FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD51 → You've Got Mail!

You've Got Mail!

By sheepolution, shores and makkeraad

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall664.1434
Fun1393.9534
Innovation134.3635
Theme324.3735
Graphics414.5335
Audio654.1235
Humor94.4333
Mood484.2733

Comments

joshua-denk 2022-10-04 06:04

Seems like a cool concept but it kept crashing.

scripts/game/mailmanager.lua:292: attempt to index local 'mail' (a nil value)

Traceback

scripts/base/error.lua:59: in function 'handler' scripts/game/mailmanager.lua:292: in function 'sendNextTutorialMail' scripts/game/gamemanager.lua:155: in function 'onUserData' scripts/game/gamemanager.lua:46: in function 'userCallback' scripts/game/network/server.lua:117: in function scripts/base/network.lua:25: in function 'trigger' scripts/libs/sock.lua:222: in function 'trigger' scripts/libs/sock.lua:390: in function '_activateTriggers' scripts/libs/sock.lua:252: in function 'update' scripts/base/network.lua:37: in function 'update' scripts/game/network/server.lua:30: in function 'update' scripts/game/gamemanager.lua:88: in function 'update' scripts/base/scene.lua:41: in function 'update' main.lua:61: in function 'update' [C]: in function 'xpcall'

sheepolution 2022-10-04 13:28

@joshua-denk That's weird! I can't reproduce the bug, but have added a measure that should prevent this from happening again.

igor-morgun 2022-10-04 14:36

Funny style,gud pixels arts

yoko-san 2022-10-04 18:58

Very nice! :D

I think, there could be a whole subcategory of games handling this "receiving mails" theme :D

Our games are quite similar ;) Check it out if you like! :)

lukas-tamayo 2022-10-05 02:10

French streamer that tried the game quickly

Da good stuff

Hello! I tried your game on stream very quickly but had to go :p Dude with a thick french accent

Anyway I tried it and I even finished it and you were right! Once you get into the game, it is so cool to just read quickly the different mails. The bug mini game was very surprising. I love the grandma that talks about kittens for hours with the funny mail subjects and all the graphisms and content is great. The music really puts you in the mood. It is overall a very solid jam entry and a very fun and unexpected way to make work fun, like paper please for instance :p

I had a very fun and addictive experience, wanted to finish the game and I'm glad I did. That I ended up getting focused and in the zone/groove of the game

Oh and major kudos for taking the time to set up a tutorial. It helps a lot to grasp the game and navigate the UI!!! No one does it, and it is still so important. So thank you

That being said, there is still, as always, room for improvements, if you want to update the project, or for future games you guys would do. And so...

Da stuff that can be improved upon

- I feel like the windows of mail and user profile not staying on tome is a bit too bad. The game would have been more fun to manage but also more easy to control if you could just overlay main windows and user profiles (with the reset password and ban button) all the time. Even if you click back on your mail list or whatever, that the window don't go behind and always stay in front. But I might be wrong on that! - Some feedbacks are very light, particle effect, hover, pressed and release animations on every button of the UI, window shake, screen shake, boss icon with a little pissed or wounded animation on top. So the game is more jumpy and clear all over the place. - Speaking of feedback. Knowing what we should have posted sometime would have been cool! Personally I had to do some trial and error in order to understand every forward. Since people asked a lot of question I was like go to FAQ or something, it took me a while even with the tutorial unfortunately. So if you had like a UI effect that was like you should have picked that, then you can understand a bit faster how the game works. - I didn't feel the theme too much with all the different kind of timer, every 10 seconds... Maybe a timer before the next mail would have been nice and stressful! But my game is also guilty of that... - More use of the ban function would have been nice! I have to say... I didn't know when to check for it and actually never used it outside of the tutorial! Ain't that sad? - Finally, even though I finished the game, I never got to experience the ending and even had trouble restarting the game as it bugged sometimes. And it bugged when it tried to load the winning scene on me! So sad! In order to help, i've provided screenshots of the bugs. Hope it will help!

bugYouGotMail.png ^ This one I got when I tried to play again, or to go back to main menu FinalBugYouGotMail.png ^ This one I got when beating the game

Thank you for this awesome entry! I'll grade it good :grin:

sheepolution 2022-10-05 09:47

@lukas-tamayo Thank you so much for your comprehensive review! Regarding the error, that was me trying to fix a bug, but it turned out I created another bug. I have fixed it, and this time tested it as well.

