robobarbie 2023-01-10 06:00
I love text based games! This was fun to run around exploring in -- nice job!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → Living as a _ in a Small Town
By unentokku
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 740 | 2.86 | 31 | |
| Fun | 613 | 2.96 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 692 | 2.77 | 31 | |
| Theme | 810 | 2.10 | 30 | |
| Humor | 523 | 2.58 | 31 | |
| Mood | 631 | 3.03 | 31 |
I love text based games! This was fun to run around exploring in -- nice job!
Really cool text based games, but I think there is a point that has a little to do with the theme.
Fun little game to explore.
Not sure if there was a greater point beyond just wandering and interacting with people, but it was a cute little experience. :)
@yichenfeng Yeah, I planned to make each house have a food inventory and make characters give you food based on what they have and to make running out of food a concern(along with being able to affect the towns food harvest) but didn't get around to that so it just being set in what I imagine as a Harvest Moon town is it.
@jeffsobel There is an ending that I think is kind of cool(though would be even better if I had had time to do it in phases), you need to meet everyone(some things that should count as meeting probably don't, you can check the awareness level in the sidebar to see your progress) and wait for the next festival to see it.
Nice little text experience.
It would be nice to have status text and condition text different color or cursive e.g. *You're hungry.*
I think a nice touch for the future would be to have a (ASCII) map drawing as you discover new thinks this would create some sort of visual progress and would help the player to remember.
Great game!
Interesting concept. As mentioned above, it does suffer a little from a lack of visuals, as you're trying to represent an environment rather than tell a mostly linear story. Text-based games aren't really designed for that without supplementary information like a map, node list or inventory.
I did notice that all the people I ran into were in a variety of moods, which didn't really seem to affect their behaviour - whether I got fed or not seemed wired directly to RNG without confounding variables like mood or location. Same thing for e.g. 'Escape' - if it didn't work, I could just try it again repeatedly and eventually it would take (maybe chance of success increased with each attempt?). There was one case where I tried to escape repeatedly and it didn't work out, so I stayed of my own free will instead, and the person got distracted and let me wander off.
Some of the events also have odd triggers - I can rock up at someone's house and they'll ignore me, and I can wander off, but if I specifically 'flee' then I get caught? I get the impression that 'flee' and 'hide' are the main interaction commands, and characters don't really take action unless prompted by my actively trying to look more suspicious than usual.
Once I got past these design choices, though, it was good fun exploring the setting and finding all the interactions. The 'Awareness' meter helped a lot with keeping track of what was going on, though at about 40% I started having trouble remembering who I'd encountered and who I had yet to meet. Again, in text form, schedules are hard to parse and keep track of, and I resorted to waiting around in locations until people appeared.
Overall, a solid stab with a pretty complex system that kept me engaged for a good while. Thanks for putting this together!
I was curious about the world, but a lot of nothing seemed to happen. A little bit more context with everyone and everything would be helpful.
Hey nice story spinning, would love to see some static graphics just to bring that oomph of a graphic novel.
@chlu Map is a nice idea and I wanted to do more text styling, the little bit of it that I did add, was added pretty much last minute.
@avareii glad you enjoyed it! And yeah mood currently doesn't have as much effect I was planning it to have. Early on I got each character to have their own unique chance to be in specific moods and after that I meant to make each mood have their own character specific biases towards different actions but hadn't really added any actions at the time so decided to focus on adding things to do first but never found the time to connect the actions and moods aside from a few super simple things like anger increasing chance of starting a fight or not appreciating help) And yeah the interaction options are definitely weird, I was happy to just get everything to work without things instantly breaking and had no time to figure out what to do about needing to pick weird options to get things you're aiming for to happen.
@rincs I did spend the first few hours of the jam writing a lengthy intro but after looking at how far along I was with it and what I wanted it to cover realized I probably should first add some gameplay and just have you run away right away instead of having an hour or so of reading before you get to really do anything. Also thought about it and each house having their own food inventory while other places had ways to acquire food probably would have added enough context and events to make things more interesting.
@unentokku That is fair. Wordy intros might have not been as helpful or interesting. Striking a balance is hard on Jam time!
Interesting game, i got to 59% awareness. After being trapped for some time, I gave up
I really liked that one. (I have an active imagination) It was really interesting. So much "potential" here, in my humble opinion. Really good stuff!
If it was me I would have put more "RPG Maths" into it. Like actions would show how much they cost. .. and I would see how my stats evolve between screens.... and I would be able to see all my stats on button press. ... BUT that's a different take I guess. I respect and like what you did here.
Loved it. :heart:
I don't really play text based games, but this was a nice experience for me, I was about to ask how it was related to harvest but reading through the comments, I see you were not able to get to that part, a nice experience regardless.
I like text-based games like this, so I had a good time wandering around. It would've been nice to see more descriptions, and more on-theme material. I also didn't feel much sense of direction or urgency, which can be tricky to do in games like this - some kind of quest or mission would help with that. Thanks for sharing!
It's a really nice concept and definitely has potential, especially with the mood and the way you interact with people. I was very intrigued the first few minutes of playing this. I think eventually with the contents it currently has it's a little bit too bare bones to be a fun game, but I could definitely see it becoming great with some more work!!
Interesting game. I liked seeing how the interactions would change based on the relations that the characters observed, how long you spent with them and stuff. Very cool detail.
Cool approach to the theme. I like how you made it a text based game. Nice game.