Bartered by Aycan
In silhouette town, people don't use money, they barter to trade. You play as a common person in this town and in the beginning you have nothing. Find something tradable and start bartering. You can carry only one item.
Every item has a different and absurd purchasing power (orange juice is as valuable as television). When trading, + and - signs indicate the purchasing power of target items with respect to yours. When the sun sets, the item you have is your score (a round is 60 seconds - time stops when interacting). Try to help other people and don't do bad things.
Some npcs may ask for high value items for their low value items. Also some of them are very generous. If they need something, they're ready to pay with four times more valuable items. Each level has a trade path and every item in a level is reachable. If you have the item you want, just wait until the round finishes :)
- D to right, A to left
- W to interact
- Mouse to trade
- S to start the game
Complete Guide
- Stick to the candy kiosk and the supermarket. Their owners are nice people and they help you when trading.
- If someone needs an item, simply provide it.
- First check who needs what. Don't trade until you draw a path in your mind.
- You don't have to have the item with the highest value at the end. I personally win the game when I have ice-cream.
| Youtube | https://aycan.itch.io/bartered |
| Youtube | https://github.com/aycansblx/Bartered |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/bartered |
Ratings
| Overall | 240th | 3.444⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 358th | 2.942⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 167th | 3.519⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 119th | 3.8⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 90th | 3.87⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 233th | 3.06⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 117th | 3.146⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 217th | 3.231⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 33🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
Pros:
- Highly polished for a compo entry
- Graphics have a consistent, unique, and good style
- Surprisingly complex gameplay
Cons:
- Got stuck a few times with untradeable items
- Walking speed was painfully slow
- Audio would really help this game, just something ambient to let you chill out
All in all, a super solid entry, and I think you could do very well!
When you obtain a high value item in the beginning, it becomes harder to make profit in the rest of the round. Also because of this, some other low value items become pitfalls :) Couldn't calculate that :)
I didn't fully understand the game and what all those + and - sign means. Sorry I can't give you a better feed back than that D:
@hcursino @odeyalko Deciding a target item and trying to obtain it is the goal of the game. You can help other people while doing that. Background music creates a stressed environment but actually it is a chill game :)
Thanks for playing and commenting everyone.
It would've been great to have some UI showing what item I was possessing. Displaying the player's entire barter chain at the end of each round would've been cool too.
Some of the dialogue confused me. Stores were offering to give stuff away, but accepting their free stuff meant discarding your own. I didn't immediately understand that I could only own one item at any given moment.
I also agree that the player's movement speed was rather slow.