Machine!

neollok 2022-10-03 02:53

Ok this is pretty fun. The other word I'd use is probably frustrating, but I think that's only because I'm bad... I played it a few times, quite like the core concept. I think sound effects would have kept me playing quite a bit more. Also maybe a way of multigrabbing several boxes at the time, but maybe that's just me wanting a tool to help me, again because I'm bad, I don't know for sure, best I got was 32k... (Forgot to take a screenshot of it, pressed R too soon...)

So after writing that first paragraph I did go back to try again, mostly because I like all the different machines with their various recipes. I didn't do very good on that last run, a new recipe made the good ol' brain.exe freeze for a second too long. At this point I'm glad there's no cool machine sounds and/or more mechanics with the boxes, because I might play this quite a bit more... While me wanting to play more is technically a good thing, I also need sleep!

All in all, I like the idea, it has a simple, clean and nice look to it (Love the scribbles on the sides briefly explaining how the game works), though unfortunately missing some cool machine sounds. The game gets increasingly difficult with more and more complicated orders and recipes, but I did also experience getting some machines that simplified / sped up some processes too, which was nice, so again a really nice variance of machines and recipes. Enjoyed it!

stoickekis 2022-10-03 14:49

Not sure what I need to do.

mbrezu 2022-10-04 05:29

Very neat take on the theme! Love the look and feel of the game! (very machiney, so to speak)

I think it gets too hard too fast (at least it does for me).

The difficulty stems from having to both figure new stuff out AND move quickly to fulfill orders - I'm not sure that's intentional, as the author you don't need to figure stuff out so it might seem too easy.

I guess having more than one life would help with learning the ropes (more chances to mess up while experimenting).

coderaurus 2022-10-04 07:28

Game looks nice. But I don't know what I'm doing or supposed to do. I tried experimenting with it, to no avail.

kitmani 2022-10-04 12:02

@stoickekis Use the machines, son! @coderaurus Use the machines, son!

kitmani 2022-10-04 12:27

Thanks for the feedback, there are so many things I would like to add, but I didn't have time.😉 @neollok I agree, I should have taken the time to add music or at least sounds. But I published the game at the end of the deadline. I'm almost too late. :D Multigrabbing really very necessary. How did I not guess before? 🤔 @mbrezu All smart ideas come after the deadline) The game is quite the same type, so the difficulty increases quickly so as not to be bored. Although apparently the difficulty increases TOO quickly)

vkaike2 2022-10-04 12:59

Great game, would be cool if you had a tutorial showing what each machine does

kitmani 2022-10-04 13:04

@vkaike2 Obviously, it was worth writing... Recipes in machines are randomly generated, and if you over the cursor over them, it will be shown on the right what they do D:

papaya 2022-10-04 13:06

The gameplay is fun and satisfying. I find the graphics are also clean! I couldn't figure out how to make black boxes, and I wish you can restart on the same level you failed. Still, great entry!

grilladroid 2022-10-04 13:15

Ok, it took a minute to understand the controls, but once that happened, I really enjoyed the challenge!

juanrod707 2022-10-05 02:35

Hectic AF but amazingly addictive. Very easy to understand and the random factor really makes it replayable. Great job

amythyst 2022-10-05 05:02

Got a 404 error on the WebGL Version!

chevre 2022-10-05 10:29

Hi, the game looks pretty interesting but I have trouble figuring out how the I/O works. If I drag a red cube onto the green area and press the "<" button on the machine it does not work. You have a small issue with player affordance here. It's also confusing to drag a red thing onto a green one. But the concept seems really interesting.

kitmani 2022-10-05 11:26

@amythyst Hmm... but it works....

finntastico 2022-10-05 11:55

I really like how this game looks! Also love the basic idea and the progression with new machines added. For me it was overall a bit hard, maybe if newly produced products wouldn't disappear to quickly it would have been a bit easier. Or maybe I should just try harder haha.

By the way: I'm getting this error on Ludum Dare, but the link works. Screenshot 2022-10-05 at 13.44.58.png

vidarn 2022-10-05 13:56

This is really cool. It took me a while to figure out, especially since it's so fast paced right from the start. But once I got into it I hade a lot of fun. I liked figuring out how the different machines worked and how stressful it got at times. Great job of taking a simple idea and giving it depth. By the way, I couldn't get the embedded version to work either, but the web build on your website worked fine.

waterfowler 2022-10-05 15:08

I think this is a really interesting ideea and can be really fun to play, but it probably needs a bit of improvement in the control schemes and in how the game is introduced to the player. It's quite fast paced and quite frustrating when the level ends and I don't even figure out what I am supposed to do.

One thing that got me at first was that I expected the first item in the list (at the top) to be the first task I need to do. Maybe it's just me, but this made me fumble quite a bit thinking I just don't understand the mechanics. I also struggled a bit with figuring out what each machine does. To be honest I didn't even notice the manual for quite a few runs and when I finally saw it, it still takes quite a bit of time to read and understand everything and then the level is over. I feel like a visual representation on the machine itself would make this a lot smoother. The manual works too but not as much under theme imposed 10 second constraints.

