Insecures by BoClow
About the game: You guide 4 pilots on a mission. Your goal is to secure part of a city and get rid of all hostile entities. However, your pilots are little insecure and they keep sending you messages, to witch you need to reply, while commanding them trough the mission.
I hope you have fun playing!
Personal notes: My 3rd Jam. I knew when I started making this game I would be in a hurry. I was not wrong. I wanted to try this game idea for a long time now and this was a perfect opportunity for that. I knew I could not do all of my ideas in jam time, but I hope I made decent vertical slice of something that could be a good game.
I hope to gain some good feedback on what works and what does not and your ideas, if this is something worth tinkering with more.
EDIT!!: It has been brought to my at attention something I did not see when I was in a hurry and making the game; All the characters are women and them all being insecure might send a borderline misogynistic message. This was NOT my intension at all! This game was never meant to say that 'only women are insecure' or 'all women are insecure' or anything like that. Everyone can be insecure and the point was meant to be more 'everyone needs encouragement sometimes.' I am truly sorry if my game makes you or anyone feel uncomfortable.
Ratings
| Overall | 929th | 3.167⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 993th | 2.897⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 419th | 3.513⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1039th | 3.039⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 742th | 3.385⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 732th | 2.645⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 804th | 3.203⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 27🗳️ | 65🗨️ |
@gerd Thank you for your kind words. I hope I have time and energy to dig back into the code and flesh things out.
I really liked the fact i was punished for sending out one of my soliders alone opposed to isolating corners. Unique game concept, my best advice would be to try to make a game that you can explain almost fully with one short sentence. This ensures clarity and simplicity to the player. Sorry if this comment comes across as overly critical.
Seriously well done, making games is very difficult and the fact you guys have pushed a bugfree finished product is very impressive.
@deltamain Hahah! Yes, I found it hard to manage as well, but I was already too deep in the development and time was running out. I am glad you liked it anyway and at least the idea is interesting :D
@arcticlion I was actually hoping some critical analysis as well so tank you for that :D
The wall of text tutorial is something I do not like myself either and if I would have managed my time better, I would have been able to make it more clear.
And yes, the ability to toggle attack and movement things was MEANT to make the game more clear, not more tedious. It is something I have made some plans already to change to be more clear and easy to use.
I wonder what you mean by enemies not being that clear?
Thank you for your feedback and kind words!
I think there is too many things happening at once and would probably separate the interaction with the pilots and acting in the field. I kept forgetting to reply to their messages because I was so focused on the action. I'm not even sure how the lack of communication would affect them if at all. There was no indication of that in the field.
I feel the aim could turn to the direction of movement or the turn could be faster. I also found the move and aim toggles redundant. Maybe they would work better as a setting option.
Visually the game looks good and has a nice command deck feel to it. There's quite many paths to go with this and I don't want to make the development any less fun, but you could contemplate on what are THE THINGS you want from the game and further improve them. Or maybe the idea has to brew some more as a whole before coming to fruition proper.
Good work regardless!
@coderaurus Thank you for your comprehensive feedback and encouragement!
As a whole I agree with you on all the things. I want to do some extensive tweaking on the pilot commanding system, make it more streamlined. I have also been thinkin getting rid of the whole replying to the pilots system, or at least have WAY more time to reply than 10 seconds.
Also a little pop up text or something would not hurt, telling what difference your choices have made (it was something I was planning but completely forgot to add XD)
@morepixels Thank you for kind words and while I can not hope for amazing, I am hoping for a good playable game XD I did not code anything for "game over" state as I was running out of time. So not surprised about the error :)
@kaech I am sorry I got you waste time searching for the level. The ending of the game was scraped together on the last minute. I put the "area clear" button there just so players could stop playing when they want XD
I plan on changing the objective of the map to something more clear, (like get from A to B or destroy specific target) So it is easier to see when mission is completed. Pilots basically get small stat upgrades or downgrades, but those are not indicated at all atm. Glad you liked the art and idea!
I feel bad that it appeared to you as misogynistic as that was in no way my idea :( I drew the characters fast on a last day and I usually draw female characters so I naturally just drew them all as women. (To speed up my proses even more I also just did one character and tweaked them to make 4 "unique" characters)
I wonder if it would be considered a bugfix to make some of them male to not send wrong kind of signal? I am truly sorry this hindered your experience :(
@barret Thank you for playing and encouragement! And congratulations on beating the game with Suzy, as she is piloting the slowest machine!
The choosing when the area is clear part was kind of weird also, is it to prevent that the player gets stuck with one hidden enemy in a corner? Made me feel like I could just win the level at any time.
Besides the critics, I really enjoyed the game and it was very polished, amazing work!
Glad you enjoyed the game!
beautiful animated portraits that are a pleasure to my eye rods
very nice concept! I can imagine this being turned into a very engaging tactical / emotional game.
I would love to see the encouraging / emotion managing part fleshed out more, instead of a "generic" encouragement.
the tutorial text was not very long and it's fast to skip when playing again, no problems there.
I'm imagining this fully fleshed out, with multiple dialogue options, visual-novel like scenes in the hangar between the missions, options to remotely administer some psychoactive drugs to the pilots... it would be a very interesting thing to play.
Nice! :heart: Any plans to take it further?
I am planning to do a post jam version with minor fixes, but I have also some ideas to add multiple missions and ability to assign pilots to specific 'metal cans'. We just have to see what I have time and inspiration for :D
@daylonwilkins Wow yes! That would be amazing! Also so much more work, but amazing idea and definitely something to look into :D Thank you for your comment!
@baylock Thank you for compliments! And yes, I think the main gameplay needs more variety and hard work. And don't worry, I will always play and rate every commenter's game (if I am able) :)
The only thing that was weird: When 2 move cursors overlap I can't separate them anymore, is it a bug? or maybe a feature? :grin:
If you make a post jam version, I'll check it out again I think :thumbsup: