My colleagues have summarized the qualities of the submitted game exceptionally well, and I can only agree with their statement that Elektrownia is a well thought-out concept with solid execution, original artistic style and captivating gameplay. I also appreciate the playful approach to the art and content!
As I have mentioned in the personal conversation after the jam, I see some room for improvements in the area of UI/UX, namely:
Particular skills of the three workers could be made more obvious. It is hard to catch up with long texts in the intro; possibly a summary (e.g. "engineer", "muscle", "technician") in the dossiers might help. Icons in the game are informative and readable.
It took me a while to learn that I can "grab" the task icon from the whole employee card - at first, I tried to be very precise and kept running out of time. :)
While most of the power plant catastrophes are localized to fairly small areas which require player to act quickly and drag swiftly, there are several "full screen" ones. I was wondering whether these items are meant to be easier as player only needs to drop the job icon anywhere on the screen, or whether it's meant to be smaller as the rest of the jobs.
While learning whom to send is part of the challenge, it would be great if nature of some issues would be slightly more obvious. Along with pretty tell-tale issues like raging bull, there are mysterious smokes and embers - in these cases, I tried to assume the nature of the issue from the background (computer - send geek, machinery - send technician). I understand the balancing might be delicate, as telling players too much may turn certain mystery to a brainless whack-a-mole.
None of these minor items prevents player from getting into this game and bathe in radiation and frustration as they attempt to survive the last 3 minutes of the shift. :)
Thank you for your unwavering effort and for the amazing submission driven by exceptionally strong art direction.
I do agree with your points. Thank you, Ivan, for the feedback! And yes the full screen problems are meant to be easier to target but they are covering smaller problems underneath it so the problems like power outage or fallen AC covering the view need to be resolved first. We thought the visual shift might enrich the gameplay with a little bit more chaos and stressful decision making :D.
Once again, I would like to greet the whole team, thank them for an unforgettable weekend and fantastic cooperation.
The theme of the Game Jam "What could possibly go wrong?", which is so typical for game development, was captured brilliantly by the team, very creatively and entertainingly at the same time. Moreover, it was originally connected to the anniversary of the unfortunate event in Chernobyl, which was exactly 40 years ago today.
The game mechanism was basically very simple, yet entertaining, and although the game was tuned to a certain exaggerated crazy style, it makes sense and is therefore easy to understand. Although due to the limited number of characters and events, it offered only very limited replayability. It was great that the basic idea was managed to be continuously maintained and gradually developed without any major changes or concessions.
The technical implementation was chosen appropriately and with regard to the possibilities of a single programmer team, so that it was possible to successfully complete the project in the form of a complete game. The chosen 2D view and static camera support a faster pace of the game and control precision.
The entire four graphics managed to visually harmonize and convey the untidy appearance and situation of the entire power plant into a uniform retro style with a limited color palette, dithering and a distinct paper-cutout outline for clear legibility of individual game elements. Thanks to this, the entire environment is readable and easy to control.
The presentation of the project was comprehensive and certainly attracted attention with its non-conformity and openness. However, it is always important to find the right ratio of gaining attention and pass on factual information that the presentation should convey in a clear way.
I would like to emphasize, is the unquestionable completeness of the entire game, which, in addition to functional basic mechanics and effects, also contains how to play section, intro and outro videos, subtitles or catchy background music. Good job for a 42hrs time limit.
I congratulate the entire team on a finished game, which definitely caught an attention. I believe that the experience gained is invaluable for the team and, taking it into account, we will expect more courageous gaming projects from them in the future.
Interesting take on important theme nicely timed on commemoration of similar event.
Quick to understand, nice recreational play that doesnt require much thinking and I can just chill.
The downsides I see is that there is not much difference if I play it again, after I finish it once, and the job descriptions being in the cutscene and not be able to pause it mean I sometimes cant read them, so I would focus on blind tests with people, seeing where they struggle or what they dont understand on their first playthrough. Audio part is nice as music tempo is fitting the oncoming catastrophe.
Thank you so much for the feedback! We did consider some features like different character options and also a longer cutscene (or a clickable slideshow) that could help with some of these points, but ultimately it came down to the time constraints. I'm also glad you like the audio, we all heard it and immediately thought it was perfect.
Comments
My colleagues have summarized the qualities of the submitted game exceptionally well, and I can only agree with their statement that Elektrownia is a well thought-out concept with solid execution, original artistic style and captivating gameplay. I also appreciate the playful approach to the art and content!
As I have mentioned in the personal conversation after the jam, I see some room for improvements in the area of UI/UX, namely:
None of these minor items prevents player from getting into this game and bathe in radiation and frustration as they attempt to survive the last 3 minutes of the shift. :)
Thank you for your unwavering effort and for the amazing submission driven by exceptionally strong art direction.
I do agree with your points. Thank you, Ivan, for the feedback! And yes the full screen problems are meant to be easier to target but they are covering smaller problems underneath it so the problems like power outage or fallen AC covering the view need to be resolved first. We thought the visual shift might enrich the gameplay with a little bit more chaos and stressful decision making :D.
Once again, I would like to greet the whole team, thank them for an unforgettable weekend and fantastic cooperation.
The theme of the Game Jam "What could possibly go wrong?", which is so typical for game development, was captured brilliantly by the team, very creatively and entertainingly at the same time. Moreover, it was originally connected to the anniversary of the unfortunate event in Chernobyl, which was exactly 40 years ago today.
The game mechanism was basically very simple, yet entertaining, and although the game was tuned to a certain exaggerated crazy style, it makes sense and is therefore easy to understand. Although due to the limited number of characters and events, it offered only very limited replayability. It was great that the basic idea was managed to be continuously maintained and gradually developed without any major changes or concessions.
The technical implementation was chosen appropriately and with regard to the possibilities of a single programmer team, so that it was possible to successfully complete the project in the form of a complete game. The chosen 2D view and static camera support a faster pace of the game and control precision.
The entire four graphics managed to visually harmonize and convey the untidy appearance and situation of the entire power plant into a uniform retro style with a limited color palette, dithering and a distinct paper-cutout outline for clear legibility of individual game elements. Thanks to this, the entire environment is readable and easy to control.
The presentation of the project was comprehensive and certainly attracted attention with its non-conformity and openness. However, it is always important to find the right ratio of gaining attention and pass on factual information that the presentation should convey in a clear way.
I would like to emphasize, is the unquestionable completeness of the entire game, which, in addition to functional basic mechanics and effects, also contains how to play section, intro and outro videos, subtitles or catchy background music. Good job for a 42hrs time limit.
I congratulate the entire team on a finished game, which definitely caught an attention. I believe that the experience gained is invaluable for the team and, taking it into account, we will expect more courageous gaming projects from them in the future.
Interesting take on important theme nicely timed on commemoration of similar event.
Quick to understand, nice recreational play that doesnt require much thinking and I can just chill.
The downsides I see is that there is not much difference if I play it again, after I finish it once, and the job descriptions being in the cutscene and not be able to pause it mean I sometimes cant read them, so I would focus on blind tests with people, seeing where they struggle or what they dont understand on their first playthrough.
Audio part is nice as music tempo is fitting the oncoming catastrophe.
Thank you so much for the feedback! We did consider some features like different character options and also a longer cutscene (or a clickable slideshow) that could help with some of these points, but ultimately it came down to the time constraints. I'm also glad you like the audio, we all heard it and immediately thought it was perfect.