That was certainly an overwhelming office experience! The UI and art direction are really good, and the characters are unique. Unfortunately, the lack of a proper tutorial or a pre game walk through made it difficult to understand what exactly was going on. The beginning cutscene also overlaps the start of the game; I think it would make more sense to start the game after the exposition.
The intro was a bit confusing with the dialogue overlapping the game area. I wasn't really sure if I could already play or was still in a cutscene. But the character art was very cute. I really liked the design and animation
This captures the chotic feeling many have in an office. The designs & UI is great, the character relationship idea adds spice to the gameplay Lack of a clear tutorial hurt the enjoyment but has lot of nice ideas that fit the theme
loved the animations, presentation, and the characters, felt like i got a good idea about all of their personalities and attributes.
I felt like even with the instructions, that it was hard to see and tell what I was even doing. sometimes it felt like my clicks and drags didn't make any impact on what I was doing . I also really could not understand the upgrades as well.
I loved that the office started to catch on fire as you started to slip behind and fail tasks. This is total fine /meme. Gameplay wise, it definitely felt really hectic and the music speeding up also piled onto that feeling so I think really well done in that regard. I also liked all of the subtle animations and exclamations pouring off the characters. Overall really good mood and a fun gameplay loop. I think my end score was around 670? Curious how others did.
So much to love about this, gorgeous character animations - genuinely so cute and bouncy! This will sound weird but they just genuinely look so alive haha!
Really cool gameplay consideration to auto-pause when looking at the upgrades, lots of attention and care on display.
game-loop clicked straight away for me, enjoyed it a lot!
This one is so much fun! I love the little characters and figuring out what to do with everyone. The art and music are just right as well. I did get bothered by the messages covering up the bottom of the screen when starting the game though. That and I'm not able to tell what some of the attributes mean, like what the eye means for Sabrina. But when I figured it out and played it a few times, it was a good experience.
This is gorgeously animated and I love the concept. I would play this if it were updated after the jam. The gameplay loop is very fun. However, I was overwhelmed by several things:
- In general, it was difficult to figure out exactly what I was doing. I love games that lack instructions and encourage experimentation, but with this one being timed, it created a lot of pressure. Some might like that aspect, but it made things less fun for me.
- This isn't helped by the inability to review information presented in the tutorial. The pause menu has tips, yes, but it could definitely be clearer. If you forget how to deal with folders, you have to start over to find out what to do, because they're not explicitly mentioned on the pause screen. Is there a way to put out the fires? What keeps flying across the screen? Can I reduce that effect? Which workstation is which? What do the hearts represent? I don't know. - Moreover, the game doesn't pause during the tutorial (!!!), and the messages continue to play automatically. There's no way to move backward to take your time reading. As you can imagine, this leads to another layer of confusion. On top of this, you can't skip the tutorial, which obscures part of the live game. And I don't know how to dismiss "we're about to be busy!" dialogue, either, which also reduces visibility. - The VFX is very distracting. It seems like that's intentional, but it's not accessible. It also exacerbates the following point: - Lack of a custom cursor. I would constantly lose my cursor and have to pause the game to find it again.
I want to like this game even more than I already do, but I find myself squinting over and over again as I play it. I would enjoy this sooo much more if I could see.
The character designs are fun, and their portrait and animations have a lot of personality. I really liked the game's overall aesthetic. The music is great too! Having a rush hour was a great idea for the design. Nice job!
Cute game Artificer!! It's so fun dragging and dropping the characters, the detail in the little animations are great and love each character's appearance and expression. :)
This was incredibly enjoyable and I LOVED the amount of polish the VFX and animation had. It could benefit from pausing during the intro cutscene (as I think the game was running during this time) and a bit more of a tutorial. That being said, I loved how all the characters were designed, animated, and worked together. The mechanics also seemed really well realized and I would love to see a full version of this game with multiple levels and maybe an overarching narrative! I have so many thoughts about the game feel, art, and mechanics. Overall, lovely job!
Thanks for the detailed feedback Molli! We spent quite a bit of effort making sure that feedback systems of the game were well iterated on. The tutorial is definitely something we would have executed earlier so some of the rougher aspects could be more polished to the same level. I'm glad you were able to have an enjoyable experience, and the praise for the character designs is well appreciated given how lovely the ones in your entry were executed!
Piling pressure, paper panic! Wonderfully adapting music, fitting overall atmosphere. My only critique points: I had trouble quickly understanding which work station is which, and what the symbols refer to in terms of upgrades. I also did not realize that I could already push workers around while the talking was still going on. Once that's figured out, it's really fun though!
Thanks for the feedback Lynea! Onboarding will definitely be a huge focus if there are any updates. Glad you were able to enjoy your time once everything was figured out!
