Post Jam Patch

WOW.

I made 35th on Creativity! I also came just over 400th over-all! Thank you all!

While I won't pretend this game would've made it to the top 100, I do acknowledge a few key factors keeping t back;
The lack of tutorial

The lack of sound
The lack of a web-browser version

While I can't address all of these instantly, especially since I get about a day a week to work on my own stuff nowadays, I do want to over time.

Over the last week I created a bunch of gifs that act as a mini tutorial. They definitely seemed to help in the playtests I watched even if they aren't a perfect substitution for a hands-on explainer. For future jams this is something I will keep in my back pocket; firing off a 'how to play' page is a good stop gap. An actual in-game tutorial for this game will take a much longer time, and might even require a rewrite of some of the base code, while sound is something I had a look at and decided to postpone until I have a budget and/or team to help.

Today, though, I'm releasing a build that should work on browser and mobile (although the mobile version is laggy). I originally tried to set this up in the closing minutes of the jam but a lack of experience and sleep held me back. Hopefully this will make the game instantly more accessible to players that stumble across it on the second page of the 'most creative' list (I still can't believe that!).

I also updated the 'attempts' system in this patch; having watched players stream it it was quickly apparent that you could reach an unwinnable state. Some players also became frustrated that if they failed a routine that they had to start from scratch. That's why i've introduced Retries and Resets:

Resets work as the game did before; you lose your spent cards and create a new routine (effectively losing a life).
Retries allow you to attempt a failed routine, but you can't change the cards that have been locked in.

I have plans to turn these into limited resources for the full game, since they are currently a bit too forgiving. They, too, need a better explanation in-game than they currently have, too, but for now it's well past the end of my work day.

All things considered, though, this was a very warm reception. I have been looking for a project that warrants taking through to fruition and this feels like it might be the one!

Peace, J.