itch.io

Hi!

• When I finished a round for the first time, I was wondering what the difference between the "next wave" and "end round" options is. I thought end round would just be the end of my run and back to the title screen. Now I understand the difference between a round and a wave, but it took me maybe 20 minutes (I'm far from smart) to understand it. If the difference between those 2 notions are clear to the player, it avoid the confusion i had in the beginning of this section, and makes the player really choose between going to the next wave, which is a bit more difficult, not by a lot, but they can't upgrade themselves, or going to the upgrade menu to get stronger, but with a next round that is much more difficult.
• If the player dies during a wave and they still have lives, after the upgrade menu it starts the next round, but if the player lost, let's say to round 2 wave 2, they have less chance to clear round 3 wave 1. I think letting the player retry the current wave of the current round they lost to is easier and less frustrating, instead of having no choice but to jump to the next round. For me, this is the core of all the other difficulty issues.
• Like others, I felt that the difficulty powerspiked a lot between rounds. If the player doesn't pick a health upgrade, they just get one shot by everything, and it gets worse with each death. Maybe having one chance after getting hit by something that should one-shot the player and put them at 1 HP instead could help mitigate that? Or add a recommendation on the upgrade menu for a health upgrade if the player gets one-shot on the next round with their current health.
• At the end of the very first wave, I always had 20 cookies, but if I go to the shop with exactly 20 cookies, I can't buy anything, even though it costs 20 cookies for all the first upgrades.
• Showing the cost of the upgrades to the player outside the upgrade menu could be a good addition. A player who plays the game for the first time might not know there are upgrades (like me), and showing the cost of the upgrades directly could help avoid going to upgrade something but realise they lacked the cookies for it.
• If the player gets hit, there is no sound or visual clue to make it clear they took damage. Adding both could help the player notice they took damage, and prevent frustration since they could more easily react.
• When a zombie dies, their corpse still has a hitbox for a very short time; it blocked my path and killed me a few times, and it can happen frequently. On this topic, the 2 entries visible on the north of the map block the player movement in a really small spot if they are on the border of those sections. The player can only move south to unlock themselves.
• When playing on a browser, after I've lost all my lives, I was not able to do anything on the game over screen; my mouse was not showing and was not recognised by the game, so I wasn't able to try again or quit. Adding a Fullscreen option on the browser could also be useful; often my mouse went over the game, and I clicked text on the webpage, and my character was not moving since my inputs were not registered by the game.
• The different upgrades felt lacking for me. The health one wasn't really appealing to me at first, but when I noticed that I get one-shot by everything at round 3, I felt that with my level I had no choice but to take it if I want to get a chance. The speed of the bullet one felt good; it's satisfying to see it get quicker. The one that increases the damage of the bullet had no purpose for me in the early game, since it didn't help to one-shot the giant zombie, and the difficulty shift with round 3 is huge. If it scales well during the mid to late game, I get the idea, but if the player feels obligated to buy health, they might never be able to deal enough damage later on. It's a risk vs reward choice, but right now with the difficulty, it's hard to go with the risk choice. The increased bullet size felt right in my head, but after buying it one time I saw no difference; maybe after multiple purchases it's much more visible, but with + 0.1% I'm not sure.
• I saw someone mention a dash upgrade; having a movement option in the game might really be useful, even if it's not a dash- maybe a roll or something else even. The idea I had was having the option to "parry" the hatchet when it made contact with the player; they could then throw it back like a bullet, but it doesn't bounce and can't be picked back up by the player. Having a cooldown on it could force the player to still play with the bullet, but it can give them an option if their bullet is on the other side of the screen and they need to go and pick it up against a swarm of enemies.
• If the player finishes a round and chooses the next wave option, the ammo is not refilled, and they need to take it back on the field. I expected the ammo to return at the beginning of a new wave, since there is a pause already to choose between next wave and end round.
• If the player stands near the border of the screen, a zombie can spawn on the player character and instantly kill us; maybe having a condition that blocks the spawn of zombies in a little area around the player could prevent that. I had this problem in the middle of the right border; when I tried to do it again on the entries on the north border, no zombies spawned.
• When the player loses all their lives, the character can still move during the death animation; it's a bit goofy to see, and maybe having the player character stay idle after our death might make it clearer to see the animation and that we died.
• The zombie that throws hatchets is the only one that doesn't deal contact damage; I expected them to deal damage both with their hatchet and by contact like the others. It's cool that they are only a threat in range, and I think that is the reason why, when the player character is near them, they stand still. A small thing I noticed with this zombie: if the player is in contact with them, they do their throwing animation, but nothing happens; I don't know if they don't throw the hatchet or just miss it by intent.
• Seeing all the zombies facing south after a round is lost is cool; it's like they are watching us as the player.
• All the sprites are well made, the animations are smooth, and the line that shows where the bullet will go is clear for the player to plan where they should go after they shoot.

