'd be hilarious if your score was the credit for purchases (so negative, and the lower the better), and the item pickup sound was a cash register's ka-ching.
Overall, I see the potential this game has, and I'd return to see an updated post-jam version if you're planning on making one.
@dragonayzer Interestingly enough it's already set up for wandering around, there's a nav mesh agent so I could have them wander around the mall. This is why the phone has a page for showing where they are on the map though it doesn't work currently due to scaling issues with the mini maps. Also due to needing to do the tileset last minute due to a team change mid jam, I had to scrap that in order to finish the tiles. There was also some plans at some point to actually have the score be the player's money but the goal was still positive money. This would have been the main penalty for buying incorrect items, since you want a high score, but your score is decreased by buying items. There would then be ways to acquire money, and you could make more money than the game would have asked you to spend, so it would often be a net positive unless you were spending it on the wrong items. Finally going back to the tileset, originally there was going to be items in the front windows of shops so you'd be able to tell what was inside based on the signage out front and the items visible in the windows, but similar to the tileset issues, all the custom signage was scrapped. Anyway thanks for playing!
Very fun game! Took a little learning of where everything was, and spent a little while trying to memorize where all of the things were or areas where certain types of items would be. After that little learning process though it was pretty fun! Loved the running effect. Do wish that the timer would pause when you give her an item like how it does when you deliver all of them to her at once because I found myself forgetting all of the things she wanted later on. Other than that, looking forward to the postJam update if there is one!
Nice use of the theme! I definitely felt the urgency every 10 seconds as I was zipping around the space.
I think it was just a tad too difficult to find and get to the different items. You could compress the size of the space a bit, or maybe zoom out the view a little more. Or, give the player a little more information about where things are, such as putting icons on the map, or on-screen pointers towards the current items. Then it becomes more of an optimization and navigation problem, rather than pure memorization. Or, maybe you group the items more thematically, so if my date wants something techy, I know I should go to the techy area.
I'm glad I had tons of speed to get around, that was nice and fun. The audio and music were really nice, I really liked how you did a subdued version of the music while she was giving you a new assignment. Good work!
The soundtrack is so good! Awesome game! Thank you!
The theme is respected and the game is pretty fun, good job !
My date left me because I couldn't find a quadcopter and started bringing coffees over and over out of desperation as they rapidly ran out of patience, just like in real life. Great soundtrack and I liked the main character art a lot, especially the speed trail effects.
I don't know, the idea is great, but I just feel frustrated. I accidently grab things before I see what are them, and, uhm... Shouldn't there be icons on the map too? Or it's to game over until you remember where is what? I'd say it lacks some design, but in overall it's cool.
Cool little fetching game. I got to 30,000 by bringing partial loads, and had no end in sight. It seemed like as long as you knew where things were and brought partial loads back regularly, you could go on forever. I could see this being quite fun with a fleshed out map!
I wish the map app could show where the different things are, or we could have an arrow pointing in the right direction, or something -- it's very hard to find all the different objects in the limited time available!
Other than that, it's a cute premise, and I like the art/music/sound. I think if you fleshed it out more it'd be a really compelling little game!
pew pew glad to see you got enough votes, mate :)