Santa's Factory by SaraMartins
We all know Santa, right? He spends all year round crafting toys in his Factory on North Pole, away from people, civilization, social life...
Well, this year Santa has become too stressed and slacked off! (Let's face it, you would too :smirk:) This year Santa hasn't even begun separating the toy boxes... Which is why we decided to replace Santa with you! Congratulations on your new job!
Get right at work and separate those stubborn gift boxes, but remember, don't get stressed with the amount of boxes, like your predecessor...
How to Play - WASD / Arrows to Move - Mouse to Look/Turn around - E to pick up boxes - Space Bar to Throw boxes
Good luck and... Merry Stressmas! :santa::christmas_tree:
This game was made by Gonçalo Tavares (sound designer), Sara Martins and Vasco Rodrigues (everything else). Due to work and that, we had less than 48h to do it.
POST-JAM UPDATES: - 1.1- Now you can find an updated version on Itch.io below the submitted version, with improved Stress and Gift bars for better feedback, and a few bugs fixed. Also added Mac and Linux versions! Unfortunately we can't test them, but we hope it works. - 1.2 - Mouse hidden and locked, difficulty balanced. - 1.3 - Camera movement improved, crosshair added, player movement improved, collisions improved (no more bugging out of the house :) )
Ratings
| Overall | 468th | 3.543⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 593th | 3.296⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 742th | 2.994⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 227th | 3.877⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 237th | 4.078⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 155th | 3.753⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 531th | 3.014⭐ | 76🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 298th | 3.616⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 267🗳️ | 139🗨️ |
- Looks great
- Audio matches appropriately
- Reindeer and snowman are great models
## Cons
- Controsl are sluggish
- Kept bugging through the house and out to the yard
- too difficult to quickly
- Stress isn't rated in candy canes ( :) this isn't a serious con, sorry)
Not bad. I can see where this idea coudl be successful. It just ramped up too hard for us too quickly, and the collisions put us in the stables too often.
@roaring-cat-games Thank you so much for playing. We really appreciate the feedback and the time you put into detailing. We participated in the Jam version, however due to work we only had less than 48h, so we do know there can be more bugs. About the house, we are aware of that, and already tried some fixes, seems to be of no avail unfortunately. We will also look into balancing the difficulty. Thank you so much again!
There's only a couple of things I would suggest changing:
First, I would suggest hiding and locking the cursor, as it can be quite distracting to look around while the cursor is flying across the screen.
Second, adding a cross-hair in the center of the UI would make it way easier to aim over the presents and pick them up. I found myself overshooting/undershooting the presents pretty frequently (even with the super helpful glowing effect), making it a little frustrating just to pick them up.
All in all, making dirty Santa trick shots ended up being an experience that I didn't know I needed in my life. :)
All in all I had great fun playing this, good job!
Except for that the game was pretty polished and nice, cute music and concept, nicely done!
- Need to improve the control feeling to make it easier to navigate around.
- Make the presents easier to grab.
Good job!
Thank you for playing @adhesion. We are aware more aware of the control difficulties, and will look into it later today. Yesterday after yours and @jasperarmstrong comments we released a 1.2 version of the game, with mouse lock and hide in game. Thank you so much for your feedback!
Thank you @jasperarmstrong, I'm glad that overall you still liked the game. As I said to adhesion, after both of your comments we released yesterday a fix for the mouse. Thank you so much for the tip about the cursor lock! We will also look into improve the controls. Thank you again :)
@doc-ill I'm really glad that you had fun and were able to manage the hectic environment on the middle of the North Pole :). We did already release yesterday a lock and hide cursor fix, I'm guessing you either played the original version or that we put it up roughly at the same time you downloaded the 1.1 version. We also yesterday debated adding a crosshair, but we left it to do with more time today, so we will look into that later today, so thank you so much for your feedback.
Also, making dirty tricks might turn you into a naughty boy, but as you're now Santa, I guess it doesn't matter! :D Thanks again for playing!
