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Yak Shaving Space Delivery's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #652 | 3.108 | 3.108 |
| Gameplay | #868 | 2.824 | 2.824 |
| Visuals | #940 | 3.054 | 3.054 |
| Theme | #973 | 2.784 | 2.784 |
| Overall | #998 | 2.813 | 2.813 |
| Enjoyment | #1123 | 2.689 | 2.689 |
| Audio | #1171 | 2.419 | 2.419 |
Ranked from 74 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
When working on a task with a clear goal often I get distracted with "side quests" falling into a "Yak Shaving" situation. In the game, the player ends up performing a lot of side quests because nothing can go wrong, but most of the things do. The Gravity Generator breaks, the Ship gets annoyed by the amount of waste, and so on. The goal of the game is to still deliver all the yaks / cargo in the shortest amount possible, though it takes time to make it work.
The more you travel through space, the more things go wrong in the spaceship, delaying your delivery.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
Some 3D Models, Some sounds, and shaders. I have credited the source and double-checked the licenses. None of the content is AI generated.
How many people worked on the game?1
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Comments
This is a cute concept. I can imagine this spinning out into a great Red Dwarf or Hitchicker's Guide style narrative with some more content and polish. I found the controls a little uncomfortable. I think I would have preferred if the character pointed in the direction they walked or towards the mouse rather than having an explicit rotation control.
Yeah, I agree with the controls! I am thinking of changing these things in the future!
Out of curiosity, how many trips did you end up doing in space? :)
I think I stopped during the third or fourth.
Pretty good for a 1 person team, it was a neat space game. Enjoyed it!
Thank you! Did you manage to go to space a few times? :)
My yak got stucked in the shio turbine hahaha. Nice game.
Oh no! :D I am sorry! I’ll try to replicate the issue! Thx for letting me know!
Just finished the game:
Finally, I didn't try it, but is it possible to go farther than the landing zone? Or is there an invisible wall?
Overall, nice entry. A bit of polish could help, but it's still respectable for a game jam, especially for a one-man team
Hey! Thx for the feedback! I will consider all these points next time!
No, the landing zone is the first area, the game really starts after leaving for space and every time you fly in space, more chaos/tasks appears. Did you manage to lift off?
Yes sorry, my phrasing could be confusing. I did lift off and also finished the game. What I meant was: once the ship has landed somewhere, could the player walk farther than the structures at the planet's landing spot? Or was there an invisible wall preventing him from going too far from the ship? Since I didn't try walking too far, I was just curious
Hey, I just finished your game:
Good points:
👉 The menu is awesome ! I love the background image, the button UI is sleek, and the animations are nice.
👉 For the game itself, I really like the camera angle, and the astronaut model is well designed. The quest is a bit repetitive, but it fits the theme perfectly. No bugs found, everything runs smoothly.
Bad points:
👉 Maybe adding some more effects could be nice, since you chose not to include music (maybe because space is really quiet). The drop system is cool, but it feels a little strange. The art is great, though the overall feel of the game is a bit odd maybe that was intentional ?
That's it for my review ! If you want to check out and rate my game, the link is in the description. 🙃
I will check your game for sure! Did you manage to go to space multiple times? What was your score? :D
Pretty decent for being your first published game! I also have been at it for about 2 years myself. I liked the funny dialogue and picking up cows with telekinesis lol Good job!
Thank you! :) Did you manage to burn things in the incinerator? after a few trips to space?
I honestly only delivered one cow/yak thing. I'm trying to play a lot of games on the jam and just going for general first impressions when playing them. But what I did see was pretty good. :)
Ahah, thank you! I shoot aliens in yours too :D The idea is that ~Nothing~ everything goes wrong the more you travel through space, and there is a time limit. I am a little sad that this loop takes longer and people are dropping before experiencing the theme. That said, it is all on me on learning to shorten the loop.
So i come from your topic for an honest feedback. First off, the game has really nice visuals and really nice sfx. It fits perfectly the space and the emptiness. The game presents really well the theme of "Nothing can go wrong" because literally, nothing goes wrong in the game you are just an astronaut delivering cows. I found the controls kinda hard for no apparently reason. I think it should be better if i could move the camera with my mouse. It would be better to travel from planet to planet instead of going first to space. You could put the tasks and the casualties in between the trips. I found really furstrating that i had to turn and look the fuel in order to pick it up i think you should be able to pick it up just by getting close and clicking it despite if you look at it. To be honest it was really repetititve and it would be nice if you added some more content. Overall enjoyable but repetitve! I hope you find my review helpful! I found the dialogues really funny and i liked that the robot was bored to do anything.
