Post by leeevans in Version 1.2.0: Mood and Intuition comments

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I finally got back around to playing this since GBJAM. I started here, which included seeing all the 1.1 updates for the first time. Lot of visual, audio, UI polish added and it's really very nice and you know how much I like the detail work. But once hot goods started showing up at the shop, it finally hit me: the real game is here, at last.

I took a lot of risks my first playthrough, too many, but I got to see the various events that play out whenever you cross that line. I ended up a couple hundred short, but during the whole game over sequence I had a big grin on my face.

Second playthrough, I took fewer risks, got rid of questionable merchandise quickly, and on the last day, after I'd secured my lease on life, I refused to buy anything, sitting in an empty shop. I was wondering how the game might incentivize continuing to play after you hit $1500, then saw that it does actually come out of the money in your possession and whatever's left is a high score of sorts. Given the sorta arcade vibe of the game, that seems alright. It's not like losing is a big deal, but I can't help but wonder is there a better way to incentivize taking risks on day 5?

I was so into the game, I found myself nodding along to the music for a couple minutes before realizing that these were new tracks. Sometimes I'm kind of dense but my body knows when good tunes are in the air. Did day 5 get its own track? Felt appropriately anxious for the looming deadline.

I wanted to catch up here first before reading the next devlog, which I see is going to concern a lot of broader design decisions, so I guess the point of my post is how much fun I had with this!

arctictype22 days ago

Thanks for playing through more! I'm glad that it's coming together. :)

I touched on Day 5 a little bit on my huge yappy post yesterday, but the short answer is this is what me and other people I've had try do, and I have no clue how to make Day 5 more engaging at the moment. The biggest problem to me is that if you eek past quota without a full stock, there's not much else to do during the day, because there's so little you can afford that won't take you under the quota.

When I add a 10-Day campaign it likely will be balanced around this fact so the run isn't tanked if you don't get enough Day 5 inventory to keep momentum up. I could use this opportunity to add another form of agency, which is putting out one of those standing boards to advertise walk-ins. In this case, I could have a "Accepting Junk!" board to guarantee some low value goods to come in, or a "Flash Sale!" board to guarantee buying customers at the cost of a guaranteed low price for that transaction.

Glad you enjoyed the new tunes! I really enjoyed working on the Day 3 and 4 music especially, and will probably add a few new tunes next update as well. Day 5 right now is The Family's theme (which I used to write the Game Over theme in a more menacing tone!), and I think Quota Day having the theme of the current debtor would be a fun touch. The game's got me excited to get back into writing music and connecting motifs together again. :D

Thanks again, it means a lot that you've kept up with the project and have provided a lot of great feedback!

leeevans21 days ago (16 edits)

Composing with leitmotifs is a really clever way to tie it all together thematically. It inspires me to see you so stoked on it. I've been in a funk about making music for years and seeing so much musical creativity from you and everyone in GBJAM is starting to dispel it.

I wanted to try out a UI idea for practice. I thought maybe the clock could pull double duty to communicate both current time and how long until closing time. Attached a GIF of a mockup. I think functionally it works pretty well, but I don't have an artist's touch for pixel art, and the colors of the UI are already so subtle and well done.

Right now the game is in an interesting emergent state where the random chemistry creates some fun and unexpected sequences. I have some feedback brewing about balance and gameplay, but I haven't fully digested the Game Feel and Length post. So the following is just about 1.2.0 as it currently stands.

One thing I really enjoyed from my first playthrough was that I felt pressure to hawk stolen goods because of the financial pressure of coming up short. I did another playthrough this morning and once you understand the system it's too easy to keep your nose clean. Maybe something that messes with / threatens your inventory, like nighttime burglary, requiring management of shop security or something, which could add a meaningful choice for the player, like pay for peace of mind, or take the risk because money is that tight. Some of the game jam incrementals I've played lately have started to really make me appreciate upgrades, and similarly from roguelites where they can have cost/benefit balances, I could see something here like pay to install bars on the windows to prevent smash and grabs, but it hugely debuffs hype. Start/End of day provide good slots for choices like this, like before opening you can decide on Flash Sale, Accepting Junk, and at closing time, informed by rumors you heard during the day, you can decide on security measures.

I came across the damaged mechanic today also, which is pretty cool, the idea being not to overhandle the merchandise? Until now, I hadn't been doing a lot of window shuffling, which is now incentivized by the immediate feedback you see as you re-arrange the display. Very good.

Additional agency is always a good idea, and I was thinking maybe some kinds of wildcard events could be cool. Maybe interference from the family, who provide the motivating scenario of the core premise, but it might be fun to have their presence and malevolence felt during the week. Maybe they need to "borrow" a valuable piece of displayed inventory. Or maybe as part of a burglary system, you can pay them per night of security.

arctictype21 days ago(+1)

That's a great idea for the clock! I will have to figure out how to implement this graphically when I plan on the closing time not being always 7 PM, however I love the idea.

The stolen goods dilemma you faced on your first encounter with it is the intent, and I definitely want to keep pressure up on the player for participating even when learning how Heat works. I may end up increasing Heat by 1 either when you buy a stolen good or sell one (or both). This way, the rumor mill would turn no matter how much you tried to keep clean while fencing. Then I could have the Heat naturally decay, and even have an option for Heat reduction as a nighttime activity.

Theft and vandalism are targets for a future update, and I think having shop upgrades would help with this. I want to be careful about nighttime burglaries, because I don't want to force the player into a state where they need to worry about the end state of the shop being drastically different for the day.

Maybe at some point I'll add shutter graphics when the store is closed? But that wouldn't mean security upgrades wouldn't be good to have. Stuff like hardened glass display cases could slow a thief down, security cameras increase the chances of recovering goods later, etc. And things that have a higher main effect could as you said have side effects like lowering hype or making customers agitated.

The "damaged" mechanic is currently really a flavor mechanic to show why some items are priced differently (the synergy between Mint items and Trashed items is kind of a secret interaction). Refurbishing as a nighttime event is something I'd like to explore in that case. I also have "size" mechanics as you might have seen next to some of the items, that is actually function-less at the moment but I'd like for that to affect how stealable certain items are. Stuff like valuable jewelry is to be balanced out by theft risk, but currently a designer neckless can be a overpowered hype generator.

I don't want to lean too heavily into any sort of narrative, but if I end up adding different debtors then "Interference" events would definitely be a neat way of differentiating them. I've thought about all sorts of Family interactions, as you said them needing to "borrow" some merchandise (which I will add because it is flavorful).

I appreciate all of the feedback!

leeevans20 days ago

You've got such a good vision here and it's so cool to see it go through the process. Thanks for entertaining my ideas, it's a lot of fun to spitball about game design.

itch.io

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