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I Feel Like A Kid In Some Kind Of A Store

  • Addit
  • 08/08/2014 10:30 AM
  • 4098 views


A Game Made By: Caz & marimo
Created Using: RPG Maker VX Ace
It's A: SIMULATION Game
That Roughly Takes Around: 2 Hours To Complete
And It's A... COMPLETED GAME!!!



While the dearest judges for the Indie Game Maker Contest 2014 continue to slave away countlessly with beer and pretzels in hand at over hundreds and hundreds of many different games created by all sorts of many different talented - and not so talented – developers, it is about time that I, yes, Addit, finally gets off his big keister of a can and finally decides to play and review one of these suckers – at long last!

You know, let this be a lesson to you – and if last year’s Game Chill event wasn’t relevant enough - this is why I’m the last person in the entire world to depend on doing something – or even be a judge! Thankfully, those guys down at the booth “nonchalantly” tossed my application letter in the nearest trash can and before any more damage could be done… Could you imagine if “I” was one of the judges for this thing? We probably wouldn’t be done this until probably sometime in 2016 – the next time the Cubs win the pennant. (Please don’t quote me on that.)

Anyways, enough about all that! Time to talk about stuff – important stuff!

So we all know who Caz is on here, right? Yeah…she’s goofy, a bit weird, and, for some strange reason, almost all her games that’s she done thus far seem to center around some kind of a food fetish (and here I thought that Ocean was bad…) And as for marimo, um…she’s…Nessiah’s…first…second…cousin – wife??? I dunno...

Anyways, I guess one day in the middle of the night, Caz was at her local Starbucks, drinking her vanilla decaf mochachino while eating a giant raisin scone, while after the second bite or two, an idea, so brilliant and vast in her head suddenly came to her in a vision swirling inside her coffee mug. “*gasp* This is brilliant,” said Caz. “I’m going to go home right now and write all this stuff down before I forget.” So she ended up driving home right afterwards while slightly intoxicated and somehow managed to get home safely while almost grazing a cherry tree. When she got home, she came up to her room, fired up her computer, tossed all her shit on the bed, and then she said to herself, “Wait, I can’t do this shit all by myself... If I’m going to make this newly found idea of mine’s, I need to find myself a patsy, someone that’s so desperate for work that he or she wouldn’t even question in the first place what they’re doing until it’s done.”

And since Nessiah wasn’t available to help her out – Caz got marimo to help her out instead! And instead of doing the game that Caz originally wanted to do, they just ended up making this game instead, “Tirawrmisu.” What’s a Tirawrmisu, you say? I dunno. Let’s just say it’s one giant cookie.

Anyways, I was first intrigued by this game at first glance more so for the visual aspects but merely for the concept in general. You see, I used to work in retail before for a very long time, and seeing this game in action and through all the pretty screenshots made want to play it and try it out and relive those glory days. Also, another reason why I wanted to play it is because this is the first “Caz game” I’ve ever played from her. And you never know what you might find by playing a different developer’s game, as that particular set of games that they made might speak better volumes to you than somebody else’s that’s completely different.

Alright, I guess I gotten this far. Time to put on a silly “kiss the chef” apron, fire up the stove to 400, grab myself some expired peanuts from the fridge – and sit down for a little Tirawrmisu. Oh boy!

The Story


That face!


Our delicious tale begins in the fictional land of Draigville where a nasty dragon by the name Gordon Roarsay (clever) has a massive attitude problem and a major eating disorder is terrorizing the townspeople in search of delicious, low cal treats. When he can’t find what he’s looking for to satisfy himself for the day, he decides that some nice spicy virgins dripping in chocolate and caramel sauce – every man and dragon’s fantasy – will do him justice. And life’s been pretty sweet to him, either way.

But the townspeople are having enough of Roarsay’s antics – and even his own kind, too! For you see, as more and more townspeople are being eaten alive like some kind of a fat guy locked inside a Krispy Cream’s store for the night, there are less and less sweets being available to eat, not to mention virgins as well. With this, Roarsay’s is starting to eat his own kind in an attempt to satisfy his sugary cravings. (What a d*ck!)