Yes, there are a few casualties, the more you travel :) “Nothing can go wrong” in the planets, but in space everything goes south!
I agree that the pace is too slow, I should have thought about the format being more quick reviews rather than longer-time playing. I love your feedback, as I am learning to focus more on engaging the player in the first few seconds, rather than later! Maybe I should have introduced some mechanics right away :O
Thank you, this is very usefu!
Here is everything I could find as a list.
Good:
Need improvement:
Oh the first time I read that the camera is good! :D
I made myself the austronaut sounds… I mean, I used my yeti microphone that I had stashed for those days when I was streaming and made the “tsss” sound and just cropped it, same with the others. So I totally understand :P
I made most of the assets with Kenny’s Forge: I bought the astronaut instead! I could not make a good 3D model and I still need to learn how to do it in Blender. I will give a stab at it one day, or pay a proper artist to do it!
Thank you for the review :D
With the astronaut sounds, you can use adobe ai voice booster or whatever they call it. I use it for my videos and it makes your voice sound so much better. And it is an astronaut, so you could have added some filter on with audacity to let in only the middle sound (basically meaning it will sound like a radio, or astronaut)
Oh we can not use AI for this jam :D I would still prefer to do it properly, pay somebody, or make them myself with some tools. I’ll learn with Audacity next time :)
I like the game. But, I feel like the difference between the astronaut and the other sprites is kind of annoying, For a game to look neat, you should use everything from the same pack, or make your own.(I know there probably wasn't an astronaut in the same pack you got the yack from, so that would probably make sense for that). Also, I feel like some background music would make this game feel less empty. Also, I thought it was weird that I could walk through the fence.
Anyway, it was still enjoyable.
Thank you! Did you manage to go through space? Did you repair the gravity generator? ehhe
I didn't finish the entire thing, but I got three yacks delivered(so yes, I did those things)
I agree with the others that the pacing is off. I feel like you need to grab the player's attention right away, but here it's first a 10 page tutorial, then a pickup mission, which is somewhat daunting for new players to get into.
Other than that I think it's amazing you could pull all this off in a week.
Thank you! I appreciate, learning a lot :)
Looks like my comment wasn't uploaded. But still I can write it again. For a one week jam this game feels Massive! So many options, so many different tasks and mechanics. I liked it, but It could be even better with some small fixes. It would feel better if the characters sprite would change direction. Also some sounds was a bit annoying, but maybe that is just for me. Maybe some background music could add some more atmosphere for the game. Overall this is a big one! Well done!
Thank you! Yeah, I tried to give a sense like old games (that is the excuse 🤪 ), when I rotate the character it looked even weird. If I have had more time I would do more things, mostly for prioritizing fixes and improving on them… though probably I would say the same thing if it was 14 days long 😅
Thank you for the rate/feedback, I’ll do the same for your game!
It can be very challenging to catch the retro game vibe. I haven't tried that approach yet, but would loved to. Still you did amazing job!
Nice and unique idea! I love the visual you implemented into the game!
I get the idea and concept of the game meant to have a chaotic nature into it, but I can't help but feel like the gameplay is kinda flat in term of tempo and pacing, my suggestion is to put a time limit or some kind of "emergency situation" scenario into rearranging stuff in the plane to create a sense of urgency into the gameplay
The control itself is actually intuitive, but I'd love to rotate my camera using my mouse, for example by right-click hold and drag it (just my personal thoughts :))
Great job btw, really unique concept!
Yeah! I have been reading some more ideas to avoid the ship to explode, ahah! I was thinking about an asteroid impact in X minutes, unless you do these tasks, :D I will try to expand on the concept after that.
Thank you for the feedback, much appreciated :)
Nice premise! I like that you transition between the different zones seamlessly, it makes the world feel real. There is also something satisfying about having the yaks and fuel be tangible objects you carry around manually, helps with immersion. Have you tried a first person or over-the-shoulder camera? I'd be curious what that would feel like.
I think the controls can be improved, both for movement and interacting with objects, it's a bit finicky at the moment.
I like the idea of having an AI to keep you company, but I didn't enjoy this one. It felt like a human to me that is also kind of a dick.
But overall some great initial stuff here, keep at it!
Yeah, the Procrastinator 9000 is clearly a pain in the butt that does not want to do stuff. Could be improved! (and typos/grammar 😅 )
I tried at the beginning first person, but I wanted to experiment with the orthogonal camera and 3D, that I have never done before. I was trying to get some old-school games, but I feel a 1st person or over the shoulder camera as you suggest would make an experience more immersive.
Thank you for the feedback!
