timhugh 2025-10-07 16:31
Love this! Definitely evokes that classic 2d driving game feel. It's really difficult, but maybe I'm just bad at it :joy: The graphics are awesome too
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD58 → Mailbox Mania
By wuppos and pastry-chef
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 230 | 3.72 | 45 | |
| Fun | 175 | 3.69 | 45 | |
| Innovation | 491 | 3.10 | 46 | |
| Theme | 198 | 3.98 | 46 | |
| Graphics | 156 | 4.20 | 46 | |
| Audio | 147 | 3.77 | 45 | |
| Humor | 322 | 3.17 | 44 | |
| Mood | 420 | 3.51 | 44 |
Love this! Definitely evokes that classic 2d driving game feel. It's really difficult, but maybe I'm just bad at it :joy: The graphics are awesome too
Very cute graphics and sound, but I spent most of my time backing my mail truck up after hitting a house -- I think the steering is too unforgiving, considering how small the map is. With the high acceleration and low turning radius of this mail truck, I think more straight sections would be better. Also, why do the letter disappear? Useful as a game mechanic but a little odd if you think about it. Maybe a rival mail carrier could pick them up? And you should put a collision boundary around the playable area. I got stuck in the bottom of the map, off camera.
Sweet! I like the direct controls of the vehicle, the fitting and energizing soundtrack as well as the tasteful pixelgraphics. Well done! On my second go, I even upped my highscore to 27 pieces of mail collected :) The bonus time from pickups helped with that. Great job on your entry.
@timhugh Thanks a lot! I am happy you enjoyed it
@preef Thanks a lot for your constructive feedback! I can fully understand your struggles with the game. The letters indeed just disappear for gameplay reasons, but I like your idea of a rival picking them up instead. Lets go with that :D
@robin-schmitz I am happy you liked it! Thanks a lot for playing :) I agree that the time pickups are really strong for getting a high score. I now made a leaderboard on the gamepage, so lets see who can beat your score :D
very tight gameplay loop, simple and fun. love the spritework and vehicle handling
gives a nice arcade-ish feeling which is always appreciated. would be nice if the car was seethrough behind buildings etc. art and sfx are slick! good entry
The graphics look amazing and the music is nice!
The isometric perspective is nicely done graphics-wise, however for me it's a bit difficult to navigate a car in an isometric view. ^^ For my personal taste the game also felt a bit too fast (even without the coffee) so I just kept colliding into everything.
They call me 007 — 0 mail delivered, 0 houses left undamaged, 7 coffees down.
Was incredibly fun yet incredibly hard, I'm pretty sure I tore down every single house. If you ever do post-jam version, plz add some visual representation how bumped car or houses are. Or maybe in the endgame stats.
Great work!!
Simple and fun!!! hell of a mania indeed, I kept messing up with the direction all the time. love the graphics and the sfx!
Could use an outline or shadow when behind houses or trees. Was kinda hard, turning radius felt too wide. But overall I had fun and enjoyed the challange.
Thank you all for playing! :D
@squashi, @ciph3rzer0 I fully agree that some way to see the car behind buildings would have been good to implement. It should be relatively easy to do with shaders I think, but I am not too comfortable with those (yet). Thanks a lot for the nice feedback :)
@binarydiv Yeah, it seems that more people are struggling to control the car. A bit chaotic steering was intended, but I think we overdid it XD I am happy you enjoyed the graphics and music
@t90 Haha, I am happy you enjoyed it even though you are 007 XD Some extra visualization of destruction would have definitely been fun! I was also thinking of destructible objects along the road, but unfortunately there was no time left to add those things (as always :P) Thanks a lot for your kind words!
@ave2brave Ah, yeah, I was wondering if the control scheme would be confusing to people, but we couldnt come up with anything that made more sense to us XD I am happy you enjoyed it though!
As an inpatient person, I had a hard time playing this game the controls are really unforgiving. Apart from that, I like the retro visuals and the overall polish. well done!
This was such a fun game!!! It took me a bit to get used to the driving, my best was 24 mail collected.. We also made a mail collecting game. :))
Really good game, really enjoyed it! It is the kind of game that is frustrating when you struggle to do what you want (for instance when I can't get the car off a wall for 15 seconds), but very pleasing when you learned to control it. I wish post offices were so fast in real life...
@evil23 I am sorry to hear you struggled! You are definitely not the only one, but I am happy you liked the visuals and polish :D
@pigeonic Thanks a lot for playing! You have been added to the leaderboard :) I am curious how you did the mail collecting, so I will definitely by checking out your game!
