Play game
Hungry For Loot's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #5 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Game Design / Gameplay | #7 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Creativity | #11 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Sound Design | #17 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Graphics | #34 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I just finished my playthrough—it was fun! Here's my score so far:
I took notes as I was playing and tried to organize them into a list below. Some of my points are similar to the first commenter's thoughts (and you've already addressed those in your reply), but I included them anyway just in case!
Issues or points of confusion
- During the first conversation of the game, I was clicking to speed up the text, and when the choice appeared it automatically chose for me! It felt like that might be a bug (on a related note, I would have liked to see an option to have all the text appear instantly).
- I gather that equipment from the humans (whether it's weapons or armor) is all used the same (eating it to attack)? I was confused because the description of some of the armor seems to imply that you can equip it, but I couldn't figure out how to interact with the equipment slots on the slime character screen! (Unless those are there as a joke? I did notice it had things like "legs" and "feet" hahaha)
- I had some trouble understanding or remembering the relative strength of different items. For example, the potion's description seems to imply that it heals less than the seed ("tiny amount of health" vs. just "heals you"), but it seemed to be the other way around when I used them? Some items also felt like they should be a different level than they are (in particular I was surprised that the Elven dagger was the same level as the basic knives).
- I had some confusion around the eating concept; I think they eat the items during combat, but the text after the first battle (I think that's where it was?) seemed to imply that they ate the loot as they were collecting it? Then there's the "we need to get food for the village" plot, which seems to indicate we should save the items for eating and not use them too much in combat if possible (is that going to be a mechanic later on?)
- I was surprised that the cooldown for special moves doesn't reset between battles! Was that an intentional choice? I don't think it's necessarily a bad one, but it was different from what I'm used to (and it made me wonder if I should try to "stall" battles in order to decrease my cooldowns before the next fight)
- Playing on Chrome with a keyboard and mouse, the drag-and-drop gave me some trouble (especially between belt and bag); the item would very often slip out of my "hand" and jump back to its previous position. But I did appreciate being able to just click on an item and then click in a different spot to move/swap, once I figured out how to make that work (and that mode worked really well for me)!
- I had a bit of trouble understanding affinities. It seems like the word is used both for "strengths" and "weaknesses" (and maybe also "resistances", unless I misunderstood)? I started out mostly ignoring them in the first few battles, then eventually started experimenting and had fun trying to optimize them offensively—at least for matching weapon to slime, since I didn't fully figure out the rest of the system. But I struggled with equipping Tanko and Helen! I loved the existence of the scrolls for healing the whole party, those were nice to have as a backup on Helen (though I couldn't tell if they would be able to revive KO'd slimes or not, and they seemed so rare that I never ended up using them). But Tanko in particular was a bit problematic for me despite being my favourite, because he can't really do much while his ability is on cooldown (no support options other than his special ability) and his weapon strengths are so limited (with lots of overlap with other slimes who are better attackers).
- I would have loved a way to access the settings in the pause menu! (Or else just an easy and clear way to save my game, so that I can quickly visit the menu and then hop back in without losing progress)
- I started out just using the keyboard, and it felt confusing at first! It got much better once I switched to mouse (and I enjoyed playing through the rest of the game using the mouse), but I realized later that the option to have information appear when selecting something with the keyboard was off (which explained why I was so confused at first). I wonder if it could be a good idea to have it on by default?
- Very minor note but it took me a while to notice that the enchanted silver arrow had water damage; it might be nice if it had a slightly more magical or water-y appearance? The other enchanted weapons all looked great to me, it was just the water arrow!
A few small typos
- "it will reduce damage the damage I take" (in the tutorial fight)
- "affective" instead of "effective" (I think in the inventory tutorial?)
- "little more then a stick" (in an item description, I think the small club)
Various things I enjoyed
- It was fun seeing the slime towns (the little baby slimes running around and playing were especially cute!)
- The dev dragon
- The slimes' names (fighter, tank, mage, healer??)
- I like that the healing spell shows you who it's going to be targeting (though it took me a while to notice!)
- I also really like that we can see enemy intents! The battle system felt satisfyingly fun and strategic overall despite my earlier points (I'd love to see it developed even further).
- There seems to be a great variety of settings!
- The bag and belt system was interesting! I'm not 100% sure how I feel about having random items pulled from the pool (and refreshing them taking up a whole action), but once I got the hang of it, it did seem to work fairly well.
- I liked the way the game took me from battle to battle automatically! I would have also enjoyed more freedom to walk around, but with some control setups that can sometimes feel tedious (e.g. if I have to constantly switch my hands around between roaming sections and battle sections), so it was nice to have a more streamlined experience. A good in-between could also be to just give the player a few more options regarding where to go or what to do (even if they don't walk there manually)?
- Despite the slight confusion mentioned earlier, I really like the concept of the slimes eating loot!
