LudumData

A Tavern Life by Paula

[raw]
made by Paula for LD 41 (JAM)

Hi everyone, i'm a programer and this was my first game jam working alone. I made a simulation game, where you have to manage a tavern, combined with quick time events (i also wanted to include some RPG elements, but since are not finished i left them out).

In this simulation game you will have to manage your own tavern, keepeing a balance between your money and resources (beer, employes, popularity...). Make your customers happy so they will come again. Take care of the drunk people, they drink more but they will destroy your place. At the end of the day, pay your wastes (50 coins) , dont forget to buy what you need for the next day and also pay your employees to keep working.

Objective: keep your tavern working and earn as much money as you can.

Controls: * Mouse wheel: zoom in/zoom out. * Button "Close Early" : end your working day, but in echange you lose 10 points of popularity * Click on customers to kick them off * Click on chairs to repair them

Credits: * Paula Navarro: programming and game desing. * Music and Art: unity asset store

Captura.PNG Captura3.PNGCapturaShop.PNGCapturaEnd.PNG

Windows https://knightlylantern.itch.io/a-tavern-life
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/a-tavern-life

Ratings

Overall 575th 3.458⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Fun 911th 2.917⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 898th 2.972⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1095th 2.667⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Humor 317th 3.389⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Mood 89th 4⭐ 37🧑‍⚖️
Given 63🗳️ 37🗨️

Feedback

Roidz
24. Apr 2018 · 18:40 UTC
This is a great little game. You can see the devs put a lot of love in this. cute graphics, good suiting music.
Some graphical glitches like sprite layers overlapping where they shouldn't but that's obviously because of the deadline. Overall a great game that I enjoyed playing, GREAT JOB
ArturasD
25. Apr 2018 · 19:10 UTC
I loved the fact that you managed to mix 2D sprites with 3D models. It made up a pretty damn cool looking tavern. Although at the start I had hard time understanding what I can and cannot click. Besides that, great job!
Mil
25. Apr 2018 · 19:22 UTC
Very nice presentation, I liked the theme a lot, very well done!
Chris Coe
25. Apr 2018 · 19:22 UTC
Pretty good! Restarting from the in-game menu seems to start you over and not get any customers unfortunately. Game can get a little hectic sometimes. Don't forget to pay your employees! Haha. :)
mrPenguin
25. Apr 2018 · 19:23 UTC
Quite good, love the art, but on the design, if you spend all your money and don't have beer you can't do anything, at least I should get some money to get more beer each night or something, or directly lose if I run out of beer and money. Loved themood and the overall though : )
Avon
25. Apr 2018 · 19:48 UTC
This is a polished game with great atmosphere. I like the speech bubbles, though the ones with more text disappeared before I had time to read them.

I like the game idea, I found it hard to make a profit though, after paying my employee I didn't have enough money to buy as much beer as I'd sold, so I'd get less beer the next day, then less coins, until I'm out of coins, and I didn't even repair any chairs. I don't see how its currently possible to make a profit unless there is something I'm missing.
TheMonsterFromTheDeep
28. Apr 2018 · 19:52 UTC
I would have to agree with @Avon. Each day, after taking off 150 gold for the wastes and an employee, there doesn't seem to be enough money to pay for enough beer to earn back the same amount of money the next day. It's also not clear why sometimes you seem to lose money?
🎤 Paula
28. Apr 2018 · 20:04 UTC
First of all, thanks to everybody for your opinons, they are helping me a lot. The issue that @Avon and @themonsterfromthedeep commented about the gold being not enough to make profit, you are right. The game needs some balancing and, as you said, it's not enough what you earn to pay the employees for several days. Also you lose 50 coins every day that it passes for "fix wastes", but the player almost does not have any feeback about it (only a small effect in the coin toolbar). Im doing a new version with some balancing and other changes and I expect that your experience will improve and continue giving me this useful feedback.
multiplexor
28. Apr 2018 · 20:11 UTC
Very nice game! I specially liked the ambience and menus/UI, it feels quite polished!

My biggest issue would be that it does not seem to be possible to survive (A beer costs 15 golds, and it sells for 25, and a bartender costs 100 gold, meaning that in order for that bartender to make up for it's salary it needs to deliever 10 beers a day (which does not always seem to happen).

I believe that if the idea were developed a bit further it can be a great game!
Keep up the good work!
Blight Radiance
28. Apr 2018 · 20:20 UTC
There doesn't seems to be a good way of earning money. At the end of the day there is no way to 'unbuy' things.
What are some indicators that I need to kick customer out?
Z-fighting is pretty bad.
adhesion
28. Apr 2018 · 20:48 UTC
Cool concept, though the gamefeel is a bit lacking - there was enough of a delay between clicking on the beer icon and it being served that I wasn't sure if it was actually working at first. If there was some animation or sound right when clicking on it, and if the beer count decremented immediately, that would be a bit more responsive and feel a lot better I think. Also there were a ton of customers on the first day, seemingly impossible to serve them all, which was a little frustrating. With some UI tweaks and balancing this could be pretty fun, keep it up!
huminaboz
29. Apr 2018 · 02:56 UTC
I love the characters. I did feel like I needed more to do to have control over my success. I spent the first couple of days clicking around trying to see if I could do more, might add an instructions thing up front.
Darkwing00Duck
03. May 2018 · 05:47 UTC
Magic music and cute graphics. Good idea, add the tutorial was difficult to understand. Just I want to note that the great implemented a system of day and night.
Triastase
03. May 2018 · 21:41 UTC
Very well done! It's a little too hard for someone who has never played it before, I think, but it's so good!
ndry
03. May 2018 · 22:23 UTC
I really liked how the game feels! You surely have succeed in delivering a holistic experience of a tavern. But unfortunately I had some issues with how the game runs. It felt quite laggy for me even with the lowest graphics (far not a bleeding-edge PC, but still), and buttons were unresponsive, sometimes taking time to react and sometimes ignoring the clicks. I'd really like to enjoy it more when it gets more polished, great job!
ursagames
04. May 2018 · 16:10 UTC
Didn't manage to do well, but it was a fun experience none the less! The overall style and mood of the game came together nicely. A bit more balance and I could see this being a fun little timesink.
DevEmil
05. May 2018 · 00:51 UTC
It is cool, the graphics are super it has got a lot of humor and the mood is really realistic. But it has also got a few shortcomings. At first you shouldn't be able to start a new level without an employee, it is hard to notice that you'll loose if you don't have any. Next it is at first hard to find a balance of money to spend on beer and how much to spend on employees.
Furthermore there are a few bugs: when you restart the game, there isn't anyone coming; mages' heads are drawn above some other objects in front.

But I think this has actually some potential, you could add upgrades to buy, different stages, etc.

Also, thanks for playing my game, I loved your feedback!
Shivur
05. May 2018 · 06:32 UTC
Good graphisms and mood. The problem is with the balancing since even if we play perfectly, it will lead to less and less money.
Crimson
05. May 2018 · 12:55 UTC
Fun game with great atmosphere! The sprites and music make the tavern feel alive, and the menus are fluid and make for a polished experience. Great work!
aeveis
05. May 2018 · 21:39 UTC
Had to play through a couple times to get what was going on, but nice looking game. I thought I had to click on the sprites to give them beer, but I figured out it was automatic based on how many servers you had. There were some balance issues that you may have heard about already - earning enough money was hard and repairing chairs were very expensive. I also was confused where I could pay my waitress (I guess you have to buy one each time instead). Overall though good atmosphere, keep up the good work!
Siuler LM
06. May 2018 · 16:54 UTC
I liked the graphics and the music (it would be great if I could vote that). As told, the game needs some balance changes, but it awesome for being done in less than 3 days. I'm looking forward to see the updated game :)

Enhorabuena, el juego pinta genial!!
Shess
06. May 2018 · 20:14 UTC
Beautiful and cozy game. The assets you chose work really well together. I went bankrupt a couple of times (well, more than a couple of times) but still felt good about myself.
Deserves to be a full fledged standalone game!
goffmog
08. May 2018 · 10:45 UTC
This is an outstanding game jam entry! the 2D/3D mix is very hard to get right but very satisfying when it comes off. I'm always jealous of programmers who also know how to make stuff visually appealing. This would be well worth balancing and releasing as a full game.
drprettypatty
12. May 2018 · 22:09 UTC
Nice work! You did a great job composing the assets in a way that created a soothing and fun mood. I found the gameplay hard like others said, but I think starting out with a cost cutting strategy and taking the reputation hit works. The main thing that I would suggest is making it clearer what the actions you can take are (I also clicked the beer icon a few times before realizing it was automatically handled). I also didn't quite get the use of the theme, unless I missed some quick time events?

Keep it up, I enjoyed playing this!