original idea was to make it behave like overcooked, but since the instructions were supposed to lie I figured it would be frustrating to solve the orders on a time limit. As is, the game is more of a light puzzle game where you are filling out the menu, with each sandwich acting as a puzzle. There was an idea for a boss that would give a set of sandwiches for tighter direction, but cut for time.
on nitpicks, we're basically in agreement across the board. Time is the obvious reason, this was really a test of how many assets I could create with the time I had available.
-movement and camera behavior did feel different in the editor, but still needed a general slow down and clamping on the camera behavior. The movement behavior was based largely on the movement script I've used for other game jams, which were more movement focused like platformers and used different cameras.
-original idea was going to require a bit of exploring to find the ingredients. obviously not present in the final, but would have worked with the boss unlocking areas to explore and the more complicated sandwiches mixing ingredients between the areas. You could still divide the map into 3 areas, though the items would be organized a bit differently.
-on the facing direction; while it was drawn ~halfway through, the animation was plugged into the model pretty late. The drifting behavior is not ideal.
I say all this not as a defense, the game should be graded by what was submitted. More to emphasize that I agree and have thought about what could've been done to improve. Thanks for the thoughtful feedback!
you're fine, I just think an additional point of feedback to give context to the point value would help. You definitely put together a detailed grading system, and while I don't think you want to give everything away to the player it helps to have context.
cool start, disappointed it was over so quick. If you're going to use tank controls, I suggest adding a quick turn to rotate 180° quickly. That will alleviate the annoyance of having to turn back and back track. also just being able to reverse for small adjustments.
Putting the camera on a spring arm and giving it collision is one solution to the camera clipping.
I liked the cat character design. I tried playing through a second time to see if I could disobey to get a different response from the sun, but nope. tried to coat the beachball with the sunscreen instead of the cat to trick the voice.
voice acting was great. idk if the stuttering was intended or if it was due to browser lag, but I thought it was a bit excessive on some lines. If I assume it's one of the clues (which felt to be the case, though I still didn't fully figure it out), I'd just pull back the amount used. As is. I had trouble understanding what some of the actual dialogue was. managed to get 5 chests in one run while testing for a 680 total, guess I'm a pirate legend!
I liked the customers being little puppets, and the overall feel was pleasant. I think tool tips or some other label (i.e. a little picture of a strawberry) on the ice cream would have helped make the designated flavors more obvious. It wasn't clear if there was an ideal opposite answer for each request, or if just avoiding what was asked for was the best play. I got some different scores, but most were selling for 50 or 60. 0 seems like an obvious low score, you could even go negative, but idk if 50 is an average score or a high one. maybe a sound effect on sale that scales with the rating (i.e. a 2-3 note chime each for bad, ok, and great results). I concur with the other responses here that it's a very charming game.
on further testing, a matched cone garnered -50, so I guess I was doing pretty well.
Jams are tight on time and hopefully full on learning. I've yet to complete one where I haven't had a list of things to improve on. It's also easy to be an 'ideas guy' for someone else's project because proposing ideas is easy when you don't have to implement them. The fact that you want to continue working on it afterward is great! and even if not on this game, there's always the next project or jam.
For drawing and the rolling animation, I thought the sprites you did have were good. Subtle motions can get a lot across, even just a sprite with the head tilted down would help, and the rotating sprite will cover for a lot. Otherwise, improvement is practice and repetition. But don't just practice with pandas to draw pandas, how something looks and moves compares against how it looks and moves differently from everything else.
forgot about that limitation. you could maybe represent it with different sized bundles slowly filling up the space, but that's trickier to implement than a counter. Since the text was meant to be stylistic, maybe drawing it on a layer above the trees would help? spit-balling here, but on a higher layer the trees wouldn't need to be placed carefully to avoid covering letters and unless you changed to a really chunky font I think the player would be able to navigate fine. Or the opposite direction and use a thicker font with more overlap from the trees to make it feel like the text is caught in the forest's growth. many ideas are easier said than done, but I do hope they help in this project or planning any future ones!
Liked the art and the quick, bite sized nature of the story. They really need to get that bridge repaired. the volume on the walking was probably to loud, was louder than everything else. Maybe total bees should be limited to two spawns at a time, because a full column of bees felt un-dodgeable. There was also one single bee that felt like it tracked me to the bottom of the screen, so that one earned their honey. Had to repeat once because I had already picked a flower before noticing the recipe and once because of that flying ace. A way to drop or remove incorrect flowers would be nice. The noise when eating a strawberry made me smile.
I don't think you needed to label the enchanted forest by writing on the background. I was able to tell what you were going from by the other characters' speech, the change in scenery, and the journal. If you're still worried, maybe a sign in front with "WARNING: Do Not Enter Enchanted Forest" then the florist could comment, "I'll just grab the flowers right at the edge. Surely that will be fine." And the flower trail that led to the note could lead to the next screen. I do think an additional screen wandering through the thick forest would have added to the feel, maybe with additional mist or fog. Could maybe add a journal entry or spilt the existing one to build the tension. If the player didn't recognize the forest before, it would be clear by then. The story as is is already a good setup for a classic style tragedy.
