itch.io

Hey everyone! I just thought I'd let y'all know that I spent the last couple of hours making an update that incorporates a whole bunch of everybody's feedback. Here are some of the changes you can expect once the jam ends and I can publish it.

Controls:
- Changed "start washer" to left click
- Changed "eject washer" to right click

UI:
- Fixed progress bars having low contrast
- Made the day summary screen match the rest of the UI

Gameplay:
- Customers no longer enter the laundromat once the day is 90% over. This should mean that, unless you get unlucky, you won't fail a customer's order just because the day ended.
- If it's your first time playing, you will now be forced to play the tutorial, even if you click the "Play" button on the main menu.

I appreciate the feedback! I agree with a lot of this and I'll include a lot of it in the post-jam update I have planned.

Sorry it was too easy for you! I should have probably added different difficulties. I had playtesters lose on just day 1 or 2 on these same settings, so I think you might just be more skilled or experienced with a variety of games!

The idea of it as a puzzle game did cross my mind. I definitely wanted there to be a puzzle element to it - I was hoping the orders would eventually get complex enough that you'd have to spend a fair amount of brainpower just working out what order you need to put the clothes in the washers. I could see it being fully puzzle-based too.

Thanks for playing and leaving a comment! The feedback is much appreciated.

I love the premise and theming! The gameplay felt way too easy though. Running the obstacle courses inside the barrels was mostly a cakewalk, except for when unlucky RNG made certain jumps impossible, which was frustrating. Hilarious idea though, and I love how snarky the rat is. Great work!

Lovely visuals and the cat is adorable. I enjoyed watching hundreds of cards pile up on the table and form a massive tower - the animation of them spinning was well done. The color palette is very soothing and the view from the top is beautiful.

Unfortunately it didn't feel like the game took much skill at all; once I figured out I could spam left click with no repercussions, I reached the top of the lighthouse in about twenty seconds.

Audio-wise, that guitar piece is gorgeous. I would kill to get a tab of it so I could learn it. I don't think the digital beep for changing directions matched it very well, so I wish that sound had been something softer and less harsh, but it didn't detract from the experience that much.

Nice work!

You marked the game as being for Mac, but didn't include a Mac build in the zip file. Macs can't run .exe files.

Fun! The player controller felt smooth, and it was very flowy to just be bouncing all over the place. I had only one issue with the control scheme, which was how unforgiving it felt to try to chain jumps. The timing window for it could be more lenient. 

Level-wise, the world's design was interesting and unique enough to keep me wanting to explore. Keeping an eye out for secrets was exciting, and I enjoyed that the simplicity of the "puzzles" led to more emphasis on movement. I wish there had been a couple more checkpoints underground, specifically in the castle, because I kept falling all the way down (usually on parts that required chain jumping) and eventually got frustrated enough to stop playing. 

Very solid game!

Glad you had fun! It wasn't my favorite piece of music I've ever made so I'm glad people have seemed to enjoy it.

Yep, exactly. 

Thank you for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm happy to hear there's a learning curve. I hope it wasn't too frustrating at first!

Thanks for the thoughtful review! I really appreciate the useful feedback. 

I definitely agree that making it mouse-only could have felt better to play.  It didn't meaningfully cross my mind until people started suggesting it.

The requirement to clean dirty clothes was meant to make getting the right products into a puzzle of sorts. I'm happy with where the mechanic ended up, and I think the fact that a washing machine could make your clothes more dirty is hilarious. What I think could have been potentially more exciting is if there were multiple possible starting washers, instead of just the downsize + clean one.  I do appreciate hearing that you had a gripe with the dirtiness mechanic! It gives me a good idea of what to consider in the future.

Thank you for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I absolutely love the art style and sound design. Hell, all the polish is well done. I like that it's possible to pay careful attention to the reels and time your clicks to get the spin you want, but the times when I missed felt frustrating. I wish you could maybe see more of the reel at a time so you can see the symbols coming. The roguelike part was fine - pretty cut and dry, but fun regardless. Worth my time! 

This is by far my favorite game I've seen submitted. I have absolutely no regrets giving you five stars in every category. Once I figured out what was going on, it became an absolute blast, and the recap screen with TTS had me giggling. This is so over-the-top and it makes it way more stressful than it feels like it should be. I love this so much. Props, and I hope this gets featured in Juni's video.