Thank you so much for playing @puarsliburf, I'm glad you were able to save Christmas and have fun in the meantime!
Thank you so much @yishalee, I'm glad you enjoyed it! We are definitely going to look into the aiming today. Thank you for your feedback :)
Thank you for playing @cliff-lee-cl! And thank you for your feedback, we are already looking into improving both of those points later today.
On the technical side, the Linux version was buggy (unable to move, camera blocked on the floor in the middle of the room) while the Windows version worked flawlessly under Wine.
I can see the use of the theme.
As the others said, the biggest problem in this game are controls. I also tried the fixed version, but it doesn't change much. Maybe a crosshair in the center of the screen could help. I really spent long time before I noticed the white glowing and be able to pick up presents.
I liked the modd it was setting with the music and the overall presentation!
This would be amazing in VR ;)
Thank you for playing @sgadrat. The endless mode does sound like a cool addition, we will look into that when we have more time. Unfortunately neither of us has Mac or Linux, just Windows, so we couldn't test the builds :\ Thank you so much for trying our game in another way (using Wine), it means a lot to us that you went out of your way to test it. Thank you again :)
@lorenzos thank you for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed the look of the game. A new version with crosshair and controls is definitely coming out today, that was already added and we are just testing a bit more the improvements on the controls. Thank you for your feedback :)
I have a lowpowered Macbook that it didn't work well on, but on linux it worked great. I just needed to rename the data folder and make the binaries executable.
Thank so much for playing @annie-owl, and we are deep on working into fixing as much as we can during the weekend! We have just released a version with crosshair, which we hope that improves the experience.
@merdeboi thank you for playing! We hope that with the latest controls and camera improvements, saving Christmas will be a little easier. Thank you for your feedback, and I'm glad you enjoyed :)
@clemzd thank you for playing, it really is stressful being Santa. Thank you for your feedback.
@fixedgerald I'm sorry about that, hopefully you can try an updated version and check if it still happens? If playing on Mac/Linux we don't have any so we couldn't check the builds. Thank you for trying to play, and I'm glad you enjoyed the setting.
@naali thank you for your feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it. We would like to think how we could further expand it, when we have more time. I'm sorry it didn't work on Mac. Great hack with the Linux though. Thank you for going out of your way to try it :)
1. Graphics cute. (Especially when I fail an attempt, that's the best)
Con:
1. Now I know why Santa quit.
I think it would be cool to have the possibility to set the speed at which gifts are sent in game. Like a speed button on the machine. Players that think they could handle more gifts quickly could give themselves a challenge, or lose to stress, heh.
Thank you for playing @jaimuepe, sorry for the stress :P I'm glad you managed to get the hang of it throwing the boxes. Thank you for your feedback!
Thank you so much @ango, I'm glad you liked! And Santa apreciates you taking his place :P
@youbestrong thank you for playing. We might think about customising the mouse and other options, as well as a speed button. It is an interesting idea, but we won't probably have a chance during the week. Thank you for your feedback and for saving Christmas :)
Thank you so much @owen-davies, we might think about an option to balance the increase in speed. I'm glad you still enjoyed :)
however, I have dual monitors and the mouse kept going t the other window.
Also, something like a crosshair would be nice to make it easier to pick up the gifts.
That`s it, the controls were a little clumsy, but I enjoyed the mood =)
Controlls felt nice. There wasn't much of a challenge though, I never received more than 25% on the stressbar. I would find the game more enjoyable if it had more gameplay mechanics.
The music was also really nice, but the "toggle music" button doesn't work (bug).
Thank you so much for playing @lamossus, I'm sorry you felt it was way too easy. We might try to add a way to increase difficulty for different players. The stress goes up the more gift boxes you have on the room. I'm glad you enjoyed it though :)
@notspaghettigames thank you so much for playing and thank you for your kind comments!