- I looked at the list of planned updates and they all look really good to me (being able to sell items will be especially great)!
Final thoughts
I loved the premise and I'm curious to see where the story goes! Will they ever make peace with the humans (at least some of them)? I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for future releases!
Wow, thanks for the detailed feedback!
A setting to always have the text show without typing it out is a good point. I think we had discussed it early on, and it got lost along the way.
We will do some testing on fixes for the Confirmation Dialog Box to prevent accidental choices. That is a new feature, and we did not test for people speed pressing keyboard or joypad buttons to advance the dialog when it popped up. We will probably add a, short, delay before the buttons show/become active.
We will need to think on the item descriptions. We wrote them based on a more human perspective of how they would be used normally. The Slimes are only discovering the combat benefits they get from eating them, so shops and elsewhere would generally have info based on the human viewpoint. We may add a dual description to them showing both the normal use, and notes for the Slimes. The character details screen is just for showing the info. We need to rework the look of the items a bit, and maybe grey them out for the Slimes. It is a general details page for all characters, even if they can't equip items. We do have plans for some limited equipment for the Slimes (such as helmets acting like full body armor), but it will be later and handled in the existing inventory screen.
Some of the item descriptions, primarily the seeds and berries, got reverted to an older placeholder version recently. We are going through to fix them, and take a fresh look at the wording of all the items. The items in general are getting redone as we switch to our own artwork and have more freedom to create whatever we want. As we do so, there are some oddities in the levels that need to be worked out. In jam plays little details like this are often overlooked, so we’ve been a bit lax on getting them cleaned up.
The Slimes are out looking for food in general to feed their clan. After the first combat they learn the enemies’ gear can also be used for a combat benefit. Currently, in game you only use the items for combat. That will be changing. We have a lot of ideas for how we want to expand on consuming food, and have been trying to find the right balance before we dig into adding the new systems, as it will be a big update. We’ve been fighting over the direction to take the game, between our earlier plan for quick and simple, and the much more expansive game it has been growing into. Only yesterday we decided to go the more expansive route and ignore the limits of keeping it faster paced. The quest log will be updated to show how much food the clan needs, and how much has been sent back. You will be picking items from your inventory to send back. The quantity and quality are intended to have an impact on story elements. As you progress in the story, sending items will have more importance. We’ve also been working on a hunger/fullness system to allow eating items outside of combat. This will partly come back to the story elements about them looking for food and eating the items as their food, in addition to the combat benefits. Ideally we want to have what they eat impact their stat growth/leveling up, but are still working out the details on it.
The ability cooldowns not resetting between combat was a design choice. We wanted them to feel powerful and useful, but not be the only thing used. If they reset and were available on turn 1, then we’d have to balance the fights based on the Slimes always using them, and it made everyone feel too powerful. We also debated having a cooldown that starts with combat, but many combats end quickly preventing their use, and it didn’t play well. This is still something we are working on. One of the ideas is that each Slime will have certain items that when they consume them, will reduce the remaining cooldown.
There is a bug with drag and drop in the current version. We recently added a long press to see item details feature for mobile. Unfortunately, it ended up interrupting the drag and drop. Our team has mostly switched to the right-click fast transfer in the bags, and did not properly test the drag and drop after adding the new long press logic. We try to have accessibility for multiple inputs and play styles, but it does make testing them all more time consuming, and easier to miss one. Drag and drop is a common way to move items, so we really messed up not testing this better. This bug has has been fixed for the next update.
Affinities are a percentage, with 100% being the average. When you are weak with an affinity, such as most living creatures being 50% with Death, then your ability to use that affinity is lower, reducing your attacks with it. Your defenses against it are also reduced, so you receive more damage from attacks with that affinity. When your affinity is above average, your attacks and defenses are increased. We need to work on a better tutorial and UI to show this in game.
Scrolls are limited early game, but will become more generally available later. Most healing items and abilities do not revive. Currently, the only thing we have coded to do revive is Helen’s upgraded heal ability, which you will get in a planned story event at level 10. Each of the Slimes also get a second ability at level 10. We will think on how best to make sure Tanko doesn’t feel less useful when not doing his ability.
Some of the settings are designed in a way that they can’t be adjusted during gameplay, so we can’t easily put the main settings in game. We have had other requests for this, so will be selectively adding some that may be most useful. As for saving, there is a save system in place, but currently disabled. It needs updating for the events and quests. We keep adding new features and want to get to a more stable point before revisiting the save system. When we added the events and disabled it, it felt like there wasn’t enough to worry about the lack. As the content grows, it is becoming more important, so will likely be worked on in the semi-near future.
