Small Town by Emiliabea

[raw]
made by Emiliabea for Ludum Dare 45 (JAM)

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About

You're a hardworking employee and student who forgot to go Christmas shopping, problem is: it's Christmas eve and you have * nothing *. Pick a place to buy the perfect present for your significant other, they deserve the best!

Gameplay: Short(1-3 Minutes), Interactive Narrative

Controls

Press space to continue story, click to interact

Credit

Programming + Art: Emiliabeaexe, Instagram: Emiliabhernandez

Music: Owen Smith

Known Issues

Try not to spam click or things might not be activated in time

Use only the spacebar to continue dialogue, don't click the screen pls

Finally

I had a great time in my first ludum dare. I had to cut a bunch out, as I'm sure most people did, but I will do better next time at limiting my scope!

Ratings

Overall 463th 3.547⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Fun 637th 3.164⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 774th 2.905⭐ 65🧑‍⚖️
Theme 645th 3.203⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 172th 4.156⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Audio 306th 3.492⭐ 64🧑‍⚖️
Humor 232th 3.44⭐ 60🧑‍⚖️
Mood 173th 3.867⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Given 79🗳️ 60🗨️

Feedback

supercannon
08. Oct 2019 · 04:01 UTC
Pretty cool artwork and sound, I do wish it was a little easier to tell which books you can click on in the book game, but otherwise, cute game!
ZuhairGhias
08. Oct 2019 · 04:01 UTC
RIP Tabitha
James Beninger
08. Oct 2019 · 04:02 UTC
Charming. The artwork and music work really well together.
eva
08. Oct 2019 · 04:09 UTC
Cool game! Got a cat!
NotExplosive
08. Oct 2019 · 05:19 UTC
Short and sweet like an LD game should be. The art looks beautiful, and I loved petting all the cats. Great work!
BrokenMirrorMedia
08. Oct 2019 · 05:43 UTC
I always love a fun visual novel, and the art style in this stood out to me. I had some issues with text getting stuck, or the "typing" sound repeating, but overall it was a very cute, fun game and a great interpretation of the theme!
theufo
08. Oct 2019 · 15:45 UTC
Nice graphics and strytelling, but everything ends too quickly :)
Veeti Sundqvist
08. Oct 2019 · 15:55 UTC
I love your art style! The game itself was also alright :)
Catusfelony
08. Oct 2019 · 16:10 UTC
This has such a warm and calming feel to it, I only played through once, on the cat route, and I loved every single description for them! My favourite is Three Paw Mackenzie!! Up and at 'em! >:3

I'm gonna have to see the other gift options later but I think I saw enough to love this game!
🎤 Emiliabea
08. Oct 2019 · 16:34 UTC
@catusfelony Thank you! Admittedly I put the most effort into the cat level and I think it's the best one :P Luckily I think that one is a popular choice :)
gamejuv
08. Oct 2019 · 16:43 UTC
The Cats have beautiful names. Love it haha
VectorWolf
08. Oct 2019 · 16:48 UTC
I loved you game. It was really really cute! What a great first entry :cat:
Benji Kershenbaum
08. Oct 2019 · 19:24 UTC
The art style is lovely!
Rex10000
08. Oct 2019 · 19:37 UTC
I love the Graphic!
cax
08. Oct 2019 · 19:46 UTC
I see cats I rate 5 haha. :smile_cat: Nice graphics and nice idea! :D
Karanveer
08. Oct 2019 · 20:03 UTC
I wish there were more animals, especially dogos but overall good work! :D
Blizary
08. Oct 2019 · 21:23 UTC
Hey Hey pretty cool game and pretty amazing since you did all the code an art , I bow to you !
Realy liked the art , and yah totes extra points for cats

![Captur347e.PNG](///raw/5bf/3/z/28f68.png)

