itch.io

Very good point, I actually have no idea how this would work w/o a mouse since it was designed around it.

Very nice game artistically. I think the question to be answered for gameplay is in terms of balancing the supply and demand of the player's attention. Currently, there isn't really much that demands your attention. I know a lot of idle games keep the player busy by maintaining many shorter duration actions while waiting for the longer ones. 

The character is fast and can cover a ton of distance with his jumps, which is great. I love speed and mobility in platformers. However, this does make the first couple of level designs feel kind of claustrophobic to me. The distance between the player and their next objective is way shorter than their movement potential, and you can't jump around too freely due to the narrow gaps between platforms. With this in mind, I really like the design of the third level, which has a big open space, and the player really can utilize the range of their movement. 

Put it this way - the player's full jump height is roughly 80% of the screen height, which means that unless a platform is very near the top of the screen, the player is kind of always holding back when they jump. Also, when the player is anywhere above 20% of the screen height (on any of the paltforms), a full jump will actually take the player off screen. So you're kind of stuffed into the level. Maybe this gives points for thematic relevance? Willy is a young, free spirit in an industrial cage? lol

Sorry, this is a rather long-winded observation. I think the game was good. Just something to think about in terms of designing space.

Piggybacking on the audio - it can help if the music persists from scene to scene when it's the same song and a short game loop. It can be a little jarring when a song restarts that frequently.

Understandable. I guess I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing here in terms of movement in case I could provide advice, but obviously my understanding of how this was implemented is incorrect. Good work!

I like the idea of having this as a mechanic within some other meta-loop (Like  your Papers, Please suggestion). That allows you to expand the game design beyond the scope of this (already demonstrably good) mechanic without needing to change and balance it.

Simple and straightforward. 

Audio design recommendation - your song's duration is longer than the gameplay of your levels. This means that I don't ever get to hear the full song, and I hear the same part of the song at every level start. Consider allowing your music to persist between levels when this is the case.

Interesting. Did you code in an acceleration? In that case, it should just be as easy as increasing the acceleration.

Overall a very solid and high-quality game. The RNG and balance does have the ability to quickly place the player in unwinnable and seemingly unpreventable situations, especially early on with new random factories, you not only incur a malus to pollution and happiness, but you also incur a production deficit. (I could just be bad at the game). It adds a new challenge for the player to overcome, which is great, but it's also simultaneously crippling their ability to overcome the challenge, so it seems a lot easier to death spiral than to build up.  Normally, this is the type of punishment you face for overextension in a 4X, but in this game, you can be punished for overextension even if you play responsibly. I don't expect a game made in 7 days to be perfectly balanced though! These are just observations.

QOL suggestion, it's always great to be able to see your current  net +/- per turn for any resource you have.

Are you using rigidbody physics for the character movement? I recommend either a faster acceleration with high drag, or swapping to a character controller for snappier movement. Basically, the movement should not be something that draws the player's attention away from the rest of the gameplay, because it seems like you want to experiment with exploration and risk/reward. If the player becomes frustrated with the movement, they are unlikely to enthusiastically engage with the rest of the game. That's just tuning though, so it shouldn't be too hard to play around with and come up with an improvement.

The game requires incentive. As far as I can tell, there is no actual reason to accrue score, and there's no punishment for doing nothing. I think that's the next step after developing the basic mechanics, which you do have.

It seems that resource management requires some incentive to manage your resources well. In this game, I don't really have any obligations -  it's kind of difficult for me to evaluate if I need to adjust my strategy while playing the game because I have no baseline or objectives to compare my progress to.  I got pretty far in before I even realized the price of children had gone up, because I was just spam clicking, but then I just kept doing it, because I didn't really have a reason not to. Maybe some sort of failable objective, along with a reason to keep cash on hand in the event of emergency, would help economize the player's choice. You have a pretty good starting framework to implement this.

Part of the issue with a trivia game is that the player can't really learn how to become good at it while they are playing, because they either know the answers or they don't. This game may be received well in niche audiences who have a reason to know the answers, but in general, it would be seen as a game where you make a 1 in 4 guess and get upset when you're wrong 75% of the time.

I think you could consider the first part of that paragraph as a starting point for improving the game. The objective is to get points, and you get points by choosing the right resource given a province. How can the player learn to choose the right resource in-game?

 Do you have any ideas about how you would extend the game if you had more time? It seems like it might be difficult to expand on the challenge and progression, I would be interested to hear if you had any design plans like that while you were making this.

Great way to gamify morse code. Love that you need to develop a feel for the rhythm of the taps.

