itch.io

Yikes, he definitely has some agenda behind. From the way you describe him, sounds like he is a publisher or a head-hunter trying to find a team and getting commission put of you. 

You dodged a bullet there with that guy.

But I hope it won't dissuade you from teaming up with someone down in the future though! 

Got it, the characters and arts really need more work before it could evoke anything.

Could you send me a friend request?
Here's my discord username: abstractlaser_85311_35563
After receiving all the generous feedback for this submission, I feel the need to regroup and rethink the game. It will be a while until I'm ready for the next playtest.

Hi! Thanks for playing and the nice comments!

Dang it. I forgot to fix the establish Club part. Thanks for pointing it out.

Yes, having different emotions on the character portrait is definitely on my to-do-list and I'm glad you mention wanting to see it. But it'll probably be a while until it is realized.

Thank you for playing the game and the honest feedback! 

I really appreciate you detailing out your gameplay and expressing points of frustrations. I will try to address them, as you have pointed out, I need to work on making buildings functions clearer.

I played a lot of The Sims games growing up, and since this project game mechanic was firstly inspired by SimCity, I just can't help but adding Sims-like element into the game. Particularly projecting oneself inside the game world. Thus I was asking how connected between player and the character and the world. (I am aware that I barely scratched the surface on this aspect though.)

Thank you for powering  through the game and your feedback even it's quite confusing and everything is quite bare-bone.

Thank you for pouring your whole heart with this comment! This is the kind of feedback that I really want to hear. During the seeding of the idea, I wanted the game to be about community-building, but with city-building mechanic. So it naturally shaped up to be a city-builder due to the mechanics (and my tendencies as an engineer). So as time goes, I have been trying to marry city-building mechanics and community-building feel. Which I still can't achieve yet.

Playing as a mayor with superpower is what I had in mind when creating the game, thus the "Rally Point" numbers you see in previous build. But changing it to Fame just feels more real.

I have dabbled with the ideas of having residential demanding certain type of buildings which will increased your support ratings. But I felt it was too constraining when playing it so I stripped it away mid development. Perhaps, it will make a comeback some time. Hmm...

Believe me, I have also thought about accommodating night owls by having mood mechanic that slowly shifts your sleeping habit and efficiency. And a personality test at the start of the game. But all of those are halfly implemented and I didn't think it is the core of the experience. After hearing your thoughts though, perhaps they are essentials and should've been there. 

If certain mechanics enhance the core/intended experience, I don't think they're feature creep. All of your suggestions are very valid. 

After reading your comment ths time, I feel my project is just too early to be shown? (people say undercooked these days? Haha). Do you think I submit the game too early? Maybe I should take a short break from the submission and implement much more changes before requesting any feedback next time.

Again, I truly appreciate the time you've put into playing and giving these awesome feedback. I'm glad I took the courage to post this project and thankfully there are good people here.

The enemies can miss?? Hahaha, I must have a very bad luck then. 

What I meant by customization is having more viable strategies to choose. To take examples from JRPG games, it's usually having the following contents:

(a) more characters, 

(b) more jobs/classes/character progressions, 

(c) Multiple equipments for said characters

There must be several sets of customizations/combinations that are viable to beat to progress the game. (For example if we look at Pokemon games, the viable combinations of team is quite huge that players can replay the game fantasizing new team to beat the game). But Keep in mind that I think this kind of content addition should only be done later in productions, at least after the main hook and the core gameplay is set. 

Personally, I usually look into customization more when I get stuck at a point which forces me to rethink my strategies; or after I've beaten the game.

For Anachronium.... I am not sure more cards is welcome, yet. At least that's how I feel. I am at the beginner skill level where I think my strategy is viable, but just bad at aiming and positioning. If I could aim better and hit more targets, I think I can further progress the game. 

Instead of having more cards, I would look into having variety of ships to choose from. They would have different move distance (maybe one ship can teleport?), varying aim stability, HP, energy Regen, or HP Regen, special abilities, etc etc.

Here's what I had for the card setup

Oyster: triple shot, and other damaging cards, 1 heal

Valkyrie: 2 heals and Saul Kay, and 1 shotgun (the ship with the bad aim, so assign it as the healer/support)

The other ship (was it Morning Star/Glory? The guy holding a flail): sniper shot, blast-shot, double sho

Is it bad?

