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A jam submission

PopOut Rally!View game page

Save your neighbourhood from BigRealty
Submitted by AbstractLaser — 21 hours, 29 seconds before the deadline
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PopOut Rally!'s itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Recent Work/Making Progress#15.0005.000

Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Improvement Summary
- More Crowd Commands that are unlocked with better Education, Safety, or Health Rating.
- Implemented vehicles. Player will change into car when moving pass Parking Lot. Player will change into bus when moving pass a Bus Terminal or a Bus Stop

Devlog
https://abstractlaser.itch.io/project-rally/devlog/1505389/project-rally-v0025-command-crowds-2026-april-update

Requested Feedback
More feedback on campaign day gameplay where you gather crowd and issue commands would be appreciated.
Also, how many days have elapsed before you win or lose the game?

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Comments

Jam HostSubmitted(+1)

I liked how spaces you could interact with lit up slightly when you stop by them. It's particularly helpful when there are spaces on either side of the road you can interact with. I enjoyed the little animations when you passed by certain buildings. It was a nice little touch. The buses and cars were also a really nice addition. It encouraged me to plan out my walking path more, as well as where I wanted to put the bus stops and parking lots.

On my first play, I could rally an empty space and it returned null. I had gone through two campaign days before I acknowledged that I could rally an empty space. The space I rallied on was a completely unused space. It does seem to be time based, as it didn't pop up until after the second campaign day on my second playthrough when I was actively watching for it. On my second playthrough, I reclaimed a space during the second campaign day and built a new building on it which I didn't do on my first playthrough.

Sometimes it seemed like you could rally house on campaign day, other times it seemed like you couldn't. I think it might have to do with whether or not a family has moved in, but I'm not 100% sure.

I put a police station in the spot with only one road behind a gateway, and the police car stayed stuck behind the gate. I had to create a second police station to have the police deal with robbers.

I find the ratings to still be a little confusing. I understand the basic idea behind it, build certain buildings to increase different rating which lets you build new buildings. But I'm still not sure if I'm fully grasping how it works.

I clicked on the support bar after losing, and it popped up the info behind the "You Lose" screen. After that, clicking on "Main Menu" didn't bring me back to the menu. I could click on the "X" on the pop-up info and it would close, but I still couldn't return to the menu clicking on the "Main Menu" button.

On my second playthrough, I made it to the point where there was a building in every spot. I wasn't really sure what to do while waiting for the next campaign day. I made sure to rally all the buildings that I could, but then it felt I just needed to wait around until time passed.

I brought a large crowd to BigRealty's HQ but didn't beat them. I didn't get rid of all their other builds at that point, so I'm not sure if that was the reason. Reclaiming their buildings isn't super clear, and may need more mention in the tutorial. After having reclaiming all their buildings, and bringing a crowd of over 100, I still wasn't able to beat them. Here's a screenshot for what my game looked like on that campaign day.


Overall, I think the game is moving in the right direction. Even with things I wasn't as sure of, I still found the game to be fun to play.

Developer(+1)

Hi!

Thank you for your wonderful feedback and also the bugs that you reported, I will be sure to fix them in the next build.
You're correct that you can only rally residentials when at least a family has moved in. I will make it more obvious next time.

The reclaiming building mechanic wasn't communicated enough this time around and need to be updated. I apologize that the "ratings and points" system is also creating confusion, as I am still figuring how to implement a proper progression to the buildings. You're correct that the idea is to build some buildings to increase some points so that you can build other buildings. In this build, I intended it as a way of progression, but it was not a good solution. I will play around these for a while, and right now I am leaning toward discarding the rating point system altogether and only use the rating system to unlocking crowd commands. For progression, I will only make building available as you build the preliminary buildings. Will see how things play out.

It was a rare thing that I see a full map with all buildings established even when I play it myself, so it makes me so happy seeing your screenshot! :D

I am glad you found the game fun to play even in this buggy state, and I truly appreciate the time you put into playing it and writing these encouraging words.

Thank you! 

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

My first run i didnt understand anything that was going on xd (lose in second rally event)... but the second one was way better. the game is really good honestly, i played it for like 45 min.

Idont have much feedback to give... I think it just needs more polish and polish until it becomes a real gem.

