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EmPop's itch.io pageLink to your Game Design Doc on Google Drive.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UzMT5MF2OVj2mLz5b9HMD9D89u_plE9mO2ZinaqJdXc/edit?usp=sharing
Have you checked that your GDD is publicly accessible ?
yes
Is your game set to public on itch.io so we can see it?
yes
Summarise your game!
Life simulator of you as a bubble. You collect resources, affect other bubbles, and get affected.
Please explain how your game fits the theme:
You are your only weapon - you spread yourself (your emotions) to others, affecting them.
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Comments
This is a very unique experience, never play something like that. The way you tell a story about life is such a cool concept that really deserves it's own praises. Good job!
There is a bit confusion for my gameplay wise, as I am still not sure what to do in the game. Do I try to affect others? Do I need to eat and rest to survive? How important is earning large money and how about friends? I guess as life itself it doesn't really have answers. But as a game though I think you really need to tell the player what to do, or at least some explanations on what the game if going for, or what lesson should the player take away with.
But anyway, the game is pretty nice and quite out of my expectations! Well done!
Thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it!
Totally agree with your critique, we'll need to rework the game play to make it a bit more goal-oriented and more engaging
This feels like an amazing concept. Really feels like you could run a lot further with it if you wanted to outside of the jam. I think I'd like to see something a little more simulationy a little less arcadey?
Some of it felt a little too random I think. Like... it almost didn't matter about the other bubbles colours, they were just firing off almost any colour interaction? Made it feel almost pointless to try and specifically interact.
Very unique take on the theme, not seen anything else like this. Yet it still feels like a proper interpretation to me at least.
The music was nice, not sure its the highlight for me but it suited the vibe of the game very well.
Thank you!
Yep, definitely there are many things to improve, and we plan to work on it! 90% of the current version was made in one weekend, with just a bit of polish later - so we went for arcade just for simplicity - a way to stimulate people stick to some areas where other bubbles are. We definitely need to go more into "sim" part :)
The "randomness" of interactions were to illustrate that all people are complex and even the green ones can emit red, and vice versa. But we probably overdid it :) E.g. most of the NPC bubbles emit their main color with 60-70% chance, and 30-40% to emit other color. That looked reasonable on paper, but given that players don't really keep track of that - those 30-40% are something that gets noticed/memorized. Which is actually cool, because it illustrates how stereotypes and attention attribution works - we remember deviations, not commonalities. But on the other hand, as you mention, it's confusing. So we need to find a way to both keep the complexity and reduce the confusion. Now I think that aura should fire more often (maybe continuously pulsating), with lower effect. This way the dominance of main color will be more visible, and the other colors will also appear sometimes even with lower frequency share.
Thanks again for the feedback, it got me a lot food for thought!
Awesome reply right there dude. Hope to see more of EmPop and yourself in the future!
It took me a bit before i figured out what i was doing, but thats life i guess xD
An easy improvement to make is to reduce the difference in detail/style between the bubles and the background.
I'd also recommmend adding some feeback when you influence another bubble(or they you), you can see it through the color change a little bit, but it isnt very clear. (same goes for the pickups).
Its a simple but "unique" game that tries to tell some interesting stuff, but the gameplay does not really match, or atleast, it needs a bit more.
These are relativly small things so nonetheless, its a fun experience, well done
Thank you for the feedback! Totally agree, and most of these were matter of time/resources.
For the jam the focus wasn't on game play during the jam, and we'll definitely work on it.
For the style - we kinda wanted to have contrast between bubble and background, but I guess it shouldn't be that different.
And for the feedback - the bubbles say words based on the emotions they emit. And you respond to them (or they to you) if got hit with the dominant emotion. So there is quite cool mechanic there, but it ended up being hidden, and we'll try to surface it a bit more later :)
Really interesting game. Ended up a sad little bubble. :(
That's life I suppose. The music was really awesome. Definitely the highlight IMO. Unique take for the jam. I found it kind of hard to figure out how I was affecting others, but it was more of an experiential game than a active one. Which is cool by me! :)
Unique entry!