I am quite reluctant to use the newer cards because they need more amounts of Energy Points and I tend to save them. Perhaps making new cards cheaper to encourage trying them out? Or having some kind of chance to re-assign cards during battle? Just thinking out loud here.

It's definitely at least a vertical slice. May I know how many hours have you poured into the project? 

To be honest, Anachronium at this state has the quality of polish that I'm already willing to pay for anywhere under 3 bucks! Although it will probably have a mixed review, you can make it into a special game once you've worked out the hook.

I am very interested on how you'll shape it to be a great game!

Thank you for playing the game and the honest detailed feedback!

I really appreciate you calling out the over-cluttered UI, I was way over in my head not realizing that the UI is so much at this point. You give a good suggestion on how to make the game view more understandable.

The top-down view aspect of the game really put players perspective that the game is a strategy game rather than a social one, yeah? Although a simple strategy game is the one I'm aiming for the gameplay, I still want a bit of the social aspect as the theme surrounding it.  Thanks for the recommendation, I'll be sure to check Ikariam out later.

If everything goes well, I hope to release the game on Steam or GoG if players find it enjoyable to play and replay. But the project hasn't found the right footing yet, so I'm still giving it some dev time before deciding whether to wrapping it up, or to pursue commercial completion.

Thanks again for your feedback and good luck on your game too!

Thanks for the heartfelt comment! I am glad you managed to play it even in it haphazard state of non-understandability :D

It's nice to see your reply, I don't mind reading long responses! 

Sorry I just assumed that was procrastination. Now it makes sense that if you have a more polished UI if it was re-used from previous projects. If you are new to gamedev, welcome! 3D is truly a beast and I respect your attempt at it. I dabbled for a bit in 3D then never got into it after learning about all the complexities :D But I do want to get back at it some day

Yeah, collaboration is very tricky. Experience varies from people to people. But if you do it right, you may create games that you would have never created by your own. It might be easier if you start collaborating with someone you know on a short limited term, just my 2 cents. 
I wonder what made you think working with a 3D artist made you unpleasant though? 

Like a 2D top-down action game, the game feel exciting to play. Controls are snappy easy to understand. The level design is quite good also. I didn't get to finish all levels due to getting killed and losing all progress. I don't particular enjoy losing all the progress that have been made after getting killed. It just frustrates me that I have to do it all over again.

I like using all the abilities, I wish there is a keyboard shortcut to toggle abilities. If there already is, I just missed it then, a quick pop-up will do great. The flute magic to make the water enemies vulnerable is too short. And I don't feel there's any change to the upgraded sword. I wish the sword range become further though. But, all in all, I feel all abilities have their appropriate purpose. During Skeleton Mage boss fights, I use the bomb and running around lot, it is very satisfying to hit multiple enemies at once! (Kinda wish the blast radius is a bit wider too though)

Since you are planning to make this into a commercial project, I will comment from a potential buyer's perspective. There's currently no motivation (or hook) for me to want to buy it. For this kind of game, there must be a compelling motivation behind, a simple short story at the beginning of the game would do the trick.
Since this is very similar to Link's Awakening or Binding of Isaac, I would rather just play those games instead due to the level of polish. Binding of Isaac is appealing to its unique artstyle and theme. While Link's Awakening was very early to market and they have high level of polish quality. So, to make me interested in buying, you would have to (a) have a unique theme with compelling background story; and/or (b) have higher level quality of polish compared to existing games in the market.
But this is me, other players may buy the game for other reasons.

But the base of the game is there. It's still in a very early stage to be an appealing commercial project. You should work out the appeal factor for some time first.

With having very minimal experience on idler/clicker game, It's very clear on what to do as you boot the game. The game has this cute and cozy atmosphere to it. It is relaxing at the first few minutes. Once there are more than 3 cats, it cafe really feels chaotic. The game really lives up to its title! And good job on eliciting this cute and chaotic feelings.

Interacting with the game is fun! Clicking on cats and customers feel satisfying. 

