Market Master by zactical

made by zactical for LD 44 (COMPO)

Market Master is a game about playing the stock market. Work tirelessly to earn a few bucks here, and a few shares there. Don't like the shares you find along the way? No problem, dump them in the market and buy something else. But beware, some stocks are riskier than others and you could lose it all in no time. Will you try to pick a winner? Or learn the secrets of diversification the hard way?

Feel free to be very critical, I really enjoy hearing feedback and want to improve!

Controls

* Click: * On Jobs that spawn

* Drag: * Stock shares to the correct color

Development

This is my first time participating in Ludum Dare, as well as my first ever game jam! I am a programmer by trade, and really struggle with the art side of game development. That being said, this is by far the most complete game I have created to date, and I am quite pleased with how the pixel art came out. I had a great time coming up with the name parodies of real companies. You might be able to figure out which ones are a bit riskier by the names 😉

If you record any reviews/lets plays please link them in the comments. I would love to watch. Happy Jamming.

Thanks for Playing!

Tools Used

Unity
Photoshop
Bfxr
Coffee

Changelog:

* v1.1: Bug Fix and Porting Builds *

Fixed bug for choosing wrong win condition for non 5 year length games.
Fixed bug that sometimes would not release workers when jobs fade
Ported to Windows/Mac/Linux standalone version

v1.0: Initial Release

Source code	https://github.com/earneszm/LudumDare44
HTML5 (web)	https://zactical.itch.io/marketmaster
Windows	https://zactical.itch.io/marketmaster
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/market-master

Ratings

Given

51🗳️

49🗨️

Feedback

notb

29. Apr 2019 · 04:28 UTC

Hilarious! Captures the theme nicely and actually kind of complex. Great job

zimennik

29. Apr 2019 · 04:35 UTC

Wow! A really fun to play! You made a nice game

c0d3d

29. Apr 2019 · 04:53 UTC

Really fun to play! It was a great game and funny!

mrwillowb

29. Apr 2019 · 05:32 UTC

At the beginning i was just clicking on the boxes thinking oh a clicker game then it became a dragging game too

toasteater

29. Apr 2019 · 05:40 UTC

Nice game, but I don't really like the sound effect when stocks crash... I find it very distracting for an event that happens fairly often.

Trevor Shoe

29. Apr 2019 · 06:16 UTC

I made $250,000 so I feel good about myself. The idle clicker aspects were easy for me to grasp, but I was at a loss about how to make investment choices and do better or worse.

Game looks nice, and feels fun, like a clever take on a 90's business sim like Aerobiz Supersonic.

Furtive Pygmy

29. Apr 2019 · 06:41 UTC

Nice game, that sneeze gets real annoying real quick though.

chawls_v

29. Apr 2019 · 07:17 UTC

This game reminded me about investing in my future and made me feel like a true high rise executive. Pretty funny and original

Memel06

29. Apr 2019 · 08:11 UTC

Complexity and funny gameplay are not very good together, but you managed to cope with it and transform a little woobly concept in a nice fun game. Impressive!

Maybe it needs some balancement and some graphic tuning, but everything is in place and the overall experience remains positive and funny.

Good work!

EvoGenGames

29. Apr 2019 · 08:55 UTC

Wow, this is a very nice first entry!

Good job on the company names as well :smile:

Niteb

29. Apr 2019 · 09:04 UTC

Very fun concept and it was very nicely supported by the gameplay and clear UI!

Solah

29. Apr 2019 · 11:33 UTC

It took me some time to fully understand what was going on but it's fun! I really love the graphics and you did something really nice with the theme. Nice job!

DaniDev

29. Apr 2019 · 13:13 UTC

Very fun game, the sound effects were hilarious! I love homemade games haha :D Good job man, I enjoyed this one!

Retronator

29. Apr 2019 · 20:29 UTC

Didn't like the sound effect, but the gameplay was pretty good when you understood how it worked. Felt a bit weird that the years ended before the timer was up sometimes though, otherwise good job!

Andreadbx

29. Apr 2019 · 20:48 UTC

I played this game intensely for i think 20-30 minutes, i enjoyed it much, in its simplicity it's relaxing and tought inducing, bonus points for Ripcoin continuously crashing :D

Syrapt0r

29. Apr 2019 · 23:35 UTC

Hi ^-^ I played your game in my stream today, you can watch the video here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/418104572?t=01h44m24s

RIP Facehook. It was the best.

OmnipotentIndie

30. Apr 2019 · 01:16 UTC

Nice, a cool idea. Good and funny sfx. Bit random wehre I didn't really have a strategy and just did whatever I felt like

Armadillq

30. Apr 2019 · 01:37 UTC

This was a blast to play! Maybe I have a bias towards stock related games but this game felt really fun, it was simple yet entertaining. The only thing I would change about it would be the art and the audio, but I read the description and I totally understand that you're mostly a programmer and I felt this game worked great so awesome job!