We initially had the Focus Tooltips (item/action details) for keyboard enabled by default, but most jams comments said they played with mouse and keyboard and found them annoying, and very few jam players seemed to change any settings, so we changed the default. We need a better way to onboard people and set defaults for how they play. Perhaps the various Tooltip settings can be among those on the pause screen. Maybe we can add a dialog/popup asking if the player uses keyboard/joypad and would like the Focus Tooltips turned on.
We will take a look at the Silver Arrow. We went with silver items being water as we were setting up stats, but the art should reflect the affinities.
Thanks for the typo list, these have been updated in the dev version.
We had fun making the towns and trying to have them feel alive.
We try to fit our dragon into each game somewhere. There will be more dragon appearances later, beyond the dev messages.
Yes, the names reflect the classes.
After we added the target icons for the enemy actions, the lack of knowing who your healer was going to heal really stood out, and had to be fixed. Going forward we will be revisiting this ability. The faster paced gameplay of our original plan is why we went with auto targeting, but now may consider if there is a good way to allow a player selected heal target.
The enemy plans system was a common request in our early jams, and we agree that it is nice to have. We are thinking about having some enemies who don’t play fair later on… There are plans for more in the combat, but details are being worked out.
We’ve been doing the Godot Wild Jams, and they are big on accessibility. After our first jam with them we started creating a game template with a lot of core accessibility options, and then found that many of them are fairly easy to implement. Often, the settings that get added are things we used during testing and decided to include on the settings screen, rather than remove.
The bag exchange action was originally planned to allow you to manually swap items between your personal bag and belt (like the inventory), possibly with a limit such as only having access to the top 10 or 20 items in the bag. We ran out of time to implement it for the jam and were not going to have the item exchange at all. That early version also did not have an inventory screen, so you were relying completely on random luck for what you got, and the lack of an exchange was problematic. The random exchange was a last hour inspiration for how we could allow exchanging without needing to create the UI, that only made it in shortly before submissions closed. Afterward, we realized that it fit the faster paced flow the game had at the time. Back then there was a brief intro story, and that was it. The game was all about the combat loop. There was more of that, with a final boss fight at level 20, and your characters getting their additional abilities at level 10. With our changing plans, we may revisit this and allow the manual exchange, though likely with it still taking your turn… maybe once per turn a single item can be exchanged randomly for free.
For this game we are planning to stick with the automatic movement, mainly to reduce feature creep and need for more significant time world building. If we did free movement, it would require a lot of time for fleshing out the world and NPCs before we’d be satisfied My wife is a storyteller and her TTRPG worlds are very alive with everyone having a name and at least some backstory. Some day we may make our grand JRPG... We do plan to add more to the towns to give the player more to do, including a tavern for flavor text chats. As part of our recent change to allow more strategy elements, we plan to add an overworld map, and are debating on allowing the player some choices in the path to take, while still headed in the same general direction, and possibly always going to the same towns.
The original jam theme was “Consume”. When we saw it in the voting we had no ideas and were not fond of it. It took a fair bit of brainstorming before we came up with an idea, and that was originally just everyone on both sides could only use items. Then, while going through art, one of the kids asked if the Slimes could be our party… and that lead to the idea of them eating the items, and the enemies could be humans with normal equipment. We are very happy with how the game has progressed, especially from a theme we initially did not like!
Selling and sending items back are part of the next major update.
We are glad you enjoyed! Thank you again for such wonderful feedback! I’ve got plenty of notes from this.
Thanks for sharing all that behind-the-scenes info, it was a super interesting read (and your reasoning makes a lot of sense)!! I'm so glad my feedback could be helpful! Looking forward to the next releases even more now that I know what's in store. 🙂
It was a really fun game. I generally tend to like party-based RPGs with turn-based combat, so right away it was something I was eager to play.
I also really enjoyed the idea that you play as a slime - a creature that in many games is usually the most basic enemy. Turning slimes into the protagonists while fighting human enemies like warriors and archers, who are typically player characters, is an interesting role reversal.
I think the way the characters move themselves from battle to battle on their own, with the player only controlling them during combat, feels more suited for a mobile game than a desktop one. I also think that any break from this scheme would instantly make the game a lot more interesting. For example having special designated places for campfires sometimes between battles where the player could take a break, use healing items, or interact with the party in some other ways. Similarly, instead of automatically doing things for the player in towns, it would be nice to be able to choose whether to go to the inn, visit some kind of a shop, or immediately leave the town.
In some places, I felt there was a bit of information overload, especially at the beginning when you’re still learning the game. Even the pause menu partially has this problem. Although, knowing all the controls is nice, when I first opened the pause menu I didn’t know what I was looking at or what I was supposed to do or what I could even do in it, there was just too much information at once. Also, I’d like to be able to change settings directly from the pause menu instead of having to exit the game to the main menu to do that.