The upgrades is unclear (apply to all the upgrades: furniture, baristas, cat food, etc). I don't feel there is any changes at all. I still do the upgrade once money is enough though, it just feel right to spend the resource we have earned on something. But it would benefit having clear indications (both visual and functional) on each upgrade.

I don't feel there's any automation going on even after upgrading, nor is there a need for it. Perhaps there should be a clear visual cue to when the automation is working.

I was reading through your devlogs and it looks like the game has only been worked for a couple months at most.
This is a great progress for such short time! Keep up the good work.

Hi,

The movement on slope is fine. I didn't have major issues with it. Perhaps a small issue is it kinda mess up with the jump button and can make the jump delayed. 

With the current state of the game, I feel like you're aiming to make a high-speed 3D platformer, or a parkour game. It's good that you're focusing on the movement for now. I would suggest you also brush-up on the 3D animation since it will be the main draw of the game.

Another note I have for the game is that it really frustrates me when I fall down after getting the key. It dissolves after falling down and you have to start all over without any checkpoints. Since I know that this is still in early phase of development, I can bear the lack of polish for doing a bunch of retries . But I quit after around 15 tries. I just couldn't beat the first level. I think the slope at the very beginning is too high for you to go back. Here is the screenshot: I don't think the player can jump high enough to get over it. Or maybe you have to stand on the edge, but that requires too much precision for a level 1 challenge. Look at the time, it took more than 2 minutes to go get the key and get back. So having one or two checkpoints somewhere will be good.

Weirdly enough, all the UI have some polish quality to it, but the gameplay itself is very bare-bone. It looks like you're procrastinating on doing the hard more meaningful part of the game :p (I hope I don't sound too judgmental. It's just I often catch myself doing easier stuff instead of doing the more meaningful things because it's hard).

Keep working on it, and all the best!

I played the game for around 90 minutes. First game-over was at the first level boss (the ship with doom cannon). I feel cheated as I could not repair my ships fully before entering the battle due to not having enough credit. On the second try with full-health, I could beat it normally. Perhaps there should be an option for partial repair option for players without enough credit. 

1. Is the game generally fun?

It's quite enjoyable. There are satisfactions  in aiming perfectly at an enemy using the double/triple attack and also the sniper's ability. 
The plot of the story is somewhat intriguing, but the pacing and characters are a bit lacking.

2. What cards seemed the most appealing to play?

I tend to use triple attack and shotgun a lot. When it's ready, I also use blast-gun as it's fun to deal massive damage in a surrounding blast.

3. Which cards seemed pointless for your experience?

The heal card seems to be underwhelming since it only heals a tiny bit (1 or 2 HP). I tend to only want to use them while my health is 60% or less. So when I need healing, usually it's too late and the enemy just destroyed my ship on the next turn.

4. How difficult is the game?

It is difficult. The enemy has perfect aim while players don't, so the difficulty is already tipping toward punishing from the start of the game. And the friendly-fire also makes it difficult. Once, I thought I could shoot pass ally ship using triple shot, but I accidentally destroyed my ally.

Also, I wish there is a way to undo move before using ability. 

5. How engaging is the story? At what point were you hooked(if at all)? 

Although I did not get hooked yet, I feel that the plot is somewhat intriguing. I do want to find out what the enemy's motivation is.
The scene at the start of second level is beautiful. And the theme of space opera is quite good. I feel the first level with 3 battles can be cut shorter. Showing players the second level earlier would help with pacing.
Characters and the conversations are still very generic at this point. There's some potential there so I think you could work on it more.

6. Did you complete the game? If not what was the major reason?

Unfortunately no, I couldn't get pass the second level boss (the one with red shield). 

7. Does the game feel replayable? Or more of a one and done experience?

I feel at the current state, it's more of a one-and-done experience. There is not enough customization or variety for me to replay. I only played up to level 2, so maybe I haven't seen all that the game has to offer.
Here is how I played the game: 
Players have 3 characters to control. Two has good aim as the pointer move quite slow, so I command them as main attackers. While the other one I generally keep her back in line for healing/support. At this point, I don't see any other viable strategy, nor do I fantasize about having different customization.