Dont worry Moto Moto i like you too buddy
essarrgee
08. Oct 2019 · 22:03 UTC
I love the art and the story's very wholesome. My only complaint is that the grammar's all over the place, but it's still readable.
Kerdelos
08. Oct 2019 · 22:05 UTC
I would have liked a bit more feedback when clicking on things and regarding where to click ( i played through the book part ). Otherwise cute game, cute graphics and cute music ! Congrats on your first ludum dare ! Good job :)
Locomule
08. Oct 2019 · 22:11 UTC
That was fun, love the hand-drawn look. I assumed I would get to pick out all 3 gifts though, guess I nee to play 2 more times? :)
Pedro Rosa
08. Oct 2019 · 23:54 UTC
The game is simple but fun and I really like the art style.
hwaet
09. Oct 2019 · 02:24 UTC
I immediately feel the panic of having messed up my holiday shopping. eep. This was a great idea and adorably executed! Plus, you get extra points for cats. There's always points for cats.
Langotriel
09. Oct 2019 · 09:40 UTC
I fucking loved the references. Humour is needed in more LD games :D
Apace
09. Oct 2019 · 13:13 UTC
I liked it! Charming artstyle and well-chosen background music in my opinion. And a lovely little story for this LD theme.
NavrcL
10. Oct 2019 · 10:49 UTC
Charming artstyle. Nice little game! Good job!
0x01F0
10. Oct 2019 · 19:03 UTC
1. This triggers my christmas shopping stress :scream_cat:

2. I want to pick all the cats :crying_cat_face:

3. Great work on this game! I really liked it! :smiley_cat:
Lucien Catonnet
10. Oct 2019 · 19:25 UTC
Really cute game! I played all three shops, the cats was the best one. I wish there were a feedback when hovering interactable zones. Congratulations on shipping this game!
NoobDev
10. Oct 2019 · 22:03 UTC
Im in love with the art, and I really like how the game is so small yet so fun. It would be nice if the game had indicators for which objects can be selected but overall its amazing.
LanaLux
11. Oct 2019 · 13:55 UTC
Loved this! Great art style and mini tasks. Really engaging. :)
cybersoftuk
12. Oct 2019 · 08:59 UTC
Great art style - ended up with "Doja" and a book - well done!
CafeLovai
12. Oct 2019 · 14:18 UTC
Great art, your style is very soft and inviting! The songs could be a bit harsh and hard to listen too. The book choosing minigame being the biggest example.
mahalis
12. Oct 2019 · 14:58 UTC
As everyone else has been saying, the art is terrific - the watercolor style is really pleasant. Enjoyed the writing too, particularly some of the book titles. Nice work!
gamebuilder
12. Oct 2019 · 15:14 UTC
It's a bit early for Christ mass but hey why not? I love the artwork in this game. The audio is unusual and it complements the visuals.

RIP Tabitha.
neonlare
12. Oct 2019 · 16:06 UTC
Dig the artwork~ Clicking around with no feedback or indication what's interactable was a bit strange though, would be nice to know what's a surface you can dabble with~ Pleasant style!
Ulcius
12. Oct 2019 · 16:08 UTC
was surprised it ended so fast but hey if every game ended with petting all the cats, the wprld would be a better place :D very neat art!!
Corentin Benoit-Gonin
13. Oct 2019 · 03:40 UTC
I pretty much agree with the UI feedbacks. We doesn't really know when something is clickable or not.
Cool idea otherwise!
gamefive
13. Oct 2019 · 16:15 UTC
I didn't fully understand this story, not my native language. But I could tell how it was played. I loved the beautiful image and sound. Is it a direct drawing? The cats were cute and the background was beautiful. The female character was really pretty.
Lars-Erik
13. Oct 2019 · 20:04 UTC
Nice little story. Would be nice with some tooltips when you select the final gift.
I'd love to see this polished a bit with a fuller story. Could well be a nice interactive novel peeps would like.
Meta-link
14. Oct 2019 · 11:30 UTC
A short, but cool game ! I really enjoyed the art style :slight_smile:

Good job !
selkkie
15. Oct 2019 · 11:18 UTC
This was so cute! Very lovely style, and the idea was nice. The music was very minimal, and it fit the style well. I played through all three branches.

