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The Chronicles of Mega-Mart: A Trail of Oregano's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Lasting Impression | #41 | 3.389 | 3.389 |
| Overall | #46 | 3.556 | 3.556 |
| Characterization | #49 | 3.389 | 3.389 |
| Overall | #55 | 3.231 | 3.231 |
| Mental Engagement | #68 | 2.889 | 2.889 |
| Atmosphere | #83 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Emotional Engagement | #84 | 2.667 | 2.667 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
That's so very cute! The story is adorable, the encounters are funny, and the kid is doing a good job voicing.
If I might make a suggestion: you might want to try making the encounters less random, which, counterintuitively, might actually end up making them seem more random. For instance by ensuring that the same scene is not selected multiple times in a row (or by decreasing their probability the more recently they've been played)
Hey, thanks for playing! Don't worry, I fully intended to write up a proper algorithm for the encounter system, but it ultimately wasn't in the cards. By the time that point had come and gone, I didn't want to cut too far into polish. The trials of making a game beside a full-time 9-5 job, I guess. :(
Hahah lovely and with real kid actor?? It gives a nice touch too. I enjoyed it a lot, thanks and congratulations on the submission!!
If it helps, as a suggestion: music could have two states. One for exploring/walking, another one for "combat". Or maybe the same piece of music, with two different layers so the rhythm is continuous. Oh and maybe a third one when you run into the energy/courage items. Yeah, as audio person I look into those details :-P I hope it helps!
Haha thanks! The kid was really excited to be part of a game, and while I've never met him myself, his dad is a friend of mine (and a former audio engineer who was able to clean up the audio a bit for me)! I was really impressed with the results!
As for the different music states, this was a case of a musician who didn't get a chance to do anything until the last two days of the jam, and she was doing it in her spare time, so I didn't want her doing more than one piece of music, or anything more complex than "give me a looping song" since she'd never worked on a game before. I was also kinda running on fumes at that point, and just wanted to get the music into the game and get it out the door. If I had more time, I'd probably have done something like that.
I totally understand! Yeah, jams can be very tricky sometimes I agree. And we all have a life aside too, right? Hehe.
It's awesome to have real voices in a game, it adds some special warmth. Have you thought on adding the game in IMDB site? Just to credit the kid there, as a reward maybe. I know there was a nice discussion over this topic in one of the Discord channels of this jam (tell me if I went too far, sorry if I did)
A nice short game with a really creative idea. I had fun playing this. I'm not sure if it's possible to lose because every time my courage or energy were too low, I'd get the lady with the free stuff. I don't mind the low stakes though because it sure beats dying of dysentery :P.
Good job overall!
This was so cute! Everyone saying they beat this on the first try makes me feel like a total newb, I beat it on my third lol. Cute animations, fun encounters, stylish framing narrative screens and adorable voice acting made this one delightful from start to finish. Obviously the jam time limited how detailed and varied the encounters could be, but what's here is very cool.
While the game is ultra simple (I never felt like I had any chance of losing), it's an interesting idea that has the potential to be fleshed out.
Thank you for playing! Ultimately, I wanted a simpler game, to match the tone and theme I was going for. It's very much a "kid's game", in my mind. But I appreciate your feedback regardless! :)
Look, mum - I mean, Your Majesty! - Nobody died of dysentery!
It never occurred to me to reroute the Oregon Trail through the middle of a supermarket. I'm glad it you did. That was funny and really charming. Compliments to the narrator too, he did a great job.
With a bit more gameplay, I'm sure you could make a really entertaining, longer game out of it that is closer to the source material but still remains original. But it also works very well as a short, light-hearted coffee break game.
Very fun. Or to put it another way:
Awesome!
Thank you so much for playing! I really appreciate your kind words, and the voice actor does, too. :)
That was a neat design that incorporates choices and a simplified version of a TBS type of game. I really liked the concept! GJ.
Thank you for checking it out! I'm glad you liked the concept, it's probably my favorite part about the whole thing!
A cute "lunch break" game where randomized encounters present choices that drain resources. With more flavor text and a variety of scenarios I can easily see this being spun off into a much deeper experience but what is here is very satisfying for a game jam game. Beat it in about 10 minutes, had a few close calls and stole a lot of candy.
Thank you so much for playing! Another player said they'd like to see more stages, and that got me thinking about adding different aisles. That's something I could work on for a sequel, possibly for next year's AdvJam~?
