[SA Game Jam 2019] The Great Factory

Gnoblar_agency

Jam name: (SA Game Jam 2019)
The Republic's Great Factory
Level of experience: Professional
Overall
48hr entry
Solo

UPDATE

Welcome to Factory 703 great citizen.

You have been granted the grand privilege of serving at this facility. Great Leader requires each worker to assemble products for this Great Republic. Your performance shall be evaluated at the end of each shift.

Great Leader despises the lazy and inattentive. Ensure you perform to a satisfactory standard or face punishment approved by the Justice Board.

Hail Great Leader.



After a crazy push I am finally done. What a great game jam! Looking forward to seeing everyone else's games.

Enjoy!

Google Drive (Builds from end of Jam, no updates, Mac build requires newer mac)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=16PEOCyAnpoPzMUUxrTnLtli-pe7m8JnL

Itch Link (If I update post-jam this will be latest)
https://gnoblar-agency.itch.io/the-great-factory

Gnoblar_agency

This morning I quickly wrote the pickup and drop controls for items the come off the conveyor belt. Next up will be machines for assembly.

Gnoblar_agency

I'm quite behind on my gifs, here is an early version of my first factory machine, "the Pounder".



Much of the day has been filled with creating the backing systems for machines, scoring, spawning and level management.

Gnoblar_agency

Unfortunately my Mac build will sometimes only show UI and a black screen. This seems to be an issue with Unity's HDRP. I'll try push a fixed version this week for those who want mac version. Otherwise Windows works just fine!

PartyPanda

Just tried out this game and wow! The game feel is great and it's super intuitive. The sound effects when the text is displayed is very clever and fits the overall theme of the game very well :)

When we played through the game, sometimes the blocks aren't painted properly and it is a bit confusing.

In the second shift there weren't any instructions as to what we had to do for that shift which made us fail BUT we had so much fun playing with the incinerator, the bin and the compressor.

We also loved the little narrative "junk" pieces that come across the conveyor belt to be thrown away.

leonalchemist2

Looks very polished, but more importantly, the cubes are SQUISHY! love the way they interact with each other and the pick up system works well. It took me a good while to figure out the instructions works but it's weirdly fun, it's unique, I also like the little touch with the radio :)

Gnoblar_agency

PartyPanda said:

Just tried out this game and wow! The game feel is great and it's super intuitive. The sound effects when the text is displayed is very clever and fits the overall theme of the game very well :)

When we played through the game, sometimes the blocks aren't painted properly and it is a bit confusing.

In the second shift there weren't any instructions as to what we had to do for that shift which made us fail BUT we had so much fun playing with the incinerator, the bin and the compressor.

We also loved the little narrative "junk" pieces that come across the conveyor belt to be thrown away.

Thanks for your kind words and great feedback! A number of people have mentioned that they couldn't figure out the steps for shift 2 (You can open the manual by clicking it) so I think I'll update to always open the manual at the start of each shift.

leonalchemist2 said:

Looks very polished, but more importantly, the cubes are SQUISHY! love the way they interact with each other and the pick up system works well. It took me a good while to figure out the instructions works but it's weirdly fun, it's unique, I also like the little touch with the radio :)

Thanks so much! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed playing it as much as I enjoyed making it. Good find using the radio! Most players have missed that :D

eviL_joSh

Really fun to play and simple enough to understand with a little bit of the correct observations. I had a great time serving The Great Leader. I am only sad that I was not able to serve him better. My family will correctly suffer for my unsatisfactory performance.

I love the "story" if you could call it that. And I love the crafting system. I definitely think that this is one of the games that would be great if fully fleshed out with some more narrative, some more art and more levels.

It might also be better to force the player to make a particular number of each block type as you can quite easily ignore some of the more complex and time consuming ones.

A lot of fun to play and even more potential to be had.

Keep up the good work!

Gnoblar_agency

@eviL_joSh Thank you for playing! It was a fun challenge trying to create a "narrative" in this kind of game. Papers, Please provided a lot of inspiration.

You are right on target with requiring players to make a minimum of each block. It's something I'd like to add in an update. In the meantime I changed the spawn rates to try alleviate the issue. It's nice to hear that you think it has potential! I'd like to flesh it out more given the time and interest :)

GiGGa

I feel like there is not much I can add to the feedback that has already been given.

I enjoyed playing the game a lot (might be time to stop making games and start working for Great Leader). Looks great, and all the visuals fit the theme well. I was also pleasantly surprised when I clicked the radio and some nice Leader approved tunes kept me working at a steady pace.

I see Papers, Please has already been mentioned. This game provides some the same feeling of panic and overall vibe, with less of the admin. Smashing blocks is a bit more satisfying than confirming dates.

The ONLY tiny things I could comment on is the fact that I wasn't sure whether more complicated products would score me more points? Oh and I think the narrative could be expanded upon. I loved seeing those notes roll over to my station. Couldn't help but wonder if I'd be faced with a choice eventually (or maybe I stopped too early? Once I saw four paint instructions and realised I was hungry I stopped playing. Will probably give it another go tomorrow).

Also - maybe the player can be rewarded for fast work? I don't know about you, but all I want for my birthday is another painter/burner.

Gnoblar_agency

@GiGGa It makes me very happy to hear you enjoyed the game so much! I'd love to expand the narrative to contain actual choices. High on the list of planned features would be earning a bonus for your performance and then using that to upgrade or expand your machines. So you can finally get yourself an extra burner for your birthday! As a small update I'll look at adding some kind of feedback or info to indicate the value of a block.

Thanks again for playing and the great feedback!

watman

This was fun and I'm looking forward to seeing where you take it. I like the theme and the little touches of humour.

I played the itch.io version.