It seemed to me, though, that no matter what option I picked, he loved the gift anyways? (Like, I bought him a dress???) Which was a shame, and felt like it put the memory sequences to waste. I would have loved to see a flow that required the reader to pay attention and remember, something like phone wishlist -> memories -> choose what type of store -> pick an item correctly based on what was said in the memory.

There was also a clear difficulty curve when it came to the bookstore- other users have said that some feedback regarding what we can click would help a lot (and I agree). If the above system was implemented, I think the flow would be nice in progressive stages, i.e. 3 consecutive years, so that way users experience all the paths, (and the bookstore could potentially be last, being the most difficult since all items look the same and none are labeled in the ending inventory)

I also encountered a bug in the game store where I got all the items, but there was a slot unfilled and it wouldn't proceed? It progressed when I reclicked on one of the items though.

Also the space bar was a bit awkward, considering the entirety of the game uses the mouse, and the dialogue continues sentence by sentence just fine with clicking. I'd look into a way to make the entire experience click-based.

You said you overscoped, so if anything I said was already on your mind, sorry for rehashing! I think you did an amazing job in spite of that! You did a lot of full art on top of the coding in such a short period of time, it's very impressive, and the result came out sweet!
Jupiter_Hadley
16. Oct 2019 · 15:35 UTC
Very cute story! I included it in my Ludum Dare 45 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/RIViZJOE9ps
Strega
18. Oct 2019 · 02:01 UTC
Cute interactive narrative! The art was charming and story were charming. Congrats on your first Ludum!
velvetlobster
19. Oct 2019 · 14:01 UTC
Soooo sweeet and cute!!! I love these interactive novels in Ludum dare ... the thing I like the most about this one is the art which feels like a Gouache painting
rroni
21. Oct 2019 · 15:59 UTC
Sweet little game, good job!
Moto moto was a good one! :smile:
Autumn Schutt
24. Oct 2019 · 15:21 UTC
This was nice and sweet. I loved it!
Omiya Games
28. Oct 2019 · 02:57 UTC
It's nice to occasionally play a low-stake, feel-good narrative game. I did enjoy the introduction of the game, as I, too, closely relate to forgetting important dates. I feel things got a little hairier mid-way through, though.

At points, it was difficult to tell what to click to progress the story. I've had difficulties during the mobile phone screen, for example, to make the game progress to the selection of which store to visit. I thought the point-and-click portion with the cat store was pretty cool, but I didn't share the same opinion with the game and book store. The game store felt a bit like a guessing game, as we tried to click nearly every single element in the game, as there were no visual language to tell us what can and cannot be clicked. This was worse with the book store, where every book's silhouette looks exactly the same, and their colors don't stand out from the rest. I felt like I was pixel-hunting on the latter screen.

From our short playthrough below, we couldn't see which items would result in a different ending, so we ended up assuming the player will always get a good ending. Given the low-stakes of the story, that felt...unfulfilling.

https://youtu.be/No9PjQTpi0s
AllBetsAreOff
29. Oct 2019 · 20:36 UTC
I played this game with @omiya-games on stream. You can see the video in his comment.

This game is about finding the perfect present for a significant other. Through our play-through, we didn't find and ending that went poorly. To be fair, we did not play the game exhaustively, but I do wonder whether failing is even possible.

I think I would have liked to see more development of the player character's relationship and some more discussion of each potential gift.

A smaller number of more fleshed-out gift options might have made a more compelling experience.

Finally, while the art is good, I think the game would have benefited from more clearly indicating what parts of the screen were clickable a any time.

Overall, for a first game jam game, this is still excellent. It has a number of implemented features, a fair bit of art, and a complete experience.