Other than that I like these sort of factory type games and this definitely has potential. I think the graphics and visual presentation are quite nice as well.

lucas-simmons 2022-10-05 17:23

Really fun game, reminded me a bit of the bomb sorting game from Mario 64 DS. At first, I didn't realize that you needed to do the tasks from bottom to top but other than that it was great!

pixelydian 2022-10-05 18:18

Cool concept! I found it a little difficult at first - maybe a bit more tutorial would have helped? Like require the player to fulfill the steps of one order, THEN the game starts. But I did eventually get it. I also got confused that the next task is at the bottom of the list, not the top? Some sort of player feedback like a highlighted box surrounding the "current" task would be helpful. I like the increase of complexity with the machines that change the blocks. I could see this being great on mobile with the drag and swipe. Visually it looks great. Basically you've got a great core game, just some polish on player direction/feedback and you're golden. Good work!

rob6566 2022-10-05 19:48

Nice game, and cool idea! I like the graphics and layout. It me a bit of the board game Century Spice Road.

It took me a while to figure out what was going on: - That I had to complete the bottom contract (as @pixelydian mentioned above, it would be good if it was highlighted) - That I had to click/drag between input and output - Some of the more complex machines had 3 zones, which I couldn't figure out.

Some suggestions to improve it: - Having to click and drag multiple times is pretty painful, especially for tasks with 4 cubes. It'd be good to be able to multi-select cubes, or drag machines to be close to each other. Another option would be click/dragging pipes/conveyor belts between machines, and letting the player click them to transfer cubes (might be a bit unwieldy with lots of machines though). - It'd be good if misplaced cubes didn't fade away. When I have an easy contract, I wanted to stockpile cubes near the output to make the next one easier. - It's be good if the machines had a visual indicator of their recipe, so you didn't have to hover to see it.

Good work putting this together in 48 hours. I enjoyed it, and it has a lot of potential.

cooz 2022-10-05 21:09

Kind of hard to play at first but the shortcut is helping a lot! Nice graphics ;) Nice job!

trabasura 2022-10-05 22:02

This is a really good idea, and the graphics are polished as well. My biggest issue with it is that the controls aren't very intuitive and it's hard to figure out how to play the game. The puzzles were fun and it was hectic, but at a certain point it became too much work for me to want to keep playing it.

If there was a way to automatically move the boxes at some point, I feel like this would've been a lot more fun. Overall this is a really good idea and it's impressive how much you were able to get done.

brainloaf-studio 2022-10-06 02:12

Really fun gameplay! Love the idea of having different machines that create different items and having to multitask to create the right orders. The gameplay for me got to an extra level of cool-ness once I realized I could submit multiple orders at once, and also delay the timer by waiting to submit the prerequisite easy orders. I do agree with what others that it should be more clear that the bottom order must be submitted first- for a while I was trying to submit orders without understanding that and was confused. However, once I understood the gameplay, it became a hecticly fun time! Very nice work and concept!

ex3d0 2022-10-07 03:32

Really unique and fun gameplay! The gameplay and graphics are super well polished. It took a bit of time to realize I was supposed to make the order on the bottom of the list, intuitively I wanted to make the order at the top and was wondering why it wasn't working, this could easily be fixed with highlighting the current task in some form. I would've liked some way to automatically move boxes between machines in the later levels, needing to hover over a machine to figure out what it does

Overall the game has a bit of a learning curve at first (could be solved with some type of tutorial but I completely understand why you wouldn't be able to accomplish that in 48 hours) but once you figure it out it becomes a lot of fun. There's definitely solid potential here!

otterfaelure 2022-10-08 11:55

This game is realllllly neat as a concept. The graphics are cute and clean, the gameplay itself is smooth. The manual input machine is incredibly confusing for a game that already has you moving so fast every 10 seconds.

I lost several times to trying to figure out how to get a recipe.

That aspect is a dealbreaker in a full game, BUT - this is a game jam. Lack of balance in terms of difficulty is to be expected.

I'm sure with time balance would come and this would be a killer game of panicked packaging.

Thanks for the fun. :D

hellsquirrel 2022-10-14 17:32

Once again, I am convinced that even one mechanics within the same jam, each developer sees differently. I appreciated the project and naturally, as to the prototype there can be no questions, deserved an A grade.

Let's imagine that this game was not made 72 hours and it is a demo version of the project, which is done long ago. Therefore, I, as a potential buyer would like to make a couple of suggestions.

It seems to me the current 10 second limit is not enough to collect an order of 4 items. This is influenced by several factors: 1) The shipping area itself is small for so many boxes. At first you don't notice it, but when you get more new machines, you start rushing between zones and accuracy is out of the question 2) If you ignore the first point, there is no help for the player, such as magnetization to a particular zone or sorting into cells, so that the boxes were not in a chaotic order, and the structure.

Also, when every second counts, pointing at the mechanism to see how it works takes considerable time. Maybe it made sense to keep the tutorial always on the right side, so that the player could focus only on the work area and keep his peripheral vision on the orders and the tutorial.

And the last thing I would like to suggest is sending orders. It was a very cool gameplay solution to be able to sell several in a row, but maybe it was worth extending this feature to all orders rather than consecutive ones? For example, I realize that I don't have enough reaction to put together a complex order and I'll sell at least some of the list to buy myself a little more time.

Let me tell you right away that I write feedback to projects through an interpreter, so I apologize if the feedback was negative. I really liked the project, great hitting the theme and mechanics opens up the desire to replay over and over again in order to beat his own record. Did not manage to score more than 17k, but these 40 minutes I spent with pleasure. Thanks for the user experience, hope the project grows into something more, good luck!