Thank you so much! :)
Interesting. I felt like there's little control over which emotions to take in and which ones to spread. I wanted to spread joy, but got sad reactions most of the time. Unique concept for sure.
The "little control" part is partially intentional, as a metaphor on reality, but we probably overdid it a bit. We plan to add a bit more control in the later full version though :)
I'm not sure how much this fits the gamejam, but then again when we think of weapons we usually think of swords and guns and things like that, but the influences that we have on other people can keep them from ever needing to be used so maybe emotions kind of are a weapon. It was really sad for me to watch my bubble get more and more depressed even though I tried to keep it around green bubbles and give it its necessities, I guess the game is pretty realistic in that way, which is sad. 8 out of 10 would play again. :)
Thank you! I guess it was a bit too hard to keep it with green emotions, will probably boost it a little bit in the full version :)
getting joy doesn’t work, highly accurate, 10/10
Ahahah, lol :D It does work, it's just hard :)
Plus you get anger and sadness ticking if you are low energy or low on entertainment. So you need to have both of these high and get touched by green influence quite a few times :D Which is pretty hard, but doable :)
Also each age the previous emotions get normalized, so it's way harder to go for green at the begining of each stage, but pretty hard to recover within a stage of you got too angry or too sad :)
Really enjoyed the game, was fun to see the colors change over time while trying to balance my meters. I also enjoyed how it went through your lifes journey at the end, really tied the central concept of the game together for me. Great job!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Really interesting concept, wasn't expecting something like this in this gamejam.
Thank you! I hope it wasn't too much of a stretch :)
I appreciated the theme. But from a gameplay perspective I'm not sure of the purpose of the resources. Imade it to around 30. Overall all i think you did a good job!
Thanks for checking out!
The resources now are just like points - they define your results, and basically you get different ending (now just text) based on resources + emotions combo. Also resources have internal mechanics - like the more education you get - the higher income you get later etc.
But yep, it's very bare now - we did it over pretty much one weekend :) We plan to get more into resources in the final version, now it was more about narrative and emotions
Very interesting interpretation of the theme, I love the art style and the music. The concept is very unique it almost felt like a simslike where you have to care for all your different needs. I was a little confused on the gameplay I wasn't sure if I was doing enough to proceed so I just went from corner to corner hoping for the best :) I love the dialogue between bubbles but they didn't affect me much as I collected things maybe they should be more impactful on the actual gameplay. Anyway the vibe of the game was super chill and thought provoking for me and you did a great job :)
Thank you so much!
In this version our main goal was emotional/affectional, and we plan to introduce more mechanics and more engaging game-loop in the full version :)
Sounds good :) Can't wait to play the full version when it's done!
Wow.. this game made me pretty emotional. You're touching on some really powerful concepts and I think you did a good job at communicating them through this art piece. People shape us and we shape others. We are all weapons. Not necessarily destructive ones, we can be forces of positivity as well. As you move through life, wield yourself wisely, and be wary of how others wield themselves. Great job!
Thank you so much! :)
I really like games with deep philosophical implications or thought provoking narratives and I like what you're going for with this one. That said, the passage of time feels too uneven; the first years pass like a flash while the stage starting from year 20 feels super long.
The concept of the environment actively changing your character is super cool but I felt like I didn't really understand how that worked. Gameplay is just moving around picking collectables so adding some kind of mechanic could help with the game's pacing and make it feel more engaging.
One more thing I'd like to note is the use of dyanime music to give some feedback of the current game state or the bubble's condition, which is a great addition to the game but then again, I'm not sure what exactly what was happening most of the time.
I love the concept! but the gameplay needs to be more engaging is what I'd say about this game.
Thank you!
Yep, we plan to add some more rewards and variability in the game, like upgrades/events on pickups and some branching of stages :)
It's okay! Gameplay feels a bit repetitive, I feel like all I am doing is cirlcing around collecting random collectables.
Yep, we need to add some variability there, thank you!