It has very nice atmosphere / aesthetics, certainly the kinda solution I would’ve gone for for Hypercoven if I had the talent.
In terms of gameplay I feel it’s unreasonably grindy at this stage, I am 20 minutes in and chopping my 100th tree, this is not very satisfying especially since there is nothing to discover in the landscape. The game probably should more quickly focus on your cute little pawns.
The Japanese VA was a nice touch but it felt lifeless, probably just machine generated?
The "Japanese VA" you are referring to is actually a constructed language specifically for the game. It is machine generated, but as with animal crossing, it was always going to be, as nobody can speak the language.
At this current stage, pawn needs are not implemented and the pawn manager is lacking. Pawns will play a progressively larger role as the gameplay progresses. The grinding in the first hour of the game is intentional, as it is meant to direct the player toward automating tasks. The new pawn manager which I will be working on today will better facilitate this transition.
Now let me go watch that video, I'll come back with a response.
Don't starve but cute and chill. Screenshots didn't really do it justice (they seemed a bit too overloaded), but when the image is moving (in gifs or when you're playing it) - it's great. Absolutely love the crayon drawin aesthetic of the entire game. Music is chill and very suitable, character sprites are cute (I only played as bird characters though).
I don't mind the tedium of collecting resources, though it seemed to me that having an entire tree drop a single log is kinda... not fair. Gimme at least 2 or 3 please? I wiped out a lot of greenery around the base very fast.
My only real gripe is - the quests don't really register stuff that has already been accomplished. Like - I've built 2 shelters before the quest popped up, yet the quest wanted me to build 2 more. This is VERY annoying, especially since I had to go very far to get more resources. But the game is so cute I can forgive it.
Very cute game. Absolutely loved it. Puts me into just the right sort of resource grinding trance.
Since the time you've played the game, the following changes have been implemented.
Trees now drop an extra log with a 50% chance (1.5 logs per tree).
Quests now check if advancement tasks have already been completed. For example, the number of total constructed chests or structures. If there is a teaching quest to say, built a Lumber Mill; if a Lumber Mill has already been built, it will now be skipped. The same goes for housing structures.
There were numerous other changes such as the addition of an indicator for which square was being targeted, and a reduction of the movement speed penalty for overencumberance.
Some of the bugs were so bad, I've been programming while watching through the feedback. I have uploaded the first of probably a couple builds I'll be putting up today.
Here is part 1 of my response.
---
About audio adjusting in real time. The volume of an audio object in gamemaker is set at the time of play. So I reset all audio on menu close. I've been trying to find a good way around doing it this way for a while.
The save buttons shouldn't have been in the splash page options menu at all. It was an artifact from combining scripts. Fixed.
I'll give label boxes a white border instead of a cyan one.
For name input, it actually activates a toggle for custom name input mode. If the input in empty it generates a new name. I figured that the rainbow text was a good enough indicator of the edit mode being toggled. The edit button itself now also changes color.
Pressing enter actually confirms the name change. Nobody is doing this, but there is a catch for this when the characters are submitted. I have added this function to the edit button.
Sprint is now on by default. (Shift toggle sprint)
You cannot destroy objects while in the pay respects animation.
You can pay respects the totem at any time, but there was a bug where the totem was being targeted from the wrong square. Standing on the square south of the totem would have worked. There is no way you could have known that.
I have yet again reduced rain noise. XD
That weird thing with the job switching. Huh, I've never see that happen before. After quite a bit of testing. I've determined that it is the newly implemented aspirations system. This was happening, because while pawns can choose a different job to perform on their own. They were not checking other professions aspirations, before setting a new one. Scrolling through the list of professions caused them to accept all jobs, and all of those jobs aspirations. Going on a job fair.
About audio adjusting in real time. The volume of an audio object in gamemaker is set at the time of play. So I reset all audio on menu close. I've been trying to find a good way around doing it this way for a while.
Hm, I'd think gamemaker would provide some way to make this work? I don't know anything about gamemaker but maybe you could hack it by waiting for the player to change the audio option, and then resuming play for the shortest amount of time possible and then stopping play. Then the change would take effect but it would be invisible to the user that they ever left a menu state.
That weird thing with the job switching. Huh, I've never see that happen before. After quite a bit of testing. I've determined that it is the newly implemented aspirations system. This was happening, because while pawns can choose a different job to perform on their own. They were not checking other professions aspirations, before setting a new one. Scrolling through the list of professions caused them to accept all jobs, and all of those jobs aspirations. Going on a job fair.