yirsi 2022-10-05 13:56

Like other people have said before me, I couldn't get far into the game because it crashed after a minute or two. The music also got a bit annoying for me personally pretty fast. Overall seems like a cool concept though

2022-10-05 13:58

Nice graphics, but couldn't go further than boss welcome mail. Didn't see any reply button though

figadei 2022-10-05 14:45

So fun! My partner played it while I watched and I can say it's great to play with someone else! Challenging, entertaining and polished game. The art is incredible as well, I can't believe you all made this in such a short time. Props for the extensive writing. Great entry! If you want you can check out our game as well, 💜

john-wuller 2022-10-05 16:10

The game seems like it'll be fun, but when I tried running it in Windows 11, the reply buttons didn't show up and the timer didn't seem to count down. Also, it tried to access the internet for some reason (an immediate red flag in my book). Let me know if you fix it so I can try it out.

sheepolution 2022-10-05 16:31

@abdullah-firat @john-wuller There was a problem with the scaling of the game. This should now be fixed.

The reason the game asks for internet access is because that's what it uses to communicate between the different windows that open. I hope my many years as an LD participants gives you the trust that I wouldn't put anything malicious in my game.

foolmoron 2022-10-05 19:40

Hilarious writing! I played through to the end just to read all the messages. Other than that, the gameplay did become quite repetitive since there was only a small amount of tasks you could do, and the messages did not seem to come in TOO quickly. I always had plenty of time to respond, even with the bugs. Really fun overall.

yellowkamel 2022-10-05 21:37

Thank you for submitting to my stream! What a fun game and a neat concept for the theme! I really liked it. I especially enjoyed the art - the pose of the boss firing you is badass and reminded me of one of my favorite Animes. :heart:

woahitsjeff 2022-10-05 22:18

Unique approach to the theme, super cohesive art and audio, very well done!

roroto-sic 2022-10-06 09:26

it look fun, let me know if you make a browser version, i want to give it a try ! :)

jared-n 2022-10-06 17:05

This is easily one of my favorite games of this jam! Very creative and so much character. I love how managing all the different window popups is a mechanic in itself! Reading the emails and character profiles was a lot of fun and there were so many good surprises like granny's cat pictures and getting hacked and squashing bugs. Fantastic job!

hotaloca 2022-10-06 17:32

Excellent work, really well executed. The graphics are great, and the emails are fun... A bit too much feels like really being at work :smile:

otterfaelure 2022-10-06 17:49

This is such a fun concept and I think it could really go somewhere with more work.

That being said... please don't use multiple windows. x.x It turned the game from "this will be fun" to "oh hell it isn't opening properly again".

A better method to do this, in my opinion, would be to make the game be a "desktop" that you can navigate and have popups within.

I adored the system, and should it have been easier to navigate I could imagine my losing myself to it for hours... just that was a very large amount of straws on my back very quickly.

Most of this post is negative because of that issue, sorry for that. I genuinely loved the idea and most of the setup, I just couldn't get to all the great stuff because of that one tiny issue.

Regardless, I did have fun until the popups blocked me from being able to play so thanks for the great world that you built! :D

sheepolution 2022-10-06 19:07

@roroto-sic Unfortunately a browser version will not be possible for this game.

@otterfaelure Thanks for the feedback! The multiple windows was an experimental mechanic I wanted to try out. That came with the risk of the game not properly working for some people, and it turns out that's the case. We don't have any plans for expanding the game, but who knows maybe one day I'll make a version with a simulated desktop.

And @ everyone, thanks for all the positive comments! :)

pfs 2022-10-06 20:10

I liked the idea but I expected to have short emails I will have to speed read and sort. With these super long emails playing the game felt more like a chore than an actual fun game. Loved the graphics and humor though :)

fattori 2022-10-06 20:15

Damn, that's an amazing concept. And the art style is looking amazing. Pretty paperspleasesque vibe with a fun twist.

bougiebirdie 2022-10-06 20:22

Very challenging but funny game! I loved that the music changed in response to how many strikes I had, it definitely helped make things feel more frantic. This game has such a great sense of humour, the hardest part about trying to skim the emails is that you kind of want to read them fully too!