Definitely way too easy, but fun nonetheless! Very well polished. I will say, I wish it felt more flowy - for a game claiming to be based around momentum, it was frustrating to constantly bonk into enemies and get stopped in my tracks. It would have been way more fun to plow through them and careen around the map, or at least preserve my momentum with a bounce. Still a fun play and impressive given the one-week time limit. Nice work!

That is definitely a rage game. Every time I felt like I had the timings figured out, I was wrong. Hilariously frustrating. 

Thanks! I definitely considered making it playable with just a mouse but ultimately decided the screen would get too crowded with buttons. I would definitely at least add support for rebinding keys so the player can choose how they eject and start machines.

This was a fun timekiller! Nailed the incremental loop. I only had one gripe, which was that towards the end it became tedious to just click "skip" on every upgrade screen every half-second. I wish there were a way to just let it run and store the level-up shops for later so you're not forced to skip them. Very nice game and well-polished though!

Had a lot of fun playing this! The one thing I'd say is that the difficulty ramps up quite quickly - the acceleration could be a little slower and the starting speed a little higher; that way you don't take forever to be going fast, but you also aren't immediately met with a wall of cars flying at you at mach ten. Very enjoyable regardless!

Super fun! This was actually quite similar to one of my initial ideas for the jam. I'm glad to see someone else made it happen!

A couple notes. The system for placing and moving instruments around was a little clunky. I would guess that you just had to make something work in the limited time frame, and that's totally understandable. It also felt annoying that you could never get the bongos to have a high enough range to buff instruments on beats if the bongo was also on a beat.

Had a great time overall!

This was a fun (and admittedly frustrating) challenge! The slow torque on the controls made getting to the right number quickly feel doable but easy to over- or undershoot. Nice work!

This was a blast! You nailed the scope and it let you put a ton of effort into polish, which made it feel really nice to play. It was also super serious. I couldn't help but put on a serious face. Seriously.

Very interesting concept! Orbital mechanics are always really fun to play around with. What was difficult for me was a) the fact that you can fly off the menu and never return, and b) the insane difficulty spike from level 1 to level 2. Still had fun regardless :)

This was very silly. Love the visuals and polish, though I wish the insects looked like insects. I thought they were just dust particles at first. Fun challenge and super creative theming.

This was a fun quick play! The positive effects were fun and the negative ones didn't feel unfair, so I would say this was well thought-out. Nice work!

Thanks for bringing all of us some visibility! I'll be sure to check your stream out when I get a chance. Here's my game:

/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4719452

No worries! It's just unfortunate that the inevitable bugs were so game-breaking. Do let me know if you fix them because I would love to beat the game.

And, when I did decide to die, playing again trapped me in a loop of getting the game over screen because the game didn't reset properly.

Fun concept though! If it hadn't had those bugs I would've had a fun time. I like the roguelite idea with the casino vouchers.

The stone troll spawned surrounded by rocks and couldn't escape. I tried to kill it, but it heals faster than I could damage it, so the game was softlocked unless I wanted to die.

I would definitely have made some more changes to how days start and end if I had more time. You can somewhat monitor the progress bar in the top left, but it can feel unforgiving.

Thanks for playing! You're not the first to mention the progress bars. Would definitely make them contrast more.

I appreciate the feedback about the progress bars! I was a little worried that they might be too similar. I'd redo the whole art style if I were to make this again.

Thank you! I made the music myself :)

I'm so happy to hear that! Glad you had fun.

Oh, that was the end of the game? I was able to do it on my first swing with no upgrades, so that might also be something to tweak. 😂

Here's my laundry game where you use magic washing machines to turn clothes into the requests your customers have!

/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4719452

This is my clothing store production game where you use magic washing machines to transform clothes into customers' orders!

/jam/theveryseriousjuniperdevgamejam/rate/4719452

Edit/addition - This is your first game? That's incredible. Props!

These were fun puzzles! Super well made. I'm very impressed. I also liked the story, even if it was a little cliché. It was neat that you got a choice at the end.

(P.S. There's a small typo in the "H.A.I!" message - 'experience' got misspelled as 'expierence.')

KBM controls feel terrible, but this seems like it would be really fun if I had a controller. I feel like having A/D just turn the wheel clockwise and counterclockwise would be easier to grasp than having to mimic a steering wheel by pressing WASD in a circle.