itch.io

Yeah, though a lot of my worry near the end of development was making sure it wasn't too complex.

Both of those were related to cut features--the area at the top was going to be a "view" of the customers (like you were standing behind the counter), but that would have required more original art (which is not my strength).

Thanks! I also remain tempted to put some of the food items I didn't get to into endless just to add a bit more variety to it--though with all the praise it's been getting it's been tempting me to make it something more than a game jam thing...

Thanks! And after both your and Kyle's problems, I uploaded a new build that moves the exit button to the lower-right-hand corner and makes it smaller.

A simple, yet enjoyable game, though part of me wants to try and play it with as little destruction as possible to see if anything changes. My one piece of criticism is that I wish there was some indication of how much damage you needed to do in the final level to trigger the last cutscene; I went back multiple times without it triggering (though admittedly one of those was intentionally not destroying much).

Thanks! It's nice to see the rest of the game at least :)

No problem if you didn't get to things--again, if I'm talking about things like economy and animation speed in my comments, you must have done something right :)

This is neat--the ideas are there, and the story is a very neat take on the setting that does well on promoting the restaurant (even if not in a particularly hip way). I'm glad the bosses don't reset their health when you die, as it would be very hard otherwise--the bosses whose difficulty comes from respawning a dozen enemies on top of you when they get hit aren't particularly fair (especially Frankie, since they surround you). The biggest problem is that with only a single sprite it's hard to tell which direction your shot will go--this might have been better if it was an actual twin-stick shooter (even if it was only the cardinal directions) so that wasn't as much of a problem.

This is a neat idea, and the minigames capture the "early 2000's flash game" concept well. I do wish I could just pick which game to play, instead of having to play them in order--I got a little sick of going through Frankie's Dam every time I died, and Squandrick's game is the kind of game I really don't like in general, so I won't get past it. It also seems like the Bronto Ribs are really expensive, so getting them would take a lot of repetitive play (especially since I can only play half the games), so I can't get to the secrets that are presumably behind it.

Thanks! If there's one disappointment it's that there isn't more crossover between the different things (the two food items that were closest to getting in were a pulled pork sandwich and BBQ chips, one that gave another use for the pork and one that let the dehydrator be used for more than one thing), but I was worried about things getting too complex in the story levels, and then the endless level got implemented last-minute so I didn't have time to add more assets for it, even if the pixel art is relatively easy). The grid being a grid also comes from a cut mechanic, and hopefully you'll hear more about that on the post-mortem.

Yeah, it wasn't made clear at all that the chicken could freeze the goo--I assumed since you could easily jump over the goo puddles in the beginning with the chicken that's how it was helping you. So is the intended way to get across the bridge with the goo pillar freeze it, then boost through it? I don't see any other way the lack of boost would gate me from the end of the game.

This is really good! The balancing of the weapons is interesting, and I like the graphics style. However, since I like some constructive criticism in these posts, here are some nitpicks:

• Is there an ending? At first I assumed it would be defeating The Pitmaster, but that didn't do anything special. Then I thought it might be getting Chip's upgrade (which seems overpriced compared to what you get, more on that later), but that wasn't it either. I only got to around Anomaly 15, so maybe it's later? I assume there's an ending somewhere (if only because I haven't seen credits), but a clicker might not have one.
• The game doesn't seem like it handles coming back with tons of meat especially well--the stack disappearing when you have plenty left isn't a big deal, but it could use with a speed-up of the stacking animation after you cook (say, if you hold A it goes much faster).
• The pickup range on the meat seems a little low--maybe starting at the level 1 range (as opposed to 0) might be good?
• Simply increasing the money you get per dish is a much better deal than going through all the upgrades related to tipping, so much so that those upgrades feel like bloat. I can see how all the tipping upgrades could be better if you combine them, but it's much easier/faster to just upgrade the base price. Maybe that should be a more expensive upgrade--or if you meant it to be commentary on how bad tipping is for service workers, good work! ;)
• The Pitmaster being able to put his hurt area over the teleporter feels a little cheap, but I don't know how you solve that without making it too easy to dodge (though it's not like you could just stay on that spot with all the other enemies swarming you).

