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The Antiquary
The Antiquary
By bobap
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 543 | 3.31 | 47 | |
| Fun | 640 | 2.88 | 49 | |
| Innovation | 252 | 3.47 | 46 | |
| Theme | 90 | 4.18 | 48 | |
| Graphics | 583 | 3.16 | 49 | |
| Humor | 659 | 2.10 | 41 | |
| Mood | 674 | 2.95 | 46 | |
Comments
What you have is clean and polished. The UI is very functional, intuitive, and looks nice. I feel like there is a lot of potential. The three different artifact attributes is interesting. I feel like with a more complicated request system and one that gave some sort of indication of what requests will come in, so that the player has to pre-stock items for future requests, strategize, the game could be quite interesting. Good luck expanding on it!
Some music and additional visuals (art for the vendors?) would add a lot too.
zexurge
2025-10-07 14:35
a bit too text-heavy for me, but seems like there's a lot of potential to be a 'buy/sell' type of game, like 'No Umbrellas Allowed'
bobap
2025-10-08 03:48
@zexurge I get that, I knew it was a risk going in, but I figured if I could limit the design to work with minimal art, I could get a lot more of it assembled for the jam. Haven't heard of that game before, definitely going to check it out now though. Thanks for the rec.
bobap
2025-10-08 03:52
@adrien-tremblay I definitely would like to add more tags, primarily "sub-tags" for like [weapons] > [swords] or like [stone] > [marble] which could just be like bonuses for more specialized sets or something. Couldn't work without expanding the item list enough to have enough overlap just yet though.
I like the idea of influencing requests, perhaps the requests prioritize types of items in your collection.
The game is sorely lacking for audio though, I didn't even touch sound for the jam this time.
I feel like this is missing some of the special sauce... Some juice and maybe some risk-reward would make this hard to put down!
It took me a while to grasp the concept, but I can see the potential. Perhaps it's easier to associate icons for the different types than just text tags?
thdudk
2025-10-08 05:39
I initially was really confused but after a minute I figured it out and proceeded to get sucked in ðŸ˜. The game loop is good and the simplicity is a big strength, I did find I was spending a lot of time hoping to get something that matched my tasks tho—and often coming up empty handed. I think a couple sound effects, some chill music and a fix to maybe make it less painful sometimes to wait would go a long way. But fantastic job, I was not expected to get completely absorbed in this simple game!
ayu
2025-10-08 05:55
Nice and complete game. I can see that there is a lot effort in designing the antiquary. The tags and requests are well designed. One improvement I can think of is that there could be more penalty or growth. Please check out our game. We built something similar
bobap
2025-10-08 06:03
@nolamosoft It absolutely needs the juice. Really wish I had time for some more animations and audio feedback for all the interactions.
@blazerker Icons are a fantastic idea. I can definitely see it for the item Types. Might be harder for Civs and Materials though. I had thought about color coding them which would help identifying them at a glance in a similar way.
@thdudk I was definitely worried about the onboarding for the game, in fact at the last minute I tried making some of the buttons stand out more since I couldn't implement a proper tutorial. Glad you were able to figure it out. Definitely looking to add in more ways to influence the market to help "fishing" for request items. In retrospect for the Jam build I should have broadened the individual Visitor item pools.
@ayu Absolutely want to have the Renown and *nonexistent* Disposition system facilitate that growth for future versions.
ayu
2025-10-08 06:09
LOL Here is something really bad but I must bring up On my first gameplay, I got a request of getting Byzantine items. I collected 3 Ottoman items. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong
The game is very involved, but well done. You used Godot. What did you use for the interface? Th UI stuff, or something else?
mololo
2025-10-08 10:49
The UI looks so lean, I love it. The game itself is quite fun for me. I completed about 20 request and got hooked, but I dont now how to get renown or if the game has an end goal. Either way good job.
