LudumData

Paws of Gold by Swen

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

You are a stray cat looking for a home. After receiving a kind gift from a traveling merchant you get inspired to pickup the art of trading. Your goal is to earn enough money to buy yourself a home.

Warning: bad rhymes and cat puns ahead !!!

Tips:

  • Start high when selling items (try to find the sweet spot where customers won't instantly leave, which will happen if you start too high). Example: if an item sells for 20 try to sell it for 45 at first.

  • Some items will be worth more on certain days. Be wary of buying "hot" items as they'll probably cost more.

  • The cat will name the worth of some items throught out the game

Known bugs

  • The price of hatchets seems to switch between ~20 and the normal higher price

  • It can occur that 2 customers come at the same time. This won't break the game, but will result in a visual bug.

OhHello.PNG

Tutorial.PNG

Buying.PNG

HotItem.PNG

Selling.PNG

Youtube https://insertcoffee.itch.io/a-paw-of-gold
Youtube https://github.com/swenmeeuwes/ludum-dare-45
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/paws-of-gold

Ratings

Overall 445th 3.563⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 476th 3.375⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 397th 3.417⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 244th 3.75⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 306th 3.913⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 59th 3.979⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Mood 457th 3.457⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 9🗨️

Feedback

Creamsicle
08. Oct 2019 · 00:29 UTC
Very cute and fun, however I have two gripes.
firstly the text at the beginning is slow to read. the ability to skip text would be nice.
secondly I found that I would get about ten people selling to me each day and only about two who wanted to buy anything. This made the game more tedious than fun.
mmason
08. Oct 2019 · 01:08 UTC
Skipping text would be a huge bonus, and some music to fill in waiting for people would also help otherwise fantastic game.
Eryph
08. Oct 2019 · 14:49 UTC
One of the game that hooked me the most since I started my ratings !
I really would to help the kitty (who can dance if i'm correct... )
Really cool concept, art and polish !
🎤 Swen
08. Oct 2019 · 16:14 UTC
@creamsicle Adding the ability to skip text would be a nice addition, good idea. The people selling or buying should be a 50/50 chance, unless you've got nothing in your inventory. If you've got nothing in there, there will always be a customer trying to sell something to you.
It might be a good idea to have more people coming to buy/ sell from you depending on the state of your inventory.

Thanks for your comment and valuable feedback!
🎤 Swen
08. Oct 2019 · 16:15 UTC
@mmason YES, I also miss some music. I'll try challanging my composer skills next time.
Thanks for playing and leaving a comment!
🎤 Swen
08. Oct 2019 · 16:16 UTC
@eryph he sure can! A bit like this cat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaA_cs4WZHM

Thanks playing my game and leaving a comment!
Pandamnesik
08. Oct 2019 · 18:20 UTC
It takes me 15 days to own a house for the cat :')
This is really cute and fun ! well done ! :cat:
shaurya_juneja
08. Oct 2019 · 19:09 UTC
Nice game loved the idea!
"A cat has paws of gold"
Why not sell the cat and get some money xD
freso
08. Oct 2019 · 19:15 UTC
For fast readers, having to wait until next text comes is a pain.
Also, I got cheated on an expensive shovel! :)
Bodmass
08. Oct 2019 · 19:18 UTC
I love the cat. "BOOM storage" :joy: Quite a cool idea for a game aswell.
I would like to note I encountered a bug where two people came up to me to sell apples and only one got stuck in the middle of my screen since its barter window was taken over by the second apple seller.
SnufkinsHat
08. Oct 2019 · 19:22 UTC
The cat is adorable and it's a nice clicker game. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the ratio of sellers to buyers seems a bit off. Great job -- the game has a nice feel.
cax
08. Oct 2019 · 19:23 UTC
Games with cats are great xD
Emmatw
08. Oct 2019 · 19:24 UTC
Cute graphics and nice dialogue! Overall a fun game.
gamedesignguy
08. Oct 2019 · 19:31 UTC
This game was cute and fun! The intro sequence was well done, especially the waving cat paw. I like that you went with all the puns and humor with how the cat talks to you, it added a lot of charm.