- I'd like the cursor to change when you're over a hot spot (no judgement - our game currently has the same problem) because I have a janky mouse and sometimes I missed where I was supposed to go even though I thought I was within the right space or I'd "grab" something and drag it only to find that I hadn't grabbed it at all because the cursor moves faster than the objects so there is a delay in the visual feedback that indicates that you don't have an item you thought you did. In later levels I just can't click and drag fast enough to meet the requirements and then I get very frustrated. I also don't know if what I'm experiencing is by design in the game or a performance issue with my computer.
- It would be helpful to know how many of a thing I've made and how many I need to make.
- I really like that the mission doesn't just start and that you have to activate it with the lever.
- I was initially confused by the machines (I sprayed the orange cubes orange in mission one because I didn't know if they were orange enough; in mission two I didn't know to activate the fire button because I thought the Fire machine would work automatically like the Flatten machine does and when it didn't I was confused as I thought the orange button was for the flatten machine (or just visual decoration) because of no mouse cursor changes and because at that point I associated "orange" with the Flatten machine). Once i played a few times I knew what I was doing however.
- I like that there are variable sound effects.
- I played a few games before I saw the manual on the table (which is very useful once you realise it's there) and only actually saw it because someone up thread mentioned the radio, which I hadn't seen either.

PS There is a folder in the folder called "The Great Factory_BackUpThisFolder_ButDontShipItWithYourGame".

Gnoblar_agency

@watman Thanks for such extensive feedback.

I never realized the dragging delay until you mentioned it, but now I can't unsee it... I'll up the speed a bit to make it more 1 to 1 with the mouse. Adding a custom cursor that changes is a great idea and I'll try get that in for the next update. I think that'll solve a lot of the "interaction" confusion I've been hearing about. I'll remove that folder now as well! Thanks for letting me know.

swimming777

Great game!

I can really see the inspiration from papers please and found that the game overall was a delightful experience!

The art style and squishy cubes also complimented the game-play really well and it felt like a very well done and executed project that contained a lot of polish.

The narrative theme of the game was also a nice touch, as i myself found it quite hard to think of a narrative to implement into my own game and thus ended up not going that route.

Excellent game and cant wait to see more from you in the future!

Gnoblar_agency

@swimming777 Thank you for the positive review! I definitely want to improve on the narrative as I add more features. Hopefully I can put out an update in the near future.

Fengol

Please let me know if you're based in CT, JHB or where?

Gnoblar_agency

@Fengol I'm based in CT :)

StyloVorn

I really like the game and the radio is a really nice touch. I get a Papers, Please vibe from this game. Although the repetitive actions make it feel tedious but i feel that adds to the overall aesthetic and feel of the game. I haven't made it far in the game as i keep failing. I made it to the third level. The puzzles are interesting and adding a new puzzle each level makes the game more difficult as i progress.
It would be nice if i could pick up multiple objects at once which would make the game easier for me because i'm a scrub

Newagegamer

I love the look of this game. The animations are smooth and the gameplay had a satisfying feel to it.
love the addition of the radio. I really cannot wait to see where this game goes.

Gnoblar_agency

StyloVorn said:

I really like the game and the radio is a really nice touch. I get a Papers, Please vibe from this game. Although the repetitive actions make it feel tedious but i feel that adds to the overall aesthetic and feel of the game. I haven't made it far in the game as i keep failing. I made it to the third level. The puzzles are interesting and adding a new puzzle each level makes the game more difficult as i progress.
It would be nice if i could pick up multiple objects at once which would make the game easier for me because i'm a scrub

Thank you for playing! The game is indeed quite difficult but it is beatable, many have failed to do Great Leader proud. I've been playing with the idea of "Trays" that let you move items around quicker, so that might make it in a future update. Thanks for the feedback.

Newagegamer said:

I love the look of this game. The animations are smooth and the gameplay had a satisfying feel to it.
love the addition of the radio. I really cannot wait to see where this game goes.

Thanks for your kind words! I intend to work on it some more as I find time. Hearing player feedback really motivates me, so thanks :)

ashashza

Wow, I loved this!

Immediately got strong Papers Please vibes, which is awesome. Turning on the radio was such a treat too.

From mission 2 and onward I felt pretty serious time pressure. There were a few steps & colours to keep in mind and I had to refer back to the manual a few times.

Failing a section/level and having the game end feels quite harsh. If you decided to take this further, I wonder if it there's a way to add a consequence for failing that isn't an outright loss?

I loved the messages that arrive on the conveyor during missions. It creates such a tension between focusing on your toil for the Great Leader vs trying to understand the game's world. It brings to light this dynamic of focusing on the "urgent" task at hand vs thinking about the "important" information you're seeing.

Specifically on the theme of crafting, this entry had such a satisfying crafting feel. Using the machines was pretty satisfying, the physics adds a bunch, it's borderline tactile. It really feels like I'm "making something" rather than just combining items or selecting ingredients, pressing a button and having a result magically appear.

In Papers Please there are choice points where I can defy my instructions and help / hinder people. It occurred to me that in The Great Factory I might be able to use the machines in undocumented ways and combine materials / parts to create items that impact the world. This idea excited me.

Cool idea, wicked execution.

Gnoblar_agency

@ashashza Thanks Ash! Going forward I'd like to try add scaled rewards and punishments based on performance and tie it into a "money" system. I'm glad you enjoyed the conflict of story vs work, I tried to make it feel like you were being "bad" for stopping to read the messages. Adding choices based on the narrative is definitely a layer I want to add.

Thanks for the great feedback!

NickCuthbert

@Gnoblar_agency, would you object if I attempted to implement a similar game design in VR? I really think the concept could work well in that medium, and isn't too crazily scoped.

Gnoblar_agency

Go for it @NickCuthbert! I'd love to see the results.