No problem--at the very least I helped correct an obvious oversight :)

I think part of my interaction confusion is that the bottom of the screen isn't an obvious place to look--I think I remember seeing that once on a character or something, but wasn't looking for it when I interacted with a door. It might just be user error combined with a lack of need for things--good to know there aren't a ton of systems that exist but don't do anything ;)

Was I supposed to need the Taxxie upgrade in order to beat the game? I never got it in my playthrough that got to the final boss, and jumping around that goo pillar feels like an unintended sequence break. My guess is that you can use the boost to jump to the blunk from the top of the dino (which I did climb), and I obviously couldn't do that without the boost.

Honestly, I didn't realize any of those options to spend money existed--I saw the other doors in town, tried to open one and it didn't open after pressing buttons (and it wasn't obvious it was interactable in the first place), so I assumed the buildings other than the main one were just decoration. I did find the one conversation with Frankie, but other than that it didn't seem like I could do anything in town other than talk to people.

Oh, so everyone was max level in the version I played? That would explain why I didn't have any problems completing it without spending money (my characters didn't seem to take much damage in the prep phase, and I started with more than enough characters to cover all six slots at once). Level 5 being max level also didn't seem blatantly obvious, between DSD being L99 (obviously none of my characters would get there, but a little advancement wasn't implausible) and each of the bonuses in the boss battle only being ~one bar.

The bottle seemed like it was doing something, but it wasn't obvious what made it better (maybe it was ranged?). The spatula didn't look like it was doing anything--I'm assuming it was a slow attack compared to the fast attack of the cleavers, but it wasn't practical to use since you're dodging all the attacks (and I don't like slow melee attacks in general). I think what made the cleavers the best is that they had an actual attack animation that was responsive--the bottle didn't really.

This is an interesting take on a 3D platformer, and the idea of exploring for the upgrades you need makes sense. The movement system is also interesting, though you could explain it a bit better (the ability to instantly stop mid-air is essential, and I'm still not sure what the "launch chicken" part is for). However, I think there are some issues with the progression overall:

SPOILERS:

When I first started I exited the restaurant before talking to Squandrick, and when the cutscene started I was afraid I missed something so I quit and restarted. Then when I got into the open area I started by going up the volcano, and when I got the upgrade not only could I not figure out how to use it (I see how it's in the instructions but even the character saying "use left click or left trigger" would help), it seemed to remove my ability to jump. I wasn't sure if that was intentional (I was using controller if that matters), but I couldn't get back to the mainland without that, so I quit and restarted again. Then I got across the bridge by jumping around the pillar of goo, got the climbing and water powers, got to the endgame, and then couldn't figure out how to get the blunk--I'm assuming there was a powerup I missed that was supposed to let me touch goo, but that wasn't signposted at all, so I had to quit there.

Interesting ideas here, there's a lot of pieces that are each fun on their own. The weirdest part is that it somehow managed to be both over- and under-explained how everything fits together. The "wall of text" in the rules is confusing, and I'll admit I glazed over it at the end--I'm assuming the money system and (especially) the level-ups are unimplemented, but I'm not sure. It also took me a surprising amount of time to find the attack button in the boss fight, and I don't think the weapons other than the dual cleavers did much of anything.

Well, that was an interesting game to start my playing time on. I do think it's tuned a bit difficult though, particularly because the jump (intentionally?) doesn't feel great--I might not have finished the boss if there wasn't a convenient (presumably unintentional) piece of collision on the front of Pitmaster's face to stand on, since I could rarely get off a jump on the highest burger before it started falling (and then the jump didn't want to work right when you're falling).

SPOILERS:

It's very ambitious to essentially make two games (in two different engines to boot), even if Disc 2 is relatively simple. I do worry that the adherence to the N64 aesthetic in Disc 1 was hurting it though--I understand things like uninverting the camera and subtitles (especially for "unintended" elements) weren't commonplace, but I would have had no clue what the password was if I was coming at this from a "fresh eye" because it was so blurry, and even then I was worried about the capitalization (though hopefully you accounted for that, or even just let anything in)

With a little over a week left in the game jam (and only one Kyle stream beforehand), I suppose it’s time to give another update. Let’s start with the video this time:

So yes, the basic foundation of the game remains the same, but there are more bells and whistles. Obviously I have cutscenes now, even if they’re relatively bland (those pictures can change based on the speaker, and there will hopefully be a background in the final game). The game scene also is in a closer-to-final state, with stuff moved around and a fancy new popup for the tile info. There’s also a currency, as buildings and food cost money now, and each shows its cost dynamically on the buttons.

