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A jam submission

EtherwestView game page

Like Recettear and Moonlighter.
Submitted by Wierdox — 2 days, 15 hours before the deadline
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Etherwest's itch.io page

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Last time I played your game was still all 2d, great job so far.

I like a lot how you can tetris forniture, and maybe a tutorial could be on "an item must be reachable to be purchaseable" and so on.

I also like a lot your cleaning system

I lolled when I heard actual recette speaking, and there are already nice little things like puttin on your hat and animating your 2d portrait. Even if I love all of this, my suggestion is to keep your game as humble as possible, so voice acting (if not done by you and your friends) maybe should be avoided, as any other money trap.

Dungeon mode is still under construction, so nothing to say here. My overall tip it's: better build something simple and solid than something overscoped that blows up in your face.

I don't remember nothing about your story beyond the fact that you have a brother+sister, rememeber that the ticking clock to make more money and pay your load was a vital point of recette.

GL

Developer

Thanks for playing, I appreciate it.

Submitted(+1)

I now noticed your first post:

Main thing to try is the new combat gameplay. In particular I want to know what people think about the movement and the process of having to pick up ammo after shooting it. 

dungeon movement is fine; 

dunno about sprinting in a line, it's something you can judge only with a level (mobs/traps/walls)

same for ammo pick up, we need an enemy to test it on: the bullet will pierce enemies? how many hit you need to kill an enemy, how fast/big is this enemy; what happens if you lose a bullet (or forget to pick it up) etc etc 

(1 edit) (+1)


Somehow ended up stuck clipped inside this little corner of geometry.

Overall both portions of the game felt pretty good. Personally I don't totally get the whole price management thing of these shop simulators. In my store, It's just %120 to buy, %80 to sell. I don't play games, and I'm not here to make special exceptions for certain customers.

I have a theory that games should only focus on a primary gameplay experience. Rather than doubling your dev time trying to make a good shop simulator and a good twin stick shooter, just make a great shop sim or shooter. And let someone else make the really good other game. Then players can just play the very best versions of the genre they like.

On the other hand, as a player, I don't  really feel this way. I just want to play fun games, and if I'm having fun in one game before switching to the next I don't really care. And Cult of the Lamb did exactly this and was wildly successful.

Just something I think about, don't have an answer.

Developer

Thanks for giving it a shot, I'm sorry about you getting stuck in the geometry. Though as far as I know it's a freak bug with Godot, that occurs very rarely. Will try to remedy if I can.

Regarding the talk about the double genre, I understand where you're coming from. However, I feel confidant that if I combine them well enough it will become better than the sum of its parts, or at least be a unique experience. In the unfortunate event that I can't make the dungeon gameplay worthwhile, I'll do what's necessary.

Submitted(+1)

sorry, I'm not feeling this music. Sounds a bit cheap.

Who puts decimal places in their loading percent! It's 53.73% done, might not have time to grab a beer!

Nice art. Refreshing to see something not anime styled.

You auto-switch between showing keyboard controls and gamepad controls when I use the gamepad, nice detail that most indies don't bother with.

But my controller isn't working at all. The game obviously knows it's there because the UI switches, but none of the inputs work. UPDATE: It seems to work now and I think it's because I unplugged my steering wheel controller.

What is West's pocket watch doing? How is it hanging like that at an angle to the chain?

The color difference between a selected UI element and an unselected one is too subtle.

You should hide the mouse cursor when I'm playing since it doesn't do anything.

When Ether walks up against the wall, she partially goes into it.

Well I said it's not anime styled but they speak Japanese apparently!

I was trying to take in the selling screen for the first time, and I didn't realize there was a "patience" counter until it was almost out. So I tried to make sales as quick as I could. It seems that once one customer's patience is low, they all are? I thought it would reset per customer. Edit: I understand now that they run out of patience when they stand in line.

West was telling me something about that chest but I've completely forgotten already.

If I had the shop open all day, why does it say "End the day early"? It's not early.

Pomao :3

The sprint seems to come in in a laggy way.

Second day I had a lot of sales go bad. One of them I was selling something for 1 cent and the customer was offended at the price. It literally can't go lower! Edit: I now see that the price is in dollars and cents. The way that the "cent" label was placed it looked like the whole price was in cents. I was thinking old wild west pre-inflation prices.

A lot of these bad sales were at 100% markup so I guess I have to take market flucuations into account? But I don't see why a customer would be offended at a price if the price is only bad because of market fluctuations.

"Open the shop" should be removed from the menu or grayed out if I'm done for the day.

I don't understand what the time lengths for opening my shop do.

What puts items in the Investments column? Were those the ones that customers threw and broke? Edit: Oh wow I only just realized I was buying stuff from them sometimes. That changes everything.

What's the point of the broom sweeping mechanic?

It's kind of annoying having to do this dungeon repeatedly since there's no content.

Why am I whiffing all the time with magic?

Sometimes the detection of what part of the table I'm looking at seems buggy.

I'm having trouble figuring out if I'm running this business well, sometimes the "perfect" amount for selling is 60% markup, is this good business practice selling at this markup? Should I stash them until their value goes up?

It seems like the Shop Performance Overview isn't looking long term. Say I bought some nice items so I've done more investments that day. The Cash Flow could be grim but I've acquired nice merchandise. That's not a bad day.

In the newspaper this morning, there's two conflicting reports on the food supply.