I clicked on this entry purely from curiosity about the name, hah 🐮
I liked the quickly increasing chaos! It really fit the theme. In terms of other feedback:
Great submission for one week!
The text could be improved. I had to switch dialog add-on from Dialogic to Dialogue Manager because of a memory leak and that set me back a bit (I spent something like half a day just on that, but the results are more stable). Next time I will improve it for sure!
I was planning to add effects, like floating asteroids, I think I still have one mesh instance hidden from sight that would have been used for them, but then I had other priorities and squeezed it out :O Next round of updates after the jam, I’ll improve on it!
I totally get you, our game was dialogue intensive and it's really tricky to wrangle those kinds of systems on top of other mechanics. I spent like a full day on it 🤣
I think the game has potential, the camera controls are quirky but I like them!
The game has a lot of elements, that are very cool for the jam. I see the theme in the chaos of the ship when the simple task is only complete the delivery. Maybe the game loop could be improved, as well as for the controls.
Good entry for this jam, well done!
Thank you for the review! I appreciate, did you manage to go to space multiple times? Did you reach the end game? :)
Yep, I delivered 6 yaks (Thats is funny to say ahah)
Idea/concept are good. The controls were difficult to understand (personnal feeling) : for example, to refuel the engine, the camera HAVE TO BE on the right angle, otherwise the click do not trigger anything.
Good point! I made the collision boxes wide and long but probably not wide enough. I think switching the camera would improve, right?
Thank you for the feedback, I’ve added your game to my list for reviews too.
Really cool game! Finished it and had a lot of fun.
At start I didn't like the controls, but they grow on me and now I love them. The only thing that I suggest changing about them is making objects closer to the player, because a lot of times I wanted to put objects in boxes and stuff, but it was hard for me to aim exactly right.
The narration and the challenges are repetitive fmo. I know you are adding a new challenge for each new travel, but I think you need to give only the new challenge and not the old ones.
The graphics are nice as well.
Keep working on it, it's an impressive game for just one week, can't wait to see what you achieve with more tim!
Thank you!
My initial idea is to have 2-3 random “Yak Shaving” kind of tasks out of a bigger pool, but sadly I had little time to implement all the game mechanics that I wanted, If I had more time for sure I would have improved on that :)
Intriguing game for sure! I like the overall vibe, and I have added it to my collection. Brackeys Game Jam 2025.1 My Pick
Thank you! :D What do you think about it? Did you manage to see the chaos in space?
That sounds intriguing! Not yet, but I’ll give it a retry soon!
You asked for deeper feedback, so I'll just be brutal with every improvement I can think of.
-There were misspellings of words
-Speech bubble filling with text should probably make a noise, anything from animal crossings noises to full on voice acting.
-Art style is rough and inconsistent. Not really much to say, I'm sure you already know it isn't up there with the greatest looking games of all time, but that does mean it technically will always have room for improvement until it gets there.
-Should probably have a prompt telling you how to advance speech bubbles.
-May be on my end, but audio was a little weird. There could also be more and better sound effects.
-Too much dialog to start the game, I want to play, not just read.
-Dialog annoyingly keeps popping up and stopping movement.
-Dialog is too repetitive.
-Gameplay felt like chores and wasn't engaging. I was dreading do all the chores again at one point.
-Rapidly skipping dialog resulted in me accidently clicking things I didn't mean to. (annoying)
-When you leave the console, you cannot reenter it. You have to leave its proximity and then re-approach to use it again. (annoying)
-Controls were weird using Q and E. Not easy or intuitive, but maybe it's just because I've never played a game with that control scheme.
-Interacting with objects was annoying with the range and angle you had to have to interact. If it was easier it might ruin the challenge, but I think that there must be a more fun way to make it challenging than the control scheme found here.
-There just wasn't much in the game, I didn't really try to explore either planet though. There's just a couple buildings and the ship from what I saw. It would be better to have more details and structures to flesh out the world.
I'm hoping this feedback helps.
My time was around 1330 by the way.
This feedback is good! What I needed :) I wish I had more time to go back and fix these things ahah Thank you!
Many people already pointed out good sides, so I'll just tell you bad sides that I saw :)
Firstly, pick up mechanic is kinda confusing (for example, it took me some to realize I need to open an engine first and then drop fuel)
Secondly, I think that visuals could be better, I know that 7 days aren't much, but that's just something I wanted to point out.
And I think that's all I really wanted t say :)
I hope you'll like my game!
Thank you, I appreciate! I agree, there is always something to improve, even if the deadline had been 14 days: it is a Yak Shaving / rabbit hole :)