I think that's all the things I noticed and got to say. Sorry if it's hard to make sense of everything I said; I'm trying to improve on that, but it was a fun experience, and I will try next builds of the game for sure! Great job and well done for just 7 days of work!

Hi! I'll try it out maybe this evening if I have the time, or later if i don't, but I will give you feedback whenever I do! 

Hi!

I checked the comment section before playing and agreed with Enfant Voodoo about the shelf, it's really tiny, I don't know if the upgrade for it change its model and make it bigger, but if that's not the case (which might be an idea), having it be bigger could help for that.

Other than that:

• I had no issues on both fullscreen and browser (except it was harder to read if not in fullscreen)
• I found the calendar maybe 2 days before I couldn't pay the third rent, it's useful to have a clearer reminder of the day of the rent.  Also I'm not sure if the different bonuses on the calendar are counted on the computer for the current day or if we are supposed to check for a few days in advance, and then sell them when the bonus on the specific type of item is on. If it's the second case, I think it would help to tell the player that the calendar exists (and the upgrade section too), since they are currently not highlighted anywhere and could be useful to know about, even more as the days go on.
• Maybe having something in the shelf menu to tell the player which products we have sold to avoid checking which one is it one by one if we forgot the name of the item.
• At the end of a day, both the summary and market update felt kinda overwhelming to read, the way the information is given in a big block of text might be the reason for me and not much the amount of information. I felt that the market update wasn't worth reading since the menu on the computer already told me which items are currently worth buying.
• The gameplay loop was satisfying and works well, I don't know if it's in the current build and I haven't reached it but I thought of having some items taking 2 days maybe to arrive rather than 1, it would deepen the gameplay and ask the player to plan more the rent or just maximizing the money they could make.
• The sound effects were good, the printer with the tape sound was relaxing each time I finished an order. Moving around in the house was smooth, the movement speed was just fine. 

There might be points where I'm wrong since I'm not in a marketing environment at all and it might make sense in it, but it's the feedback of that type of players then! I played for 15 minutes I'd say and it was a fun time!

Yeah i saw that it was for a gamejam, the feedback was not here to be rude or something like that, hope it wasn't the case! The core idea of the game was there it was just little things i wanted to point out, even if the timing part was a bit rough. Hope you had a lot of fun making it, good work for a 3 days jam!!

The concept of the game is funny, seeing the character getting super stretched when you get high score is the highlight of the game for me and a good reward for having the player reach high score. But the timings on when clicking feels odd, i never felt punished when clicking too early or spamming, and neither rewarded for clicking exactly when the food was in the circle, the evaluation word for each food felt a bit arbitrary with this, i felt that especially in very hard, where i'm still not sure if i had to double click when 2 foods were really close to each other or even in the same horizontal line.

Also having the music loop after around 40 seconds for songs was a bit frustrating too but i guess you had no choice around it and couldn't have the full song.

I liked the 5 different characters models and their animation, they each felt unique and transcribes their fantasy role well. A little last thing, after finishing a song and having every participant go to the weight machine, when each of them go to the left to sit after having their weight calculated, after the first one, the participant walks over any participant to go and sit at their place, it goes well and is funny with the overall game but i wanted to note that.

The game was intriguing me and i wanted to try it, i liked the overall look of the game especially the background, be it the forest and the cave. The music that seems like a lullaby or the creepy version of kids tv shows fits that art direction and in addition with the background it created and established an unsettling atmosphere right at the beginning.

I had a bug first time playing, in the cave near the spray. After triggering the spray animation and being able to drag it i died in the saw blade, but after i had respawned i wasn't able to move or do anything. It happened even before triggering anything with the spray and just dying directly to the saw blades 

Also in the dialogue with the rat, the line "The things that are real are not our" was weird to me, i felt like a word was missing, like "our friend" or something like that, but it may be me. 
There is another little thing i found, if after the rat event you drag the meat towards the wolf and you haven't seen him yet, you can't trigger his dialogue until you drag the meat a little bit further out of the screen, after the third bright green three on the left starting from the cave

I wasn't able to make the jump to return back with the spray after 3 tries and having to restart each time was not the best so i haven't seen the rest of it, but i loved the cat thank to their introduction with the dumb animation and the music!I will look forward this game when you will get back on it, really promising!

