Trash Game

doctor-zeus 2025-10-06 23:22

Pick up the trash!!! Are we going to get a single released for this jammin' background song? Gotta get it on album with some of your other game-jam hits (I'm specifically remembering the crab game one).

I like the inclusion of turbo and handbrake. The level design is fun to drive around in - I know I kinda abandoned my trash delivery mission after a bit just to see where I could drive. I'm going to have to give some shots at the downhill course, Initial D-style :laughing:

The models for the environment, cars, etc. are clean and very readable. This kind of lower-polycount style always makes me think of the Katamari games, which I have a very soft spot for. No picking up cars in this game, unfortunately... maybe next time.

Some feedback, probably not anything too unexpected: There are some things that don't run so smooth for me in the browser - any time particles load for the first time (boosting, handbrake, barrel).

I like the "swoosh" sound from picking up trash cans, explosion sound and "get that cash" was fun. In general, visuals & sounds were good gameplay feedback, made the game feel more responsive. Having some kind of squeal to accompany the burned rubber from the handbreak would've been nice too (though maybe you walk a fine line of trying to not be too annoying).

I would've liked lower-pitched, bassier sounds for impacts & boosts if possible - the ones in the game do a good job of communicating what's going on, but it'd be nice for the audio to help sell the heavy, unwieldy nature of the majestic trash truck more.

Controls felt fine to me - a little hard to steer, but that makes it feel good to navigate the roads just right. I have the impression that boosting actually helps your traction when you're just going in a straight line, which is an interesting dynamic. Some combination of small turns & feathering boost probably mitigates a lot of the steering trickiness.

I did have a few situations in my first couple plays where the camera got locked at a weird angle on my truck. It didn't happen every time, so I'll fault my poor driving & wall-running-into skills for doing some kind of irreparable harm to the cameraman. I'm not well-versed in 3D design considerations, but maybe having a "reset viewing angle" button would help mitigate it?

I like the scope of the level design, and like I said earlier, I had a good bit of fun just driving around. I'm not sure how I feel about the placement of the garbage drop-off spots. My first couple plays I didn't really run into any besides the initial one, but maybe I was just driving very poorly. Later attempts let me confirm there were other spots to drop off at, just needed to find them.

Having a floating arrow in the sky or a classic trash truck radar pointing toward nearby points would be a nice enhancement to make the learning process easier - I figure if you really go hard-core into playing a game like this you eventually just have the whole map worked out in your head, more or less.

Closing Notes

Overall, I think it would be fun to actually try competing for score, even if it's just a little bit. I'll have to do some more attempts and post my results later.

Sound, art & gameplay landed solidly for me, and if we get some high score competition going on here I'll get even more fun out of it :smile:

Nice work on this one, I'm glad I had the chance to play it!

lectvs 2025-10-06 23:30

trash game tbh

lectvs 2025-10-06 23:33

/s actually everything in this game was put together so well! I love flipping and drifting around in my garbage truck. And the BGM is just :ok_hand: :ok_hand: :ok_hand: Great job!

ursagames 2025-10-07 00:28

@doctor-zeus Thank you for such a detailed comment! I really wanted to sneak in the AE86 on the mountain path as a reference but just didn't have time. Speaking of a lot of your observations I agree with but ran out of time on them! Just getting any sound effects in was last minute, I really wish the crunch had better sounds for collision! I wanted to add a sfx for when trash landed in your truck and add in some particle effects to juice it up etc. I think I definitely had some time management issues here as that final layer of polish was added way too late.

I am happy with what we got though! Didn't get much playtesting in to see how the placement of the dumps felt, but I was thinking of adding in a crazy taxi arrow type of thing to point towards the closest one once your truck was full and limit your carry capacity more and make it a tighter loop, but that didn't make the cut either :laughing:

Sorry for the camera issues, it was another thing I definitely meant to fix with a smarter camera mechanism that uses hitboxes etc and allow for more control of the camera. Will try to prioritize better next time!

