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A jam submission

Riverbank SundriesView game page

Shop-keeping simulation on the banks of the River Styx.
Submitted by argylepear — 18 hours, 44 minutes before the deadline
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Riverbank Sundries's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Story#2492.9132.913
Theme#2603.6093.609
Mechanics#2823.1743.174
Aesthetics#4113.3043.304
Overall#4742.9572.957
Fun#5432.6962.696
Music#8351.2611.261
Sound#8581.2611.261

Ranked from 23 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How many people worked on this game in total?
1

Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
textures (other than ghost) were free assets

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Comments

Submitted (2 edits)

I've checked the game and the first thing i've noticed was the lack of tutorial ingame. Try to always treat the page and game as separete things and try to include a tutorial/keymap ingame, because you can always edit the page later after sending the submission (usually you can, for the jams i've joined, at least).

The other thing would be the lack of sound or sound effects unless something bugged, sicne i had a load issue earlier today with a Unity game, but i'm guessing that would be due to the tight time of the game jam.

Cheers, it is a cool idea, I'll check back later and try again. :D

Developer

Unfortunately an in-game tutorial of the style you mention would be pretty much "everything is button controlled, just click and try things". Anything more useful would have taken away time from actual features. I did end up adding a text tutorial to the game page, but I'd personally consider changing an in-game tutorial after submission to be "cheating" in this jam.

You didn't run into a bug. I didn't have time for sound :( Would definitely have rounded things off.

Thanks for checking it out :)

Submitted(+1)

You're welcome, i understand that it could've been/was due to the time limitations of the jam, it was just a suggestion that i always mention in such cases :D

Submitted

Thanks for the text tutorial, it explains a lot and I really like the upgrade system you have here. I don't know if others were having this problem, but I wasn't able to place an extractor. The condensor worked fine, but when I had enough eth for an extractor, I selected it, clicked Place, and then nothing happened. Still had fun selling sadness though lol

Developer

Thanks for trying it out. I suspect you were trying to place the extractor on top of the condensor. You can press direction keys/aswd to move it around for placing. I did cover this in the tips, but there really needs to be an in-game cue about it. I knew it was a problem, but corners must be cut in a jam :(

Submitted

Ohhh I see, thanks for explaining that! No worries, we all felt the crunch on this one!

Submitted

Very cool and unique game! I definitely will come back to play more of this!

Developer

Thanks for playing! I really appreciate that you persevered through the clunky interface, and had a good experience despite it.

Submitted

I definitely was not smart enough for this game at first but after following your text tutorial I was getting the hang of it! Awesome job and a really interesting concept!

Submitted

Well done! I can see myself get pulled into this game after few tweaks. As others have mentioned a tutorial would be nice, I was trying to buy more stuff but couldn't place it so I thought you can have only one active part at all times.

Developer

There's definitely a bunch of UI feedback missing, dimming thing/disabling them and telling you you don't have enough to pay for them is one of them. Your comment made me realize that the factory can actually become full and if you build something at that point you'll probably get stuck in "placement mode" too.

Thanks for playing!

Submitted (1 edit)

Why don't they want my love? Are they all my ex-wife?

Seriously tho, if you over-price something that no one is buying, is there a way to edit the price on the table? Or once you put it there it's gone and you have to replace it with something else?

Also would be nice to be able to see some indication in the UI that you can only hold 2 types of resources at once. That took me a while to figure out why stuff wasn't building. It was because of that.

I really loved your take on the theme. Grats on the game!

Developer(+1)

There's definitely a bunch of UI feedback missing. I had to cut a few corners because of how big I let the scope be.

And yeah, you can only replace things and you lose the inventory once you've placed it. Again that came down to corners being cut. I didn't have time to implement a proper delete inventory, and I knew there would be times you'd need to clear things out.

Thanks for the feedback, and for playing!

Submitted

Very unique and interesting game. Nice to see a new interpretation on the theme. Great work! 

Developer

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

Sorry I really don't know what's going on here. I placed down an item to generate sadness, but nothing happened when I generated 10/10. The souls kept going past and I couldn't interact with them in any way.

Developer(+1)

Yeah, this could really do with a tutorial. Once you have sadness in your inventory, you can click the "edit" buttons at the bottom of the screen with the souls going past, and place some sadness for sale. The ghosts will come over then and may or may not buy something.

Submitted

Thanks, that's an interesting mechanic. I tried again and had 2 ghosts on separate occasions flying around the desk for a while before they took off with some sadness.