Von Vista

30. Apr 2019 · 01:37 UTC

Taking the theme in literal ways, this game was simply fun. 5/5 for the pun company names, hahaha.
Graphics, sound effects, and concept was on point. Congrats!!!

mcccclean

30. Apr 2019 · 01:42 UTC

It felt like the outcomes were a bit random - by the end of the game when you have a bunch of stocks the dragging minigame doesn't seem to matter much. But it was certainly fun to spend a couple minutes getting rich!

LillyByte

30. Apr 2019 · 03:13 UTC

Interesting game, I usually don't play these games so I wasn't sure what I was doing... but, loved the humor in the names. A few, slightly better sound effects would have been great. You could use something like BXFR for generating free SFX for games like this. Good job.

Shunaky

30. Apr 2019 · 05:44 UTC

It's fun to play, but it is a little bit too colorful, and the audio is a little bit too loud. I literally got a jumpscare when i received a Crashing action.

It feels a little weird in the begining until you figure out how it works.

It's a really well made game.

Just an update on this comment, I Kinda understood how to play it now. I kinda ignored the tutorial at the begining hahaha.

That is a really nice game, bro.

Just try fixing the volume of the sound effects.

No Grapes Games

30. Apr 2019 · 07:24 UTC

I really liked it. Simple clicker fun, way more addictive than it should be!
Darn Ripcoin crashed on me and ruined my retirement!! :)

Alienplay

30. Apr 2019 · 07:43 UTC

Yo, I needed 35K to retire and I made 4.8M by the age 10. Even Warren Buffett is not on my level LOL

It's a fun game once you understand how to play it. But I needed some time to do so. I mean that mini game of clicking on jobs and waiting for workers didn't make too much sense to me.

Although, I really like how you named those stocks :smiley:

![Just to be safe.jpg](///raw/35e/31/z/23a0c.jpg)

hadesfury

30. Apr 2019 · 11:20 UTC

I really like it, they are not enough stock game :)

pcmaster

30. Apr 2019 · 11:44 UTC

I won but only so-so :D I guess I'm not a good investor. Good job, a solid experience!

🎤 zactical

30. Apr 2019 · 15:25 UTC

@alienplay haha, good job! I really didn't get a chance to tune it enough. The win conditions are certainly off by a bit. Thanks for playing!

FizzpowMike1

30. Apr 2019 · 17:11 UTC

Cool concept, very fast paced, I felt anxious the whole time, I just barely managed to earn enough for retirement. Surprised you did this all by yourself.

selewi

30. Apr 2019 · 18:25 UTC

Really cool concept, and you can learn on the go in the first play, good job there, had a laugh with the company/currency names hahaha

Tiberiusuciu

01. May 2019 · 04:32 UTC

It is unique to find game with this genre! I'm glad to have stumbled on this one :) I was a little overwhelmed at first because I felt like there was a lot to take in. I like the sound effects when the market crashes. They made me smile hahahaha! Good job! :)

Nigogo

01. May 2019 · 15:56 UTC

I played 10 years and earned over 4 million which was nice :smiley: The graphics are nicely done and the game feels good overall. There's a little too much information on screen, I didn't really get to see any of the stock market action while doing the whole click and drag thingy. I also felt like that assigning workers and dragging jobs to the boxes didn't really do much for my success. But it does give you something to do in between years which is good. Apart from diversifying and buying low/selling high there's not that much challenge involved but it is fun to buy and sell so I'd say pretty good game and the pun names are funny :smile:

🎤 zactical

01. May 2019 · 19:08 UTC

@nigogo Thanks so much for the feedback! Personal finance is one of my other passions (along with games) and one of the things I wanted to shoot for was making it extremely easy if you were diversified. This sort of models real life in the sense that if you maintain a well diversified portfolio over a long enough time, it will far outpace any earnings most people can get from working a standard job. I don't know how successful I was in this endeavor, I went back and forth trying to get the numbers right.

I definitely agree about too much information, I struggle with making elegant, competent UI. It is something I want to improve upon. I really appreciate your giving it a try and providing the feedback! I loved your game!

Nigogo

01. May 2019 · 19:52 UTC

@zactical Ah I see, you've got an agenda going on. You certainly succeeded in giving it some educational value. Now it's obvious to me what you did there. Maybe I didn't have that "Aha" moment because I diversified from the start (you kinda gave the value of that away in the description of your game :wink:).
The UI was actually solid, you did a good job on that. There's just no time to look at stuff while your busy putting things in boxes. Now that I think about it... that might actually be a good analogy to a regular 9 to 5 job :bulb:
Thanks for your feedback as well, I appreciate it!

CarlsonAndPeeters

02. May 2019 · 08:15 UTC

I had a lot of fun with this! The mixing of the gameplay elements kept it interesting, and the whole package was funny and entertaining. And thanks for checking out the stream!

commanderstitch

03. May 2019 · 00:51 UTC

I enjoyed this. It was really cool tofigure out what i was doing. Nice to see such a different kind of entry and you really got the theme really good. :D loved it.