Yes, I am in the process of designing the new pawn manager. The current one was just meant to be a placeholder. You should be able to see their inventories for example.
The "lack of resources" Tudi message appears when a pawn can't find the object they are trying to harvest. There are alot of reasons this can happen. Most of the time this is overharvesting. There are other corner case reasons, but for you this was not-overharvesting. Rather a complaint about their job being conflicting with their gathering target. This should be ignored. I have removed that Tudi message in its entirely, as its already in Logs [L].
The storage chest is visibly shown as open, if it is in use.
All storage is shared.
The same bug which caused aspirations to screw up, caused them to use the stonecutter to make Ashlars. I found that kind of funny. As it means one of the pawns was using the stonecutter while you weren't at the camp, using up all of the stone they were gathering.
Stress is not working, pawn needs are not implemented.
As for the "empty" Storage Crates. They are not empty. All storage from all sources is automatically combined into a single accessible inventory. You can only access this inventory from Chests. I admit is was painful to watch you check every chest in the camp not noticing they all contained the same items.
Pawns will always upcycle. So they will convert 9 logs to 3 lumber, then 3 lumber into 1 plank. I do plan to have the pawn manager give the option to not upcycle.
The spinning wheel questline will now check if you already have the cotton you need to make thread.
>It would be cool if I heard a low tone right now.
Sure, I can do that.
---
If you were playing this from a tiny ass window on a 4k monitor. The fullscreen button is F11.
As for the "empty" Storage Crates. They are not empty. All storage from all sources is automatically combined into a single accessible inventory. You can only access this inventory from Chests. I admit is was painful to watch you check every chest in the camp not noticing they all contained the same items.
lol I feel kind of silly, but I was sort of overwhelmed by how many pawns I had and how much they were doing on their own. Also it 'felt' like the containers were different because they are accessed independently and I was instructed to build multiple ones in different places.
15 logs for a basic shelter and 10 logs for a basic chest are a lot, the game might pick up once you've set up better automation with all your critters but the beginning is a slog. It took me a little more than 10 minutes to get to where the game asks you to make lumber, I only built one storage and now it's full and my inventory is full too and there doesn't seem to be an option to discard items. The tutorial said that I can reassign pawns to different jobs but I can't figure out how to do that. Maybe pawns set to general harvesting could prioritize the resources needed to build whatever blueprints you set down. I assume a "builder" job for the pawns is planned?
The neon style is cute but lacks clarity, it's also not immediately clear what your character is lined up to interact with, at times I went to harvest a berry bush or chop down a tree and the character started cutting grass instead. Maybe some sort of highlight around the interactable object could make that process less painful, having to glance up at the top of my screen to make sure I'm lined up with that I want to be lined up isn't ideal imo.
This is intentional. The player is meant to feel the task that they are trying to automate, to give them incentive to automate the task. You can, if you want to set your pawns to gather wood right out of the gate.
>there doesn't seem to be an option to discard items
There is not, I'll try to add that today if I can.[[-- Done --]]
>The tutorial said that I can reassign pawns to different jobs but I can't figure out how to do that.
The game page lists all of the controls. [M] is the pawn manager button for now. You appear to have given up before the game teaches you this.
The controls are now listed in the options menu.
>I assume a "builder" job for the pawns is planned?
The code for this job is written, just not implemented. It is meant to be unlocked.
>it's also not immediately clear what your character is lined up to interact with
In the middle top of the screen it tells you what you are interacting with. By default, you harvest from the square you stand on. If there is nothing there it takes from the square to your north instead. I considered swapping the two of these, as I make the same mistake myself.
There is now a flashing rainbow indicator showing which square you are locked on to.
>The music resets every time you pause the game.
Yes, I am well aware. It has been in my to do bugs for a month, I just have other priorities. [[-- Fixed --]]
the aesthetic and vibe are perfect very comfy and a little sad, very cool that you get animal friends joining you over time too.
didn't find any bugs or anything
It would be cool if you friends had like a want/ need system that changed them, like if one likes to play instruments and you build them a guitar they sat and played it once in a while
>It would be cool if you friends had like a want/ need system that changed them, like if one likes to play instruments and you build them a guitar they sat and played it once in a while
Planned when the leisure need is added. The plan is to have personalities that prefer different leisure types.
very nice, this game is right up my ally it reminds me of the first animal crossing for some reason. I think the guy who made it said he was inspired by moving to a new place and being lonely.