I am quite surprised that you consider the game in prototype phase, since it feels very polished! I didn't encounter any bugs and all the interactions/animations are very smooth. Are you still looking for the hook of the game before exiting prototype? If so, I would suggest to work on the story and make it more tight. Especially, the first 3 battles in level 1 could probably be reduced a bit since there's nothing interesting going on before reaching the planet. Just my two cents.

Thank you for making this project, this is a very good work and I hope you continue working on the game and bring it to its fullest potential.

I totally agree with what you're saying regarding status effect. It adds to the strategy on how to win very hard battle. In other RPGs, it's a must-have when playing under-leveled or fighting side-bosses earlier in the story than what is expected by the developer. And winning such cases is very satisfying! The context in which poison/regen is used is very important. But, it's better that it is implemented rather than not. So I hope you have some cases in mind that will at least encourage the usage of this status effects. 

Hi!

I just played through the game using the Lite mode, with skimming the whole dialog,  it took me a bit less than 1 hour to complete. I quite enjoyed the experience, although you mentioned there is very minimal changes to the player-facing side of the game, I felt the battle experience is getting more streamlined on every update. Up until the previous update, I tried to hold on to most of the items in fear that they won't be enough. Whereas this time, I tried sending out all the lower-levelled items back at the trading depot so the battle is less cluttered. This decision did make the experience more enjoyable :D

During battle, the phase indicator (choose skill -> choose target thingy)  on the top of the screen is really helpful in navigating the screen. Also, the AP indicator is now immediately visible when choosing ability, nice touch! Maybe making the icons just a tad bit bigger will help with readability (or make the icon more distinct than each other using forms/color).

The poison/regen status effect is a good addition to the combat system. Although I mostly try to deal the most damage, I do use the poison quite a bit.

For a lot portion of the game, items with earth element are quite rare. So for the most time, I don't use Tanko's earth ability. I'm also still wondering what the difference between using Earthshater or use a basic spit with earth elemental is. Also, what is the difference between using common elemental strike that opens up all elemental options or specific elemental strike? it's quite different to tell.

There is a non-game-breaking bug in the trading post. When I use the trading post to send home items, I found duplicated items. As you can see in the following screenshot, there are two sets of bullwhip. When I transfer all of them to the top, the problem resolves itself and change into 1 set of bullwhip. I can't identify what triggers this duplicate though. 

This time I managed to beat the final boss. The issue for me this time is that the final boss theme is very high-octane for the whole track. It took me between 10 to 15 minutes to finish the final boss, I was feeling audio-sensory overload. I think it would benefit everyone if there's a small section of the track where it slows down a bit. Hey, even a heavy metal music usually have parts where it slow down a bit to give some variation to the tone.

I was looking through the compendiums, settings and stuff and found my account listed there.
Thank you so much for the shout-out!

Based on your devlog, I think this month has been an overall good update.
Looking forward to the next one that you've been wanting to show off!

The old version is a very rough prototype of the game, as it is still in early active development. I would not recommend archiving it since it would just take memory space.
But feel free to archive it if you can afford the memory space.

Hi! 

Oops, I still have set the game too easy for you to be able to finish it in the tutorial campaign day ^.^

I'll reduce the Logistics Rating text so that it will not get clipped.

Thanks for mentioning the residence demand popup. It's not fully fleshed out yet. It is supposed to be saying either high or low residence demand. So even if it's on the positive, if the bar is short, the demand is low. Only when it's past a certain length it will say high demand. I don't this to be very complex though (keeping it simple, similar to the RCI bar in SimCity), so there will be no changes to this for a while.

Thank you for playing the game!

Hi.
Thank you so much for playing the game and giving such a nice feedback! I appreciate that you post how you think about playing the game.

The average traffic for community is still an abstract number at this point. I haven't fully fleshed out what it will be yet, so it will swing wildly according to what of time it is. Thanks for mentioning it though, it's been neglected since I wasn't working on the upgrade mechanic for a while. But I will think about it.

