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Early Demo for Playtesters

  • Caz
  • 06/28/2014 08:57 PM
  • 5308 views
Ahoy thar!

For anyone who fancies giving bug testing a Viennese Whirl (okay that was a push, I promise I won't make puns outside of the game again..), we are uploading a demo two days before the deadline! And yes, we are crazy!

The game will be devoid of story for the time being, and contain only the three main gameplay elements: running the shop, baking and collecting ingredients. I realise there's not a tutorial or anything when you start for this very reason, so here are some tips:

- To collect ingredients, sneak past the Cupkrakens in the Gateaux-Black Forest and press enter by the big ingredient piles (the flour/cream, the sugar, and the chocolate/eggs). You will pick up a random item from the pile, some of which can be pretty rare. Sneak back past the Cupkraken and press enter at your chest at the entrance. If you hit enter when you're not near the chest, you'll drop the item. Similarly, if a Cupkraken hits you, you drop the item. If you're hit three times, you are rather annoyingly sent back to the start! Oh nooo! Once an item is in your chest, it is safe and in your inventory.

- To bake with your ingredients, make sure the shop is shut and head into your kitchen in the Bakery. Interact with the oven or countertops and a new menu will appear. Provided you have the ingredients, you can select an item to bake. Once you do this, a sliderbar will appear. When the pointer is directed at the red area in the bar, press enter. If you succeed, you will bake the item, and if not.. well.. god knows what you did, but it didn't work, that's for sure! This process will keep going until you hit escape or run out of ingredients.

- To sell your items, approach one of your displays and press enter. You can select one of your pastries to sell in the menu. If there are already pastries there, you have the option to replenish stock with baked goods in your inventory or remove the item altogether. When you're happy with your layout, visit the sign on the right-hand window. Interacting with the sign flips it to open, and your customers will start to come in. Between 6am-8pm will be most active, whereas the nighttime will get pretty quiet.

- If a customer shows interest in an item, a music note will appear above his/her head and they will walk to the counter. Go to the other side of the counter to serve them, and select a price. Initially it will always show the base price of the item which most customers will happily pay for. Some of the cheaper customers (like the kid) won't even pay full price unless your shop is exceptionally clean. You can haggle three times before customers get annoyed and walk out.

- Keep your shop clean while it's open. Press enter over the rubbish piles that appear in the shop to sweep them away. Keeping them there will not have a negative impact, but after sweeping, your prices will gain a bonus for a short time. This means you can clean and clean until customers pay much more than the base price for your items.

- Hygiene rating is a stat that increases with every pile of rubbish you clean. When you have a high enough hygiene rating, you can buy new items from the shop!


I am hoping that is all, but do give us a bell if you're having troubles or you've found a bug. Thank you all for your interest~!

Posts

Pages: 1
Played it for a bit, didn't find any bugs. It's really cute though- great job ;w;
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
Well that was a lot of fun, played around for a while, dodging the Cupkrakens is good, a little bit of a challenge but not frustrating though it may be just a little slow, as I only ever got caught once. I suppose it depends do you wish to make it a challenge or a cakewalk? (Sorry). I really liked the intro music with it's medieval/latin theme, fits the dragon motif well, as they are both archaic and fiery. Well done, I do look forward to the full version but this was a good look at the mechanics that make the game tick, and they are solid.

You may want to make the heads-up displays a little more transparent, because at times they obscure the rubbish and you can't see there is something you need to clean in the bakery.

You might also want to include the amount of gold you have available when you are in the shop so you know how many of the confectionery items you can buy.

It might be good to also include a list of the required ingredients for each pastry, I know when I've got them because the little 'hit the target' mini game pops up but knowing what I need will make foraging in the Black Forest easier.

e: I meant in the black forest not in the cooking screen since it shows the ingredients needed there.

Oh and no, I didn't find any bugs either.
Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
Super, thank you both for your feedback!