I am curious what people get for high scores, I can't imagine getting much over 100 is possible but didn't figure out any optimal routes yet.

@lectvs embrace the trash! I'm so happy with the BGM, we'll need to think about making a jam OST soundtrack someday.

doctor-zeus 2025-10-07 00:52

Ah, future enhancement: get the panda trueno black-and-white paint style for the truck for reaching a high score (or doing consecutive drop-offs at a top-of-mountain and bottom-of-mountain point) :smile:

And yeah, the time crunch is always the great enemy. You all did a great job making the whole game feel like a complete package anyway, though!

notexplosive 2025-10-07 01:59

(brock voice) i can turn my trusty trash can.... into a cash can!

nbumgardner 2025-10-07 02:00

Excellent humor! The cute shapes, bright terrain, rock music, and trash burn mechanic complement each other in being lighthearted. I was so immersed I tried moving my mouse cursor to look to the side while driving. Given more time I think more drop-off points would help encourage exploring while earning points, but having 1 dump site does make sense. The steering was also well done, the garbage truck corrected its orientation to go toward where I wanted.

le-don 2025-10-08 22:29

Charming! I really like the background music. I think it might be great if there was some incentive to explore the map, since I just kept driving the main road, but I noticed there was some interesting stuff outside of it like a ramp.

daveco 2025-10-11 16:49

THIS IS AWESOME!!! When can we get a link to the music :D

unitedfailures 2025-10-11 16:52

*"BURNING SOME TRASH! BURNING SOME TRASH!"*

Rad game. Banger soundtrack. This driving mechanics in this game were surprisingly fun. Loved cruising through the open world and jamming out. Good work!

ursagames 2025-10-11 17:31

Glad everyone is enjoying the game and its soundtrack! Tiny Viking has a soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/tinygaming82 that it might get uploaded to later, but you can enjoy his other work there for now!

zoeek 2025-10-11 22:49

The best music I've heard so far in a LD game. Super fun. Great work!

cody-raethke 2025-10-11 23:34

This was my first idea actually - very well executed!

Love the music, silly sound effects, and overall aesthetic. The gameplay is fun, but it's a bit difficult to do much before the time limit runs out. Really liked the village layout and size as well, but it was hard to find my way around without some sort of beacon for "home"

wallted 2025-10-12 18:49

Yes, the track is dope and amazing 5/5 :D The gameplay is rather straightforward, but it was neat and clean and I love you managed to insert some trick jumps here and there :D I am so sad there is some visible skybox, because you did a great work with models, they are pretty and look coherent, and sadly skybox stands out. Ofc I blame the crunch, not you guys :heart:

firellon 2025-10-12 20:19

Get in some cash! ( if you can handle the steering, that is )

The soundtrack is pretty fun, to be sure. The game controls could use a bit of polish :)

surfa 2025-10-13 19:10

Holy hell I can't believe you made a cover of The Offspring for a game jam. Really leaning into the crazy taxi vibes. Love it so much. We have previously made a game inspired by crazy taxi so this is right up my alley. Great entry :thumbsup:

ursagames 2025-10-13 23:14

After all the positive comments we have decided to upload the soundtrack on the itch.io page as a WAV!

Thanks again for the reviews! Definitely looking forward to checking out more of your games once I have some more free time!

zoeek 2025-10-14 11:06

@ursagames downloaded and will be listening to that banger again fo sure :smile: PICK UP THE TRASH EARNING SOME CASH :moneybag:

claude127721 2025-10-19 05:42

The machnism is great and the soundtrack is definitely the best among all entries! By the way I'm such a terrible driver that I always crash:(

ajile3105 2025-10-19 15:44

For some reason I found this cozy haha, just drive with that music on! Amazing one! :D

harujam 2025-10-19 17:54

One of the best soundtracks! Lesgoo

jesus-gonzalez 2025-10-21 00:58

I think you just passed 20 ratings with mine! Good job.