The game was lovely and fun, I got a score of 3400 points after playing a few times! The dogs were cute and the colors were pleasant to look at. I liked how the dogs were following the mouse around, holding and dropping their items everywhere. The dog crowd jostling around really added more to the game, especially when I kept dropping the food bag. The music speeding up at the end was a nice touch too.
Play game
watch the pups's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Theme | #1 | 4.357 | 4.357 |
Graphics | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
Overall | #5 | 3.643 | 3.643 |
Gameplay | #5 | 3.429 | 3.429 |
Innovation | #7 | 3.286 | 3.286 |
Audio | #9 | 3.214 | 3.214 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
Hi,
My record is 2800 puppies :).
Share how you drew these cute creatures? :)
Very cute game and it seems you can really fly away from an overdose of puppies :D.
I really enjoyed throwing them a ball or a bone - quite innovative!
The only thing is that the music seemed a bit harsh over time, so it's nice that you took care of the ability to turn the music on/off :).
How about a cooperative mode or multiplayer where you will compete with your opponent for the love of puppies :D?
Very fun and relaxing, my congratulations!
thanks for your feedback :)
- I'd never thought of multiplayer, so that might be a nice possibility to explore, thanks!
- Yeah I think the music was a bit hit and miss so something I'd like to improve for future projects.
- I drew the pixel art using procreate and a custom made pixel editor (I'm an illustrator, so I always draw my own assets). I drew and tested one of the dogs first, and used this as a basis to draw the rest.
love the pups. the brushing seems to take a long time compared to the other actions? I would need two hands to deal with all those pups, or are there any tricks?
Really cute game. I feel so bad not being able to give them all the attention they deserve. Reminds me of my 2 dogs. Great game!
Nice entry! I love how colorful and playful this one is. I kinda like how the music (and dogs?) speed up as time ticks down more also, even though it makes it a bit more stressful. I think an infinite time mode would be very cool.
The UI that you have made for this is quite nice also.
The main constructive feedback I have is try to have the dogs not crowd each other so much because everything starts jittering then and it's hard to grab a hold of what they want you to at that point.
Thanks for your feedback!
Yeah the dogs are simple-minded right now so they do tend to bunch up as you say. I probably need to add more variation to their behaviour so they spread out a bit more (and perhaps have the dogs interacting with each other too). Infinite time mode is also a nice suggestion.
Wow, this is super cute! I love the vibe of this game. The pixel art and animations are fantastic.
- It might help to add a little bit of texture to the background. There are many ways to do this but it may help to just draw some a bunch of slightly soft alpha blurred circles of different sizes and positions if that makes sense. Or maybe like a few blades of grass to help give the illusion they are outside. Maybe a few trees or bushes the dogs can hide behind and play around.
- I want to keep playing but I'm not sure I understand the core mechanics. Generally what I think would make sense is... try to keep the food bowl full, sometimes a dog runs away with it, try to brush all the dogs, keep all toys in play as much as possible. It might be kind of fun if instead of throwing the balls off screen there are walls around the edges of the screen and the balls bounce off. That way you dont loose track of whats going on.
- Adding a high score tracker would add some replay value to entice players to come back for a better score. You could even link that to unlocking more stuff like varieties of dogs and toys.
- Maybe it's just me but I am finding the music a little jarring. Part of this could just be playing with zzfx a bit more to get better samples. A simple thing that could help is just making all the sound lengths shorter and reducing the volume to prevent it from getting too loud. You might even play around with a drum beat too. Weird idea but it could be fun if like yoshi you hear the drum beat only when holding an object.
- The font you chose looks great except there are some thin horizontal lines showing through, I think this is not LittleJS related but the font itself.
Keep up the amazing work, I will check back and see how you continue to improve it!
Thanks very much for your feedback! (And also for organising the jam)
The main thing I struggled was getting the balance right between creating enjoyable chaos and confusing mess. Admittedly I think it's still on the confusing side, so this is definitely something for me to consider for future games. I plan to improve the game instruction, but ultimately I'm aiming for something that doesn't need explanation. (Main thing is, You can satisfy puppies based on what they carry into the game (throw toy / bone if they bring one, brush a puppy if they bring a brush, feed a puppy if they bring a bowl)
For the music, I reused a web audio component I made last year - consequently the sound is a bit plain, and as you pointed out the volume needs more work. This is also something I'd like to optimise further by studying how your ZzFX works.
I also appreciate your feedback regarding the background and replay value. I'm planning to work on something else next, but hope to improve this game once I have better idea of where to take it.
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