Cool gameplay loop, but a bit tough to know where the hitbox of the fish is compared to it's sprite, especially for the big ones, i was confused on if i hooked them or not. The different knives upgrade were really cool and it was satisfying to do it with the claymore. One issue i had that blocked my progression was that i coudln't feed the krakens anymore, pressing E with meat wasn't doing anything at all and it kept my blocked from getting more gold. I don't know where the issue came from, if i spammed E too much or if it's something else.
Besides that, it was a fun little experience!

It was really relaxing to pick up the leaves and go for the 100% each time, even if the gloves were much more effective than the rattle for me like some other said, not a really big deal in the end but something to give a heads up. Cool and satisfying experience!

Simple but strong concept, the artstyle was amusing and chill, so was the music, the levels were cool and discovering new mechanics that were present since the beginning but necessary throughout the levels make the player really feeling like they improve and get better, super satisfying. I got stuck on lvl16 and had to go but it was a cool experience!

Really cool mechanic of letting the players move the different block themselves and showing the names of the ones who moved a block the latest.  The pixel art and the music are cool and the different blocks properties were simple but clever.

The only little  issue i have, same as some others i saw in the comment is that when you reach the top there is nothing after the animation of the player character disappearing, no winning screen, no fading to black, or sound to let the player know that it ended, even though it feels like it. I expected something to come or that i had to do something to get a proper end to it,  as i reached the top i saw one of the pillar having a block on top of it, the one in the middle, at first i thought the climb would continue after jumping on top of it or that it would be the end of the screen and game after jumping through it. Maybe adding something like mentioned above? the last proposition may not follow the idea you had in mind with what the animation of our character disappearing might means though.

Really cool platformer game with a neat idea!

I'm sure a lot of people wanted to play some of their favorite songs in Deltarune after the minigame in chapter 3, you deliver that in a really neat way, i thought the number of map would be limited but clearly not the case, impressive work, i hope Toby or his team sees this and implement it in the game if they are not done on it themselves for chapter 6 or 7 ( but i doubt that) because it would be really cool seeing this feature in the game and you already made goodwork on it! Congrats for all the team and cant wait to play Running sky and Flower Man next time!

I wondered what the gameplay loop would look like and i must say i'm impressed. i got hooked really quickly and it was the perfect gameplay mix for me, really cool idea you had mixing rhythm game element and roguelike this way. The active and passives were well designed, haven't tried the one were enemies fall in love but it was a cool gimmick to offer a way to play more stall. The music was cool and didn't fell repetitive either after like 20 minutes playing, the design of the enemies were diverse and cool, but the final boss wasn't really threatening or odd looking like the other ones for me, i had to squint my eyes to see their animation when they attacked to see what they were looking like and it wasn't that special as the final boss for me.
Really glad i got to play the game, again impressive work and will keep an eye on it 100%!!

Cool little experience! The atmosphere is really cool and captivating, the camera angle are awesome and helps creating a sense of tension and feel unease. The story was cool too and progressing through the game felt natural.
Only small issue i have is that we can pick the same item as much as we wanted it seems, like the photo inside the house or when you create the potion and Margarida gives us the petal. You can just inspect the photo again and it will repeat the same sequence as much as we want, and talking to Margarida again after she gave us the petal result on her giving the same dialogue and same item again, where i expected the photo inspect spot not to be here anymore. And Margarida to repeat her last line of dialogue, or just a line about us going to her house to pick up the gardenhouse key.
Otherwise really cool experience and impressive work considering the 75% of the game done with only the mouse!

Hi! Yeah sure thing! I would gladly help with more feedback on it

Hi! I tested your game yesterday and nearly reached farm lvl 5 and wrote the things that stood out for me:

The prompt for calling the farm name is centered to the text box but it shows over the rest of the "What will you call your farm" text, over the "ll your farm" part to be precise, i expected it to not hide or make any other text in the text box less readable.

The text box in the inventory menu for "Seeds", "Buds" and "Plots" are not aligned the same, the size of the "Equipment" text is not the same as other text and isn't very pleasing to see.

When clicking the "Build" option in the inventory, the Build menu appears, but after choosing either the "Move Object" or the "Pick up Object" option, a small dark rectangle appears at the bottom right side of the screen with nothing written on it.