So what else needs to be done in the week or so left?

• Lots of art needs to be found and/or made. You can see I’ve found a lot of free-use food icons out on the web, though I haven’t focused on buildings yet. I also need a plan for the backgrounds and unique characters—whether they’re lucky finds or Paint abominations has yet to be determined. That doesn’t even include things like the generic buttons or flat popups. Again, if you want to help make stuff, let me know on the discord!
• I need to create the levels—the plan is for there to be the tutorial (which you saw the first part of in the video), and then either two or three story levels (each with a beginning and ending cutscene), and then hopefully an endless mode. The framework for creating levels is easy now that I have all the pieces, it’s just a lot of grunt work of creating Food/Building resources to put in the levels, writing cutscenes, and of course finding/making the related art assets.
• That mystery feature I teased in the last entry doesn’t look like it’s going to happen—it involves pathing using AStarGrid, and while I got the feature to work at a basic level surprisingly easily, it doesn’t work right past the basics, and then there’s a lot of actual connection to the game logic that might be harder than it looks. I’d be shelving it no questions asked, but my limited story is built around it existing, so I still want to try—but it’s still very on the back-burner unless I get a major breakthrough (or again, help from someone who knows what’s going on).

I don’t know if there will be another update, but maybe, if I actually get art I like in the game (or that feature working) I’ll do more.

Hello everyone, it’s the dev behind the lowest-rated game in last year’s game jam! Obviously I didn’t really know what I was doing a year ago: I started late, was still learning the basics of Godot, and started thinking about assets way too late, leading to a game that was visibly incomplete. However, things are different this time—two weeks into the last jam I barely knew what I wanted to do, but two weeks into this jam I have most of my game logic completed and am close to a barebones implementation. I’m still learning Godot, and I still haven’t really thought about assets yet (if you want to help, DM me on the discord), but I’m overall much further along this time.

The basic idea of my game is that you’re a new employee at The Smoke Box and it turns out the food is made via this grid implanted in the counter, and you click and place various food items and buildings onto the grid, and they eventually make the items you serve to the customer. Here’s a basic walkthrough of the gameplay loop as you make a hamburger: raising the cow into beef in a field, then putting it and a bun from the warehouse on the grill to make the burger.

There’s lots of logic here, and I like the code outside of the UI (which is still one messy script, though I know where I would split it in the final script). The UI is also where a lot of my current bugs are—you may have noticed weird highlighting behavior, a consequence of Tiles mixing both logic and UI stuff. If you’re interested I have all my code public on Github, and you might get a hint at some of the few features I have left before I work on final look-and-feel and just making more content—making things cost money is coming, as is an actual story (which I have pieces of right now in my head). There’s also one more feature that’s mostly implemented I’ll keep a secret for now—you’ll notice there was another placeable I didn’t use in the video, and I put things on a grid for a reason.

I think this really needed a tutorial of some kind, since it's a hard concept to explain in text without trying it. Then again, if I put in a tutorial it probably would have been the same length as the main game at this point, so that might defeat the purpose :p

I didn't even think that it would be the boss when I was concepting it--it was just a random person walking as a "gotcha" right before the end (your suspicion goes up by 50% if you bolt him, and I'm not even sure it's possible to win outside of no-fail). :)

Thanks for the comment on the options--part of it's that coding is my strength here, and those are easier for me than even making simple pictures in paint.

Yeah, keyboard controls were a last-minute addition (and I haven't figured out how to do user-rebindable controls in Godot yet), so I'd recommend a controller if you can, as those are a lot more natural.

Thanks! That's the main reason why I submitted it even in a relatively bare-bones state: because I liked the concept.