Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD53 → Alien Parcels
By nonimad
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 773 | 3.40 | 23 | |
| Fun | 735 | 3.27 | 22 | |
| Innovation | 527 | 3.42 | 22 | |
| Theme | 277 | 4.20 | 22 | |
| Humor | 992 | 2.25 | 22 | |
| Mood | 1032 | 2.90 | 22 |
Interesting setting and concept. Reminds me a bit of papers please. Trying to figure out if the details are correct and everything matches. I would've loved some music to complete the space setting but I like the idea itself.
Took a little while to get my head around it but I ended up really liking it! I did have some situations where none of the rockets were valid for my package so I had to blow up a rocket? Maybe I messed up and just forgot which shapes were where.
Could be a fun mobile game, which sort of looks like what you're going for with the aspect ratio. I found it really difficult to figure out how to sort packages but I eventually got the hang of it, I found the manual effectively useless. Might want to add some text to it to explain the distance thing and since the cards on the right showed some equations I figured that the symbols on the left were some sort of equation as well and not that they couldn't be put together. Overall pretty fun though once I figured it out.
Wow, what a nice game. I spend a lot of time on it. It really enabled my brains.
This game is testing how well you know the rules, but something about your explanation, the manual, and the UI just confused the hell out of me, so I made my own tutorial at the end of this comment in case anyone else is also confused and needs some more help figuring it out.
I like the idea, and it was fun once I figured out how to play, but it felt too stiff. There is only one solution for each package, and it's very easy once you know the rules. I think the game is missing another element to make the gameplay more dynamic. Maybe you could give the player a stock of stamps and allow them to add or remove stamps to complete a package. Or if a package has the wrong number of stamps, the player could compensate by selecting an alternate route, and maybe there could be a scoring system based on delivery time or package condition.
The general idea is really cool and you could turn this into something like Papers Please with a bit more work if you wanted to.
Here is my attempt at explaining the game:
1. Click the little white arrow on the bottom half of the screen to receive a package 2. **All you can do with a package is accept or reject it by clicking the check-mark or X icons** 3. Each package has a destination, a weight, and a symbol. Your job is to determine whether the stamps on the box are enough to cover the delivery
Each stamp color is worth a number of units: * Green: 1 unit * Blue: 2 units * Red: 3 units
Each unit can cover EITHER 3kg of weight, or 1 jump on the star map.
So when you receive a package, count how many total stamp UNITS it has (remember the value of each color) and then do some simple math to determine if you should reject or accept it. The package must have the minimum amount of stamp units to fit the weight and distance
Package weighs **12.5kg** and needs to travel **2 planets** away.
The package has **one red stamp** and **two blue stamps**.
1 red stamp = 3 units
1 blue stamp = 2 units
Total stamp units on this package = 7 units.
Since each unit is 3kg, you need 5 units to cover the weight (4 units only gets you to 12kg)
We have 2 units left. Since the package needs to make 2 jumps and each unit can cover 1 jump, then we can accept this package.
Note that if we had 3 units left, we would have to reject the package because we cannot have any left over units.
After you accept the package, you need to pick a space ship to place it in. This is where the symbol on the package comes in. The in game manual has a list of combinations that are not allowed (the hieroglyphics on the left tell you what combinations to avoid). As long as you don't make one of these forbidden combinations on one space ship, you'll be fine. Seems easy except the game doesn't show you the symbol of the package on this screen, so make sure you memorize it before accepting the package!
@roitchie I indeed wanted to get a feeling of Papers Please but did not have time to push the rules a bit further, maybe for a future version!
@flenzil Glad you liked it and managed to get your head around it! It is definitely not as self-explanatory as I wanted. Yes, the random is not constrained by what you currently have in your rockets so it can "force" you to blow a rocket.
@swordfish I actually went for something Nintendo DS style with the two screens style but had no time to improve the top screen or put more valuable things in it. I'd love to say that figuring out how it works is part of the game but that would be lying :stuck_out_tongue: Happy that you found that fun in the end!
@mnemosynevl Yeah it turned out way more "educational" that I initially thought with skills in mental arithmetic being challenged :laughing:
Thank you all for the feedback!
@skleembof Holy wow, I wrote the explanations in a hurry right before the deadline and did not change them since, so your tutorial is very welcome! I also really love your ideas about the ability to reroute or correct packages, that's excellent! Thank you for the time spent on testing this, I'm sincerely grateful.
Reminds me of papers please (obviously)! Seems like it would make a fun little mobile game. Although the instructions were unclear, even with the manual. Managed to actually deliver parcels correctly!
Definitely takes a minute to get used to! I love papers please style games but figuring out the stamp math took me longer than I would like to admit. I never quite got the extra symbols and rocket lay out because it got over my head but I really like the concept. An interesting core mechanic and it felt very alien :)
not a bad idea, sorting and delivery a spin on the match type games maybe in the works
Very original entry, simple graphics work well :ok_hand:
Nice little game. Good clear graphics and gameplay. Well done!