Dunkin, one of the unfortunate inhabitants living alongside with the beast, knows that something drastic has to be done in order to stop him from being on tonight’s dinner plate. So, like any other sane dragon would do, he decides to use all his life’s savings that’s he saved up to buy a bakery in town, hire the best pastry chef that he can afford, and hopefully two and two can go together and save both the humans and all of dragon kind.

Unfortunately, for Dunkin, though, the chef that he manages to bring is none other than some red head, teenaged skinny faced white boy (who doesn’t seem to be bothered by sleep deprivery), named Aarin, who not only looks like he’s on some kind of trippy drug that we’re not told of but also doesn’t seem to fit the role in the confidence for Dunkin. Unfortunately, this is all Dunkin’s gonna get.

It’s up to Dunkin and Aarin as the pair must work together (more so Aarin, more than anything else) to bake enough delicious treats in order to not only keep the newly found business afloat but also to combat Gordon Roarsay in an all-out showdown. They don’t have much time left, seeing Roarsay’s major eating disorder, and all that.

Even though while I was playing the game that I found the story to be a bit of an afterthought, I do commend these guys for at least providing some minor tension to my surroundings while I was playing. For you see, the antagonist, Roarsay, is heard throughout the entire game to be a pretty intimidating fellow. You hear stories about him but you don’t really see the beast until about the end of the game. But judging by what Dunkin tells Aarin about him really paints a picture and creates this whole “I gotta do this” feeling throughout. I like that. The characters overall are pretty likeable, even though it’s mainly due to the insane facial expressions that they make through their portraits. It’s a story that’s quite simple in its approach but it really does the job.


The Gameplay


This kid’s an a**hole – BAN HIM!!!


This game is broken up into many different segments, but your ultimate goal isn’t to make your newly found workplace the greatest in the county, it’s to defeat Roarsay. How do you do that, you say? By baking, my dear fellows, by baking.

You see, your job is not only run the shop and clean up after the customer’s messes but to also bake enough supplies to keep your store in stock and intact. But in order to bake enough goodies to sell, you’re going to need those supplies first. You get them by purchasing some particular ingredients in the shop or nab ‘em by going out of town and visiting the Gateaux-Black Forest. There, you can nab a whole assortment of different types of ingredients, like flour, sugar, eggs and chocolate for free, but you must avoid the Cupkraken’s that will try to make you drop your precious goods and make you have to go back and get some more (ba*tards). This part is essential for nabbing most of the key ingredients that you’ll need, but I always found this process to be a bit slow at times, especially going for the items farest to the drop point. You see, a run button really would have really helped for something like this. In fact, having it throughout would have been greatly substantially helped for a game like this in regards to pace. I can see if you were picking up something that you couldn’t run, but having a run button would have greatly cut down some of the waiting times.

Once you do get enough ingredients that you need – then it’s time to start baking! In the beginning, you’ll only be able to make Tirawrmisu’s first before eventually being able to make all sorts of different delicious goodies. You’ll be able to make more things with enough practice, so the more items that you cook the more items Aarin will be able to make as his level goes up. The more complicated the treat, the more ingredients that you’ll need to make it. But the better the treat, the more money you’ll make by putting it on sale in the shop. You’ll ultimately want to do this in the end if you plan on making a shit ton of money.

The actual baking process in order to make said item I found a bit strange and even almost completely redundant. You see, once you’re ready to bake something, a bar pops up with an arrow and a red space that you need to press the action key on it in order to get it to land on the red space. Fine and dandy, but even if you make a mistake and not hit the red space at all you won’t lose your ingredients and you’ll get to continue to have another shot at it with no penalty for your screw up. Also, the speed of the arrow doesn’t seem to change with the complexity of the ingredients or the item in general as only the red space changes on the bar where you have to land, to switch up a little. I’m guessing that these guys wanted to put in a penalty for missing the mark, but just decided last minute not to do it. Oh well. I still think this part is entirely redundant if there’s going be no consequences for your actions. Hell, at this point, I would even take a luck based message that says, “You made this much and f*cked up on this much.”

