Very cute and addicting game! I played it for a long time, and I would love to master this fun fast-paced game. However, there are a few issues... mostly, it is hard to tell where the hitbox of the cat is and where the hitbox of the counter is, and I keep accidentally tossing my ingredients on the cat instead of the counter! Additionally, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I have tried many many times to make muffins, and at first I was doing it fine, but now for some reason when I drag the chocolate, sprinkles, or that other bowl of stuff over to the counter, no matter what it doesn't go on the counter. And I am left making a useless blank muffin! It is very disappointing, because after playing so long, I can get every order perfect before the muffins show up, and then there is nothing I can do... Additionally, I feel like unlocking extra cats only harms the player, because then I have more cats to feed, and I can only really handle using one or maybe two cats at a time. Well, despite those slight issues, which I believe could be reworked with just a little more time and playtesting, this was a very fun and addicting game and I'm hoping there's an update so that I can play more! Very solid direction and a super fun game loop, it really felt like a game I could master, and it was a lot of fun learning strategies to maximize efficiency. And needless to say, the art is super cute, and the simple song is very charming and fitting for this little game! I think using an 8bit or 16bit squeak sound effect for the cats instead of a real-life cat yowl could fit the theme a little better, but other than that the sound design is great. All in all very fun game, it hooked my attention for quite a while and I hope to see more!
Thank you so so much for your comment! It means a lot for us that you enjoyed our game.
About the hitbox issue, I think we missed on that as we got used to the small hitbox we were using, so after some time it was fine for us. And I agree that increasing it would be a nice gameplay improvement. I was also thinking about some kind of feedback to tell that the ingredient was correctly placed on the dough (a sound effect was too much for me, but probably some visual feedback would fit well). Definitely something we will keep in mind once we get to update the game.
I agree that the muffins were too similar to the following doughs (which are panettones). About adding the toppings (which are blueberries), we also made the option to add them in the finished (not baked) dough, although it was not written in the recipe. Probably in a following update, we would vary the shapes of the doughs and ingredients so the player can note the difference more clearly. I am sorry you had the blank muffin issue, but I hope this explanation clears that up!
Unlocking an extra cat is definitely a big challenge to gameplay, and we noticed that during our playtesting. Although it brings this challenge, it also helps for working on multiple orders during the later game. In the end, we liked the extra challenge that it brings, but it might indeed be unbalanced to the gameplay. We want some solution that keeps this challenge, but that makes the later game more playable. Some balancing reworks we were thinking about is adjusting the hunger bar timing, making the unlockable cats "better" in some way, or unlocking power-ups. All of them require lots of playtesting and adjustments, but we'll definitely experiment with them!
Our team is super happy to hear the good comments about the art and the music! We spent a good time working on them and making sure everything fits together. Great suggestion about the 8/16bit sound effect for the cats, that would indeed bring more charm for the game style. We want to keep working on this game after this Game Jam, and we will definitely let you know once it gets updated! Thank you again :)