@the-default-team I am happy to hear that you liked it enough to put in the time to learn how to control the game :D Thanks a lot for playing and for your feedback
The gameplay is unforgiving but I like it! When you manage to hit that mail box in reverse, then 180 to rush in the next one, the feeling is amazing. I dont know if you know it but the steering seems to be dependent on the window size: playing it in the minimized version is almost impossible and could make people abandon fast. But when you turn it full screen, then it's easier to turn, plus you can appreciate the pixel art and the small details (like the tire marks)
@vpro Thanks a lot for playing! I am very happy you enjoyed it :D The steering depending on window size I hadnt realized before :O I also cannot seem to reproduce it unfortunately. Are you playing the web build or did you download the windows version?
@wuppos oh wait, I refreshed the page and the steering was OK even in small size. That's weird cause it was not like that the first time, maybe a bug with my setup cause I'm playing on another computer through Parsec. Maybe it messed up the inputs the first time, sorry for the scare!
@vpro Ah okay, thats a relief :) Thanks a lot for coming back to me about that!
Tiiny and fun! I love your little neighbourhood, very cozy graphic style <3
Really enjoyed this! Such a great little game loop. Racing for the timer was super fun! Has some potential for more levels and crazier obstacles. Great job
The art and music of this game are amazing! As mentioned by other people, I also thought the controls and especially steering might need some fine tuning.
Thanks for uploading! This was a pretty fun score chaser, managed to top out at a high score of 27 and then each run after that was always just a bit lower. Controls took a little getting used to, and there was a time I got stuck behind that row of houses on the back left which ate up a ton of time and was frustrating, but overall I think it was a very enjoyable entry. Music and art were well done too, and I liked the visual and sound effects used, which made everything seem really responsive.
I usually can't for the life of me play these sorts of top-down racing games but I kind of got moderately hooked and managed to eek out 29 Pieces of Mail. My only real note is that I wish there was some sort of more exact way to know when a letter is no longer able to be collected, it's always a bad feeling when you think for sure you got there within the window while the blue pixels were there but end up missing the timing. The map looks good and has an interesting layout even with the few sprites!
Very cohesive art and gameplay! I love that gas and reverse have the same speed, it makes the whole game about drifffffttttttting at your best lol. I kind of wish there were controller support so it would totally give off a “drifter survivor” vibe of gameplay(??)
What really stood out to me is how you need to precisely trigger the front mailbox to collect letters instead of just driving up to the house. That means you’ve got to plan your drifts and positioning carefully to pick things up efficiently, and it kept me try to stay on the road most of the time, which made for a really fun and unique driving challenge.
All in all, great job!
Cool little game, I had fun, at the end I was able to get around 27 letters in a run after some practice :3
What I didn't expect was the hitboxes for the mail to also kind of be "isometrically" in front of the house if that makes sense? I thought it'd be a fixed radius around the mailbox or something, but it turns out bumping into the mailbox from the side doesn't collect it. :sweat_smile: Also at least with the html5 build I had an issue where the first collectible of each run gave me around a 2 second lag spike? Not sure if you were already aware of that and didn't have the time to fix or what, but bugs like these aren't unusual for shuch a short jam anyway :sweat_smile:
Also I love the art! The skit marks are a super lovely touch and I like the pixelated 3d look of the mail van ^^
Looking forward to see what else you'll be making in the future! :3
Thanks a lot for playing everyone :D
@zactyl Huh, getting your highscore on your first run is pretty unusual. Beginners luck I guess :D Yeah, I can see how you can get stuck behind those houses. I think the collisions need a bit of work, such that it is harder to get stuck like that. Thanks a lot for the feedback!
@kinnerk 29 is super good! That puts you on the first spot of the leader board after the two developers (who have a bit of an unfair advantage of course :P). Yeah, I see what you mean on the letter collect time. We were planning to have the background of the marker slowly deplete, but implemented the shrinking marker as a temporary solution >_< I am happy you enjoyed the game :D
@foursay Hi foursay! Yeah, controller support would have been really nice. We (or at least I) was actually inspired by a game called 'absolute drift', which does indeed have controller support and feels super nice to control. Perhaps we can add it in a post-jam version. I am very happy you enjoyed it :D
@aurora-bee 27 is a really good score! You are now on the leaderboard :D I see what you mean about the hitboxes. I kind of like the current implementation, because it becomes a bit more about precision and staying on the road. Although, it also seems that people have a much harder time controlling the car than we thought, so perhaps a fixed radius would have been better XD
I am sorry about the lagspike! I actually have the same problem on my laptop, but because I havent heard anyone else complain about it I thought it might just be my problem. Are you using firefox by any chance?
