Summoner's Speakeasy by HollowBearGames

As a recent hire at the Summoner's Speakeasy, you'll need to use all the tools at your disposal in order to help cure the many cranial ailments that plague the unfortunate souls on the other side of the summons.
It won't be an easy task for you Fizz because you're a demon and human emotions are hard. On top of that, the boss is off sick and all you've got is a liberal spattering of cosmic liquors, balming fruits, and a particularly chilly house plant.
So, dust off that bartenders uniform, clock in, and lets beat our personal best for days without a human breakdown. Best of luck old chum...
Controls: Select glass or ingredients - Left mouse button
Empty glass - Right mouse button
Show Info - Hover over item or emotion for a couple of seconds
How to play:
The goal of the game is to fix all the ailments facing your customers. This is done by serving them cocktails mixed from rare ingredients. If you help all the customers before their issues overwhelm them then you can clock off for the night.
Glasses can be dragged from the rack in the top left and placed on the bar top in front of each customer. Drinks can be prepared by placing between 1 and 3 ingredients from the left or right side trays into the glass. Each ingredient helps to cure an emotion the customer is suffering from.
The customers emotions can be seen in the thought bubbles above their head and you can clarify what each emotion or ingredient is by hovering over the item for a few seconds to display more information. Completed drinks will glow if they match a recipe and can be served to the customer by dragging the glass onto the customer.
You will lose the game if any customer has 3 emotions for too long, so prioritise accordingly
Good luck :)

Changelog: 2024-04-16T17:31:00 Added skip button to cutscene, fix exit game button, and fix difficulty timers being too short
| Link | https://hollowbeargames.itch.io/summoners-speakeasy |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/summoners-speakeasy |
Ratings
| Overall | 942th | 3.241⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1068th | 2.875⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 999th | 2.893⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1042th | 2.963⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 227th | 4.232⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 260th | 3.741⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 809th | 2.63⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 394th | 3.778⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 51🗨️ |
I really like the style, but had quite the trouble to actually fulfill the needs of people, since the tooltips (on my 1920x1080 notebook) ended up mostly off-screen, so it showed the name but not much else. I know Dreamspark exists, but that's pretty much it. Also I had to restart the game every time I lost since the Quit Game-Button does nothing for me. :c
I think this game would be greatly benefit from some more signposting. Maybe a glass in the middle of the table so players instinctively know where to put the drinks. Or a short tutorial where the manager or a single guest guides you through the first steps.
That said, I _really_ dig the soundtrack. Very smooth.
We've added some additional instructions to the games page to clarify some of the more confusing parts you've highlighted above. Given more time we would certainly add these changes in :)
I agree with the previous commenter that a tutorial is needed though... Sadly, I lost a bunch of times simply by taking the time to read and trying to understand the game. I wish it was possible to skip the cutscene when retrying because it made me wait every time I lost.
The leave game button is probably not suited for the web version btw :)
Regarding the cut-scene this is a very good point and such an obvious QOL feature we should have included. We appreciate you taking the time to sit through it again to play however and we will update the game post jam to include this.
@aviv-levy amazing, thanks for trying again. Going to give your entry a whirl now too :)
- Like the art and the atmosphere.
- While simple, the starting cutscene is fun
The Not So Good:
- gameplay was a bit frustrating
- A lack of feedback made me completely unsure as to why I was getting a game over.
Design Notes:
- A lack of tutorialization really brings this game down. It took me 2 tries to realize that I could hover over the emotion icons to know what they were.
- The lack of any sort of feedback is I think the biggest problem the game has. I had no idea if I was getting drinks right or wrong, I would hand the dude a drink and suddenly he now has more emotions... I'd hand another drink and get a game over. Adding some sort of feedback to the player would go a long way.
- Is the game timed? If there was some sort of timer or indicator of such I missed it.
TL;DR
Fun aesthetic, fun design. The core gameplay loop is simple but has potential, but a lack of meaningful feedback makes the gameplay obtuse.
The music suits the art style perfectly. I feel like it could have benefitted from some further sound design, though.
Overall, a great submission!
@iellswo particular thanks to you for such detailed feedback, we'll be taking this onboard for our next attempt for usre. Note: the game itself doesnt have a timer, but the customers emotions occur via a timer. If you get more than 3 emotions on a customer this triggers the end clause. I agree this needs better feedback.
I found it balanced with all the tips you gave in the description :slight_smile: (after restarting twice because I forgot there was ingredients on the right :face_palm: )
Congrats !
That being said this great for a first time entry, keep it up!