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Desert Shopkeep's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Submitter's Choice Award (top game overall) | #1 | 4.286 | 4.286 |
| Best use of chosen theme(s) | #1 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Best use of: Post-Apocalyptic Desert Madness | #1 | n/a | n/a |
| Best use of: Too Late | #2 | n/a | n/a |
| Best Overall | #3 | n/a | n/a |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Use of themes
Desert Madness - This shopkeep will go mad from stress in the desert!
Content warnings
N/A
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Comments
I actually like this game a lot. I have to admit I'm rushing through all the submissions this time 'round so I didn't go all out for any game but a collection of random things I like to follow:
1. The water meter is not too obvious. I don't know if you meant for it to be so but it makes me feel like it's easy to forget my own safety and comfort among all the other tasks I must perform, which I think is really fitting.
2. I like how customers can be a bit annoying and ask for the same thing twice in different quantities. This makes me think it'll be fun if you serve a customer, who then quits the line only to run back, cut in and demand more stuff
3. I like that each "screen" makes it impossible to see the others so I always feel like a low-paid worker toiling in a fast food job, having to focus on my current task but also knowing that other shit are happening in the background
A small immediate improvement I can suggest is just to make the UI a bit more obvious at some points. It's by no means obtuse or complicated, but just a bit hard to read on some overlay.
Thanks for making the game!
Very neat game! The concept is very fitting for the apocalypse theme, and brought back bad Customer Service Employee memories! It's incredibly good and smart, you made the different managements very fun.
I won't nitpick at the art direction, it works fine with how little time we had. In fact, making everything readable made it it work incredibly well.
Sometimes I did feel like the customers asking for multiple of the same item in a line did mess me up, and I swear at times I would give them the exact amount only for the first item to go to +1 instead. And the fridge auto-closes a bit too fast, it made getting +13 of something hard.
Though, that's not too heavily something I would change, it works fine!
With how much tensity and stress doing each day made me feel, espcially in the endless mode, I could definitely see this work in a horror theme as well. I think this concept is very well made.
Thank you very much for that feedback, I am super glad you enjoyed the game!! :)
I totally agree that it could use some adjustments on how much customers are requesting in total, and how quick the fridge is closing too!
Also I never thought about putting the game into a horror settings, but now that you mention it, I can definitely see the angle!
First and foremost: Great game, stupidly fun.
Made it to day 9 with a score of 3380 points on my first attempt, so I think I've seen what the game has to offer.
It captures the spirit of an overcooked-like frantic management game perfectly, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. At the time of writing this, this is definitely my favorite game of the jam, and it'll be hard to dethrone it.
Some minor nitpicking, cause we can't go without that ;)
The sun's reflection made it so the item on my counter at the very right wasn't visible at the start of the game (also sometimes in the midst of play). I did quickly figure out that that item had to be a triangle, but it's just a minor detail that can be improved.
Sometimes it seemed that customers approached my shop with a little more than half their patience left. I am not sure if that's because they were waiting in line already, or what caused that.
I've also tried to look out for that in particular, and sometimes people waiting in the back of the line still come up to the counter with full patience. So I am really not sure why exactly that happened.
Sometimes people queued up behind other people, that weren't even at the shop yet. I can definitely see why that happened from a programmer's POV, but it's a minor thing that can be improved.
Sometimes people also walked a full circle around their goal position in front of the shop, which seemed like a funny little bug to me :D
If the player moves the mouse towards the bottom and top edge of the screen, the camera starts moving. Seems like a remnant of a feature that isn't used anymore, and thus confuses more than helps.
The endless mode of the game sadly becomes impossible once you don't start the game with enough water, because once you have to do smth else than serving the customers, you pass out of thirst. So maybe giving the player some extra water to help after passing out would be a good addition!
But all nitpicking aside: An amazing entry for a wonderful jam. 4.5/5.
Thank you very much for that feedback, and for this much Praise as well! <3 Overall, I can only agree with all your criticism!
Reaching day 9 is definitely an achievement on it's own already - and the score is most impressive! (Touching back on your last point, I agree that the difficulty scaling gets really rough past day 6, and the balancing aspect was definitely something that came too short!)
I figured that a programmer would immediately be able to spot what is going on with the queue haha :D It's exactly what you think it is!
The wonky turnarounds from the customers to reach their target position are connected to me using the unity nav mesh for the pathfinding for the first time. Works great for the general purpose, but I still have some kinks to iron out there!
Also you figured correctly - the looking-around feature was implemented at the very start already, because the notebook and the water dispenser were supposed to be on the bottom of the shop, so you had to look down to reach them. I decided to move them up at the end though, so that new players can find them more easily, and reduced the zone where the camera-rotation for the looking around actually triggers so that it doesnt trigger when you move the mouse over to drink some water or to look into your notebook. It was tricky to balance, but I still wanted to keep the effect, because I felt being able to look after the customers leaving or looking around for where they are coming from adds some much needed immersion! I totally agree though, the current state of it really needs improvement!
Again, thank you very much - your feedback was very appreciated!! :)
Ahh, the Unity Nav Mesh Agent.. Whenever I got some extra time at hand, I always implement my own solution of A* or smth alike, because it keeps doing weird things :D
Keep up the good work!
My score: 1108, day 6.
It's an enjoyable concept, although rather difficult in my opinion. But I'm impressed it's so fleshed out despite the short duration of the jam. The sounds people make is really funny and adds to the experience.
The only thing is that your main activity (spam clicking buttons to get the right # of items) feels a bit mundane. Maybe it needs to be mundane enough for one to be able to do the other side-activities, but I just wish it didn't involve spam clicking.
Good job on this though, it was enjoyable to play through!
I am glad you enjoyed them - all of those sounds are selfmade <3 It was a lot of fun to play around with it!
I totally get what you mean with it being mundane as a main activity, I thought about a more intricate "shopping" system at first, but settled with this more basic concept of it, so I could focus on working on the other tasks you have to do next to the item dispensing.
Thats a good score!! Thank you very much for playing and leaving some feedback :)