Purrfect Portal

unrealkazu 2024-04-17 12:01

I can tell that you guys put a _lot_ of effort into this game. It's impressive how much art and gameplay there is in here, because building a factory game for a jam is definitely a tall order. After some fiddling around I figured out the core loop, and I enjoyed playing this game! The storyline was definitely somewhat disturbing, which definitely adds to the humor of the game.

At some point I began to lose track of what each building/resource did ("What was the demon doing again?"), but other than that it was great.

Congratulations on being able to push out so much content in such a short amount of time, well done!

smoky01 2024-04-17 14:09

The gameplay mechanics in this game are so intuitive! It's like the controls become an extension of your own instincts. Plus, the art style adds a unique flair that keeps you engaged throughout. Definitely a gem worth exploring!

teto 2024-04-17 22:24

@unrealkazu So glad to hear you enjoyed it! We are very happy with how the resources flow through the production line, although it could definitely have benefitted from more time to balance the production rates as it gets very hectic very quickly! More time to do a more fleshed out tutorial intriducing things at a slower rate might have also been good to make sure you're comfortable in what things are doing before intriducing new things. Thank you for the feeback!

@smoky01 Thank you so much! Good to hear the art has the same unique flair as all 170 other games you've rated so far! <3

joshanthony1990 2024-04-18 14:43

This was a wild idea. It took me awhile to start figuring out what I was supposed to do, and even then I never really felt like I was controlling the game. Eventually, the number of units got to the point where I just dragged what I could onto the portal and hoped for the best. I also couldn't tell if there was a goal to work toward or if I was just endlessly feeding the portal.

That said, a strategy game of complexity is tough to pull off, so kudos on the attempt! I enjoyed it before it got overwhelming.

teto 2024-04-19 09:45

@joshanthony1990 Thank you for the feedback and glad you enjoyed it before it all got too much! I agree that we could have done with a but more direction in what we wanted the goal to be. I think it was supposed to be a frantic play until failure kind of game, but we didnt get to implement the logic for having things that are wandering around for too long to go crazy. As a result, it's pretty much impossible to lose the game as you can just stockpile everything! With more time, we would have definitely spent some time balancing it to make it more strategic in where to place cats and buildings by reducing production rates.

rradu 2024-04-21 17:30

I keep seeing positive comments and I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong cause I can't actually progress the game. I put my cats in the recutement center and also in the pond and waited a while in both of them and tried everything I could think of but nothing happened. The little box to the side started filling up with fish and then stopped after a while and I can't tell how to play this game

ciaranw 2024-04-21 17:36

@rradu Apologies, I'll take a look at improving the instructions! You need to micromanage your cats, so move one outside of a 'workstation' so that they can move the fish from one place to another. Hope that helps!

knatt 2024-04-21 17:39

@rradu I was in the same boat, you need to have one of the cats not doing a job so they can transport the fish from the lake to the center. One way to get a little more clarity is if they wore a different hat. Once understood that and you buy things from the building tab on the right side of the screen I was right as rain. I had fun with the game after a few rounds of trial and error!

rradu 2024-04-21 17:48

yeah I managed to figure it out in the end. thanks for the quick reply. The game is really chaotic and very in-depth, really nice!

norabacu 2024-04-21 17:51

The humor is very good and the work to implement this mechanic was certainly not easy. It took me a while to understand what I had to do, but after reading the instructions for the second time, I was able to get started. Unfortunately, the game caused my PC to crash after a while.

ciaranw 2024-04-21 17:53

@norabacu Oh no! What specs do you have out of interest? I know the game can get a little crazy with number of active characters but I don't want to be crashing anyone's PC! Thanks for the feedback :)

adam-gallina 2024-04-21 21:44

Really fun idea, but a lot to keep track of in practice - it would have been nice if the grannies/sheep/whatever comes after would bring themselves to the portal, and you can intercept them to put them in holding pens if you want to allow more time to focus on any objectives, but really fun factory game!

monika 2024-04-21 21:52

I was having some problems with the UI that might be a bug but I'm not sure. After I got the field hospital and gardens up, when everything was very crowded, I noticed the witches were not heading to the games, and I had tried dragging them there earlier and that didn't work. I wanted to try to drag them to the piers that were under the games but the games were in the way, so I zoomed in and out a few times and then the games relocated to south of the piers instead of blocking them, and then suddenly I could drag to the witches to the games. Was I supposed to be able to drag witches to the games the entire time? Is there more past the field hospital / garden unlock? Is there something that tells you when the game ends?

Thanks! And good work on the game. The graphics are super cute.

kaliuresis 2024-04-21 22:32

The story seemed a bit convoluted, which I think added to the confusion of what I was supposed to do. Once I figured it out it worked well, although it didn't seem like there was much to do beyond just dragging things onto the portal. The ability to move/delete buildings would have helped make the factory optimization part more engaging, and would let you tune things so that optimization actually matters. This game had a lot going on but I think it could have benefited from being simpler and more focused.

ciaranw 2024-04-28 13:43

@adam-gallina Thanks for the feedback! We were trying to balance some kind of feeling of factory game with some kind of panic like overcooked, but I don't think we spent enough time tweaking/balancing at the end (Ran out of time :P)

@monika Huh that does sound like a bug, thanks for the feedback! Our routing logic isn't perfect, so when a witch starts to route herself to the games, it will stop any others trying to go there. They should deliver themselves to the games though, so dragging shouldn't be necessary (but I would have liked to tweak that a bit so you could drag them, I agree its a bit confusing)

@kaliuresis Thanks for the feedback! I think you're right, there were some key features/polishes missing and we didn't get the time to balance it to be more fun. I'm still happy with it but I think we'll be swinging back to do a simpler game next jam!

rowlof 2024-04-28 20:21

Bagger

utopia 2024-04-28 20:34

Lovely game, interesting ideas and really makes me laugh lol, if the music loop can be better then it will be more relaxing and immersive.

skleembof 2024-05-01 00:19

Very impressive entry! you guys put a lot of effort into making this feel like a full game. I loved how effective the interactive tutorial was at teaching me how to play the game. The balancing felt fine as I was playing the tutorial, but after unlocking the final 2 buildings, it became very hectic and difficult to figure out what to do. It also felt a bit pointless since the bugs didn't pose any real risk and there was no goal to shoot for. I think a simple counter of how many games you completed would have worked to motivate the player more. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game but with no difficulty it got old fast.

I also think I found a bug where the Boo! game wouldn't complete but the counter would go higher than the 7.

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lildyll 2024-05-02 17:49

Overall a very ambitious and fun game! I love the style and how unique it feels to play. Great work!

stephen-kyranakis 2024-05-03 06:54

I loved this take on the theme! It was a very fun concept, and I enjoyed the puns as well. The art was great. I did get a little stuck at one point before I realized that none of my cats were transporting anything because they were all holding fish, but once I figured that out, I was able to proceed. I'm also impressed that you were able to get it to run smoothly with tons and tons of agents running around. Great work!

pawciu 2024-05-03 06:57

Wow thats a lot of work!

cainetinyarms 2024-05-03 12:58

I was surprised by the amount of gameplay you guys managed to make in a short period of time. It was very fun and I sunk way too much time into it. I'd love for you guys to continue developing it and to see a full release.