Demolishing building will definitely be a available in the future, currently it is only available for me for debug purpose :D

I thought about adding road and utility post, but stopped because otherwise the game will be a full-blown city-builder, which is not the game I originally envisioned. And I wouldn't want to make a city-builder at this point, not with my current skills and limited time. Just not to get your hope up... this project will only be a small-to-medium size neighborhood for the player to build. I do want to include several levels (like a campaign mode) in the future for players to try out different strategies. The two roads will be a way to go to next level once BigRealty has been pushed out, but it will be at least a couple of months until they are implemented.

I am glad you enjoyed the game and thanks again for your time

Thank you for reporting the bug on repeat playthrough tutorial. It's a part that I totally missed in my testing and will fix in the next build.

Ratings system has been a very abstract at this point because I thought players wouldn't bother with the details and just build stuff players like. But since you mention it, perhaps it would be better if the ratings system is a little bit more transparent. I will see what I can do for it.

The color of the tokens doesn't have any gameplay value for this build. I was planning to put a bonus system such as getting more fame/money if the player can collect all six colors, or token of the same color are picked consecutively. It's still a work-in-progress, and will be ready to be experimented in near future builds.

Thanks for the suggestion for the random events. Those are the features that I was excited to put in at the beginning of this year, that's why there is the random robber and police car patrolling around. But I didn't get to expand on those since I thought the main gameplay loop was still weak (which I hope has been getting better by now by implementing campaign day and encouragement on movement...). I really appreciate that you mentioning the random events,  as these are the things that I initially envisioned when first developing the game!

Again, thank you for your detailed constructive feedback!

Thank you for detailing out your play strategy this time! Winning on the 3rd Campaign Day feels right for the current build. For one round of a game, I am aiming for the player to be able to win between 3 to 5 Campaign Days. 

Yeah... I do agree that the game still hasn't feel alive yet, making it so is a huge to-do for this project. I'm still procrastinating on it as it's such a daunting task, LoL. But reading your feedback really give me a push to tackle it. 

I appreciate you mentioning your approach games as pieces of puzzles to solve too. I hope the game scratch off that itch a little bit, as I am planning to make the game into an intertwining between small puzzles and a tiny sense of community building.

As always, thank you for taking your time to play and write an awesome feedback!

Just updated the parent comment with added feedback on styles

This is a fresh update.

This time, I got stuck at the second battle at last city (Wildemore?). I used all the best items I have and still the damage is not enough to finish the enemies. Every time I get their health low, they always heal up to full. I thought, aren't enemies in RPG suppose to have limits on healing items?. Since they always heal, eventually I used up my higher leveled items and left with weaker ones. I was stuck in a losing battle of attrition for 30 minutes and called it quit after. I played the game in total of 1h15min.

I like that the skill selection now filters out the relevant items to choose from. I see there's also a sort of a cooldown system to prevent players using more powerful abilities with AP requirements. This playtest, my strategy would be to select skills/items to build up necessary elemental AP when there are only few enemies left; then use excess AP on stronger enemies. I think it would be good to show the current AP somewhere in the same screen. Right now, I have to open my party member's status page to view the AP. 

The sheer amounts of options to choose for using skills is still too much for me. The filtering of category/elements did help in alleviating this, but I think there are too much options being presented at a time. When the enemies are low, I find myself always choosing the basic spit attack without using items to preserve them. 

I still have something to say regarding the other questions and will edit this comment later.

=======================================

(Addition)

If you were to ask me which I prefer between JRPG or roguelike game, I would choose to "play" JRPG regardless of the game. But that's just my preference of play. From what I can see, I think the game can still go either ways; But I do think Hungry For Loot is leaning towards wanting to become a rogue-like though. Since a lot of the updates are setting up the game to be a rogue-like. I still think it's worth experimenting both ways and decide which one you would prefer developing after having worked both.

Some pointers on bringing JRPG elements (game can still be rogue-like)

I feel there is a slight audio and event mismatch in the cut-scene where you fight enemies in their camp in-between Dandelionrow and the 3rd town (Dawnwood?).  So when the cut-scene starts, the music immediately starts with ominous feeling, even though the party members are still questioning whether the humans are hostile or not. With this me as the player will always immediately assume that it will be a battle. However, I think it's worth trying out music with less ominous feeling in it. Playing instead a little whimsical/mysterious music will probably induce a sense of mystery to the player as to whether the humans are friends or foes. Not to mention that it also matches the POV of the party members at the time.