The 3D look of the van is done using a technique called 'sprite stacking'. It is super easy to implement and gives a really nice effect. I am happy you like it! :D
@wuppos mhm, I'm also using Firefox ^^
Cool entry, took my stupid brain a little moment to get used to the controls because of the isometric view. Loved how polished it felt, responsive driving, had some nice ui elements with the mail timing out and the collectibles in the world. This is a great entry.
Very fun arcade game! The turning is just right to give that good car feel without being tanky. Art style is perfect, I love the colors you guys picked. I think some additional indicator of your current facing direction would help a lot for controlling the car, since it's easy to lose track of it when its moving very fast or behind structures. All in all great entry :)
Hehe, you also made a game featuring a red van. In my game you only get to load cargo but not a chance to drive tho, so glad I got the chance for that now. :stuck_out_tongue: :red_car:
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I really like the graphics and simplified color palette you've chosen. The roofs of the houses could probably use a little variation, but apart from that everything's nice and neat.
The HUD and different indicators are polished as well. My only nitpick concerns the blue letter-marker. The way it gets smaller to indicate how much time you have left somehow _"doesn't feel right"._
It might be just my own weird sentiment though, so pay don't mind to that remark if it feels otherwise redundant.
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The steering felt a bit janky, but would probably improve with minor tweaks and tuning.
I tried three times and this is what I managed to score.
gameover.png
Keep on jamming! :love_letter: :mailbox_with_mail:
2025-10-16-222557_hyprshot.png
Eerily similar to my first jam game, though quite a bit more polished :laughing: Fun graphics and gameplay, and I liked the small details like the speedometer and the mailbox flags going up. I did get a little annoyed at how much the car spun around when crashing, and how you could drive off the side of the screen, but both minor things. Nice work!
As others have mentioned, the steering might be a bit hard to control. The gameplay loop however is very well made: nothing superfluous, you understand clearly where your goals are, very nice!
Man this feels like an old game boy color game. The soundtrack, the art, the controls everything felt like the golden age of that era of gaming. Beautifully executed, very well done!
Super fun and challenging with awesome graphics and soundtrack! The tight gameplay loop and vehicle handling really nailed that classic arcade vibe.
LOVE IT SO MUCH!! Though I crashed into houses more than collecting their mails :D Need a bit of time to get use to the controls of the vehicles. Great game <3
Coffee makes it's a bit hard to control, maybe something like coffee gives usable nitro that you can spend when you want could feel nicer. Art is very neat and music is fitting. Great game overall, feels very polished for jam Screenshot from 2025-10-19 12-07-35.png
Congrats on a good-looking an polished game! It's difficult though. What makes the game difficult is the control method, which makes it frustrating for me. Good thing you are not penalised much for crashes.
What a fun game to play! The controls were very hard for me, but I think that was done on purpose to make the game more chaotic and I loved that. (I read your reflections post where you mention that) The speed boost gave me a big smile
The graphics are fun and the music is really energetic, bringing a chaotic fun vibe to your game
This game is really well done, especially for a team consisting of a seasoned- and a firsttime LDer. @pastry-chef, congratz on your first entry! I hope you have fun over here
Fun! I think the coffee should be avoided (just like real life! :wink: 19 was my best score.mailboxmania.PNG
I loved the game’s concept and visuals. I just felt the controls were quite difficult at times it often felt like the van was driving on ice. It reminded me of Rock n’ Roll Racing or similar games with that kind of camera view. Great job!
Very good entry. Feels very complete - gfx and audio work well, the style is consistent, the gameplay simple but definitely requiring some skill.
IMHO steering adds to the difficulty of the game - and I'm guessing it's already difficult for a lot of people because of isometric view. For me it sometimes felt a bit unpredictable whether I hit something or not. I'm guessing that was due to the relation between the layered car sprite and the isomeric pixelart. Driving backwards was somehow easier at times.
The mail disappearing was a clear game mechanic for me, though I'd prefer another visual (and possibly, audible) feedback than making it smaller because it was quite hard to figure out If I'd reach it on time or not.
Other than those small remarks, I feel the entry is done very well, especially for a Jam timeframe. Congrats!
Oh yea my measly score:
my score