But the best part of the game is the actual running of the store, IMO. Basically, before you even open the bloody trash heap, you have to display all your wonderful goodies on the various stands that you have in the store so customers can see and buy them. Then, you can officially flip the sign over and be open for business, no matter what the time of day may be, which, even though it’s quite funny to see people shop at 2 A.M. to get their sugary fix on, it isn’t really practical. I mean – doesn’t Aarin have to sleep? I mean, shit, son, he must be super human, or something, taking a bunch of those five hour energy drinks at will. God damn it, man!

Once the customers come in, they’ll quickly browse around, dump their trash behind (lol), and head to the counter eventually to purchase your goods. You can then set the price (although it’s set at a manageable default level when the screen’s first brought up) and then sell them the goods. Each customer is a little different when it comes to negotiating about the price of something. Some people don’t mind if you gouge them a little (heh, heh, heh) but then you have some f*ckers, like the kid that comes to your store who’s a real a** and I wished I had the power to ban him from my store. This little bugger ALWAYS wants you to lower the price, no matter what it is. I just love how he buys something for like 1000 gold and then you give it to him for, like, 990 and he’s like, “Alright, I just had just enough.” Little A**!!!

Running the store is definitely the most enjoyment you can get out of the game, but it does get a little repetitive after a while. Sure, you can purchase more stands to house out more items on display, but that’s really about it in terms of overall upgrades. I would have liked it – and I can understand, being something made in a short matter of time for IGMC 2014 – if they could add even more content to the store running part. For example, maybe you can have some customers try to steal your goods and you have to either hire a security guard to guard the front of the store or browse around the store like a undercover guard or catch the thieves yourselves, being the manager and all. Maybe even hiring an assistant or two to watch the store while you go out and collect more ingredients would be great. Maybe you could do something like having the townspeople posting reviews about your place in the paper to have more people come to your store. All of these things would have added even more to the package - but I can understand because of time restraints.

I also had a weird glitch that happened to me where I’d run out of something and then a customer would come along right afterwards and be able to buy the item that was preciously there that was last taken by somebody else. I thought that was a bit odd.

Oh, and there’s also the fight against Roarsay in the end that I forgot to talk about. Yeah…this was kinda…unnecessary? I mean, it’s a nice way to break up the pace and do something else, but to the end game on a note like this? I mean, I’m not going to spoil what the entire fight is all about here, but let’s just say that this fight is incredibly easy. It’s so easy, it makes you wonder, with his grand total of one whole attack pattern, that he could be treated like the menace that he is. Good god this is embarrassing, even for him! I would have preferred if I had to cook a certain amount of items, bring them all to his lair, and then either be sautéed extra crispy or be ultimately praised by the beast. I probably would have liked a final showdown like that instead of what they ultimately went with.

Also, I thought that Dunkin was going to talk to Aarin on Day 7 to ask him if he wants to fight Roarsay first before just…going there to fight him? And then, in one scene, Aarin says something about Day 13 that he going to fight Roarsay. I mean, what!? Here you have one thing but then one thing actually happens. I thought I had one more additional week before fighting this guy. So naturally, I was pretty surprised when in the middle of running the store I got the message “It’s go time.” This is probably a bug.


The Soundtrack


- Got your sugar!


Oooo…I did not like the song choices for this game at all…not because of the quantity of songs that were provided for this game but more for the types of the songs that were provided. For you see, this game only uses about five songs in total and none of them, other than maybe the boss theme, really doesn’t do this game justice in this department. For starters, you got the main theme that plays when you’re running the store, “22 Down Blue,” that just sounds so draining and doesn’t really bring a smile to my face like the rest of the whimsical nature of this game does. I guess I wouldn’t mind it so much if the song changes to something more “happy” and “upbeat” as the store begins to progress and do better over time, almost similar to what Sim City did for the SNES where the music would change as the city kept developing, but by itself it’s just doesn’t work. I also don’t like how the song loops after around 35 seconds or so. It’s a bad choice, IMO.

Now the theme that plays on Gateaux-Black Forest is a bit better and is a bit more true to the game’s overall setting, but it also suffers from the same quick looping schemes like the previous song and I don’t really like the latter part of the song.

The title theme, “Scythuz Wild Wild Cyril” sounds like something you’d hear from the Wild Arms series or from Clint Eastwood’s, “The Good, Bad And The Ugly”. It’s a bit too soft on the ears for my tastes. It’s not a bad choice, but hearing this while seeing a standard scrolling text scene is a little left to be desired.