Also I read your readme lol

antoniothereis 2022-10-07 01:06

Really nice entry! The presentation is definitely what sets it apart, if it all happened inside one window it would have been cool already but all the different windows popping up adds to the chaos in a great way. The chip tune does get a bit grading after a while and not being able to have the email and profiles windows open simultaneously is a slight annoyance, but just overall a really fun time with great humor and artstyle.

borabee 2022-10-07 02:24

One of my favorite games so far on this jam! The idea is so creative, the costumer support mood is spot on, with great art + music to support it (the sound cues for incoming e-maisl were a really nice touch), and the gameplay is so fun and challenging. But what I liked the most were all the funny and geniously inventive details you managed to put in the game. There's just so much flavor, like, the work you put into even things that aren't that noticeable while playing, like the posts in the users' profiles... A few times I just wish I could stop playing to read them all!! Pretty amazing work you did here. The hacker minigame was also reallly nice, and it's details like this that make the game feel so well fleshed-out!!

A few things I disliked were: 1 - The tutorial was a bit confusing once I got things wrong and duplicate e-mails came and then I accidentally started playing before I finished reading the tutorial. 2 - There's not much difficulty progression, so once you figure it out and get used to the e-mails it becomes pretty easy. I almost feel like the game would be even more fun if it didn't fit the theme and the e-mails came progressively faster instead of every 10 seconds heheh.

alexyam 2022-10-07 14:13

This game's graphic, audio and mechanic bends in perfectly. The level of detail presented in this game is amazing. I like the pop up window when you open an email, it give me a feeling that I am using an old email system which actually fit the style of the game. The mechanic is fun because of there are different type of problem to solve in different ways. And it get really intense when time go by.

The only down side I could think of is this game is really difficult for non native English speaker.

hawkin 2022-10-09 20:31

@shores brilliant artwork, as always! You manage to fit so much personality into your pixel art. Love it!

@makkeraad the music was fantastic! It got so manic when I got two strikes, it really added to the stress of doing the job right. Really smart!

Overall, standing ovation to the team (including @sheepolution) for such a well polished and well implemented game for a jam. I'm impressed you were able to write so many different emails in just a weekend! Superb. I'd play it over and over again if it didn't make me super stressed XD

kalendhos 2022-10-10 22:18

Sorry ! Too bad in english, it's impossible for me. I clearly won't rate you for all categories. ^^

But the graphics are pretty prefect !

The fact the game opens other Windows' windows is also cool, but also annoying. Great point for the try, anyway.

Good and big work, no doubt about that !

simon-rahnasto 2022-10-15 16:07

Here I am enjoying my weekend and you dare make me work? :smile:

Impressive amount of polish, as always, I was very excited to see you working with a team this time, because it leads to some insane high quality entries. I mean when you are solo, you rival most jam entries anyway.

I did get fired fairly quickly, but I am going to give it a few more tries to see if I can't manage to hold down my job, got to eat and all that!

There is not much else to say, if this is not 5/5, then nothing is.

alexrose 2022-10-17 12:31

This was HARD on a trackpad. At first as well I think some of the ones were a bit unintuitive whether I should delete it or answer with a thumbs up or answer. Once I realised which answers are supposed to be thumbsed up and which ones are meant to be FAQ'd it made it a lot easier. I got hacked twice too. At one point I had so many windows because I wouldn't close them after answering them that the whole game locked up and I had to put my laptop into turbo mode to carry on and not lose because I had about 1 minute 30 left on the clock, that was stressful. Bit of lag sometimes on opening windows too. My least favourite thing is that at least on my laptop, scrolling doesn't work. So I have to manually use my trackpad to scroll the windows, which is hella slow (as is clicking on the bugs when I get hacked). But yeah I can't complain too much because I still won on my third attempt (after losing twice in like 20 seconds). Also I would've liked some kind of audiovisual feedback on when I clicked on mail or bans so I know it's actually gone through. But it did work consistently. Also agree with the comments on the music loop being too short

Very fun, lovely graphics, funny end screens, and I enjoyed Shreknos a lot lol. And generally having to scour the furry and old woman's posts for what they were actually on about. Very polished, very nice. I feel like this is one of these games that will get criminally underrated because people who play LD are noobs but I felt it was fair and fun

I win.png

andidebob 2022-10-21 06:53

What a perfect jam game! Seriously there is nothing here that I would change. This is so polished it's crazy, and there is so much content here too. I am at a loss for words, so yeah... Well done!