Loving the art style.

I think  you might look to Super Mario World for an approach to the ladder design - in those games, when the player is climbing, their x-position is snapped to the center of the ladder, so the behavior when the player ascends/descends is predictable and it is easy to avoid unwanted platform hitbox interactions. I actually do like that it's possible to drop straight down the ladders, because in a time-sensitive situation climbing down a ladder is annoying, but the tradeoff is that you can't have a nice 'stopping point' that the player can stand on after they are finished climbing. Maybe a system where you tap down once to climb the ladder and twice to drop straight through would work well?

As for the steam clouds, I think that the concept is in the right place - time is the challenge, and being slowed is a significant hurdle. The issue is that the effect stacks and is seemingly permanent (I tested and managed to come to a total halt after a couple hits), so if the player is hit a couple times they essentially 'soft-fail' the level, but still have to wait out the timer in order to restart. I would recommend that the effect does not stack, and is set on a timer from the first hit from which the player eventually recovers. If not, then I think it would be reasonable to simply 'kill' the player if they get hit enough times to come to a halt. Maybe the game design question to answer is, "When the player encounters setbacks, how can they recover?"

That said, very solid and consistent design, and overall a well developed game.

Similar error message when reading the paper. Also, check your export resolution in ProjectSettings > Player > Resolution and Presentation and make sure the default export resolution matches the window size you specify in 'Edit game' on itch.io. I think a lot of the game is cut off in the web build.

Hi, I have no idea how to resolve that lol. I uploaded a downloaded .exe build for windows, but I haven't tested it. It will be slightly annoying because I never implemented a way to quit the game, so you'd need to tab out of it in order to exit.

Hmm yeah I'm getting an issue saying WebGL2 is missing on chrome, I guess this might be a browser or hardware issue. Chrome's GPU settings say that WebGL2 is enabled, so I'm not really sure what's going on here.

I think an interactive e-learning diorama is a fantastic idea. I'd love to see visualizations of various technical issues that were faced by mining companies, and how the mine evolves over time in response to new technologies.

I replicated the UI bug in question. This occurs after I select the concert hall on the board, and then select a new building from the building picker. As you can see, the prod/con vals for the new building are written underneath the existing values for the concert hall. Perhaps because the UI prompt comes from two separate systems (board vs. resource picker), it does not know to close the first one out when it receives new data from the second? If this is the case, I would recommend that the UI element be activated using an event-based system, so that it isn't directly instructed to display from the on-board objects or building menu. IDK your architecture though so that's just a guess.

As for the day progression bug, I believe the game crashed after making a decision around day 6 or 7 (it was related to meeting teachers or something) - I did not receive the standard 'game failed' message, the .exe just terminated. I can't replicate this though, sorry I don't have the actual details.

Overall I had fun. It is possible to just sprint through the guards though, maybe a limit on that ability would be good to avoid that. 

Click on the platforms and it should give you a UI prompt

I think this is a cool concept and it feels pretty good as a small factory sim. The responsive machinery animations are very smooth and clean, I was impressed with how when you force the oven it speeds the piston up. However, the build progressively broke down as I went, so  unfortunately I don't think I was able to experience the full game. Design wise, perhaps there might be something else to do/manage while the turbine is running? 

It is difficult to incorporate abstract choice and consequence and have the intention of the designer be intuitively understood by the player. Through the Darkest of Times does a pretty good job of distilling abstract ideas into gamified patterns that the player can learn. This game does have the foundations of that, and the fact that I am comparing it to Through the Darkest of Times is a compliment. I guess the design question you should ask is 'how can the player systematically make decisions with clear intentions'. Good job!

Interesting systems design approach. I think the UI would benefit greatly from an indicator of which parameter you are directly affecting when you set a condition (as you listed on the page description), so it's easier to understand the relationship between what you are changing and what is subsequently changing because of it. That being said, a good systems design that forms the backbone of an economy-based game doesn't necessarily need to be that accessible to the player. I guess it depends on whether you're trying to build some sort of system architecture or a user-facing interactive tool.

Fallout: Verdun

I think if I had more time I would start the player with just one hammer and then introduce a second one. The secret is to alternate swings and reloads in a cycle to the beat, maybe the game could do a better job of teaching the player that.

Love the Luddites. It was a bit buggy, the only serious one is that you can walk off the world into the aether. You can also endlessly spawn quest updates if you keep pressing E on a revolutionary.  Nevertheless, I was able to complete the game. Best part was bombing the machines. Solid quest/completion system, and pretty good spatial audio design.