Developer

Thank you for taking your time to play the game!

At this stage, I'm still exploring/refining the core gameplay and expanding buildings to have more varieties. 
I will try to implement somepolish here and there as time go on.

Submitted(+1)

really nice game there. was a day and night mode. that is actually good. there are amazing mechanics that are amazing. and on top of that there are cars which make the game feel alive. there is a simple tutorial for new players. but the controls is something you can get used to. the simple graphics fit very well with the genre. but in the end its a must have.

Developer

Thank you for your nice comments!

Although the game is still in very crude shape, I appreciate the time you put in to play it.

HostSubmitted(+1)

I went through the tutorial. After resting there was an empty lot across the street that was highlighted with a pulsing circle, and hovering showed the tooltip, but I was unable to interact with it. During the tutorial it would be good if there was some logic to prevent the highlighting drawing your focus to a location your can't interact with. Preventing a spawn at that location, or directly across from any other tutorial locations, could also help.

I soft-locked my playthrough by choosing to do the tutorial on campaign day when I did not have enough energy. I'd finished up some things on the far side and pushed too far, running out of energy. Since I saw it was campaign day I didn't want to go back to rest and lose time, so I had planned to stop at the cafe to purchase an energy boost when it opened, but that is when the tutorial popup showed. I had a feeling this would happen, but wanted to test it. Since you can only do what the tutorial tells you while it is active, other than moving around. I am unable to get enough energy to complete even the first thing. I can see making rest always available in the later tutorials, though that could mess with things as time passes. Similarly, being able to purchase an energy boost could be an option, but would require money. There is always the option of giving a free energy boost to make sure the tasks can be completed, or allowing them to be completed even without enough energy, but that could encourage players to take advantage of such a bonus. You could add a warning as time approaches to get some rest, possibly checking on the players current energy and adjusting the popup time based on how much they have so they will have enough. Though that could be tough if they start to do something that pushes them past where they should have started, plus calculating travel time/energy. It would need a buffer. Another option might be to end the tutorial early if the player runs out of energy. They'd lose the rest of the tutorial, but could keep playing. Or switch to a purely text based description of the steps, without requiring they go do them.

On my replay I was resting when campaign day started. I got the message about campaign day, but no prompt for the tutorial. That may be due to it starting the first run and then I returned to the menu to restart, rather than exiting the game fully.

I'm continuing to play without the Campaign Day tutorial. In the previous version I did multiple gathers, which seems to no longer be an option. I had gathered around 30 people. There was a corp building right across from my base. I assigned 20 protesters there, then went to another where I assigned my remaining people, plus joined. The first was almost, but not quite, taken out. The one I joined was taken out. Clicking on the crowd I did not see the option for barricade from previous versions. I see it listed in the Crowd Commands, so maybe I did something wrong. I'm now out of protesters and don't seem to be able to gather more right now, so It will need to wait till the next time to try it out. I'm wondering if I was too close to the protest, or perhaps it unlocked between me trying and when I started looking around for details. I did get a popup for the crowd commands, but it was empty.

Later I was able to rally and gather. I've not fully figured out the timing on this. I also built new homes during campaign day, and was not able to rally or gather from them, at least not right away.

I rarely got to higher tier buildings before due to things ending so fast in past versions. This time I set out to expand and build some that had rating requirements. I got over 20 LO and wanted to see how the new bus logic worked, so built a bus stop. It looks like it is not just needing to reach a certain rating, but that the rating went down when I built the stop, as if it cost rating points. I'll need to pay better attention in the future to see if this is mentioned somewhere, as I had not expected it. Part of this may be from playing multiple times and only skimming some things, so may have missed it being mentioned, along with not having done much higher tier before.

Later I accumulated 24 LO, but was unable to build another bus stop. The Required "20 LO" was red, and the "LO 24" in the Rating section flashed. Eventually I was able to build more, but failed to check how much LO I had, or it cost, when building it.

I had an empty lot that I was able to Rally for 0 RP. Part of the popup said "null". It also offered the option to Establish. I found more of these as the game progressed.