I like that you don't have any tutorial at all, so one have to figure out that each present must go in the correspondent box. One thing, though, is the controllers: Something very weird happens here (Linux build, playing fullscreen) that I don't know if it's a bug or a "feature" :P : When I'm turning my char, it reaches a point where I cant turn it anymore. It kinda breaks the pace, but I was able to do just fine.
Had a good fun with it :) Cheers!
Thank you so much @creamybacon2! I assume you played the original version? We have a snowflake crosshair in the updated version :) I'm glad you enjoyed!
Thank you so much @reax! I'm glad you enjoyed even though it was simple. With the time constraints we had we didn't have time for implementing more unfortunately. I will check the toggle music button, thank you for alerting us.
However, it doesn't have a lot of replay-ability. The first time I played, I lost pretty quickly because I was just confused about what I was supposed to do. The second time I won very easily after I figured out the perfect place to stand. I would suggest adding a little more to do during gameplay...I'm not sure what that would look like because its a simple mechanic. Overall I thought it was very well done, fits with the theme and was fun to play for a few minutes.
Also how did you do the edge highlights when you hover over the presents? I've been trying to find information on it but I haven't had much luck on how to do it.
Best of luck to you, Cheers!
implement is the biggest setback to us). Thank you so much for your feedback, and we're really happy you enjoyed it :)
Congratulations @pcmxms! Not having a tutorial is sometimes a bad move, as we had a few players initially confused about what to do, but we're glad that most player figure it out easily :) About that bug, it is not a feature. We don't know how does Unity build differently to Linux (and probably Mac) but that's most likely what's happening. Currently we only have Windows to test, but we're thinking about installing Linux too to try and figure out what's wrong. Thank you for playing :)
Thank you so much @illabom :) We do know the gameplay is a tad simple, but with the time constraints and wanting to really finish something, we kept it that way. We are thinking about other possibilities in improving that. About the edge highlights:
1 - Create an empty game object in the inspector (lets call it HaloObject)
2 - Add an halo component to the HaloObject
3 - Make the HaloObject a child of the game object where you want the halo.
4 - Now through scripting you just have to enable/disable the HaloObject to show/hide the glow. I used a game object with only the halo component because you can't control it through scripting.
Thank you for playing, and we're glad you enjoyed even though it was simple :)
Good work all round
@robert-newman Thank you so much!
@hisfantor Could you tell us what happened in your computer?
@saphires thank you so much! Poor Santa indeed xD
@zanzavar Thank you for playing! Do you have any suggestions about the grabbing? About the walls of the house, I think it was solved in the later updates of the game. The controls were also a little modified. If you'd like, give the updated version a try! Thank you again :)
Oof. It's very rough. The good qualities are the graphics and general presentation. It's polished, most of the UI elements are clear, and it's easy to figure out how to play the game, what the success condition is, and what is the failure condition. But that said, controls needs....lots of work (post-jam build does fix this significantly, by the way). The difficulty to select a box was very frustrating. It's hard to figure out where the center of the screen is, and even the box highlight flickers madly, making it hard to figure out when is a good time to hit the E key to pick something up. For a concept so simple, this flaw adds up very quickly.
I also found the box dropping sound effect super-annoying. A lowered volume, as well as randomizing a couple of sound effects would really help. Alternatively, changing the pitch each time the sound is played would help, too.
My only complaint was that it didn't capture the mouse pointer in windowed mode, so it was a little awkward to play. I still managed, and from looking at other comments it was fixed in a newer build. So, no harm done!
Thanks for a fun game
Focusing on the game, the concept is simple but it fits the theme well. In terms of gameplay, though, the submission version could use some work in terms of gameplay. Targetting the boxes to pick them was pretty tricky sometimes, which combined with the fast pace boxes would start appearing became a bit frustrating.
It shows lot of promise, though, and I've noticed there have been several updates, so good job!
