Before The Trip by Nilan



This is a simulation game where you organize your luggage. Choose items suitable for your travel destination and neatly arrange them in a limited suitcase.
Control - Mouse Left: pick up / put down / combine - Mouse Right: split / use / open - Mouse Scroll Wheel / Keyboard "R": rotate - You can find all operation prompts in bottom right corner of the screen.
Goal - Pack as many items as possible - Matching items with the trip destinations will earn bonus points, but mismatched will deduct points.(You probably won't need swimwear in snowy mountains, right?) - Completing the mission list will earn additional bonus points. - Challenge for higher scores (my highest is 1250, try beat me).
Tips - Items can be transformed, folding clothes saves space. - Sometimes packing items together allows for more space. - Combining items can save even more space.
Tools used - Unity - game engine - Procreate - painting - GarageBand - sound effects
Team - Nilan - Program - Some - Graphics, Sounds
| HTML5 (web) | https://nilan256.itch.io/before-the-trip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/before-the-trip |
Ratings
| Overall | 341th | 3.807⭐ | 98🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 555th | 3.464⭐ | 98🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 632th | 3.279⭐ | 97🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 200th | 4.167⭐ | 98🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 155th | 4.281⭐ | 98🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 385th | 3.266⭐ | 81🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 246th | 3.905⭐ | 97🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 105🗳️ | 163🗨️ |
The amount of options here for packing is nuts. A ton of work clearly went into making all of these options and features.
Music is simple and charming, didn't hit any obvious bugs, and absolutely packed some stuff I shouldn't have just to fill in those last few slots and fulfill my OCD.
You might want to have an off-site link though, seems like the LD embed player is cropping the edges of the screen a bit. Not enough to make it impossible to play, but it does make the edges feel cramped.
Overall Nice work!
Here's a bit of honest review:
- Music and SFX are great!
- Items sorting layers could use some work so the most recent moved item would always display on top of the other (some king of dynamic sorting)
- Art is amazing! Can be improved further for the full game, but very pretty as is for the game jam entry
- Items names on hover would've been a nice addition, I wasn't able to determine what some items are ':D
- More levels, more items, more rules variety, more everything for the full game! (I would like to play the full one for sure)
- I was kind of missing additional bags not overlaying the main bag items
Overall: 10 out of 5, great entry!
- the hover tooltip: yes, It was originally planned but had to be cancelled due to time constraints. I am also unsure would be appropriate to add it for now, since the jam is ongoing, I don't know will it create unfair.
- full version of game: If the feedback we receive is positive, we'll definitely consider it, why not xD. But I think should wait until the jam is finished.
- volume issue: will verify this as soon as possible and consider adding a settings menu to change volume.
Thank you again <3
Here is my best score so far:

From a game design perspective, this feels fairly unfocused however. The game provides a very short list of items to pack, but actually you don't have to pack anything. Which is fine btw, allowing the player to just do whatever is fun and meshes well with the freedom of creating your own travel case. But it creates this weird dynamic where you get all this space, but it's unclear what you should do with it. At least I just packed 3 items and went for it lmao
I thought the game loop would become more complex, and combining different items would then lead to having to fulfill more and more requirements over time (a bit like Password Game that made the rounds recently)
I could also deffo see this being even more chill and going the Unpacking route, I think the vibes would totally be there.
Lastly, you mentioned having to cut it already, but yea, any sort of info on what an item actually is would've been great, just because I spent like 3 minutes looking for makeup remover, just bc I'm used to mine looking blue lmfao
Overall tho, very cozy vibes!!
Bonus points for being able to combine and stack items to save space :thumbsup:
Also I wish it hap more empty space around bag just so I could organize stuff before putting them in the bag. There so many objects, after all, and having hard time picking up the desired ones makes it frustrating. I also maybe would have wanted to have more tasks for filling up the bag? There so many items but for some reason only 3 of them are needed. Feels somewhat weird, I think you can expand on that.
Other than that game is really nice! I really love this kind of games and I really hope you enjoyed making this and could improve it in ove way or another! I wish you the best!!
You've created a cute and enjoyable inventory management game! I honestly don't have a lot of critique, the game plays really well for a jam build. Nice work!
Music relaxing with the vibe of the game. Pixels 10/10, and the mood completely fits with the gamejam theme and the style. 10/10!
Everything works well and I didn't notice any bugs. Seems polished. I only wish the cosmetic items had labels, as I had no idea what many of them actually were :sweat_smile:
Very well done!
This is cute! I like the look and there's lots of little interactive things.
Anyway, the music is great and the graphics are really good! Well done overall!!
Also, I'm so glad that the sunhat was a requirement for the sunny beach getaway, I never go anywhere without my hat 🧡
This was really chill and cozy and I liked how different items combined, folded up, and even re-shaped when combined (like toothpaste & toothbrush). When "limited space" won as the theme I was hyped for some inventory management games, and this delivered that perfectly!