The boss theme is pretty good, overall, and it’s the only real song that I like in this game, but it does sound a bit too out of place for a something like this, doesn’t it?

Since this game was made for the Indie Game Contest 2014 and original resources had to be used in order to qualify, I’m guessing that these guys had to make do with that they had in the musical department. It’s not as awful as I make it out to be, but I guess a part of me feels that the whole soundtrack is a bit of a missed opportunity to me. Oh well.

The sound effects aren’t really noteworthy, as they’re pretty much the standard fare here; nothing truly special. Actually, come to think of it, even though that these guys used a lot of many different sound effects judging from the credits sequence, it sure felt like I only heard about two or three of them tops.

So, yeah, a bit disappointing, but, whatever.


The Aesthetics


Mmmm…sprinkles! *drools*


Now this is something I don’t have much of a problem with! The graphical presentation for this game is very colorful, lighthearted, and quite humorous at times in regards to the facial expressions on the portraits. Something about those creepy smiles and strange looking laughs really make me snicker inside. (Mmmm…snickers…) They look fabulous and almost semi-professional looking, especially in regards to Dunkin and Aarin themselves. It’s a bit disappointing to see that the customer’s portraits are not drawn the same way as the central characters are, but it’s understandable due to time restraints. I also really like the whole look of the store and the whole Gateaux-Black Forest part. Everything looks the way that it should.

One thing that kinda bugged me was that this game has a promotional art page and even a title logo created for it but none of that was used in game; it’s just this empty, soulless black background with plain white text. Seriously, you guys couldn’t put anything together for this!? Come on - you’re even more lazier than me…and probably Kentona (we’re both pretty slow).


The End Result


Clean up on aisle 3!


Despite some issues and minor gripes with this game, I actually really enjoyed this one. It could have been because of the nostalgia of working behind the counter and watching all the customers dump their trash and make an a** of themselves, but I like to think it was because of something much more. While it’s understandable that not everything that Caz and marimo wanted to put in the game made in time, they still ended up doing a bang up job and providing this tortured soul with at least a few hours of entertainment. Even if they don’t win the $10 000 grand prize, they still managed to make me laugh – that’s good, right? Right???



Now if you excuse me, I have a Gateaux-Black Forest to find!


OVERALL GRADE:
3.5 / 5 - C+ ~ A Few Quips, But Otherwise A Great Game.

Posts

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Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
Hahaha this review had me laughing every couple of lines, thank you Addit!

And yes.. a lot of the issues are related to time constraints, naturally.

- The story was outlined at the start but its implementation was seriously a last second thing. I'm talking like, mere hours before the deadline.. so that you enjoyed it even a little is at least a weight off the shoulders!

- The run speed in the forest will be changed when I update, though I will likely be remapping the whole area to be less of an enormous pain in the ass to run through. Even I'll admit it's too huge for something you have to traverse so much, and it never changes either so.. I can see why it'd get tedious fast.

- The baking process left a lot to be desired, yeah.. we had originally planned not only for the timer to go faster as you progressed, but also different minigames for different cakes. Sadly that one never got put in, but will definitely go into an update!

- I want to put a lot more uhh.. well I wanna say "realism" in but that's not quite the word in this context. I WILL MAKE AARIN SLEEP at some point in the game, likewise he will be able to visit other areas and not just the bakery/forest because.. can you imagine seven days of the same places over and over again? Welp though after this, I don't suppose you need to imagine.

- EVERYONE HATES THAT KID UAHAHAHAHA

- The sales process does get super boring, so I do wanna put in some fresh gameplay here and there to spice that up like you said. I was also thinking about some further shop customisation as you get more cash, like making the shop bigger and putting in new customers with different needs/problems. Maybe even a quest or two couldn't go amiss.

- The glitch you encountered with running out of the product is odd though, and not one I've found myself.. But I wouldn't dare a person to take a look at the events in this game, because they are A MESS. It doesn't surprise me if anyone found any bugs ahahh.. I will be cleaning these up though and re-eventing pretty much the whole thing.