The most intriguing town for me so far is Sunview.  Someone mentions this place is a place where sun don't set, even at night. Now, normally in a JRPG, you would then be shown with how the night will really look like when you rest at the inn. But since all the towns are still placeholder, I just felt disappointed we don't get to see how Sunview would look like. At the start of the game it is mentioned that most of the things is in placeholder, but the game is already in Steam Next Fest. Aren't Next Fest games usually near finish where most arts and gameplay are finalized? If everything is still place-holder, I don't think it qualifies to be in Next Fest as it doesn't showcase the final quality of what the game is (sorry for the rambling)

Then there is also Dandelionrow where they are proud of serving foods from dandelions. Please show us how the foods and drinks looks like; make us salivate for them. Or make us disgusted by them. Anything that elicit emotional reaction will be good from a story-telling perspective.

Enough talking about towns for now and let's go back to the combat...

I see all the characters (players and enemies) have strengths and weaknesses, and you can deal slightly higher damage when hitting their weaknesses. I think it would make the combat feel more alive if there are different visual and sound effect for hitting enemies' weaknesses (like the "It is super effective!" in Pokemon games).

But I think I said enough for now, Sorry for rambling bit in-between. But this is a very good update compared to last month! After several months, I'm still intrigued on what the game would be, I so hope you will keep working on it and create a unique experience of playing as slimes.

Cheers! (raising up a glass of Dandelion Wine)

This is quite a fun game once I grasped the control. It is quite satisfying to be able to grab onto a rock and proceed smoothly. The fonts and sound effects also match the nature of the game. This game can work with cartoon/wacky style, so I think it's worth leaning into it for now and see how other players think. I also like that you have the hard-breathing sound when the stamina is less than half. It really adds urgency/pressure to hang on for your life feeling. 

The biggest issue for the current build is the on-boarding. The difficulty from level 1 to level 2 is just too much. I think it is because the gap in level 2 that you can fall over and have to restart the level every time. In the end, I didn't get to finish level 2 and quit after trying for about 40 minutes. I think having an intermediate level between the current level 1 and 2 to solidify players' understanding of the control will be very helpful.

Also, I totally didn't get the purpose of the rope, nor is there any explanation on how to use it. I suspect it is needed to clear level 2 as designed but I think it need to be communicated better.

The quotes from famous people brought me some smiles on every retry, very nice touch!

Overall, although the current game has some issues with on-boarding, it definitely has the potential to be a very fun game.

Yes, finding the right balance between gameplay and story is very hard. But one thing for sure, at the current state the story is very much under-worked compared to the gameplay. And regarding The Compendium, I think you have priorities backwards. Players will look at the Compendium (or any reading materials) only after the fact we're interested in the story first. The Compendium is a nice to have, but it doesn't push the game forward. The story and lore should be fleshed out more first. Since you mentioned Helen being innocent and will experience shock, it is a plot-point that can be implemented in the game. 

If you really want to make Hungry for Loot commercial,  to be blunt... the game still need years of work, not months (maybe you could pull it off in months if you are doing this full-time with an experienced team). So, it may be wise if you have other smaller-scoped project going on that can be viably commercial. But well... this is more like a business/management problem that only you can decide. Me and other devs have no say in this.

I will certainly check the next update by the beginning of next month and give some feedback on the update!

Hi! 

You did an admirable job of preparing a project for Steam Next Fest. It took courage to execute and I'm glad that you learnt a lot of stuff from it.

Reading this post, I think you're still missing a critical learning point though. I have been participating in your monthly game jam for several months and been playing Hungry For Loot. Over time, I saw the game has always been progressing toward a good game. However, the one thing that the game lack is the "appeal" factor. It is fine if the project is still under gameplay development. I was under the impression that you will some time in the future implement the appeal factors that make people want to play an RPG in the first place. These include theme, story, presentation, and music.

In the current state, Hungry for Loot suffers from a mismatch between theme, gameplay and presentation. Playing as slimes in a slime-world invaded by humans is quite a unique theme to be explored. However, all the gameplay and presentation still point toward playing as generic human characters. Flipping around the players and enemy characters would solve the mismatch, but the game will be another generic RPG that is already flooding the video game market. 