bobap
2025-10-08 10:52
@beebster-games The entire thing is made up of Godot's Control elements, primarily Panel, HBox, and VBox containers with of course a good amount of Labels. The art I did create was made in Illustrator, but the only elements I needed to make were the background, the fading notification log bit, and shockingly the checkboxes for the "Have" column. I'm sure there's a way to do that using Godot nodes too, but I already had some premade checkbox icons from a previous project. Styleboxes doing all the heavy lifting here.
bobap
2025-10-08 11:06
@mololo Yeah, it's poorly explained. If you right click an item it goes into your Collection tab and Renown is based on rarity of items and set completion for your own personal collection.
woona
2025-10-08 11:08
Nice game! I love trading games where you have to buy low, sell high, and slowly become rich.
I think for this kind of game, graphics for each item are important. Being able to see your entire collection is a part of fantasy. That makes it feel more like a game and less like a spreadsheet.
Also, it would be great if I could actually see my collection when choosing next request. I mean, I could keep track of my collection with pen and paper but it's a bit too much effort. 😅
@bobap You did a great job using the Control elements. Very innovative work. Good use of a highly misunderstood mechanic in Godot
greenpig
2025-10-08 13:53
Took me some time to get it but I really like it. There is no music sadly and I'm missing a short tutorial, but otherwise it's very good, nice job!
Clean UI and once you "get it" the gameplay loop becomes pretty engaging. I get the feeling that you had a lot more planned feature-wise but even as it is it's a really nice and relaxing game
I can see there is a dee system running on the back, and deeper yet planned. I got myself in quite some debt until I figured out ways to better handle my inventory, and that is the fun of it! Great entry!
It's not exactly my type of game, but I really appreciated the item filtering feature, which adds convenience.
It also really lacks musical accompaniment, as the gameplay is essentially quite monotonous. The game could be improved with some kind of plot or at least a clear goal (for example, accumulating 10,000).
ditam
2025-10-08 14:55
Oh, after a confused first impression I ended up liking this one a lot! Went for around 30 days, and collected 4.9k gold. It did get a bit tedious in the end. Based on your description, I'm guessing I was just stuck with a bad random seed of visitor pool that didn't line up with the requests I picked to fullfill. Either way, I had fun, and it's a very polished entry despite being practically text only. Well done!
One UI suggestion: the 'Requests' button really does not belong on the visitor's tab, it should be under our inventory. I think this made it a bit hard to figure out what's going on in the beginning.
Also, how to gain reknown? I thought eventually I would earn it by unlocking more difficult requests, but I never saw anything above Medium in the end.
bobap
2025-10-08 20:49
@greenpig Yeah, onboarding is a nightmare since it throws so much at you at once. I thought about slapping a music track in, but wanted to find the right one, then would need audio options and building a menu for that...really just got hit by the deadline.
@khamekaze Honestly a lot of the UI features kind of got smashed together and didn't turn out as elegant as I had planned since I just had to get it in. Definitely ended up in some time sucks that were completely pointless. I spent like 4 hours getting stacked menus to properly close with ESC, but that minimizes fullscreen so who would even use that. That one hurt a bit.
@holysparks Definitely interested in expanding it and improving the UI flow.
@sick-machine Music was culled by the deadline unfortunately. The goal is technically "collect all the things" but there's 270+ items and some are ridiculously rare spawns so that it entirely unlikely to be reached. A small gold goal for the Jam would have been smart. I was too focused on full game elements instead of a proper vertical slice.
@ditam I'm glad you powered through the lack of tutorial. Based on the feedback I definitely need to have better communication about visitor item pools and more agency over visitors that show up. Renown is gained from items in your Collection. If you Right click an item it will transfer from yours or a visitor's inventory to the Collection. Definitely going to have harder requests show up with Renown growth, but as is the 2 Tag requests are still generating buggy outputs. There is no way to deliver x [IRON] [POTTERY] for example.
schu
2025-10-09 07:49
This is really well done! Great use of the theme
Really like the concept! You need a while to get going, but once you have enough money to fulfill more complex requests it's quite fun. The scrolling was a bit off though. And some of the balancing seems of, I had a clay coin request witch was set to medium, but I did not see a single clay coin in 20 mins of playing.
bobap
2025-10-09 08:10
@grummelchen Yeah the code cross checking the tags against each other doesn't work right. Real oversight on that one. Most of the items were also added in the last few hours so the pricing is pretty much just initial values that I never had a chance to tweak. Glad you enjoyed though.