- Roarsay fight was slapped in at the last minute too. We did want him to have a lot more skills, like maybe a sticky frosting bomb that slows you down if you touch it, etc.

- The Day 7 thing is a bug too. It's where I realised 13 days would be too long and changed it to 7, but forgot to change all the dialogue.. oopsie..

- The soundtrack, aaahhh.. yes you are very much correct in thinking it was due to the necessity for custom songs. I had almost nothing on my HD that I could legally use at the time, so those were the next best thing sadly. And the looping issues were something I actually spent some time to make sure they looped properly but sadly I am a derp and screwed it up! By the time I noticed, we had maybe two days left and much more important things to implement like.. lacking gameplay ahahah..

- The title screen is something that haunted me every time I opened the game, but sadly I never got around to fixing one up for. The one you see in the Images section was whipped up after the deadline as something for the gamepage.

- Marimo's art is my favourite part of this game. Aarin's sexy laughing face never fails to cheer me up, or Dunkin's delicious sprinkles.. I don't know whether to hug him or to unhinge my jaw.

I am glad it was enjoyed though, and thanks very much for the review! I just hope I didn't murder your brain too badly. ^^;;;
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
A-game review Addit, I, like Caz, was laughing throughout the whole thing. It makes me want to play it again. Though I may wait for the re-write :) I like my brain unmurdered.

Caz
LET'SBIAN DO THIS.
6813
Awww.. *puts away brain-murdering knife*
nhubi
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
11099
Sorry, Caz.

...wait why am I apologising?
Well, I’m glad that you guys both liked it and enjoyed reading it; really makes all those 4 hours trying to type this whole mess seems like it was all worth while. :)

Anyways, I’m glad that some of the things that I mentioned are going to be taken into consideration for when you guys do the rewrite for this game sometime in the future. In reality - I really enjoyed this game, so I’ll definitely give this game another go-around again once you guys finish adding all that you guys need to do for the next version.

Actually, the one thing that this dump of a store was missing that would truly emulate the perfect replicated experience of working at my old job would have been the addition of a "Western Union" machine. Just think about it: While all your customers are trying to buy cakes, donuts, and all the other various stuff from your store, you have the odd jacka*s that comes in here that wants to waste everybody else’s time by asking Aarin to send money halfway across the world with no ID in hand and refuses to sign anything on a form provided with a signature. If that was in the game I would have just died laughing.

I WILL MAKE AARIN SLEEP at some point in the game.


Good for him; the boy needs sleep.

Actually, in regards to that, you should be able to purchase energy drinks / etc. to have him able to stay up a few hours longer before ultimately crashing if you don’t give him another one or let him sleep. If he somehow manages to fall asleep on the job, some of the stuff that you have in your shop should be stolen with no memory of who took it, so there’s a penalty for not getting a good night’s sleep / taking those energy drinks.

EVERYONE HATES THAT KID UAHAHAHAHA


If there was a misao nomination on here for the most douche-baggiest character award, he would be my pick. Actually, in regards to about what I said before about customers stealing things – “he” should be the one that does it the most often, lol.

The Day 7 thing is a bug too. It's where I realised 13 days would be too long and changed it to 7, but forgot to change all the dialogue.. oopsie..


So that explains why that happened to me…

Marimo's art is my favourite part of this game.


Oh, for sure, she definitely did a great job. Those creepy smiles and faces is definitely one of the highlights of this game for me.

- And don’t worry about my brain, Caz; it’s surprisingly well intact for someone who’s taken countless shots to the head via loose basketballs and hockey pucks over the years. At this rate, I should have no teeth left in about a couple of years.
Great review, Addit. The introduction alone is hilarious!
I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this
It’s amazing after a while how much fun and easy that these reviews get to be the more you write them. Thanks, Kylaila.

And instead of just finding that god damn Gateaux-Black Forest place, I think I’ll just cut my losses now and just go get one of those black forest cakes from the store. *gets his wallet and his car keys*
That freaking kid is the bane of your store's existence.
Ocean
Resident foodmonster
11991
At least it's not the purple haired girl in Recettear who never buys anything and just tries to scam you with overpriced items! ;w; She's the worst, and she always ruins your combos
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