Also, I think a count of the total number of flowers picked would be a nice add, so you have an increasing number of flowers every loop. Maybe one of the slots in the inventory. Could also add to the tragic background if there are already some flowers in her pack when the player starts the game, implying the previous loop.
I think the camera needs to be zoomed out a bit. The background and foreground also blend into each other at first. Border tiles for the floor or bamboo walls would help, and godot tile maps can organize them automatically. the font on the modifier buttons is way too low res, you have a better font on the menu and play button. rolling pandas a pretty funny, but another drawing or sound effect would help with readability.
impressive compilation game. This is a long post, but I feel like I should address each section a bit.
The caterpillar hurtbox was a bit awkward, but I think that's a tradeoff when controlling a long character. could maybe smooth it with more animations, but that's getting to levels of polish that really eat into jam completion. Spider boss was about the right amount of challenge, though how to start the fight was unclear at first, and there were points were it would freeze in the middle of the arena and I would have to ground pound again to continue. The projectile reflection section also gave me some trouble. I think locking the enemy so they don't move after getting hit and making sure the location the player needs to stand clear would help, especially since the projectile angles aren't locked. I had luck on the short pillar, but the timing was awkward because I had to hit the projectile after it bounced on the floor. Really liked the animation on the inching motion.
Biggest complaints in the cocoon ToD phase were UI/UX related. I played in browser and had no visible mouse cursor in the window, so finding my mouse was more difficult than the ToD. Small icons in the purchase buttons would have been nice, and showing the range of towers when placing with an overlay would have helped with planning. bomb was a bit awkward, because between the cost and the enemy pathing it was difficult to get a density where the value felt better than just placing more turrets. The cost was too high to act as an emergency button. maybe it should have been cheaper i.e. 3 or 4, with it's own cooldown. I liked the different style of finding space to hang the towers, gave setup a different perspective.
Now I'm not big on VNs so it wasn't a gameplay style I was excited for, but I felt there were some inconsistencies and didn't gel with the choices I was given. For example, I thought that my victory over the spider boss was a secret because of how my character commented on it, but then Richie called me out in the next scene and I had no response. The conversations also seemed to jump around after responding, like there wasn't a strong throughline through the dialog. Many of my response options felt like suck up to or insult, I would have preferred a third option that was more inquisitive, asking the character to expand on themselves instead. When I got to the choice at the end, my options were one that insulted me, one that had just said they were only interested because I was the only option, and one whose conversation was an argument and then focused on a different character. Fully aware this may be due to the choices I made, but without the ability to rewind the conversation I'd have to play through the entire game again to see. I hope this doesn't come off as harsh; it feels like there's a foundation there that wasn't able to fully build up, possibly due to time or split focus among the three styles. obviously fully fleshing out the characters and choices would take a lot more time to write, something in short supply in any jam. hopefully others can get to the butterfly sections to enjoy and weigh in on it.
The VN writing also made it sound like there would be another gameplay section defending the flutter, maybe a shooter section like gradius or galaga. The gameplay feel was so different from the other two sections, it felt like the brakes were being slammed. I did enjoy the character portraits, and maybe including them in the other sections would have smoothed over the change. I also think it would have been interesting to have the color of the caterpillar be based on the final choice in the previous loop.
A faster rate for the first few days might help then, that way you can quickly build a small collection. maybe at first it's 100% to get one item and 70% to get a second. if you roll them at the same time, you could also make sure they roll for different parts, that way there's some guarantee of a spread. you could reduce the odds on getting the second part to 0, then reduce the odds on rolling one. By gut I'd only reduce when items is obtained. rate of reduction would depend on total number of items
you could also weight the odds of the parts based on the power, and boost the rewards based on performance in the judging, i.e. first place increases the odds on rarer parts or increases the likelihood of additional parts. But those are ideas for later, or maybe already in Breeding Pool.
I know I got a bit unlucky here, and I'm not worried if there are only 50ish parts for a game jam game. That's enough to get the idea across.
Thanks for playing and for the kind words. The movement feel was definitely a focus, and I tend to prefer controllers myself for movement heavy games like platformers. Animation was also important for the movement feel, though I do wonder if many have seen the idle animation. Timed gameplay doesn't really encourage pausing for a breather.
The compass idea was because the day cycle reminded me of Majora's Mask, glad you liked it. Felt better than just using a draining bar.
And of course not today, Dio is a creature of the night
I'm so glad I could use the space bar. I think the very first stage could have been a bit shorter, just so the player gets confirmation quicker.
Did leave me wondering; since most recipes I can think of mash or mix them down, are there many recipes where having an abnormally large strawberry would matter? not that I've made much myself, typically just eat 'em fresh. I was ready to grab a few after the first plump, you're more patient with those strawberries than I am
very cute matchmaking game; game jams as a couples activity, who knew! I enjoyed all the characters.