I cant interact with any other building or the pond after that, only with the phone with no issue. When i hover near it, the opacity of the rectangle change, implying that clicking on it does something but it only makes the rectangle disappear with nothing happening, i can interact with the buildings and the pond just like before this event.

When clicking on a object i can move in the game like the "Planter" the menu for changing it's place appear but the position of the object is a bit under where it should be, and a little more to the right also, making it weird at each change of position, even if getting more used to it. Also the menu "Rotate(R)" has a change of opacity when hovering over it, expecting that the item will rotate and kept inside the moving state, but it only drop the item where the cursor is, not being able to interact with the "Rotate" menu or making the item rotate by clicking on the box seems more expected.

Placing "Planters" on the side of the garden where the pond is is possible, but it seemed not at first, since the grass at this place was restricted by the pond

When planting a seed, i can interact with buildings, going inside their respective menu and also move other object like the "Planters", i expected that i was only limited to place the seeds or exit the planting state

When moving an object, if i click on the rotate box, it places the object where the mouse is, but also it seems that it keeps the game in the moving item state, while being able to still access buildings and other things like planting seeds. I can move object by just clicking directly on them instead of going to the "Move Object" menu.

If i try to plant seeds in this state, it just grab the object with the seed still in hand, making it impossible to plant the seed. If i hold a planter this way and click on top of another one, i can plant a seed inside the one that is under it, i can also place a planter on top of another in this state.

To exit this state, clicking the black box with nothing in it while inside the "Pick Object" or the "Move Object" menu seems to fix it. I had this interaction before planting a seed so i thought that i couldn't do it, or that the way to do so was not intuitive and not well explained.

When a seed is planted, if i click on another tab of my navigator it freezes the game timer, i hesitated if it was voluntary or no, since i thought the game was similar to an idle game with the waiting i think that having the game timer runs even when not the principal tab better

The sprite for the bushes at the border of the screen is cool for the one at the bottom, but the rotated sprite for those at the right and top side seem out of place, even if a bit funny

When a plant has finished it's growth and is ready to harvest, adding a notification telling the player that it's finished would be a good thing, since the sprite for the finished plant state was not telling enough.

Inside the "Orders" menu, having the number that the player has of the asked item somewhere in the window would be cool and avoid loss of time, comparing to have to close the phone menu, and going to the inventory building, then the "Buds" menu, the same could be applied when buying seeds in the shop, having a line like "Current (number) under the item or something like it, instead of counting the numbers of seed the player buys in their head.

The well seemed like an interactable building doing something but clicking on it does nothing, i don't know if i missed something about it or if it's just in the decor but it felt like it would be useful for something.

The "Mail' menu on the phone add no mail at all during my playtime, if no mails are able to be received for now i think having a "Coming soon" text appearing like for the pond or the greenhouse seems better, for now i expected to receive a mail after the tutorial mission or an order but it never happened

The "Dry rack" item seemed not like an interactable item, for me it was a decoration and not an actual important feature of the game, it being inside the "Equipment" menu felt wrong for me, even if i thought that i just wasn't well instructed about gardening. I only discovered it when i had an order that required High grade bulb by luck.

At first i thought that since it was called "High grade" it was a low chance of having it instead of a regular bud after the growth of a seed. 

Maybe having the interactable building and items that are used for the main gameplay loop of the game having a little light colored shape showing when hovering over them be useful to know what they are for directly would help avoid that confusion.

The exp gained after completing an order seems too low until getting new features of the game. only 10 exp per order when 200 xp is needed for to get from lvl 3 to 4 is a bit too much, especially when i can only plant 1 type of seed. Either having the exp gained depending on the amount of seed asked in the order and more exp for a high grade bud compared to a regular one since it requires one more step, or lowering the amount of exp needed for lvl up.

When choosing to place an item in the game like a seed or a planter, the image of the item sometimes goes under the model of the pond and the fences but not others.

The plant sprite changing matching its growth is cool, and so the sprite of the "Dry Rack" changing when something is drying on it

The gameplay loop is simple but it's works well, adding maybe some sounds when planting seeds, collecting plants, delivering orders and leveling up could add to the experience and enhance the feeling of achievement and reward for the player. Curious to see what the greenhouse will be useful for and the gameplay around the pond too!

I had a fun time and the most important things for me would be the growth timer like the other said and the bug i encountered with the seed in the Moving Object state that could make the player confused

I never actually tested a game to help the creator like here so i hope it's not too much and it doesn't sound rude or overwhelming.Good luck and i'll keep an eye on it!