I'll be working on a couple things that have been brought up like fixing HUDs, making rubbish a.. little less frequent and trying to get it to appear near customers, adding a menu to show how many items you have in inventory/on display when replenishing stock, a little inventory on the field map to show your ingredients, and I've added a gold menu to the shop screen.

Thanks for testing guys, it really is uber helpful! :D <3
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
No problem, one other thing that I just realised, the time in the corner goes from 1 - 12 and then resets to 1 again, you don't know if it is 9am or 9pm, you need to change it to a 24h clock, since the best time to sell is during the day and the best time to cook/forage is at night. There does appear to be a tint change every so often but if that is your indicator of day/night you need to make it a little less subtle.

There is also no exit option in the menu, I know you can F12 to get back to the title screen, but for people who aren't familiar with the engine they won't know how to close the game.

Oh and I got as far as Burndt Cake in my book, I know there were a few more to go, but I think I'd tried everything game mechanics wise by then.
Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
I was just thinking that about the time HUD! I will definitely put that in so people don't get confused!
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
Also there doesn't appear to be a penalty for missing in the mini game, as in you still have the ingredients even if you miss, and I imagine fail to bake the cake. Shouldn't you lose the ingredients if you fail? Or did you want to make the game super user friendly?

Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
I wanted to make it easy because the ingredients can be a pain in the ass to get, I thought it'd be too depressing to lose your ingredients when you fail haha..
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
Wanted to beta-test but looks like nhubi and accha got it covered. Eagerly anticipating the formal release ^_^ (I love cooking games - does anyone remember Ore No Ryomi 2, that old Game Maker one? That was awesome)
Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
Aw Magic Man, thank you! :D All feedback is appreciated though, so I can try to spam in some last minute fixes and tutorial stuff..

How's your game going anyhow? I only just noticed you had a page ahaha my bad!
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
Hmm...fine, I'll see if I have time to play this today but I can't guarantee anything unfortunately :(

The game's been finished for 6 days and I'm already planning my next one! #gammakforever
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
author=Yellow Magic
Hmm...fine, I'll see if I have time to play this today but I can't guarantee anything unfortunately :(

The game's been finished for 6 days and I'm already planning my next one! #gammakforever


oh yes Les Vis, I've got that in my list to try. It looks interesting.
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
author=nhubi
oh yes Les Vis, I've got that in my list to try. It looks interesting.
Feel free! ;> Could definitely use a comment or two as I've had no feedback apart from my beta testers.

Anyway, I ended up downloading the full game instead of this demo, sorry! I've played for about 25 minutes and first impressions are mostly positive - although I wonder if there's any variation in how recipes are made? Unfortunately, while I think the music is good I'm not sure it fits the theme of the game.

I'll write a bit more after I'm a bit further in but for the record I freaking love cooking games so thanks a bunch for making this!!
Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
Thanks Magic Man! I will totes be playing your gam later too~!

The recipes unfortunately don't really vary, it's the same minigame every time and there's no difference in speed or anything. We were crunching right up to the last ten minutes last night, and it was unfortunately a crucial gameplay element I didn't really decide to fix.. though in the next few days, I might possibly release a small fix-up for people who want to play it as a game-game and not just checking it out for the contest.

But yes most things are a bit haphazard in there ahahaha there will be a lot of uhh.. rough edges, and sadly music was something I really cut corners with. :D;;

Maybe one day I will get a chance to update and we can smooth out all the issues, but 'til then I'mma just put my feet up and relax in the face of gam well mak'd.
Yellow Magic
Could I BE any more Chandler Bing from Friends (TM)?
3154
Haha, it's cool, it's cool. I know how rushed things can get when it comes to contests like these, but I thought I might as well throw out a few points in case y'all decide to work on updates sometime down the line.

I think I mentioned it somewhere on this game page before but in case you're interested, the Ore No Ryomi series by Vertigo Gaming has a few great ideas when it comes to cooking mini games.
Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
Oh I will certainly take a look, thanks YM!
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