I like the graphical style alot, the neon characters are cute. I think a game that has this sort of looks could do pretty well and is very eye-catching.
The gameplay I'm a bit iffy on... The entire time I was playing I was sort of just feeling that I was only really playing because I thought the game would get more interesting (I played up to getting 6 villagers). I feel like the game ultimately is lacking possibly several elements that would keep someone engaged and playing it without realizing they're essentially just grinding their way up a tech tree very slowly, I don't know if that means it needs to be less grindy or if getting more villagers/increasing totem level needs to feel like a significant increase/change to what you are doing...
Currently, none of the pawn needs are implemented. The player will be managing issues between them as well.
Each totem advancement rank increases the claim area, which will expand to the entire playable zone.
As for resources. The game is balanced around the pawns gathering resources. Not sure if you got to the part that teaches about assigning specific jobs to pawns.
I've already mentioned some things, but I think a minimap would be good. The arrow is fine for identifying where you are, but knowing where the villagers are, and maybe having an idea of where resources are grouped may help ground things.
please don't be so punishing on carry weight, walking slowly after cutting a few piece of wood is SO annoying, todd tier anti-fun mechanics.
the rain is very loud
ten wood logs for every chest feels kind like a slow grind for materials
the text box in the right was kind of weird, it's confusing to have ALL the text at all times while speaking, it should only show the latest line with an extra option to see the previous dialog imho
I'm just really good at prompting suno. I do editing to the music after to remaster it, that way they have consistent levels. You can assign professions with the [M] button. They will not do multiple jobs by design. They will be in profession categories.
Comments
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2346711457
It has very nice atmosphere / aesthetics, certainly the kinda solution I would’ve gone for for Hypercoven if I had the talent.
In terms of gameplay I feel it’s unreasonably grindy at this stage, I am 20 minutes in and chopping my 100th tree, this is not very satisfying especially since there is nothing to discover in the landscape. The game probably should more quickly focus on your cute little pawns.
The Japanese VA was a nice touch but it felt lifeless, probably just machine generated?
Anyway. A promising start! Keep it up. Cheers
I'll watch the video.
The "Japanese VA" you are referring to is actually a constructed language specifically for the game. It is machine generated, but as with animal crossing, it was always going to be, as nobody can speak the language.
At this current stage, pawn needs are not implemented and the pawn manager is lacking. Pawns will play a progressively larger role as the gameplay progresses. The grinding in the first hour of the game is intentional, as it is meant to direct the player toward automating tasks. The new pawn manager which I will be working on today will better facilitate this transition.
Now let me go watch that video, I'll come back with a response.
Not that there’s much to see xdd
Yours was the one game where I felt my recording was pointless, as I did nothing but follow entirely scripted game instructions…
It's a complex game with a lot to teach the player. So the first 5 settlement levels are basically a 2 hour tutorial.
There's nothing stopping you from not following the instructions, but the build area is quite small in the lower tiers.
Don't starve but cute and chill. Screenshots didn't really do it justice (they seemed a bit too overloaded), but when the image is moving (in gifs or when you're playing it) - it's great. Absolutely love the crayon drawin aesthetic of the entire game. Music is chill and very suitable, character sprites are cute (I only played as bird characters though).
I don't mind the tedium of collecting resources, though it seemed to me that having an entire tree drop a single log is kinda... not fair. Gimme at least 2 or 3 please? I wiped out a lot of greenery around the base very fast.
My only real gripe is - the quests don't really register stuff that has already been accomplished. Like - I've built 2 shelters before the quest popped up, yet the quest wanted me to build 2 more. This is VERY annoying, especially since I had to go very far to get more resources. But the game is so cute I can forgive it.
Very cute game. Absolutely loved it. Puts me into just the right sort of resource grinding trance.
Thank you for responding.
Since the time you've played the game, the following changes have been implemented.
Fun game! My feedback and playthrough are in this video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FDIucBmsgZ33Q5aRCDyAYUREFi3amS-g/view?usp=drive...
I'll have to delete the video from my drive after a week because it takes up a lot of room.
Looking forward to more!
