| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #2 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Music / Sound | #3 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Fun | #3 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Graphics / Animation | #5 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Technical | #6 | 2.400 | 2.400 |
Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
I liked how well the use of the theme of time fit in with the theme of delivering mail. It was also kind of neat to have to maneuver around the other cats too, which adds a bit of franticness to get to each location in time. Everything I would suggest for this game had already been suggested by the other commentators, so I'll leave it out of my comment!
All in all I thought this game had a lot of potential! It's very cute!
Really cute game. I like that you need to use real physical map to find the house where you need to deliver parcel, and the fact that you need to actually pay attention to your surroundings to remember where you've already delivered mail is really good. It's up to you to decide, ofcourse, but i definitly would suggest to abstain from adding markers or something like that, that tells you that you've been at that house already, but instead maybe add more variations of houses and unique landmarks so you would be able to orrient better, but i understand that it's very time-consuming. Besides that, i had issues with FPS too, but i have an old PC so i didn't want to mention that, but it seems that i'm not the only one
Thank you playing my game, I was thinking about the markers and if I did it, it would be something subtle like changing the doors to have letter boxes and changing the graphic to have mail hanging out of them once they have been delivered. But I do prefer the idea of having to keep track of where you have been as you are going, I just feel with more roads and a more complex map layout that it might be harder to keep track.
House variants are on the list, to also give the town a bit more character, land marks sound good or even having different houses have different garden layouts so that could be used as a reminder. The FPS issues are still high on the priority list, I have got plans in mind to add quality sliders and settings to try reduce lag and reduce the AI count, I also want to add an FPS counter to track different areas of the map in case one area is creating more lag than the others.
I know how it is to be a game dev on a deadline and have ideas of how to expand on a project, how it can be fixed or added to, etc. So please understand if I mention things you already want to fix or add. I'll also try not to repeat points that other people have made that you have responded to.
1) Having both a controls and options button on the main menu, along with a pause feature in the game itself, was very helpful. Allowing the player to set their own time limit and thus their own pace is also a good idea, it fits into the more gentle aesthetic of the game
2) As silly as it sounds, I assumed from the start I had the mail on hand and the "0/10" in the bottom left means I had currently delivered to 0 of the 10 target houses. I ended up wandering some of the map the first time around, hitting E on different houses, before I saw the post office again and pressing E turned that number into "10/10". Since you even start in front of the building, I'm not sure what to say about my thought process, only that maybe appending "letters in bag" at the end of the /10 would prevent fringe cases like mine. That's probably what the envelope icon is meant to convey, but it was still a little ambiguous on my first run
3) The map isn't too large to make memorising it a problem, if you stick to filling out one side of one street at a time you're normally good to go. It would be more convenient if there were a second post office on the other side of the map that you could replenish your mail at, though, as opposed to running back to the same place each time. Not sure how I would narratively explain the mail you need showing up at that building, but I think it could be handwaved
4) Sometimes the NPC or non-playable cats' pathfinding means they squat in front of houses and refuse to leave, and while it's likely random it still feels a little aggravating
5) Does the game run at a consistent 15fps framerate on most machines? I don't have a frame of reference for everyone else's experience with this game, but the game seemed to run really choppy on my computer
Overall it was a pleasant, mostly relaxing experience and it's not every day I can say I played a game about delivering the post. Outside of the obvious ideas (more maps) I'm not sure what additions or improvements I could suggest. Perhaps a cat-sized van for players who want to further immerse themselves in the role? Or a mouse mode, playing on the same map delivering from a smaller post office to mice villagers, but you're all far shrunk down compared to the cat villagers?
Thank you for taking the time to play my game, some good points to think on. Didn't think to add a second post office, but the van might be a good way to move around a source of mail to save on multiple journeys while also being more immersed in the role. Adding text to show that the number is what is being held is also a good idea. I was going to add an info page on the main menu but it felt a bit cluttered so didn't want more buttons. There are also other things around town that are not mentioned in the game. There are upgrades scattered around town to increase mail bag size and temporarily slow down time.
As for the AI, yeah they can be annoying. They kept getting in my way while testing, luckily you can jump over them or just step over the kittens without jumping. Their AI is definitely high priority for improvement, making it so they rarely go into gardens and have more of a walking down the street kinda feel to them.
In regards to the FPS, before submission I sent a copy of the game to my friend and my brother and on the three machines it was tested on we had no issues, but I guess in the grand scheme of things three machines is not many so if FPS is a major concern for multiple people that would also be a high priority for smoothing that out, could look into adding graphics settings to tone down shadows, or even reduce AI count, there are 100 cats walking around. I might have gone a bit overboard with the cat count but I wanted to make the town feel alive.
A mouse mode does sound fun, could have it take place in a back garden or by the farm so occasionally a cat would walk past and cast a mega shadow.
"I might have gone a bit overboard with the cat count but I wanted to make the town feel alive." No, I agree with your intentions, it really aids the experience of the game having NPCs around the whole map! If my machine is just an outlier then it shouldn't be a problem, but if it's something several people bring up, the only thing I can suggest is maybe unloading/reloading models that aren't in the immediate view of the player. I think making assets outside of the player's view invisible is something Unity does by default, but it still runs the code for them.
In unity it is called Occlusion Culling, only stuff in the camera view is rendered, it is not enabled by default but it is built in, just adding a few objects, changing a few settings and pressing a bake button. I set it up and baked the occlusion culling as well as baked the scene lighting, I am sure there are other ways to optimize the game, but I just can't think of them at the moment. I guess pausing the AI movement calculation if they are beyond a certain distance from the player, but tracking the distance to each cat from the player might add to the issue as much as it fixes. Definitely worth testing though.
I love the art and it's really cute. But finding the houses is pretty hard. Love the concept tho.
Thank you playing, yeah there is no system to know which house you have delivered mail to apart from memory, was thinking of adding markers on the notice board but didn't want to clutter the board and block the parcel markers. I guess I could have had something by the door to tell the player it has been delivered.
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