don’t agree with those saying it’s too hard. i’ve been wanting a classicvania on my playdate more than anything else and this game delivers. feels like it’s made by a real student of the genre. it embraces certain aspects of the style (you will get knocked back), takes limitations even further (no ducking), lightens up on others (controllable movement in the air), and subverts expectations in clever ways. the difficultly is perfect and wonderfully rewarding to overcome. every time i’m convinced an enemy placement is unfair i find im incorrect after just approaching the situation with a little more patience and concentration. so happy to finally see a challenge like this game come along. tiny quibbles with some of the art but otherwise, don’t change a thing. if it hits the catalog i’ll buy it again.
tnglier
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Everything is UNLOCKED! Also, all my factories are running and every crop/product is in production. Total playtime was around 38 hours. Great game. It made me think about life, capitalism, consumerism, 40-hour work weeks, finding time, etc... "Why is it sometimes fun to play games that sort of feel like work?" is not a new question, but I think Factory Farming offers a genuinely novel answer: You could be doing it on a Playdate. (Provided you're lucky enough to have one.) You could be doing it outside in the sun. You could be committing time theft and procrastinating tedious tasks by doing different tasks, except these are on a device that's lovingly designed and is a delightful yellow and the screen technology evokes nostalgia. Is that better? Sure feels better. I like how Factory Farming rewards your efforts by granting you more and more land, not only for further expansion, but eventually, as a buffer from the giant tangle of resource exploitation you've left in your wake. Is the Playdate a good console even though Malaysians can't buy them? It's not necessarily supposed to be a satisfying answer.
I'll tell you more about my experience if you're interested.
SPOILERS BELOW:
The biggest challenge for me was definitely the Party Pack. I was nearly convinced it was impossible to achieve continuous automated production on them due to the upper limit of 4 imports per plot. I had to spend a couple days not constructing anything but just travelling between plots, taking notes, drawing some diagrams and scratching my head before I eventually determined I needed to move my entire Energy Drink operations over to the Stony Plateau. Though this was an extremely satisfying puzzle to solve, I was glad to see the game taper off in difficulty subsequently as I eased into retirement.
I did not use any Overflow or Filter Conveyor parts the whole playthrough, nor any T Splitters. I also eschewed Paths, Fences, Signs, Trash Bins, and Buffer Boxes.
A few suggestions / possible bugs: 1) Did you consider making it so that if one half of a Conveyor Belt Tunnel is destroyed the other half is automatically also destroyed? I think this would be an improvement. 2) The size of the Conveyor Grease area doesn't seem to be influenced by the crank the same way it is for Pick Up and Destruction. 3) Two items converging on the same corner tile of a factory will sometimes cause the factory to jam and I have to pick up products to get it started again. Doesn't happen very often.
I’m 26 hours in and have nothing negative to say about it. If there are frame rate issues I haven’t noticed them and I can’t recall a single bug popping up. My only quibble is that the music sounds like what it is: stuff not actually written for this game (though Factory Farming is hardly alone here.) I keep it off and supply my own soundtrack. The game is properly addictive and in some ways I enjoy it more than Factorio. Ingenious controls. Clearly carefully balanced. What an achievement squeezing this on here. Thanks.
Since we don't have a hurdy gurdy app yet, the central idea of making the crank a microtonal pitch shifter is the single best and most natural way of turning the Playdate into a musical instrument that exists. The way the intervals are mapped to the rotation makes the implementation perfect. Boogie Loops can only dream.