I found it near impossible to pick up gifts most of the time, and I can't really think of a good reason why. When you're not holding a gift and there's one in your view and pick-up range, it should simply by automatically made pick-upable (i.e. highlighted with the white glowing effect), no questions asked. Instead, however, I often have to move my cursor to just the right spot as a gift jitters between selected and unselected.
Actually, whatever changes you made in the post-compo version made the whole thing a lot more manageable, and my suggested changes are likely not needed.
@omiya-games thank you for playing. Thank you for your detailed feedback too. I'm glad that the post jam build improved on the problems you felt about the controls. About the box dropping sound, you are completelly right, it's something that we missed due to bigger problems, but we will check on that. Thank you so much again :)
Thank you for playing @cppchriscpp :) And right on time for saving Christmas! The mouse pointer has had a few improvements in the builds (perhaps the most tinkered of all aspects) so I do hope it's a lot better for players as it is for us. Thank you for playing even though it was awkward :P
I'm glad you had fun @sugiuro, thank you so much for playing!
Thank you for playing @ithildin :) I'm glad you enjoyed the mood. It is indeed a simple game, we wanted something really light, and also in terms of mechanics, due to our work, we managed to create just the simple sorting game. The controls have been improved thanks to feedbacks, so I do hope it's easier to play the updated version. Thank you for your detailed feedback, and again for playing!
Thank you so much for playing @stratoskakalis, I'm glad the overall mood appealed to you :) Generally we tend to follow and emphasize the theme. Sometimes we could make something more subtle, but generally we like direct approaches. Can be bad and good at the same time, but if we make enough games we'll (hopefully) fill all kinds of genres! Good luck for you too, and thank you again :)
Thank you so much @mr-mcgibblets, I'm glad you enjoyed the mood! I do hope the gift pick-up feels a lot better on the updated version :) If you had fun, maybe Santa can hire you again next year :D
@zirconcode thank you for playing! We agree, the loop was a tad short, but our sound designer @gtavares made the sound taking some limitations into account, that later were found not to happen, but he didn't have time to re-create the system. Thank you again :)
Thank you so much @toccs, I'm glad you enjoyed! The controls indeed were hard, but hopefully the updated version takes that away!
Overall this was a fantastic submission! I loved the graphics and music and it was a really fun challenge. I did not manage my stress levels well at all :joy: Great job!
i would really appreciate if you could help me with ratings for my first LD entry
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/cybird
thanks in advance, and have a nice day!
Well, that was a very nice and comfortable little Christmas themes entry, to the point it slightly disappoints me that I am actually playing it after Christmas has gone by. :disappointed: But regardless, I'll just take it in my mind that I helped saved _next year's_ Christmas already!
I personally didn't find the gameplay to be that stressful, and I even found it a bit soothing. Picking gifts and throwing them into boxes (and sometimes hoping to be able to do it from the complete opposite side of the room) is a simple enough premise and in this game in particular it gets the point across. That being said, however, I did notice the difficulty slightly going up as I played, and it would have been nice if it continued in that trend. Perhaps a suggestion for the future would be to add an endless mode? I personally know I'd enjoy it.
Presentation wise the game was also pretty appealing, although if there's one thing I have to point out that felt slightly off is how the gift container boxes had a realistic wood texture to them when everything else was flat shaded. I don't know if this was a designed decision to have the player be able to easily notice the containers regardless of their position in the room, but artistically speaking I think they would have looked fine even without the textures. The audio was also nice, although you started to notice the loop after a while.
[In behalf of our team](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames), thank you for this pleasant and enjoyable Christmas experience. It seems there were some few rough edges with the game at first, but it seems you guys worked them off. We look forward to see what you guys create next! Cheers! :whale:
Thank you so much @pragmascript, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you so much @behenate!
I'm sorry for you not being able to play the jam version @paveldlouhy. I already said in your post, but if you'd still like to try the 1.4 update now that the voting ended, we'd love to hear from you :)