@schu Glad you enjoyed.
accardo
2025-10-09 08:22
I think the game has a good foundation, the UI is clean and functions well. But some adjustment on the randomizer seems needed, I selected a request on items with French labels and couldn't get one 4 visitors later, it'd be even more difficult for request needs multiple labels. Other things like SFX, music and item icons can also make the game more engaging.
What an addictive game... Well done. Neat graphics, kept me busy for almost 2 hours... With some music maybe buying and selling price differences (so that you can make money more easily) and this would be a very fun game. Well done.
jamesxm
2025-10-09 10:10
Difficult for me to get into. But I appreciate the shear number of items you generated! I think if there were lil icons for each item and or sound effects wlike money dropping with every purchase or sell i could be more captivated by it.
Interesting concept — probably the best representation of the jam’s theme among all the games I’ve played so far, but at the moment it feels a bit slow-paced. At first, the game feels a bit challenging to grasp, but you quickly figure out what to do. The core gameplay loop is quite engaging (at least for me), but after about 10–15 minutes you start realizing that things like smooth day-to-day transitions, limited visitor inventories, and random useless items all make the pacing a bit sluggish, and progression feels slow — which lowers the motivation to keep playing. Still, it’s a really solid project: visually polished and built on a great concept. Well done!
void4
2025-10-09 12:02
Nice game, I played it for quite a while. Is the renown system not yet implemented or did I miss out on how to get it?
vladcfg
2025-10-09 12:02
An interesting economic simulator — it’s a bit hard to understand what’s going on at first, but overall, I liked it.
I like the presentation part of the game a lot, and the take on theme is on the spot as well. The game loop feels interesting, and the idea behind it makes sense.
The game is definitely missing music, or any sort of audio. Even a simple click sound would improve the interaction greatly. Also, the lack of tutorial (tooltips might be helpful) vs the apparent complexity and the balancing of it all (e.g. I didn't seem to get penalized for just proceeding to next day) made it hard to get into the game.
However, the comment above is more related to the LD format than the game itself. It's more about reducing the impact of RNG - even for simple requests I may not necessarily get generated items soon enough.
I think there's definitely a good idea here, and what's available feels quite polished.
Congrats on your entry, good job!
skale
2025-10-09 13:30
Oh, in this one you really need to think. Brain is not braining😅. It takes a bit to get into, but it’s totally worth it. The whole collection vibe feels strangely satisfying. Definitely one of those games that grows on you the more you play.
Really clean UI. The game idea is nice but it feels pretty spread sheety in its current form. Once i realized what i was suposed to do I did not even pay attention to names of the objects and instead of just skimmed the tags, which kinda ruined the immersion of being a collector. I think more visuals would have made this much more fun (maybe simple icons or smt). I could really see this as a cool full game and could be taken to many different directions. I kinda missed having some audio and since it seems like you did not do Compo category some generic background music + sfx would have made it even more nice.
Sorry, but I don't understand how to play this. There's too much UI and it's not clear what I'm supposed to do.
Intresting idea for a game, at the current state it's a bit rng-heavy, but is a solid base to develop further, nice job!
someone
2025-10-09 20:07
Nice simple idea. The interface is clean and feels nice to use. I was a quite confused at first. My first card was for gemstones which I never saw any of at all. A quick tutorial to explain things at the start would have been useful, and the game really needs some audio. I did find I was barely reading the actual names of the things I was buying, focusing just on matching the type. I almost missed that there is a collection summary checklist which I guess is your overall goal?