Hungry for Loot with its current theme has potential, but it is still very premature. I honestly think it is not ready for market yet if that's what you're targeting. The thematic/gameplay/presentation mismatch is the biggest issue to be tackled first.

I hope I didn't sound too harsh in my opinions, I am quite interested in finding out what kind of unique game experience that will come out by playing as slimes. That's why I was interested in following the project in the first place.

I hope that you came out from this Next Fest experience as an overall better game developer. Let's both make better games! Cheers!

Hi! Thank you for playing the game and for the comments. 

I will try to fix the technical bugs that you have kindly reported.

Also, I highly appreciate you taking the time to play and comment despite this not being your type of game. I am fully aware that the game really visually resemble a city-builder even though I am not aiming for it. So.. sorry for not living up to the visual promise. It has always been in the back of my mind on how to visually separate the game from a city-builder. But I will tackle this a little bit later after the gameplay loop is solid.

All the best for your Next Fest!

Thank you for your thoughtful post!

I appreciate you mentioned some of the technical bugs. There are several others commenting on the broken upgrade mechanics, I'm already fixing it on my side and will be ready by next build. Will look into the goal system not registering stuff next.

Glad you liked the game even in its early state!
All the best for your Next Fest!

1 week voting period is a reasonable middle-ground I don't think it need any change.

An idea I would like to propose is to add more categories to the current rating, such as "game-feel/juice", "understandability", or "design intent".
I would use the following definitions:
Game-feel/juice
Does the game provide tactile feedback as you interact with the game world? (having both visual and audio feedback for interactions will be better)
Understandability
Does the game communicate its gameplay rules in an understandable manner? (the simpler and easier it is to understand, the better)
Design Intent
This one is a bit tricky, since the developers will need to specify the intent of the game they're making. It can be..  does the gameplay match with the theme the game is trying to be?  Or, does the game elicit the supposed feeling? Or even, does the game fit well within the genre it is trying to become? 

I am proposing this so that it would encourage all of us to be better game designers. Hey, this game jam is supposed to help everyone make better games, right? 
Submissions that are still in very early stage will clearly have low ratings with the above definitions, but it should not matter as long as we strive to become better designers.

This is just my idea, please take it with a grain of salt.

Thank you for playing and giving a very detailed feedback!

I really like that you shared some of your thoughts during gameplay, such as being more creative on how you want the neighborhood to look like, and also thinking about routes to take. It really reassured me that the updates are working! And thank you for powering through the game even with weird bugs/unclear points as you have pointed out. I will definitely take notes of these and fix them until the next update.

I am planning to have levels/scenarios of neighborhood. The current build only has placeholder neighborhood and meant to be a first level (more like a testing ground, really), so the game will still be easy for several builds down the development. But I will adjust the difficulty balance as project goes along.

Looking forward to your continued support!

Thank you for playing and the detailed feedback!

I am surprised that there is a feedback regarding upgrade this time. It has been a neglected feature and on the verge of being abandoned as I haven't really used it that much too. But I will keep it for a while.
The distance units is still a placeholder for the distance traveled down the road. If I get the chance to flesh out the upgrade mechanic, I will make the distance units more understandable.

It has not been fleshed out yet, but there is a simple defense number for the BigRealtyHQ. As more buildings are built, the HQ will have higher defense, making it harder to win if you go directly to the HQ unless there is a huge number of crowd with high offense. And respectively, as you reclaim the buildings, the defense for the HQ will be lowered and thus easier to win the game. But the balance is still out-of-place and it's so easy to win the game even with 4+ buildings standing. I will communicate this more in the game next time.

I am glad that you point out the soft-lock when crossing 20:00 during tutorial. It was supposed to prevent another soft-lock but surprise surprise, another soft-lock :D 

Again, thank you for the awesome feedback. I will be busy with your comment for at least a week or two. Please consider it as a compliment to your feedback-giving skills.

Hi again,

This time, I started the game with the option using party bag on. It eliminates the need for inventory management, so after battle I just need to worry about healing damaged party members. This is my preferred way to play RPGs because I play for the story first.  It really make the game very easy, as long as I don't conserve the high-leveled items in fights. Previously when I try to conserve my items, the game was way harder. I figured out the enemies drop so many loots that it is just better to keep using them. I guess this goes well with the title of the game, haha!

