Trains and Factories

axelle-desquilbet 2023-05-01 13:41

Conveyor belt games are one of my favourite type of games, I can spend hours on them without noticing. However, what keeps me from doing so with your game is the sound design, I find the voices quite annoying, and the fact that it is almost the only sound in the game is too bad.

I had a hard time figuring out how to play, and what were the cities (at first I thought it was where you could put your factories). When I undertood all of this, I had fun at first, but the voices were too loud and annoying, I wish I could disable them. You put prices in the upgrades and cities, which is nice, but it's too bad you didn't do the same for the extracting factories and assembling factories.

I didn't know what the warehouse were for at first, and I spend quite a lot of money before noticing it was only for your own properties, not somewhere you could put all the thing you extrated to send them later. Also, your resources were difficulte to tell appart, especialy between iron and coal, be careful about that and use different shapes as much as possible to help people (espacially color blind people) to recognise resources. At first I was frustrated that assemblies had on way out that couldn't be moved, but later I thought it was actually an interting challenging feature.

However, I may be a little harsh in my feedbacks, but I think you did quite a good job for 48h by your own, and with a few updates I may play your game a little longer !

tomrijnbeek 2023-05-01 13:59

It is really impressive that you were able to build a factory game like this in such a short time. It feels like there is a really good amount of content as well to keep you going for a while.

I found it really hard to understand what exactly I was doing. It took me a while to understand cities were destinations. I also wasn't quite sure how to make trains go the right way. Once I had a small train network setup, it seemed like trains would just go back and forth between the two factories without visiting the assemblers.

All in all, the amount of content and the complexity of the game is impressive, but it is hard to understand exactly what you are doing if you don't really understand the underlying game mechanics. Overall though, great job!

itskdog 2023-05-01 19:09

@tomrijnbeek @axelle-desquilbet Thank you both for playing the game and the feedback. I had spent 13 hours during the jam making two other games that I didn't like and then made this one. I think that's why it's hard to understand it and some poor designing.

corporation 2023-05-01 19:38

Great concept, some real factorio vibes here. I like how you simplified factory building idea and managed to put it together in such a short amount of time. Base gameplay loop is very good, but there's not enough feedback for the player on the actions taken. Like more info on how sertain parts of the game works. Also building tracks without dragging is hard) And having one level could also be changed to a simplier levels at the start to make player learn the mecanics. Overall - very good game core for the compo entry)

itskdog 2023-05-01 20:47

@corporation Thanks for playing. I knew the game feedback would be needed, but I just different have time for it.

lisyarus 2023-05-01 21:20

I really want to try this game but I just can't figure how to use the assemblers. I've build factories, tracks and trains, and the trains seem to be picking up resources (coal & iron ore) from the factories, but when they reach the iron assembler the resources just disappear. Am I doing something wrong?

2023-05-02-001900_1920x1080_scrot.png

itskdog 2023-05-01 21:31

@lisyarus Sorry about that. There is probably a null reference happening with the game and causing them not to work. Maybe try it again and see if it works. I would fix it but just lost power at my house.

itskdog 2023-05-01 21:37

@lisyarus I think know what it is. I think it's working but the text is not updating. Did you use the Google link or the download? Maybe one as the version with the text not work. I thought I replaced them both last night.

lisyarus 2023-05-01 22:08

@itskdog Yep, I used the Google Drive version before. Tried a direct download from LD site, this version seems to work, thanks!

Agree with others on lack of player feedback & slightly annoying (albeit funny) sounds. Mechanics-wise my main complaint is train movement: when building complex networks in constrained space it is vital to know how exactly these trains will move at various intersections (like in a T-junction), but there doesn't seem to be any consistent behavior (sometimes they turn left and sometimes right), and no extra control from the player.

Anyways, I played for about half an hour and managed to build a network producing computer parts for a stable income :) 2023-05-02-010255_1920x1080_scrot.png

itskdog 2023-05-01 22:27

@lisyarus Thanks for trying it again. There is logic to the trains movement, but I should have explained how they move. They always go in the direction they were head. If the can't and they have a choice there is an order, right, down, left, and then up.