I have downloaded the video. So you are free to remove it. :P
Alright, I'm like half way through this video.
Some of the bugs were so bad, I've been programming while watching through the feedback. I have uploaded the first of probably a couple builds I'll be putting up today.
Here is part 1 of my response.
---
About audio adjusting in real time. The volume of an audio object in gamemaker is set at the time of play. So I reset all audio on menu close. I've been trying to find a good way around doing it this way for a while.
The save buttons shouldn't have been in the splash page options menu at all. It was an artifact from combining scripts. Fixed.
I'll give label boxes a white border instead of a cyan one.
For name input, it actually activates a toggle for custom name input mode. If the input in empty it generates a new name. I figured that the rainbow text was a good enough indicator of the edit mode being toggled. The edit button itself now also changes color.
Pressing enter actually confirms the name change. Nobody is doing this, but there is a catch for this when the characters are submitted. I have added this function to the edit button.
Sprint is now on by default. (Shift toggle sprint)
You cannot destroy objects while in the pay respects animation.
You can pay respects the totem at any time, but there was a bug where the totem was being targeted from the wrong square. Standing on the square south of the totem would have worked. There is no way you could have known that.
I have yet again reduced rain noise. XD
That weird thing with the job switching. Huh, I've never see that happen before. After quite a bit of testing. I've determined that it is the newly implemented aspirations system. This was happening, because while pawns can choose a different job to perform on their own. They were not checking other professions aspirations, before setting a new one. Scrolling through the list of professions caused them to accept all jobs, and all of those jobs aspirations. Going on a job fair.
About audio adjusting in real time. The volume of an audio object in gamemaker is set at the time of play. So I reset all audio on menu close. I've been trying to find a good way around doing it this way for a while.
Hm, I'd think gamemaker would provide some way to make this work? I don't know anything about gamemaker but maybe you could hack it by waiting for the player to change the audio option, and then resuming play for the shortest amount of time possible and then stopping play. Then the change would take effect but it would be invisible to the user that they ever left a menu state.
Ah don't you love bugs like this
Yes, I am in the process of designing the new pawn manager. The current one was just meant to be a placeholder. You should be able to see their inventories for example.
The "lack of resources" Tudi message appears when a pawn can't find the object they are trying to harvest. There are alot of reasons this can happen. Most of the time this is overharvesting. There are other corner case reasons, but for you this was not-overharvesting. Rather a complaint about their job being conflicting with their gathering target. This should be ignored. I have removed that Tudi message in its entirely, as its already in Logs [L].
The storage chest is visibly shown as open, if it is in use.
All storage is shared.
The same bug which caused aspirations to screw up, caused them to use the stonecutter to make Ashlars. I found that kind of funny. As it means one of the pawns was using the stonecutter while you weren't at the camp, using up all of the stone they were gathering.
Stress is not working, pawn needs are not implemented.
As for the "empty" Storage Crates. They are not empty. All storage from all sources is automatically combined into a single accessible inventory. You can only access this inventory from Chests. I admit is was painful to watch you check every chest in the camp not noticing they all contained the same items.
Pawns will always upcycle. So they will convert 9 logs to 3 lumber, then 3 lumber into 1 plank. I do plan to have the pawn manager give the option to not upcycle.
The spinning wheel questline will now check if you already have the cotton you need to make thread.
>It would be cool if I heard a low tone right now.
Sure, I can do that.
---
If you were playing this from a tiny ass window on a 4k monitor. The fullscreen button is F11.
lol I feel kind of silly, but I was sort of overwhelmed by how many pawns I had and how much they were doing on their own. Also it 'felt' like the containers were different because they are accessed independently and I was instructed to build multiple ones in different places.
15 logs for a basic shelter and 10 logs for a basic chest are a lot, the game might pick up once you've set up better automation with all your critters but the beginning is a slog.
It took me a little more than 10 minutes to get to where the game asks you to make lumber, I only built one storage and now it's full and my inventory is full too and there doesn't seem to be an option to discard items.
The tutorial said that I can reassign pawns to different jobs but I can't figure out how to do that. Maybe pawns set to general harvesting could prioritize the resources needed to build whatever blueprints you set down. I assume a "builder" job for the pawns is planned?
The neon style is cute but lacks clarity, it's also not immediately clear what your character is lined up to interact with, at times I went to harvest a berry bush or chop down a tree and the character started cutting grass instead.
