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You did WHAT?!?! with my salad? [LEAKED ALPHA BUILD]'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #2 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Sound | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #4 | 3.682 | 3.682 |
| Overall Bad | #7 | 3.727 | 3.727 |
| Modifier | #8 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Gameplay | #10 | 3.182 | 3.182 |
| Overall Good | #13 | 3.273 | 3.273 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
If you have implemented the modifier, how have you done so?
Firstly, the game is about stealing a salad from a tortoise without him noticing. More broadly, the game is a leaked alpha build, released in secret so the Tortoise Island Media Fund doesn't hear about it!
Any additional information for voters?
If you want to make the game easy mode, just immediately return the salad to the table for the first few days to build up trust.
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Comments
This one's amazing! I had a lot of fun with all the dialogues and the game in general.
Ironically, the game feels really polished in plenty of aspects, like the dialogues, the camera angles and some of the music (I adore the salad song and the salad surfing mechanic). And of course, it feels absolutely unfinished in others, which is completely coherent with the Tortoise Island Media Fund narrative, and it just adds to the fun and the "So Bad it's Good"-ness. The game completely nails the "leaked alpha build" feeling it tries to give, which is perfect for this jam. In addition, the absolute randomness of the story make it feel dynamic and fun without ever becoming monotonous.
Overall, I really liked this entry. Hope it gets a good score, it really deserves it.
Graphics and animations were perfect! I loved the Salad conversation, just wish there had been some sound during the actual game. Also, I think the game is a little too hard and punishing right now; finally managed to get some water on my third or forth try and gave up after one try at the factory. Also doesn't help that the game gets harder when you fail (though I guess you can counteract that by just returning the salad early for a few days). All in all, super cool SBIG presentation, but the gameplay could feel a little less punishing.
I was looking forward to this one, and in the aspects I was expecting it did NOT disappoint!
It did kinda fall flat in some areas though, the first being how sparse the game is.
The vast distance between locations combined with the slow movement speed made it kinda drag at parts. The car did mitigate it a bit in some areas, but then brought back a bit more frustration with attempting to steer said car. And honestly I found just walking to the salad at the start of the day could take a bit longer than I would like. I was able to save some time by just ramming the car into the front of the house to get past Benedict, but then still had to walk into the dining room.
The other aspect I thought didn't work out too well was the music. It sounds perfect for a SBIG game, but it can be overbearing in cutscenes, and then during gameplay there was sometimes no music at all which left the game feeling kinda bare. I think The Last Button had a similar issue.
But luckily this game also has a bunch of things I was able to enjoy!
For starters the graphics are delightfully SBIG as per your style. The blobby VR painted characters mixing with PBR textures is hilarious, and oh my GOD that cameo!
I was honestly wondering how that was going to be implemented, and as soon as I saw the model I thought "oh boy here we go!" and I'm happy to say it did not disappoint. Just the contrast of the wonky artstyles was hilarious, but the animations were hysterical, the dialogue fit the character, and you even worked in the conflict with everyone's favourite bot! It was a fantastic crossover and I hope there shall be more in the future lol. (Also as an aside it is cool but kinda surreal that myself and my creations have popped up in 3 other games this jam)
The audio was also great, the dialogue being a mix of Banjo Kazooie mumbles and random phrases chucked in. The music sounds great and perfectly fits the tone, its just that as I mentioned earlier its sometimes too loud or not played enough during gameplay.
The cutscenes were all hilarious, and had a surprising amount of zooms, cuts and movement to them. I'd have to replay it to be certain, but I think these are an improvement upon The Last Button.
The platforming and movement itself is ok, but perfectly animated in a way that fits SBIG jam. And even though it can be hard to steer, THERE'S A DRIVABLE CAR! Not an easy thing to implement, I've been wanting to have vehicles or mounts in a game for a couple years but have never gotten around to it. So congrats on implementing it on a tight schedule!
Overall, I really enjoyed it, but there are some pain points that could be addressed. Or at the very least kept in mind for next year.
Excellent work!
This is one of those games that I really wanted to be able to enjoy.
The graphics, audio, and the overall presentation of the game oozes with SBIG charm, combined with the delightfully absurd premise.
However, the controls and the gameplay don’t really work well together to give much of a positive impression of Tortoise Island.
Sure, when traversing the plains and mountains of Tortoise Island, the controls do a good job of getting the player around in a way that feels natural. However, these same controls make the precision platforming (which the player is very promptly presented with shortly after epic quest of Salad Improvement) an utterly painful ordeal, souring the whole experience, leaving the sort of foul taste that one may experience after leaving one’s salad out in the summer heat for a few days.
If it wasn’t for the controls and the gameplay clashing in such a painful way, I think that this game would truly be ‘So bad it’s good’. Unfortunately, the precise platforming with imprecise controls just render it ‘So bad it’s unpleasant’.
This game is incredibly well made, I really enjoyed it, although I think distances between locations could be shortened
I honestly think this game is too ambitious for its own good.
The island is huge, but the protagonist walks painfully slow, and trying to keep the badly-driving car on the too-narrow roads is a nightmare. It's annoyingly sparse, and I would have preferred a smaller, more focused space.
I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing or why. Maybe I missed something in the opening narration (which I'll get to in a bit), but I didn't have any clear objective, and there's no indication in-game of where to go next.
I toyed around for a while, made it to the top of the not-mayo factory, watched the cutscene, ziplined down, ended up near the start. I went to the houses, but nothing happened, maybe because of a glitch. Got caught by the turtle a few times; it's not entirely clear what's happening here.
There are definitely some cool mechanics. As mentioned before, there's a drivable car! That's something I've been wanting to do for years, but haven't, because it's hard. You can climb ladders, walk tightropes, and slide down ziplines.
The music is too loud, especially early on when it basically drowns out the opening narration.
Your trademark style is back, mixing simple primitives with blobby characters and hyper-realistic textures. Once again, it works great for that so-bad-it's-good aesthetic.
I was scared the whole time I was playing the game, because the whole thing feels incredibly fragile. Like one bad jump, one random glitch, or one wrong keypress is going to totally wipe out all the progress I've made. That's the case for a lot of jam games, but the scope of this one makes it all the more apparent.
I know it's SBIG Jam, but I really feel this game would benefit from quality-of-life improvements, even at the cost of overall scope. Small stuff like interact prompts and skippable dialogue would be nice, saves and tools to get out of broken situations would be even better.
There is a load button, but I have no idea if it's real, and that only adds to the fragile feeling.
I did love the overall humour and the framing device of a defunded tourism ad. The Itch page and the early prompts in the menu, as well as a few references in game, all work together to push this angle and it is glorious.
To me this one was a swing and a miss, but it was still fun to fool around with for a while.
I managed to get in contact with some anonymous sources from Shandy Pants Studios! (To reiterate, I am an independent archivist with no legally defined connection with the developers, and am *definitely* not a 1st party as defined by section 4.7.28 of their Confidential Disclosure and Exports Agreement).
Apparently when gaining the first round of seed funding from the Tortoise Island Media Fund, the developers agreed to make the in-game location a 1:1 scale replica of Tortoise Island! While it's extremely impressive that they managed to map the landscaping to the nearest millimetre 😮 (trust me I've seen the photo comparisons!), it was a bit of a major issue in development, considering that about 70% of Tortoise Island is made up of flat plains of grass 😑
of course, this wouldn't have been a problem! Due to the 67 hours of scripted content originally planned for the game (The completionist time was estimated to be about 4027 hours, but it also included a mission where you had to count each blade of grass on the island). On top of this, they managed to negotiate a sponsorship with the TT (Tortoise Trophy) in order to bring motorbike racing to the game. The motorbikes could get from one side of the island from another in just 2 minutes, the tortoplane (planned for the shell Islands expansion pack) could get from one side to the other in just 30 seconds, and the tortoporter could get from one side to the other in only -2 seconds! (Yes, I asked how that worked. No, I didn't get an answer). None of these materialised by the time the plug was pulled though 😥
When I asked why the game felt so broken and fragile-feeling, I was told "Life is fragile, and 'You did WHAT?!?! with my salad?' is the most true-to-life game there is". After telling them to to knock off the BS marketing spiel, I was told that they just ran out of time before the funding dried up 😥 apparently though the save system was actually fully working all along though, so at least that's good I guess! 😅
Finally, they said thank you so much for playing! The whole team is very sad they can't talk about the game directly, and can't publicly make their case to The Game Awards. They've also said for future players to make sure to grab the salad! 🥗 or that might otherwise break things.