Comments
That was certainly an overwhelming office experience! The UI and art direction are really good, and the characters are unique. Unfortunately, the lack of a proper tutorial or a pre game walk through made it difficult to understand what exactly was going on. The beginning cutscene also overlaps the start of the game; I think it would make more sense to start the game after the exposition.
It was very stressful! Love the characterization of the critters, visually very beautiful
The intro was a bit confusing with the dialogue overlapping the game area. I wasn't really sure if I could already play or was still in a cutscene. But the character art was very cute. I really liked the design and animation
This captures the chotic feeling many have in an office. The designs & UI is great, the character relationship idea adds spice to the gameplay
Lack of a clear tutorial hurt the enjoyment
but has lot of nice ideas that fit the theme
loved the animations, presentation, and the characters, felt like i got a good idea about all of their personalities and attributes.
I felt like even with the instructions, that it was hard to see and tell what I was even doing. sometimes it felt like my clicks and drags didn't make any impact on what I was doing . I also really could not understand the upgrades as well.
The presentation, the simple and fun gameplay, writting and the vibes!! I love it all! you did a great job on this. A completely gorgeous game!!
I loved that the office started to catch on fire as you started to slip behind and fail tasks. This is total fine /meme. Gameplay wise, it definitely felt really hectic and the music speeding up also piled onto that feeling so I think really well done in that regard. I also liked all of the subtle animations and exclamations pouring off the characters. Overall really good mood and a fun gameplay loop. I think my end score was around 670? Curious how others did.
So much to love about this, gorgeous character animations - genuinely so cute and bouncy! This will sound weird but they just genuinely look so alive haha!
Really cool gameplay consideration to auto-pause when looking at the upgrades, lots of attention and care on display.
game-loop clicked straight away for me, enjoyed it a lot!
This one is so much fun! I love the little characters and figuring out what to do with everyone. The art and music are just right as well. I did get bothered by the messages covering up the bottom of the screen when starting the game though. That and I'm not able to tell what some of the attributes mean, like what the eye means for Sabrina. But when I figured it out and played it a few times, it was a good experience.
This is gorgeously animated and I love the concept. I would play this if it were updated after the jam. The gameplay loop is very fun. However, I was overwhelmed by several things:
- In general, it was difficult to figure out exactly what I was doing. I love games that lack instructions and encourage experimentation, but with this one being timed, it created a lot of pressure. Some might like that aspect, but it made things less fun for me.
- This isn't helped by the inability to review information presented in the tutorial. The pause menu has tips, yes, but it could definitely be clearer. If you forget how to deal with folders, you have to start over to find out what to do, because they're not explicitly mentioned on the pause screen. Is there a way to put out the fires? What keeps flying across the screen? Can I reduce that effect? Which workstation is which? What do the hearts represent? I don't know.
- Moreover, the game doesn't pause during the tutorial (!!!), and the messages continue to play automatically. There's no way to move backward to take your time reading. As you can imagine, this leads to another layer of confusion. On top of this, you can't skip the tutorial, which obscures part of the live game. And I don't know how to dismiss "we're about to be busy!" dialogue, either, which also reduces visibility.
- The VFX is very distracting. It seems like that's intentional, but it's not accessible. It also exacerbates the following point:
- Lack of a custom cursor. I would constantly lose my cursor and have to pause the game to find it again.
I want to like this game even more than I already do, but I find myself squinting over and over again as I play it. I would enjoy this sooo much more if I could see.
The character designs are fun, and their portrait and animations have a lot of personality. I really liked the game's overall aesthetic. The music is great too! Having a rush hour was a great idea for the design. Nice job!
Cute game Artificer!! It's so fun dragging and dropping the characters, the detail in the little animations are great and love each character's appearance and expression. :)
This was incredibly enjoyable and I LOVED the amount of polish the VFX and animation had. It could benefit from pausing during the intro cutscene (as I think the game was running during this time) and a bit more of a tutorial. That being said, I loved how all the characters were designed, animated, and worked together. The mechanics also seemed really well realized and I would love to see a full version of this game with multiple levels and maybe an overarching narrative! I have so many thoughts about the game feel, art, and mechanics. Overall, lovely job!
Thanks for the detailed feedback Molli! We spent quite a bit of effort making sure that feedback systems of the game were well iterated on. The tutorial is definitely something we would have executed earlier so some of the rougher aspects could be more polished to the same level. I'm glad you were able to have an enjoyable experience, and the praise for the character designs is well appreciated given how lovely the ones in your entry were executed!
Piling pressure, paper panic!
Wonderfully adapting music, fitting overall atmosphere.
My only critique points: I had trouble quickly understanding which work station is which, and what the symbols refer to in terms of upgrades. I also did not realize that I could already push workers around while the talking was still going on.
Once that's figured out, it's really fun though!
Thanks for the feedback Lynea! Onboarding will definitely be a huge focus if there are any updates. Glad you were able to enjoy your time once everything was figured out!