Play game
Yak Shaving Space Delivery (brackeys 2025.1)'s itch.io pageRate this game
In order to rate this submission you must be logged into itch.io and have submitted your own entry. Anyone with an account can leave a comment.
How does the game fit the theme?
When working on a task with a clear goal often I get distracted with "side quests" falling into a "Yak Shaving" situation. In the game, the player ends up performing a lot of side quests because nothing can go wrong, but most of the things do. The Gravity Generator breaks, the Ship gets annoyed by the amount of waste, and so on. The goal of the game is to still deliver all the yaks / cargo in the shortest amount possible, though it takes time to make it work.
The more you travel through space, the more things go wrong in the spaceship, delaying your delivery.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Some 3D Models, Some sounds, and shaders. I have credited the source and double-checked the licenses. None of the content is AI generated.
How many people worked on the game?1
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Comments [posted the same on the gamepage]:
I honestly thought I was going to chase yaks. Instead I am an errand boy to a lazy computer system :(
Very cool and unique idea, even if it is a little clunky (normal for a game jam anyway).
Thank you! Did you manage to go to space a few times and see what went wrong?
Overall, I like what I see here. It's a little rough but stuff like what is mentioned can be improved. You built a ship with the ability to fly to other planets and that's awesome! Outside what others have mentioned about same tasks here are some points of contention for me:
1. Controls - No need to walk left/right if you can just rotate in those directions. At some point I ended up not even rotating the player because it was just too confusing and easier to just walk in a direction. The rotation is the opposite of what comes intuitively for me. Also right clicking to jump seems strange?
2. UI - Needs a grammar check, quite a few typos
3. Sounds - Needs sounds to help build the atmosphere. If you have technology, some simple beeps and boops would help make the ship feel more alive.
4. Visuals - When in Space I would expect to see some stars? Perhaps a skybox that is rotating to simulate movement?
A lot of points I was going to touch on have already been mentioned by other commenters: the tasks are repetitive, there is a lack of unique tasks, the camera system is a little weird.
Overall, there's good programming and thought behind the game, but it leaves engagement to be desired. A potential solution to the issues with engagement, other than offering a wider variety of tasks, could be to flip the goal of your game: instead of "how fast can you do these tasks," maybe it could be, "can you do all these tasks before your ship explodes?" Then the player feels more urgency: every time they pick up fuel instead of engine waste, the timer ticks down a little more. Then, as the game progresses and more tasks are introduced, suddenly the player has to manage their time a lot more efficiently. As for fixing stuff with the camera, my only issue was with the direction it rotated: if the player is facing forward and they want to look to the right, they may think that they should press E because it is to the right of W. Instead, the player must press Q, which is to the left of W.
With that said, you have my honest feedback, and I hope it is helpful.
The game is good. It is not getting too boring while playing it, but it is on the edge of becoming it, so finishing on the third level is a good decision. Otherwise, this should have at least more visual/audio feedback provided for the player to keep him engaged in the playing process.
Also, I think there should be done some improvements about camera. I don't think it is the best decision to make isometric camera with third person WASD controls. It just feels wrong, especially when you have to rotate the camera. At least, the angle must be adjusted the way it is not that confusing for the player. What I would do is to change controls to cick-to-move, camera is still isometric and follows player but with fixed angle.
Dialogue system is good, however I didn't really found myself in situation where I had to turn on/off the gravity generator (besides repairing this generator) (What about yaks getting angry and turning off the gravity to make them calm down?)
I already mentioned that playing this for a while makes it a bit boring process. For game jam it's alright, but as a long-term solution I don't think it is. The game loop might be the same, but maybe more troubles that could happen to the ship while traveling to the planet or through space?
All-in-all, I like this game. It is pretty good. (Beat in 900 and something seconds 😅)
The rotation makes me dizzy at times. Maybe try reducing rotation speed. The text boxes could use some styling up, looks bland at the moment. The tasks were wonky at times. It was hard to put fuel in storage. Also there is a lot you can do with this other than just picking and placing objects. I couldn't find a use for jump, but it was fun.