One thing that would have helped my experience was that after a barter / purchase, the window would stay open and I'd have to press the X button to close it every time. If it went away on its own, that would have sped up the game a bit and helped it flow.

Other than that, it was a great experience!
Danielcmcg
08. Oct 2019 · 19:47 UTC
Very nice idea and implementation, I liked the art style a lot and it is fun to play!
Artyom Volkov
08. Oct 2019 · 19:51 UTC
Ok, trader simulator with the most adoreable cat! Fun and pretty unconventional
palinalif
08. Oct 2019 · 19:59 UTC
It has a cat. 1000/10
🎤 Swen
08. Oct 2019 · 20:30 UTC
Thank you guys for playing and leaving all these great comments! Your feedback is very valuable to me. Also thanks for reporting these bugs.

I really appreciate you guys!
hiro.e
08. Oct 2019 · 20:50 UTC
I was a little discouraged by the dialogue, but moved on. The fact that the whole game is silent also makes it a bit tedious.
I liked the concept, but I think it could be a little better worked out. The first goal is a long way from what we start.
Anyway, it was a good idea and the game is very beautiful!
sharbelfs
08. Oct 2019 · 21:51 UTC
Nice game, I liked the attention you had for some details, very well done,
and I think I'm very bad but it was really hard for me to make some money.
I got a bug at some point, 2 people came at the same time and one just got stuck there, without me being able to buy the item.
Also, I got much more people selling items than buying my items.
🎤 Swen
08. Oct 2019 · 21:57 UTC
Hi @hiro-e, thanks for your feedback. I totally agree on this. The "barting" model that is in the game right now is not optimal. It turned out to be a bit hard to do for a few days. I feel like this had to do with all the variables that come in to play with this like: (A) how much is the client willing to offer? (B) What is its initial offer? (C) How many iterations of bartering will s/he do and what steps will s/he take... I felt that I had to focus on making that part playable first.

Shame that the dialogue discouraged you. Was it too slow/ long?

Thanks for playing and leaving feedback!
🎤 Swen
08. Oct 2019 · 22:01 UTC
Thanks for playing @sharbelfs ! Sadly, I've seen that bug come by in other comments aswell. As it is not game breaking (atleast not that I know of) I cannot fix it for my jam entry, but it's good to know that it is there, thanks for telling me.

I could've influenced the chance of people buying/ selling a bit more maybe. Right now it's a 50/50 chance for buy/sell, unless you've got no items then they'll always sell to you.

The game is also a bit hard if you don't undercut a lot. I've put it in the tips sections.

Thanks for leaving your feedback!
djee
08. Oct 2019 · 22:36 UTC
As already mentioned, skipping dialogs would have been nice. Some background music too. Overall good entry with some interesting concept, but the prices feel too random, like the cat saying that an item's average price is X when the previous day it said 3*X. So the mechanics feel random and it's unclear how to make some good profit, which makes the game drag too much (I stopped at 200, after several days of trade, that was becoming too monotonic).
Redimension Games
09. Oct 2019 · 06:40 UTC
The (unskippable?) intro was too long. Closing the dialog box automatically when a trade was confirmed would have been nice. A different UI color for buying and selling would be cool(There were a couple of times i bought/sold items by mistake). Good entry :)
Marcin J
09. Oct 2019 · 18:43 UTC
Very solid game, I quite like trading and the cute cat. I wish there were more interaction options with customers.
Beautiful pixel graphics and I appreciated the cat animations :D
Grass blends in too much with the trees, imo it should be darker and maybe different texture altogether?
elysiagriffin
30. Oct 2019 · 01:28 UTC
HI COFFEE!

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/494941349?t=7h29m27s

Hope you got some valuable feedback on your game and looking forward to seeing you next LD jam if I dont catch you before then! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin