This game really made me chuckle - I LOVE the music in this and would love to hear more along similar lines. Every time I died playing this it was made better by the fantastic death music and the wonderful animation of the body! An interesting concept that with some further tweaking at the tutorial stage could be a real winner.
This felt like a Nintendo DS game in all the right ways!
Interesting, the Nintendo DS was the console I grew up with, so I guess it's not surprising that this game feels perfect for it, even if it wasn't intentional, must be ingrained in the subconscious.
Thanks a lot for the positive feedback, and for hosting this jam!
Great game, so hectic, I panicked way too many times.
Great choice of music as well, I love the fact that it changed based on the level of health.
My biggest complain would be the tutorial it took me a couple of seconds to understand it.
Panicking is part of the experience! (That's where the sweat part of the title comes in).
Funny that the bunch of random notes I put together in a few hours without any musical knowledge was liked by quite a few people, I'll have to consider actually learning about musical composition. At the same time the tutorial is also hated by quite a few people, which I totally understand, hopefully I can improve the way I show how a game is played.
Glad you liked it! I'm not a fan of wall-text tutorials at all, but I needed some way to teach how the game works and that was the simplest solution I could come up with.
I really like this game. It seems like management games tend to be avoided for game jams, due to the difficulty in balance. It was nice to see you tackle the genre in a game jam! The art style was very cool as well.
There was a part of the tutorial where it says the icons are above, I wasn't sure if you meant above the tutorial panel or above the part panel.
If I were to add to this
Tweaking the challenge would be good, although that's really hard to do. Unifying the UI would also help guide the player. For example, blood cells on the heart look like cells, but when applied to injuries, it has a different UI. This change can lead to confusion.
For impact, I think some response in the world for fixing an injury would be nice. Something like a bandage that appears for a small time after fixing an injury would help reward the player for mastering the game loop. Another one would be having the human react in some way. That would both reward the player and help sell the fantasy.
Challenge
This game definitely upped the challenge! It would take some practice to be able to last in this game for some time.
I feel like some more tweaking to lower the skill floor would help ease the player into the game a little better. There are also things that make this more difficult, like not automatically returning the blood cells when you finish healing a part.
I think this is an excellent entry in the management game jam game, and with tweaking could become even more compelling.
Fantasy
For Fantasy, I think that you have the beginning of a great one, but it will need expanding some more in order to draw the player in. The folders feel more like computer folders, I think more closely matching something doctor's orders would help sell the fantasy.
Another thing that might be fun is to see what the injury was and what caused it. Was it a car crash that injured my leg and foot?
First off, I watched the video you linked and really enjoyed it, I'll definitely be coming back to it when working on new game design ideas.
Overall I agree that the UI needs some work, ideally the game would be able to explain itself better without the tutorial, which in the end may even be more confusing to the player.
I agree that a better visual feedback for the player when injuries are healed would be nice, I like that idea of the bandage. I feel like the overall style is not really cohesive, like each part being a computer folder for... I'm not even sure why, it's the first thing that came to mind and just rolled with it. Ideally it would have a more consistent theme, something hospital-ish to sell the fantasy.
The idea about having a cause for the injuries is great! Could be fun to add some silly situations that cause them. One of the ideas I had initially was to give each human you played a random name and look, and in the end if you lost there would be a tombstone with some kind of joke as the "last words".
This makes want to go back to the game and keep building upon it and add all these ideas and mechanics, even if the jam has finished. Again, thanks for the thorough analysis! It's really encouraging to me as a beginner.
Indeed, since I only tested the game myself I never found it to be too difficult, I'll tinker a bit to make it more manageable. Thanks for the comment!
God this game is punishing! I'm not sure if it was meant to be this bloody (pun intended) difficult, or if I'm just terrible at it but I'm killing my body like I'm trying to win a race. I dont seem to be getting health back from nursing my heart (even with 3 cells) either, which I don't think is intended - or maybe it just heals back far slower than it takes damage from even a single injury, which would add to the difficulty of the game.
I like the sounds & music and the base premise of the game, but I would have liked it to be slightly easier!
Thanks a lot for the feedback!! Yeah, right now even with the max amount of cells working on the heart it's only possible to heal up when there's zero injuries. I noticed too that when there are more and more injuries the health goes down way too fast.
I never really thought I would be that much difficult, that goes to show how important it is to have someone else playtest, rather than doing it yourself, knowing exactly how everything in your own game works.
I'll play with the numbers a bit and try to make everything more balanced. Thanks!
Comments
A really creative concept. The tutorial wall of text was a little a pain in the ass, but other then that I really liked it.
Thanks for the feedback! Hopefully I'll have better, or none, tutorials next time!
This game really made me chuckle - I LOVE the music in this and would love to hear more along similar lines. Every time I died playing this it was made better by the fantastic death music and the wonderful animation of the body! An interesting concept that with some further tweaking at the tutorial stage could be a real winner.
This felt like a Nintendo DS game in all the right ways!
Interesting, the Nintendo DS was the console I grew up with, so I guess it's not surprising that this game feels perfect for it, even if it wasn't intentional, must be ingrained in the subconscious.
Thanks a lot for the positive feedback, and for hosting this jam!
Great game, so hectic, I panicked way too many times. Great choice of music as well, I love the fact that it changed based on the level of health. My biggest complain would be the tutorial it took me a couple of seconds to understand it.
Great job and keep it up!
Panicking is part of the experience! (That's where the sweat part of the title comes in).
Funny that the bunch of random notes I put together in a few hours without any musical knowledge was liked by quite a few people, I'll have to consider actually learning about musical composition. At the same time the tutorial is also hated by quite a few people, which I totally understand, hopefully I can improve the way I show how a game is played.
Thanks a lot for the feedback!
Ngl that was pretty fun.
the wall of text was a bit of a pain to read but it's pretty well done.
Glad you liked it! I'm not a fan of wall-text tutorials at all, but I needed some way to teach how the game works and that was the simplest solution I could come up with.
I really like this game. It seems like management games tend to be avoided for game jams, due to the difficulty in balance. It was nice to see you tackle the genre in a game jam! The art style was very cool as well.
There was a part of the tutorial where it says the icons are above, I wasn't sure if you meant above the tutorial panel or above the part panel.
If I were to add to this
Tweaking the challenge would be good, although that's really hard to do. Unifying the UI would also help guide the player. For example, blood cells on the heart look like cells, but when applied to injuries, it has a different UI. This change can lead to confusion.
Game Design
I'm going to be using Jonas Tyroller's framework for fun for these reviews, so you can watch his video for more context around it.
Impact
For impact, I think some response in the world for fixing an injury would be nice. Something like a bandage that appears for a small time after fixing an injury would help reward the player for mastering the game loop. Another one would be having the human react in some way. That would both reward the player and help sell the fantasy.
Challenge
This game definitely upped the challenge! It would take some practice to be able to last in this game for some time.
I feel like some more tweaking to lower the skill floor would help ease the player into the game a little better. There are also things that make this more difficult, like not automatically returning the blood cells when you finish healing a part.
I think this is an excellent entry in the management game jam game, and with tweaking could become even more compelling.
Fantasy
For Fantasy, I think that you have the beginning of a great one, but it will need expanding some more in order to draw the player in. The folders feel more like computer folders, I think more closely matching something doctor's orders would help sell the fantasy.
Another thing that might be fun is to see what the injury was and what caused it. Was it a car crash that injured my leg and foot?
Woah, thanks for the extensive feedback!
First off, I watched the video you linked and really enjoyed it, I'll definitely be coming back to it when working on new game design ideas.
Overall I agree that the UI needs some work, ideally the game would be able to explain itself better without the tutorial, which in the end may even be more confusing to the player.
I agree that a better visual feedback for the player when injuries are healed would be nice, I like that idea of the bandage. I feel like the overall style is not really cohesive, like each part being a computer folder for... I'm not even sure why, it's the first thing that came to mind and just rolled with it. Ideally it would have a more consistent theme, something hospital-ish to sell the fantasy.
The idea about having a cause for the injuries is great! Could be fun to add some silly situations that cause them. One of the ideas I had initially was to give each human you played a random name and look, and in the end if you lost there would be a tombstone with some kind of joke as the "last words".
This makes want to go back to the game and keep building upon it and add all these ideas and mechanics, even if the jam has finished. Again, thanks for the thorough analysis! It's really encouraging to me as a beginner.
The idea and premise is great! But I agree with the earlier comments, this game is savage level difficulty! I struggle to last more than 2mins :D!
Indeed, since I only tested the game myself I never found it to be too difficult, I'll tinker a bit to make it more manageable. Thanks for the comment!
God this game is punishing! I'm not sure if it was meant to be this bloody (pun intended) difficult, or if I'm just terrible at it but I'm killing my body like I'm trying to win a race. I dont seem to be getting health back from nursing my heart (even with 3 cells) either, which I don't think is intended - or maybe it just heals back far slower than it takes damage from even a single injury, which would add to the difficulty of the game.
I like the sounds & music and the base premise of the game, but I would have liked it to be slightly easier!
Thanks a lot for the feedback!! Yeah, right now even with the max amount of cells working on the heart it's only possible to heal up when there's zero injuries. I noticed too that when there are more and more injuries the health goes down way too fast.
I never really thought I would be that much difficult, that goes to show how important it is to have someone else playtest, rather than doing it yourself, knowing exactly how everything in your own game works.
I'll play with the numbers a bit and try to make everything more balanced. Thanks!