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The Hunt: A Job-Hunt Survival Sim's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Impact and Engagement | #13 | n/a | n/a |
| Technical Execution and Completion | #15 | n/a | n/a |
| Playability and Fun Factor | #16 | n/a | n/a |
| Theme Integration | #17 | n/a | n/a |
| Innovation and Creativity | #36 | n/a | n/a |
| Community Favorite | #41 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Great job, really liked the character art, though the red in his hair looks like blood, wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing as it didn't say progress on updating CV and applying for jobs
Had very hard time understanding what action corresponds to which stats! looked fun but not able to get into the game rhythm.
The opening sequence was fantastic! I’m a huge fan of the music that set a great mood for the game. It was fun to simulate a day in the life of Morgan, though it wasn’t clear all the time why certain actions were grayed out. I never had the option to meditate or yoga which the dude really needed lol Got a favorable ending, though! Good work!
I love this! It seems punishingly difficult, the theme is on point and I think it will resonate with a lot of people right now. I reached a 'happy' ending with a bank job, but not sure if that would be my ideal outcome haha.
It was hard to keep the stats high, especially energy. It was easy to get soft locked out of some options - I wasn't able to practise for interviews or do yoga after the first day or so. It wasn't clear which options affected which stats. Eating food kept decreasing energy, which seemed counterintuitive.
The routine of self care, food and job hunting was quite compelling. Good overall game design!
The intro music was absolute fire, will provide more details soon, rest of the game looks great!
HELLO I am so sorry if i'm not allowed to post a picture here but this game.... gives you the ability to doom scroll
Made me pause for a second because I thought it was really amusing but man--- this game kinda hits, like being in that 'state'. I totally felt like a slug moving around hyperfixating on the bar at the left side. I LOVE this game= i think it's the overall feel plus I really really liked the cutscene from the start.
Good game defo!
Nice Management Sim!
For someone who recently lived like this, this is quite accurate. Wish anyone going through this right now and is having a tough time the best of luck, it does get better. You will be happier and healthier in the new opportunities that will come your way. Just try not to burn the candle from both ends!
Thank you for playing, and for your kind words.
Basslines were fire and went hard. I had a hard time understanding the balance between energy, and other stats and how each thing effected the objective of the game. Art was very cute and endearing. Music had some stutters when looping. I really wanted to do yoga and meditate and I didn't understand why I couldn't. Unironically, the first things I did in the game was doom scroll and binge videos games which cooked me and probably made the game way longer than it needed to be. Good job yall :)
(I'm streaming my fist impressions and will upload videos and link here once I do)
I'm glad you enjoyed the basslines and the art! A tutorial/more hints to the player about cost/benefits for activities and giving the player a little more of a sense of progress towards objectives are high on our list for future improvements (if we get to work on it in the future). Thanks for the note about the stutters in the music, we'll have to look into smoothing that out, too.
Lack of energy should be the only thing that can lock you out of yoga/meditation (and meditation only needs a very small amount). This is clearly bugged right now, since most people who have played mentioned it. It didn't come up in the limited amount of testing we were able to do before we hit the deadline.
I really enjoyed that. It felt like a much more organized/cohesive version of our game, lol. I was able to get Morgan a job and the interview was very funny. The art style was cool too.
Though, I still don't know how to get rid of a lot of the status effects and it felt like there wasn't a way to manage burnout really at all, and I'm not really sure what the effect was when it reached 100%. I got achey on day 2 and just had to live with that the whole time. Then I got overloaded on like day 4 and also had no idea what to do about that. It feels like at some point it just became "stand by the fridge and drink water" sim because I'd run out of energy before noon. :)
I just wanted to meditate man. How do I unlock meditation. I could do 2 of the 3 on the 1st day, but then never again after that.
Great entry! I'd totally play more of this if more development happens.
I'm glad you enjoyed it despite all its flaws! Congrats on getting the job, too.
Yoga (should) resolve the achey status, but that sounds like it may have bugged on you. Going on a walk was also designed to resolve that status, but we weren't able to get that working properly for some reason. I'm not sure why you got locked out of meditation-- there was nothing required to unlock that, unless you were totally out of energy. Meditation, sleep, eating a meal (as opposed to snacks), and playing video games were the main ways to combat burnout. There was also a planned 'phone a friend' dialogue opportunity that would take a big chunk out of burnout once every few days that we wrote, but we ran out of time to implement it.
A tutorial/more hints to the player about the costs and benefits of various activities is high on our list of things to tackle in the future (and clearly a lot more QA/bugfixing).
My name is Morgan.
I'm about to be evicted, but life was manageable. I spend my days drinking water, eating snacks, brushing my teeth, and applying to jobs. A bit bland, but okay.
That is, until one day, I accidentally touched my phone while trying to sleep. All came crashing down. My sanity was lost. Nothing mattered anymore. I can play my favorite games for days on end and drink all the water I want. Meditation wasn't appealing anymore. I can't even bear to look at my yoga mat.
Lesson of the story: do not. I repeat. DO NOT DOOM SCROLL. IT WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE.
Thank you for this entertaining review! If we are able to develop further after the voting period ends, we will certainly look at adding more flavor and balancing the water and doom scrolling better. We did not leave ourselves enough time to do QA and adjust the code before we hit the deadline-- sorry your playthrough suffered so much from one little doomscroll.
This game hit the theme super strong. I definitely felt the conflict of what I wanted to do and what I should do, and often felt like I couldn't do what I should do. Love it!
The game did feel a bit claustrophobic. There was definitely a feeling of "I won! I got a job. Oh... wait." Felt real close to home, maybe even a bit too much so T_T If you decide to work on it more, even a little cutscene for the "walk" (maybe where you see some grass) would help humanize the experience a bit.
I wish drinking water were so incredibly OP in real life lol
We definitely had a cutscene for walking outside and sitting on a park bench. Just didn't have time to work it in there during the jam. There is even another job interview that we wrote but didn't have time to implement, and some other dialogue opportunities. Likewise, we didn't have time to adjust the code after getting most of the activities implemented, so things like the water being OP and doom scrolling being SO devastating are things we want to balance better. I'm glad the theme came through strongly despite the things that got left on the cutting room floor.
A month sounds like so much time, but we realized it was a lot less than we thought around our jobs and daily lives. Hopefully we will find the time to flesh it out a bit more, after the game jam voting period ends. Thank you for checking our game out!
I enjoyed this playthrough! I loved the intro scene art, the overall aesthetic with the pixel art, the music, and the constant reminder that I need to keep making progress. I liked the loop of deciding how I should prioritize my time
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Interesting game loop I just didn't know if I was making progress on the goal, managing the statuses didn't really make sense.
Thanks for playing! Yeahh, its still a bit unclear, but the main goal is to update the resume, apply for jobs, and get through interviews while trying to survive by balancing the stats. Maybe in a future version there can be a more clear progression. Thanks for the feedback though!