You asked for honest feedback, so i will be honest. I like the idea of traversing the space and collective stuff from plantes, it would be really cool if more variety was introduced, so that you don't have to go back and forth just to collect some yaks. There could be way more things to do such as fight some aliens, or mine something things like that. Other than that camera definitly needs some more love, it feels pretty stiff and can make some of the players dizzy, i would recommend adding some micro accelerations or switching to mouse based camera. Oh and i think pressing q should rotate the camera to the left not right, feels more intuitive i think. I didn't manage to complete the entire game, because i got softlocked, by the engine waste incinerator. I know it's hard to achieve making a easily approachable games, but it's something that you should always keep in mind. I am also someone that is learning gamedev like you, so congrats on submitting your game and keep up with the good work.
I absolutely agree!
Due to the short time, I focused on polishing for a few days instead of adding more mechanics, but I did not polish it enough and the camera and movements can be improved. I wanted to try to experiment with isometric / orthogonal views like in some old games… though I think it is much more difficult to digest!
I will keep in mind these things for next improvements once the jam is done :)
Ok, it looks cool. Game actually crashed when I was about to replace the wasted fuel with the good fuel. In my opinion idk if the game is quite linked with the theme. The gameplay itself was pretty ok, validations for next objective I could see was good analysed. It was funny we both worked with poop in our games. UI elements were ok, mechanics was the best part in my opinion. Tbh audio was ok but the cargo sounds over and over again was pretty bad here, i think it was too often. The overview of the game for you is that the enjoyment is pretty low here, gameplay was average, innovation is cool, theme idk i couldn see how it fits with the jam theme, visuals were excellent i have to say and audio is very good. But its a game made in 7 days so the game is very good and i liked it
Thank you! Yeah the Yak “Mooooooo” sound is “random” between 1.5 seconds and 6.5 seconds, cranking it up might help.
The theme is a little of a gamble because things really go down the more you travel through spaces. There are a few more tasks than just refueling the spaceship :) And if the game crashes mid-way then it is a clear issue! Do you know what went wrong? Could you try to replicate the bug?
The game crashed right after i replace the second wasted fuel with the good one
Good job making the game. My recommendation: Make the movement more eye-friendly. The rotation is nauseating.
Did you manage to go to space multiple times, or did you get nausea from the space trip? ahha Jokes aside: Should it be lower speed? It is not the first time that I hear it! :)
I only did it once. It really hit my eyes haha.
Use some kind of "cushion". Maybe make it a coroutine that slowly speeds up the movement. Currently it goes from 0 to 100 immediately. Make it go from 0 to 100 in 0.5 seconds or something. So it more smooth
Beat it in 933 seconds. Movement was a little janky (especially on the spaceship ramp) but tolerable.
I also like how you balanced repetitiveness with novelty. Of course, delivery is a repetitive task, but the gradual introduction of new tasks kept the game from becoming stale.
Ren and Stimpy type plot
Thank you! I appreciate, :) I believe it is due to the ramp angle and the movement speed not being constant due to the orthogonal prospective. Did I understand it correctly?
Came here because of your post looking for honest feeback. And dude... you made a cool game.
I think you should be happy.
Loved the humor and had a lot of fun playing. I think you made something quite intricate for the amount of time.
Apart from the movement being a bit stiff, I don't have any criticism.
Some smoothing on the movement and the character could be cool.
Or go the complete opposite direction and make actions turn based if you want to keep it stiff.
GG
Thank you! I appreciate, :) I know there is plenty to improve anyway, but that is part of the fun of doing things in a short amount of time!
Quite cool look. The movement was a little weird but overall great work.
Thank you! :) I appreciate! Did you manage to go to space multiple times?
Not yet, will try again.
Took me 936 seconds to finish it (I didn't see the navigation room at first so wasted some time). Making this much solo is impressive! Well done! Also I was thought the spaceship will explode at the end, well, good thing I am still alive :)
Ahahh Thank you! “Nothing can go wrong” so the player never dies aahha
My best record is around 600 seconds ah ah, but during a playtest it took around 30 minutes 😅
Maybe some thoughts on how to improve it next: make it faster :-)
Very cool physics shenanigans and good humor. And you did all of this yourself? Very impressive!
The task of going back and forth got a bit old after the second time though :/
Yes! I used Kenny’s Forge to make myself the world models and props. I made myself the interacion sounds, with the microphone 🙃 During play test nobody noticed the jump sound being me going “tsss” ahha
Your game was enjoyable — nicely done!
Thank you! I am glad you liked it :D I hope you got all the way to the incinerator!
Fun concept. The dialogue system is really cool. Keep it up!
Thank you :)