Maybe some sort of highlight around the interactable object could make that process less painful, having to glance up at the top of my screen to make sure I'm lined up with that I want to be lined up isn't ideal imo.
The music resets every time you pause the game.
This is intentional. The player is meant to feel the task that they are trying to automate, to give them incentive to automate the task. You can, if you want to set your pawns to gather wood right out of the gate.
>there doesn't seem to be an option to discard items
There is not, I'll try to add that today if I can.[[-- Done --]]>The tutorial said that I can reassign pawns to different jobs but I can't figure out how to do that.
The game page lists all of the controls. [M] is the pawn manager button for now. You appear to have given up before the game teaches you this.
The controls are now listed in the options menu.
>I assume a "builder" job for the pawns is planned?
The code for this job is written, just not implemented. It is meant to be unlocked.
>it's also not immediately clear what your character is lined up to interact with
In the middle top of the screen it tells you what you are interacting with. By default, you harvest from the square you stand on. If there is nothing there it takes from the square to your north instead. I considered swapping the two of these, as I make the same mistake myself.
There is now a flashing rainbow indicator showing which square you are locked on to.
>The music resets every time you pause the game.
Yes, I am well aware. It has been in my to do bugs for a month, I just have other priorities.[[-- Fixed --]]Also the pause button is [P], not [Esc].
the aesthetic and vibe are perfect very comfy and a little sad, very cool that you get animal friends joining you over time too.
didn't find any bugs or anything
It would be cool if you friends had like a want/ need system that changed them, like if one likes to play instruments and you build them a guitar they sat and played it once in a while
Thank you.
>It would be cool if you friends had like a want/ need system that changed them, like if one likes to play instruments and you build them a guitar they sat and played it once in a while
Planned when the leisure need is added. The plan is to have personalities that prefer different leisure types.
Intellectuals that like reading.
Creatives that like painting and writing.
That sort of thing.
very nice, this game is right up my ally it reminds me of the first animal crossing for some reason. I think the guy who made it said he was inspired by moving to a new place and being lonely.
I like the graphical style alot, the neon characters are cute. I think a game that has this sort of looks could do pretty well and is very eye-catching.
The gameplay I'm a bit iffy on... The entire time I was playing I was sort of just feeling that I was only really playing because I thought the game would get more interesting (I played up to getting 6 villagers). I feel like the game ultimately is lacking possibly several elements that would keep someone engaged and playing it without realizing they're essentially just grinding their way up a tech tree very slowly, I don't know if that means it needs to be less grindy or if getting more villagers/increasing totem level needs to feel like a significant increase/change to what you are doing...
Currently, none of the pawn needs are implemented. The player will be managing issues between them as well.
Each totem advancement rank increases the claim area, which will expand to the entire playable zone.
As for resources. The game is balanced around the pawns gathering resources. Not sure if you got to the part that teaches about assigning specific jobs to pawns.
I've already mentioned some things, but I think a minimap would be good. The arrow is fine for identifying where you are, but knowing where the villagers are, and maybe having an idea of where resources are grouped may help ground things.
A minimap is planned.
On my todo list are buildings that provide a map, its status, and demographic information about the town.
no option to start a new game?
please don't be so punishing on carry weight, walking slowly after cutting a few piece of wood is SO annoying, todd tier anti-fun mechanics.
the rain is very loud
ten wood logs for every chest feels kind like a slow grind for materials
the text box in the right was kind of weird, it's confusing to have ALL the text at all times while speaking, it should only show the latest line with an extra option to see the previous dialog imho
graphically it's great though, lovely concept
I can add a new game button, no problem. :P
>overencumber
Sure, I can adjust that.
>rain is loud
Easy to fix.
>ten wood logs for every chest
Well, now the trees give more logs. However, the whole point of the game is to get others to do this work for you.
>text box on the right
It shows a history of all of the messages in the journal. They will contain important information.
Oops, left in 100 golems.
Fixed
Love it, it's sort of like rimworld. Is there a way to assign work priorities yet?
How are you making these soundtracks with suno? Do you generate melodies and lay them down yourself and edit? Would love to know your process.
I'm just really good at prompting suno. I do editing to the music after to remaster it, that way they have consistent levels.
You can assign professions with the [M] button. They will not do multiple jobs by design. They will be in profession categories.