I loved it! The writing, the art and the voice acting, all super sweet and really enjoyable. The gameplay was really fun too, and much deeper than I expected at first. I liked the items and having to figure out when to take risks.
Thank you so much for playing! I was really surprised at how much deeper the game got once I added items. :)
Really enjoyed this game. I liked, how even the smallest of quests can feel like a huge adventure. The writing was well done and game was fun to play. Excellent work!
Thank you so much for playing! It's really cool what you can do with such a little spot, hey? Be it a grocery store, or an abandoned island, sometimes little adventures can be way bigger than you'd think. :)
I love the story plot idea, simple but makes a nice twist once you reach the end game. Encounters seem a bit too random for my taste but overall energy management idea is nice for gameplay.
I totally get that, RNG can really wreck a good run. Ultimately, refinement to the RNG wasn't in the cards by the time the submission hour hit. I hope you at least enjoyed it, and thank you so much for playing! :)
Love the "supermarket adventure" game idea, I had a good time and I succeeded on my first attempt!
The humor is great: the swamp, the old lady's wise advice... It made me chuckle.
Overall, a great Oregon Trail-like. Well done!
Haha, I'm glad you liked it! Thank you so much for playing! :)
Super charming. Cutscene and thematic aesthetics, including great voice work, are the strong points here - the "swamp" made me chuckle out loud. Gameplay loop is solid as well, with an informative (and optional!) tutorial. Only about 5 minutes to complete, so not a whole to review, but that's not a drawback here. This feels like a demo to a real game. With a little graphical polish and more stages this could easily be expanded to a full release. Great job!
Thank you so much for playing, and for your kind words!
I'm really happy about the voice work, too. The actor is the son of one of my co-workers, and he's really into videogames and wants to make them someday. I figured offering him a chance to be IN a game would be important to him. :)
Charming lil game, nice animations and gameplay loop, funny writing and encounters that had me smiling. Felt a little too easy but that might be for the best, I don't know if I could stomach the hero not finding the queen.
Thank you so much for playing!
I did want to keep it easy, to match the overall theme. It's just a cute, relaxing l'il game about a little boy indulging his imagination. I figured it'd be a nice respite from all the heavier entries with serious stories. :)
This is really funny concept, and even the title is chuckle-inducing. Pretty much charmed from start to finish, didn't notice any bugs, and couldn't believe how much polish you'd squeezed into the UI.
I only did one run, but things seemed pretty balanced and engaging enough. I suppose being completely random (which I'm only making an assumption about) may potentially facilitate some odd difficulty swings, but the runs are short enough that it doesn't seem like it'd cause much issue.
My only criticism – and it's a small one – but I kind of wish the tutorial was a little more hands on. It for sure taught me the mechanics, I was just eager to try things out for myself while going through it.
Overall, really impressive stuff!
Thank you so much for playing!
Yeah, the RNG is totally unrefined, with one minor exception (the Shadow Knight only has a chance to spawn if the player takes a Divine Ration, and gets pulled out of the spawn pool if the player gives the ration back). During my testing, I didn't encounter many runs that made me go "aw man, RNG screwed me" instead of "aw man, I should have saved that item" or "aw man, I should have chosen health instead of energy", so I didn't stress out too much about RNG manipulation.
And the tutorial, yeah that would have been a cool idea. But it, like most tutorials in jam games, was a last-minute thing I just wanted to toss together with little overhead. I'd love to add an interactive tutorial if I ever revisit this game, though. :)
I'm glad you enjoyed it! Your game was great, too! :)
Love to see an Oregon Trail-like. I've thought about the phrase "Oregano Trail" a weirdly high number of times before, actually, but unlike some other pun-based Oregon Trail spinoff names (Gorgon Trail, Orion Trail, Oregon Trial...) it doesn't immediately suggest an obvious interpretation. But the interpretation you found is super cute and innovative!
The balance seems fairly good, although I think it depends a lot on the RNG. On my first playthrough I grabbed lots of Elixers and won pretty easily. On my second playthrough I got a ton of sea monsters in a row, which was fairly brutal, and ended up not even making it halfway. Either way, I definitely felt engaged & like I was making meaningful choices. On top of that, the art and audio is nice and the UI is very polished.
Overall, this was very enjoyable to play. Great work!
Thank you so much for playing!
Yeah, the RNG is very simple, there's practically zero refinement on it. I did toy around with the idea of, at the very least, preventing in-a-row encounters, but ultimately it wasn't in the cards. I'm really glad you enjoyed it!