Developer(+1)

I've added a text tutorial to the game description. Hopefully this helps out anyone else who checks it out.

Submitted

That's awesome, and well done for updating it so quick.

Submitted

Very cool and ambitious idea! I like the multiple layers of managing the factory and the shop, it took a while for me to figure out what I was doing and how much the souls were willing to pay but when I did it was very satisfying. It's a shame you ran out of time for music because some ambient tunes would really elevate this! Would be a cool project to expand upon. Great job!

Developer

I have yet to come back and work on a jam game after the fact, but there's a lot of encouragement here to do so, so thanks for playing!

Submitted

Cool premise and fits the theme perfectly. Growing the factory and figuring out how much the souls were wiling to pay for items was fun. I only wish I was able to speed up the game.

Developer

Oh, that's a good idea. I always play things as slowly as I can, but that makes perfect sense that some people would want it to go faster. I'll keep that in mind if I come back to improve things.

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

This is a good game! It took some time to understand how it works and it turns out to be fun :) but it will be better if you added an in-game tutorial so more people understand the game.

Great job, I love it!

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you had fun. When I was initially thinking up the idea, one of my reservations was that it might not be.

You're absolutely right on the tutorial.

Submitted(+1)

Btw, It is a well made game, congratulations :)

Submitted(+1)

Interesting idea and mechanic.. took awhile to figure out but I figure you will get around to that... well done :)

Submitted

At first, I was confused about what I needed to do, but I'm happy I spent time exploring the game and figuring it out because I really enjoyed it. I put music on Spotify and just sank in. The UI is confusing at first, and it took some time to understand how to play, but I found myself playing for hour without noticing. I only stopped when I "finished" the game and unlocked peace. Keep up the great work! I think the weakest part of the game is the UI, but with some adjustments and maybe a tutorial, this would be a great tycoon that I see myself coming back to!!

Developer(+1)

Wow! Awesome to hear :D
I totally agree. If I come back to this I'll certainly be improving the UI and getting a tutorial in place.

Submitted

Cool game! Love the concept alot. If you're interested I could possibly make you some music. I made it for my game but can do creepy stuff too

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing. If I come back to this I'll probably take a stab at the music myself, but the offer is appreciated.

Sad to see your game was download only... I'm unfortunately not downloading anything for this jam, but I see you've got a bunch of ratings already, and the screenshots look great.

Submitted

I wanted to upload a webGl but wasn't sure how it would run. Do you think it's against the rules to put up a webGl version?

Developer(+1)

The overview page says

Q: Can I edit my game once I submit?
You can fix game breaking bugs in your submission and upload those. If your game is unpleasant or unplayable due to technical issues, we want you to fix those! You just cant add new features or gameplay. or things like that.

It's open to interpretation, but I'd call adding a webgl version a new feature rather than a game-breaking bug :(

I'll follow you, so if you add a web version after the jam ends I'll see.

Submitted

I really like the look of the game, i found it a bit confusing at first but once i figured out what was going on it was pretty good fun. Nice work!

Developer(+1)

You're right. I was depending on people being familiar enough with a factory mechanic to make it through my clunky interface. I knew I wouldn't have time to do something slick there. But this could definitely use a tutorial if I evolve it at all after the jam.

Thanks for playing!

Submitted

Great job!! It's a shame you ran out of time for the music.

Developer(+1)

Agreed. I like to make tunes too, but unfortunately I spent almost the whole week on mechanics (didn't have a whole lot of time to put into it). I only got to the models on Sunday afternoon :D And I've even got something bubbling in my subconscious for a main track that would be great to get out.

Submitted

Not going to lie, I've been pretty addicted to building my factory this afternoon. Wish I could save my progress!

The visuals for the stand really set the mood and that ghost model was the perfect level of eerie, and its really satisfying when you start really making the $$$.

Other than saving, if there was one thing I wish it had if there was more time, would be visual differentiation of the machines.  I enjoyed building up little sections of the factory for different types of production to make my movement through the factory more efficient, so being able to see the differences between each time would just be the cherry on top.

Developer

Thanks! I totally agree on the factory machines. I wanted variation, but only started replacing my stand-ins on Sunday, and one had to do. Would have loved to animate them as well.

Submitted

I really like the concept! I can see myself dumping so many hours into playing this game if it gets further developed.

Developer

Awesome to hear. Thanks for taking a look!