I managed to achieve 18 of th 20 goals. I did not move in any Singles Households, nor Achieve Adequate Health. My HE, EN, and LO were poor at 88, 132, and 521. EC was Marginal at 535. ED and SA were Good at 144 and 187. These numbers are all over the place, so it might be good to have a bit of guidance on what numbers to aim for.

I unlocked the Crowd Commands of Protest, Barricade, Lane Protest, Area Protest, and Disruption. I used Barricade near my base, and Protest at the corp buildings. I did not try the others this time through.

I think your changes are good. The Campaign Day feels much better now. It was not so easy to just win right away. I did play a bit differently this time to explore more of the content, especially wanting to see how the bus and car worked. If I had done a focus on winning, it is possible I still could have done it on the first campaign day. This time it took me until the third, but by then I was able to take out all of their building and their HQ.

The bus and car are a nice touch. I like that they work differently. The car being available 24 hours is convenient, as I will often do things at night after the bus has stopped. I only used the sleep until morning option when needing it for campaign day, other wise get enough energy to do things and keep going. In the future I will need to think more carefully on where I place each of them.

Developer(+1)

Hi Dragon's Isle Software!

I will take into consideration your advise on the tutorial. Currently it's only there to tell the player to how to play. I will look investigate the corner cases so that there will be no soft-lock in future plays.

Could you tell me around when do you encounter the "null" text in the pop-up?
Is it after multiple plays, or just simply when a few days has passed?

Regarding your comments on the rating numbers and its text label, I suspected that there will be confusion with it. There are "number/currency" which is used to purchase buildings; and "text-label" which tells how the neighborhood status is and grant crowd-command after reaching certain ratings. These are not supposed to be tightly related, so as you mentioned, it is weird having poor ratings number of 88, 132, and 521. Having them next to each other does make them seem tightly related, thus the confusion. At first, the "number/currency" was implemented as a mean to direct player's progression (limit the building options and only open them slowly). But this seem to create more confusion than the problem it solves. Thank you for your feedback on this, I need to work out a different solution.

Again, thank you so much for the time you have put to play the game and thorough feedback.

Looking forward to the next play/feedback session!

HostSubmitted(+1)

I first noticed the null issue after protesting and reclaiming some lots. I missed the tutorial, and had not realized that you could build for free on them, so stumbled on it when that was simply the next lot I went to build on. By that time I had 2 or 3 of them, so this was after the second campaign day. I don't think it was only at those locations, but it felt like those things might be related. I'm pretty sure the first time I saw it was on a reclaimed lot, but also that at least one of the locations was not a reclaimed lot. My partner will be playing as well once we get through some more games neither of us have played yet, and will keep an eye out to see if we can get more details.

I think part of the issue with the Rating area is that it is all just called Rating, and clicking on any part of a given type/category gives the same text. It really does give the feeling that the number and bar are related. The way you have them separated by the amount you are gaining can help to divide them, but even then, which does that number apply to, and is it both? I think there needs to be a bit more detail on how the ratings work, and how to boost them compared to the currency. It feels like each category has different needs and it is not clear how they compare. One suggestion I have is to change the title to "Ratings & Points". Then mention the points (currency) can be spent on upgraded buildings, while the rating is the overall state of that category. The core thing to me is to use an additional term to tell players that there is more than 1 type of thing in there. The single title of "Rating" implies that everything in there is all connected.

Glad our feedback is helpful.

Developer(+1)

I will stress-test around the reclaiming lot and establishing on it; to see if I can reproduce the "null" bug you mentioned. Yes, the reclaimed lots can be built on for free. I was aiming for the gameplay loop to be around reclaiming lots and building structures on them. But hearing from you, this gameplay loop is still unclear yet and need to be communicated more.

Hmmm at this point, I am leaning toward discarding the point entirely. Making the label "Ratings & Points" seem to introduce more unseen problem. But I'll play around it first this time. Thank you for your suggestion.

HostSubmitted(+1)

Keep in mind that during my playthroughs I missed the new tutorial due to the soft-lock, so if you mentioned anything about the reclaimed lots there, it should be enough. When I went to build I did still learn about it, so I'd say you probably don't need to do much, as long as it is mentioned in the tutorial already. I plan to watch when my partner plays to see what the tutorial says.