Another thing that might slightly suffer from the information overload is the tutorial. Overall, I didn’t think it was that bad, and I liked the idea of having a trainer explain the mechanics, but it could use a small refinement. Also, even though affinities are mentioned in the tutorial, the information about them didn’t stick in my mind and I almost forgot about them the moment I started playing. I ended up finishing the game without paying much attention to both the affinities and the kind of items I gave to each party member. I just threw all the items I got after a fight to the inventory of the slime that had the least amount of them. Maybe showing the effect of the affinities in some way actually during battle, through some animations or visual feedback, would be helpful.
Similarly, even though I knew the way Tanko’s Guardian ability was supposed to work, I didn’t really use it after the tutorial, because I wasn’t sure which party member Tanko would be guarding. Since the tutorial only had two characters, there it was pretty straight forward, but I didn’t know how it was going to scale to four characters. The Guardian ability is most useful in situations of danger when you might lose a character, and since I didn’t know how it worked, I just didn’t want to risk it and simply used defending and healing. That’s a shame, because I think it’s a really cool ability.
The most important thing - combat - was quite intuitive and fun. Although, the screen you’re on after winning could be made a bit less dense. Labeling the big boxes/containers on this screen would also help a lot. The first time I saw this screen, I was a bit lost and didn’t know what each thing was. I clicked the question mark button, but again there was just too much information, and I didn’t want to read all of that (even though I’m usually the type of player that doesn’t skip anything and reads everything), so I decided I will figure it out on my own. I think many of these systems could be taught more diegetically, rather than through large blocks of text (you might want to look up “diegetic tutorials” and watch “Half-Life 2’s Invisible Tutorial” by GMTK).
I really liked being able to see what enemies are going to do, since it adds another strategic layer to the combat, and unlike in other games, it actually gives some utility to the defend option. However, later in the game it might be interesting to introduce some mechanic that would increase the difficulty and counterweight this system. Maybe some additional abilities for the enemies?
I also really enjoyed the first boss battle. It was the first (and only) time I died, and it forced me to actually start paying attention to what I was doing.
As a small side note: the description of the blue berries (“A berry that enhances your spit”) made me think that using it would enhance the spit attack on the next turn. It also took me a bit of time to get that the slimes don’t actually “use” items, but eat them in order to attack.
Overall, it was a fun game with a lot of potential. I’m looking forward to playing it again when you release future updates.
Thanks for playing and such detailed feedback!
This game has grown since our original plan, but was intended to simplify certain things and be a bit faster paced than a typical RPG. The linear auto-movement was one of the choices for this, rather than free exploring. We are releasing this on mobile as well as desktop, so everything is designed to work on both, which can sometimes limit our options, or require creative solutions. There are several features yet to be added that will give the player more to do. Towns are planned to get more interactive components. Some will be tied to events, but we also want to add shops, taverns for additional flavor text and quests, and the inn being optional, possibly with a cost. You will also interact with the Traders to decide how much and what loot goes back to your clan, rather than just saying things are sent back. We also have an idea we want to implement that we expect will take a lot, but would add a lot. You will be able to use items out of combat on the inventory screen, but will have a hunger/fullness stat that limits how much you can eat. Actions in combat, and walking, will use up energy, reducing fullness, and allowing you to eat more. This system is tied to consuming items having additional effects, such as boosting stats, so we don't want players to be able to just eat a bunch between combat and being over-powered for the next fight. There are a lot of details to finish working out for this, but we do want there to be more for the player to do between the fights.
We have heard others comment on there being too much info at once. We are working on an upgraded tutorial based on popups next to each area with basic details, instead of the large amounts of text at once. There will also be a tutorial for the inventory (post combat) screen. We also plan to add some tips into the flavor text, such as when you get the first few berry bushes it will mention who is best suited to that berry's affinity. We will see about rewording the tutorial text on the Guardian ability. It guards all other party members from all single target attacks for the turn (enemies will change their targets to Tanko when it is used). The upgraded version, which you get at town 10 (not in the current demo) protects everyone else from all attacks, including group targeting spells.
We will correct the berry descriptions. The text "A berry that enhances your spit" was our original placeholder text and had been updated, but must have been reverted at some point.
Currently the settings are not accessible after starting as some of them are only read at the start. We need to rework things a bit before we can offer them in-game.
The icons showing the enemy actions and targets were requested in earlier jams, and sounded like a good idea. They can be disabled in the settings for a different play style. We do plan to have some enemies later that can conceal or deceive with the icons. There is a final boss for the game (at level 20), which was in our earlier versions before we started adding story. The boss does have a couple extra abilities, and we will be expanding that system to add more abilities to other enemies. The original jam theme was "Consume", and we had planned the game to be all characters on both sides just using items. Then one of the kids asked if the players could be Slimes, and we changed it to them eating the items, and freed the enemies to have normal attacks and other abilities. We just haven't implemented many yet, party due to the low level enemies not having need for them.
Thanks again for the great feedback!