I would recommend that the music be persistent between scenes so it doesn't keep restarting, and that escape brings up a least a prompt before exiting the game (especially in a collection completion system with no save progress, as this may deter someone from completing the game if they quit out on accident).

When I was a kid I loved Stephen Biesty's incredible cross section books, and it's really cool to see something like this with moving parts (especially because still images usually don't tend to capture the essence of machinery). Honestly, I don't even think something like this needs extensive gameplay. Of course, if you did want to add gameplay, now you have a very smooth and beautiful level framework in which to do so. Could lend itself well to a mechanical puzzle point and click, or maybe a lemmings style game (maybe that was the idea with the stick guys walking in?)

First off, this game nails the isometric pixel look, and aside from a few minor and understandable bugs it runs very well for a game of this complexity. The in-game UI is sufficient to communicate the data that I need as a player, but it is not overbearing, which is nice. I think a huge challenge in designing these types of games is teaching the player how to play them. As much as I like learning by doing, it is nice in a resource manager to have even just a brief overview of what is going on before you start clicking buttons and ruining the economy.  The mood music is great, and I appreciate the effort that went into the writing and atmosphere building in the text. 

QOL notes - the game immediately quits on ESC, and on the first decision screen, since the player has not been introduced to the decision phase yet, it is actually a little confusing how to proceed (especially since there's a giant NEXT in the corner encouraging you to click it. Maybe I'm just dumb.) Also, I'm not certain if I beat it or if it bugged out, there was an abrupt end after approx. the 6th or 7th decision.

Also, some free QA testing - I believe the building resource UI (in the top left) bugs if you select an instantiated piece and then select  build option, and sticks on one of their values. Also, there are some selection conflicts when buildings are close together. 

Great job all involved!

Hi, 

The game looks very nice. Overall, I like the environment, especially the diner kitchen sequence. I thought it was clever how you entered that sequence and I enjoyed the concept of being a tiny robot and navigating mundane objects. 

The movement and platforming in general are a little clunky. It's hard to get consistent results from the grapple mechanic, and I feel like with the movement I was fighting against my own momentum a lot of the time. 

I did what you suggested and dropped down the left side to play through the whole game. I like the use of 3D assets from a side scrolling perspective as it gives a lot of natural depth. Also, the boss's behavior during the fight is well done.

I suppose the criticism I have is that there don't seem to be checkpoints during the platforming section, as I keep respawning at the boss room. This makes that section a little difficult to play through. Also, the hit stun for the player is a little bit long, especially because you can't attack during the stun window.

I think the idea of replaying the game in a new context whenever you get a new ability is interesting. Also, the presentation is on point. Everything in the game is extremely clear and the overall quality feels very tight. 

I died quite a few times on the first platforming section due to either my lack of skill or just extremely tight platforming challenges, and since there was no tangible progress, it was quite a bit of time spent replaying without experiencing any new abilities (esp. because how slow you are at that point). I feel like this amount of punishment early on is likely to exhaust the patience of impatient folks like myself.

First off, I think the game looks very solid, and I'm impressed that there is a functional crafting interface and with the amount of mechanics that were implemented. Scene transitions are smooth, and the environments feel visually fleshed out and cohesive.

I found myself in a couple of unwinnable situations - right off the bat, when I first opened the crafting menu after dropping down and collecting the first scrap, the option to craft a health upgrade is blinking green so I thought, oh well I guess I'm supposed to craft that, which locked me out of jumping out of the pit (this was obviously bypassable with the scrap cheat, which I assume will not be in the finished product). I guess since crafting implies player choice in how to allocate resources, what will happen if the player makes the 'wrong' choice and crafts the wrong upgrade? An in-game way to reset at a checkpoint or something might be necessary, because I had to just reload the entire game. 

A second situation was in the second room, dropping down into the hidden area - I was unable to jump out.

That being said, the mechanics are there, and it's cool how many things you were able to put into the game. I just worry that the aforementioned hurdles might prevent players from seeing all the things that the game has to offer.

Hi,

When you build this in Unity, it should output a couple of data folders, the executable, a crash handler, and a file called UnityPlayer.dll. Zip all of these files into a compressed folder and upload it.

I really like what is done visually with lighting and depth. 

I would suggest adding some sort of indicator that checkpoints have been activated. 

Thanks for the feedback! The game design issues you noted are all on point, and I think perfectly summarize what is missing on the game design side. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time in the jam to actually design the gameplay around the mechanics after implementing them.