Hey. Hello. HI!
The Disco Option has been a regular hanging around in the streams since this was played and Varii was a very prolific participant in the months of August / September... oh my where has the time gone? I am very new to this whole game feedback and blog thing. It really started on a whim. I am a very whimsical individual, so I may put things on hold just as quick as a pick them up. There is one thing I know, its not to force it. I had a little bout of Depression (big D), I really needed to take a step back. Next time I will be upfront about this with my budding audience.
One of my very influential figures is a small content creator / poet / traveler / programmer named Steven. Steven has a really nice newsletter/blog, you should sign up. Steven also suffers from Depression. He wrote a really great book that is a very pragmatic guide to Depression. In it one of the main takeaways is your economy of energy. I really hunkered down this fall, it was pretty bad. I have begun to feel better and I am excited to get back to a regular schedule.
This weeks games;
- Divine Dining - By Varii
- CyberPong - The Disco Option
Divine Dining #
Play In Browser | Varii (programmer) | BrushingBlooms (Artist) | PenguinSphen (Music/Sound) | Gr0n (programmer/UI)
Welcome to the diner, where both the food and the guest are Divine! But be careful, lest the anger of the gods be upon ye! Seat your guests, make some good food and serve them to the guests, while keeping the gods wrath away; with wine!. How long can you last serving your Divine Dining?
This was probably one of my favorite game jam games. A clone of plate up / overcooked with some nice thematic twists. Truly impressive the scope of this one, especially the custom graphics. I must say the art direction still stands out in my mind all these months later. It's kinda crazy that it only got 57th in the jam (the art was #29). I believe there is some luck to these and it seems like early submissions have a clear advantage. Perhaps in 2025 I will set up a Fizzle Studios Jam so as I can really see how accurate democracy is for picking these.
Anywho... this was a genuine fun good time. I hope they take this one further to a full release. I typically format game jam feedback to include what stood out, what needed more/less time. If there is nothing to spend less time on I escalate it. I truly do not know how this was done in such a short window.
The Good
I feel like this game really made me feel the rush of my old restaurant duties. I was a horrible employee and dear reader, you can see that stands true to this day. Rushed multitasking makes my brain melt. It was a good and hilarious stress (for me).
The base game loop was very fun. My dyslexic brain had a lot of trouble getting its wires crossed, there are some real subtleties to the rules. Patrons of the diner order in symbols of food which translate to ingredients and preparation steps. As true to the genre, when a patron gets impatient they leave and you lose money.
All of the mechanics tied together in a way that felt complete and (mostly) smooth experience. I am quite surprised this game didn't rank higher, but I do believe they submitted it pretty late in the submission window.
The Bad
One of my main frustratations were when I would get behind and I'd want to just drop / throw my dishes out. Perhaps this was an intended mechanic, I think it got way too hard when I got behind, there was zero chance of catching up. I had an urge to just throw this food out immediately and move on to the next dish. It felt VERY punishing to pick up the wrong ingredient due to this.
The plate washing mechanic didn't seem to really matter. I would just end up leaving dirty dishes around. This is a little nit picky but this mechanic needs more. A penalty of some kind would be a good add.
Designing Game Jam games is different. When a player boots up a game jam game they are even more likely to quit at the first sign of adversity. I think the fantastic graphics defnitely bought you some currency with new users, but the tutorial certainly lost this team some votes. I had to play through it twice to even get a chance to understand the mechanics. The game needs to, at least, pause for me to read. A stop gap could be making the timing twice as long for slow readers like myself.
The Ugly
Nothing ugly, but the tutorial borders on it. It's not ugly to me beause adding a pause state should be a minor addition.
Conclusion
I really wish Varii had time to make more games, I found their work really creative and different amongst the sea of generic platformers and R-type clones. I think it takes a certain something to try ambitious ideas in such a short period of time.
I know several people who would pick this game up retail. It has a certain charm to it with the graphics. The gods coming into a V.I.P. section and demanding wine is very nice touch. This is on the short list of games I'd see to production.
Great work!
Cyber Pong #
Somehow, someway this is the first pong clone i've been handed. I think the closest I had was one breakout clone. In general it was nice to just zone out and watch a ball bounce around. I freaking loved breakout. Something about the geometry really vibes with me.
The Good
This was a really great start. Getting the basics down is often overlooked. Things like the UX and the graphics where all tied together nicely. It was a bug free and complete experience. It is not to be understated how important it is for any game to be in this state.
- Basic game loop set up and established
- Art Direction
- Simple and direct user experience to get them in the game
- No Bugs
This foundation, assuming the code is well structured, could be turned into any number of pong flavored games. Done is better than perfect.
The Bad
The controls felt a little slugish. I would prefer to use mouse control. Personally, I prefer a more responsive paddle. It is very frustrating to see where I want to put my paddle and not get it there in time.
A minor nitpick is the volume levels of the music. The ball SFX were drowned out by the music. It's an impossible task to be a solo dev, so I'll forgive the fact that most people can't be an audio expert, programmer and artist.
The Ugly
The key to getting things done is iteration. It is hard to iterate without feedback, it can also be scary to share things and ask for feedback.
The first thing that must be fixed is the random angles of the ball. I actually wasn't sure if this was a bug or not, it was a design decision. This design decision does not fit. The simple fun in these types of game are in the prediction and manipulation of geometry. Taking that away makes the game straight up random. Let the users line up a good shot that is hard to block; this is the fundamental core of pong.
Conclusion
Fantastic core and a great start to a pong game. What a fantastic game choice for a first project to dip your toes in game development. I think more people should elect this type of game. I think it's, engine selection depending, a bit of a challenge to get the geometry and collision set up right.
This is why I focused so much on this being a great foundation. Random angle bounces aside (easy fix... delete code), it felt responsive and accurate. There are any number of games this could be added upon. I don't believe there are plans to take this much further, which is fine. I think overall most devs should focus on finishing a vision and moving on to the next, not that I've been paralyzed by indecision for my personal projects or anything...
Thine Support Is Appreciated!
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