I think it would be a bit more fluid if 2nd and 3rd tiers could combine as well. Maybe I was counting wrong, but I could only get a new breed by combining with one of the base four flowers. If every root could combine during a match I think it would reduce the rerolls. Maybe it would require a higher match to be successful? So base flowers require a less perfect match to create a breed, and better matches can combine more roots at a time. Then maybe Omnipotus requires a perfect match, but with more breeds with 2 and 3 roots it's not too rough.
I kept having to reroll for daffodil, even though I had the other daffodil breeds in the garden.
That frog knows the forbidden knowledge. It weighs on him as he clings to it.
I think a little difficulty in control helps evoke the flight of the bee, but this bee feels more like the winter game jam 'cause it's on ice. I think increasing the acceleration when the player is pressing a direction would make it feel more responsive without removing the challenge. the most frustrating part of the movement was hitting a wall a feeling like it takes multiple seconds to begin moving again.
I think zooming the camera out would help when flying among the islands. When the background is solid sky it's difficult to gauge speed and location. you could maybe scale the zoom so the camera is as is in the caves, but zoomed way out if the player flies to the sky box.
And now I know that bees are reported to eat mushrooms, so that's neat!
I think the player needs to receive customization items faster or through other methods. I also ended up with 5 front left leg items before I got any options for 4 other slots. several rounds there was no reason to change the current loadout either because the options were too few or would have no impact.
I liked the models and animations, though with how many times the judging takes place I would have appreciated a faster animation or a speed up or skip.
I think interact would have been more comfortable on spacebar, since you're not using it for another more important action.
I liked the selection of flowers, but I think I would have liked if the flowers grew slower, but I could build up a stock. maybe try to predict the demand for each of the flowers for the day. The mechanics lend themselves to garden tending, and I think exploring that further would be a cool way to grow the game should you desire.
Thanks for playing! the background art in the parallax was decided sacrifice to time constraint, and custom music is a goal to I'm carrying to the next jam. Glad I could at least hook up the sound effects because it was rather drab without them.
bite sized tower defense. would have liked a quick description on the towers and upgrades, though there were few enough that it wasn't a lasting problem. could have used more waves and more difficult enemies, like another layer for the splitting slimes. It felt like I was just getting some towers upgraded when it ended. Also a next wave button is a must for any TD, though the music seemed to sync up with the wave spawning so maybe that was intentional? It seemed like the music swelling as the later waves spawned, which upped the mood
there's a momentum system where you can build up speed similar to super mario world. Animation shows speed and top speed is the full run motion. If time wasn't a restriction, unique background tiles would have aided collision recognition instead of simply shifting the saturation. I tried to make sure there wasn't anything critical when it looked the most confusing to cross a background tile.
not sure how you're getting your movement locked, even momentum from damage is a single impulse without removing the player's ability to adjust. worst part about these comments is hearing bugs you have no idea how to recreate and fix
It ended up being pretty fast. really wanted to get controller support fully implemented as I think it feels better for this type of movement, but didn't get the camera control to work in time.
I think the transitions just need some tuning, maybe only require the player to move orthogonally instead of at an angle that requires adjustment while moving.
the idea with the blocks is something else to destroy and a way to open up alternate paths in a level. For the jam I ended up with a single level with most of the ideas I had time to implement, adapted from a test level and made more playable. In a full game I think a level that size would be a later level or spilt into three smaller levels. Spawning in a more central location would probably help, but I wanted to include at least a brief tutorial.
I liked the idea, but I felt like I had little depth perception on where the fish were. Maybe being able to rotate the view? Also, not having the camera swap back to the top view if I am fishing from the side would be nice. It would be interesting if making too many holes had a consequence other than score loss. liked the last level, but still being able to solve it with one hole was a little underwhelming. I think larger levels where you need to make multiple holes (min. 2 or 3) would be the most interesting, as I liked searching in the side view to find fish crossings but after making one hole the puzzle was solved and catching the fish became cleanup
I also liked some of the environment details in the underwater scenes
Thanks and glad you enjoyed it! I think if I were to flesh it out more, subsequent drops would use a different or shorter animation. I did speed up some of the transitions when uploading the bug fix. Still not perfect, but less tedious at least
very fun idea for the limitation. I did get tired of unloading every box after each level. maybe a single trash bag so you don't need to go back and forth. I also was disappointed that except for one time, the answer was just load up every box. made the house segments get a bit repetitive. Maybe it would require more level elements to work, but I think it would be interesting if you had to problem solve which elements actually needed to be loaded.
the first unloading message made me laugh. got the 16/16, good time
well, that both was and wasn't what I expected, generally good in both respects. I also had some issues with the controls; I was generally holding LMB and dragging around to move, and I think the trees were registering the target position instead of the ground. I think the wide camera made it too simple. A camera closer to the ground might have felt like more of an exploration in the woods, though that might conflict with the click to move.
animal drawings and models were both cute. I would have liked to take my own pictures, maybe clicking the icon enters first person? idk if you would have had time though. music and other visuals were also charming, liked the glasses on the mc. I also thought the band-aid was her mouth for a bit, which made me chuckle