Seems like a promising start to the game. I wish I could understand better if I'm running the shop well or not.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing, and the feedback! Nice to have some brutal honesty.

I'm not feeling this music. Sounds a bit cheap.

Fair enough, I'm also not satisfied. Just haven't got the inspiration to make something better recently.

But my controller isn't working at all. [...] UPDATE: It seems to work now and I think it's because I unplugged my steering wheel controller.

Sorry about that, I believe Godot defaults controller inputs to 'port 0', so if the steering wheel was plugged in it may have used port 0. I believe I can change it to 'any port' and it'll work fine. Though that may also cause problems. I might be able to detect which port is currently used, and then update the inputs accordingly. 

The color difference between a selected UI element and an unselected one is too subtle.

Will definitely work on that. I'm not sure still if I'll just do colors/outlines, or if I'll use use a RPG style pointer or crosshair. That should be improved by next time.

If I had the shop open all day, why does it say "End the day early"? It's not early.

lol, I knew someone was gonna catch that. Same goes for all the other small details. Will sort it out.

Various issues with bargaining.

I really need to make a proper interactive tutorial, it's tough otherwise to understand all the systems. It's even worse because of the time limit. Thanks for bearing with it.

I'm having trouble figuring out if I'm running this business well...

I'll be adding a graph that tracks liquid cash, assets(potential value), and the amount needed to pay the contract by the end of the time period. From there, I can create informed responses such as, 'on track', 'investing in assets', 'surplus and ahead of schedule', that sort of thing. 

What's the point of the broom sweeping mechanic?

It's one of several to be added features, the idea is that it incentivizes moving around while the shop is open, and 'realism' for fun. Right now, the dirt will drain the customer patience faster.

That's the brunt of it. Thanks again.

Submitted(+1)

Neat concept for a game, I think it has potential. Love the hat. Currently it lacks motivation to make profit, but I assume that will come later in development.

I had some issue with my controller at first. Steam will let you use the controller to move the mouse/keyboard, and somehow this meant all items would be picked up by twos, and the button legend in the corner always showed mouse/keyboard buttons unless a controller input was active.

Combat seemed fine I guess, though there's no motivation to choose anything over anything else. I really don't like the sprint button (why does he slow down first), and having to slide to get through the holes is both unintuitive and frustrating. Definitely the hardest part of the game.

I also found it a bit frustrating to set prices while haggling. I think you need to implement angle snapping on the controller so up/down movements aren't conflated with left/right. I missed which items I am selling vs buying, but that's on me.

Developer

Thanks for playing, and the feedback! With steam, are you playing on a Steamdeck, or are you using a steam service to convert controller inputs? It might be receiving double input then, causing the problems.

You slow down before sprinting since he has to 'tense up' before launching(needs animation), and the idea is that while running you get the slide and also can stop then run again with a very short tense time, until you lose momentum. Though it seems people aren't very fond of this idea. If it still doesn't feel good with tweaks and actual combat added, I'll change it to your bog standard instant sprint button. Also yeah, I need to make the holes shorter than crouching so it feels better. The problem being that if I let the player crouch walk under, they get 100% cover and can still shoot. Though I guess I could make it an animation instead, or remove shooting while doing so. Pardon the ramble. 

As for the haggle inputs, I think it's fine personally. If you need more precision, that's what the D-pad is for. Though, I suppose I could mess with it so near diagonals are not a bother

Submitted

I was using the Steam Input for Xbox Controllers setting on a windows pc. Turning it off solved the problem.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for clarifying, I believe once I add steam support this issue will be resolved. 

Submitted(+1)

Nothing could've prepared me for what walked through those doors man, I legit flinched a little. Picking up bullets seems cool, they're nice and glowy like coins so it feels good to pick them up. If we could see the bullets being propelled that would make it easier to see where they end up too. Also sliding is kind of a pain to do, maybe it can be right analog click instead of (x) so I don't have to take my thumb off the analog stick. Playing on win 11 with an xbox series controller, didn't feel any rumbling.

Developer

Thanks for the gripes, and for playing, I'll try to address them come next time. I'm starting to feel baffled with this rumble issue. I might need to include a rumble test program with the game if it keeps on happening. I want to blame Godot, but more often than not it's somehow my fault. 

Submitted(+1)

SWEEPING MECHANICS, WOOO

nice game. clearly in early prototyping, so any addition i could suggest you are likely already planning it.

Developer(+1)

Thanks all the same.

Submitted(+1)

Linux version. Xbox One controller. When dungeon mode started, it messed up all the controls: left trigger became involved in turning, right stick became mostly uninvolved in turning. Most buttons stopped doing what they should. Up until that point they had been fine. Even after finishing the dungeon (with mouse and keyboard), the controls remained messed up in the shop.

Putting the hat on at the start made me smile. Those customer models are SPOOKY.

You’ve made really great progress. Keep up the good work!

Developer

This is really concerning, thanks for letting me know. I don't know if I'll be able to fix it, but I'll look into it.

Developer (2 edits)

Main thing to try is the new combat gameplay. In particular I want to know what people think about the movement and the process of having to pick up ammo after shooting it. Not the details, because it's rather janky, but the overall feeling. Or as you may gleam.

Last time I heard reports of Rumble not working. I think I fixed it. But if it doesn't work, please tell me your OS and controller.