Really polished base you have! Having some time pressure element might be nice so that you have to really consider what requests you are trying to fulfill. Nice job though really enjoy the style and gameplay loop
This is a very interesting economic simulator with a neat and well-thought-out UI/UX, excellent work!
torami
2025-10-10 13:28
Holy shit, my favourite game on the jam so far, I played a solid hour if not more. Guess what requests I am going for here haha. Screenshot 2025-10-10 151623.png
First off I really like the concept and even though it is basically just a matching game I really really enjoyed it and it works as a great memory game as well:))
Ideas for improvements: I would love it if the canvases/buttons were of fixed size as when choosing the filter or when purchasing something with a long name they would jump around and with the button it was really annoying since I had to move my mouse to click it again.
The medium requests seem utterly pointless since most of them are so rare that I even if I've seen one or two of some I never came across more so I would definitely up the reward for them as for 1.3x it is not worth it not by a long shot, however the medium and simple ones seem to be well balanced.
Also requests for furnitures or other stuff that tends to be really expensive could be made medium as this game feels more like an inventory managment game with the available 'space' being your money. This also allows for a trick where you only need one or two pieces for a request but don't have enough liquidity you can sell everything buy the priciest options for your collection make more money than you would've been able to otherwise then buy everything back at the same price. This would kinda break capitalism haha so I would definitely add some kind of extra in the price when selling and buying back at the same place.
For this reason also, the 'collection' part seemed rather useless as you would just limit your ability to buy and basically throw assets out the window for no reason at least I could not figure out what having more renown did for me I reckon nothing and the theme of the game even without the renown system fits perfectly into collector.
I would also add in maybe some kind of daily cost (e.g. renting the shop) as now you can just spam the new visitors until you get something you actually need. ------ All in all amazing game, I would live to see the mentioned barter and relationship system and I escpesially love this as I have been wanting to develop a game with a barter system for the longest time. Great effort definitely a 5/5 for me:))
bobap
2025-10-10 23:46
@void4 The Renown is from placing items into your Collection using Right Click but doesn't do anything currently.
@vladcfg Thanks for playing. I just updated the Itch build with a small tutorial to help onboarding.
@marudziik You're absolutely right, I just updated the Itch build with a bit of sound and music.
@skale Strangely enough I also noticed myself getting sucked in during playtesting.
@prunus-padis I was trying to shoot for Compo but on Sunday I realized it was far too barebones and pushed it to 72 hour. Icons would have been tricky with 270+ items, but would definitely like to add some in the future. The Itch build has been updated with some music and sounds.
@denissobolev You're not alone. The Itch build has been updated with a small text tutorial at the start.
@andreadbx Absolutely, my design revolved around being able to manipulate the RNG more, but ran out of time. I updated the Itch build to have many more items per visitor to compensate for now.
@someone Done. Tutorial and audio added to the Itch build. Yes the overall goal is to complete your own personal collection but with 270+ items and many of them being very rare, I don't think it's feasible currently.
@derek-glennon Definitely considering having a daily cost that goes up as you collect more items.
@dumchevdev Thanks for playing.
@torami Yeah, the size shifting was a last minute bug that cropped up with the addition of all the new items. I still haven't had time to hunt that one down. Great idea with tag types corresponding to difficulty, I'll add that to my balance list. I kind of like the 100% liquidity aspect, but for sure that needs to be fixed. Renown is useless right now, but will be huge in a future version to scale item rarity and request payouts. Daily "rent" is definitely on my list and will also scale with Renown. So glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the great feedback.
it's very complex but pleasant. Very cool entry.
Expected something very different before spoiling myself with the description and comments. Not really my cup of tea having to loop constantly to gain a bit of money, but UI and atmosphere were extremely well made. Was surprised when there was no chargeback penalty, like most other games have, but that was not a negative at all.
Right now, the concept looks very rough and text-heavy, but I think it has potential! Right now, the game feels like it's missing a lot. It feels like filling out an Excel spreadsheet. So, I hope you'll bring it to life. Maybe add some story elements, add some music, and so on. Good luck, I believe you'll make a great game!