Although the addition of musics make the game feel alive, I feel some part are still off. One that stood out to me is after the boss fight in Wildemore. The tone is serious and exciting during the fight, but it abruptly transitions to cheerful when you finish the fight. So I just find it too jarring. But I am aware since the game is still in development, I just want to point out that some parts of the game need a little smoother transition as you shift emotional tones.

I managed to get to beat the game without using any debug mode! Here is the screenshot of it:

Good luck at the Steam Next Fest!
I won't be playing it this time. But I would suggest you include some polish on the attacks if time allows, since players will spend the most time in battles.

The addition of BGM really makes the game feel more alive! Having separate BGM between normal battle and boss battle really differentiate the stakes of the battle.  I like that switching between inventory screen and town screen.  I think there are some time when switching from inventory screen to the town screen, when the town screen music play, the inventory music doesn't fade away. So there are at times 2 BGM playing at the same time. But it fades away after you leave the town.

I saw that apart from the wooden houses, there are mounds (that look like a hobbit's house) around town feel more organic, it suits more to the slime theme. 

For the inventory management, I found myself using the "ability split" most of the time because it just feels more natural to assign items to characters that have affinities to use it.

After the 2nd town, the amount of items to use when choosing an ability/spit can be a lot. So my strategy is usually using the strongest (the highest level) item on enemies with full health. And when their health go low, I tend to use the lower-level items. Since we can check the item's description when hovering it, it is not a big problem. Perhaps a small suggestion here is to sort items based on levels? Or having some background/border texture that denotes the item's level.

I just reached Hazelgate and want to call it in for the night. I will be continuing tomorrow and post some follow-up comments. So far, this has been such a refreshing update! Not only the inventory management is more streamlined, but also the visuals/audio varieties are improved. Tomorrow, I will try to play up till the end of the available game.

You did a great job with the visuals and audio; they are simple and pretty clean. Everything is supportive to the gameplay, especially visual readability, which is on-point. 

I personally think level is too long and there's no checkpoint in between. I find it quite frustrating knowing my ball bounces off the wrong edge and fall-over especially near the finish line. Fortunately, the simple sound effects and overall sound design is pretty relaxing. The slowly moving abstract background also induces a feeling of relaxation. 
When I play the game, I get an overall mixed feeling of cozy/relaxed and frustration at the same time. It is very fun to roll the ball fast in a straight line without falling though.

I played for 25 minutes before calling it quit at level 3 as I somehow just fall over and over near the end. Most of the gameplay time is spent having to start over from the beginning of the level on each fall.

Some small suggestions I would add is to insert some checkpoints, and add a small section on every level where it is safe to roll very fast. I skimmed over your devlog and you mentioned that the game is designed to be speed-ran. Currently, I personally find it very hard to roll fast and have to stop/brake all the time.

With some better level designs, I think the game has the potential to be fun.
I hope you keep on iterating between playtest and development!

I was double-clicking on "ToonRoll2.x86_64" and nothing happened.
But as you said, when I run the program through terminal, the game loads as expected.
I will play the game and give the feedback on the main comment thread.

Willing to play and give feedback for everyone who played mine: Project Rally.

I will be out of town and be back by the start of June, so I will only start playing and giving feedback after that.
Feedback will be adjusted according to feedback received and your specific request.

Hi, this is a cool little sandbox engine stuff. It feels satisfying for me to watch stuff falling down, especially the sand. Probably out of all the materials the sand has the best visual texture.

The game probably took between 1 and 2 minutes for my first load. The percentage finished at around 18%. On the second load and afterwards, the simulator loads instantly at 1%.
I didn't encounter any bugs or crashes. But I was only running the application for around 5 minutes playing around with it. 

Just a little bit regarding the visual... The "tar/pitch" material has a very dark color that seem to blend with the background so it's very hard to see. Perhaps tweaking the visual contrast a bit will make it more readable.

I can't run both linux and windows version of the game.
Does anybody encounter the same problem? Or is it just me?

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! 

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.