Loop-E-Mart by jvolonte
Decide your loop before each shift.
At the start of each day you will decide your loop, which will be repeated for the rest of the day.
Clients will come to the store with a list of products they wish to buy. They will look around, find them and try to pay. If they wait for too long, they will get angry and leave. Manage your resources, time and make the most of your daily loop!


| Youtube | https://jvolonte.itch.io/loop-e-mart |
| Youtube | https://jvolonte.itch.io/loop-e-mart |
| Youtube | https://jvolonte.itch.io/loop-e-mart |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/loop-e-mart |
Ratings
| Overall | 408th | 3.783⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 513th | 3.587⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 235th | 3.87⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 181th | 4.174⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 713th | 3.652⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 714th | 3.261⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 337th | 3.429⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 804th | 3.395⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 40🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
A couple of small details: a way to exit the game since you can currently only pause (or at least I didn't see a quit function). It would also be nice to know at what point you are in during the day. It's unclear when it is going to come to an end and when it does, it happens rather abruptly.
The characters each have a unique look and fun names, the overall style of the game is neat. You managed to make a game about being "stuck in a 9-5"-loop fun. Those darn customers getting angry when you are not there to take their order... because you are literally on your knees cleaning up their mess, or ninja punching milk because.. haha
The audio is also great, I liked the chill music and the sound effects fit perfectly. The difficulty curve was quite steep, but that was also part of the fun. When you actually managed to survive and pay rent it felt a lot more rewarding each time.
Great entry!
There's a lot of room for expansion of the core mechanics too, if you wanted to make a post-jam version, which is really cool! I could see a new version where you are able to hire on additional workers (but you need to spend your hard-earned money on them each day), or purchase more slots for your loop, but even with just one worker, and 3 tasks per loop, there's already a surprisingly deep amount of game here! Great job :)
Honestly if using the cash register actually let me get money from the 4+ dudes standing by it waiting, it'd have relieved a lot of the frustration, or if the starting stock values were high enough I could concieveably go a day without stocking them and creating a large customer backup.
"I can’t recall a game with such a mechanic." - We can't either! When we thought about it we weren't even sure if it was gonna be fun. A way to exit, an hour display and a less abrupt way to end the day seems like good additions. Glad you enjoyed it! ^^
@matchaflavor Thank you!
@mikew Thanks! We aren't too fond of making "tutorials" and we wanted the first days to be kind of an introduction to what you can do without guiding the player.
@firebelley Defintely! We tried to keep the day short so there was no need for something to do while the day goes on. If we had to entertain you with something to interact then it means the game was not actually that fun. We thought about finding spare change or things to tap while you wait but discarded it because of the reason above and time (of course ^^)
@lamossus A way to see your shop and stock while you plan your loop would be useful indeed. The idea of the clients was to guide you a bit on which ones were coming but leaving the amount and time they come randomly. Maybe it was too much! Thanks for your feedback :)
@shortbread Haha! working on retail memories? Thank you for the kind words :)
@bot12313 Thanks! Did you unlock milkshakes? Miles Jake only wants milkshakes, if you didn't purchase them or are out of stock he will wait near the fridge until they are restocked or leave.
@castrolol Thank you :)
@iron-leonem Oh it definitely needs some work on design. Being the developers + lovers of hard games it was particularly difficult for us to balance it. We tried to tone it down, but it seems it was not enough! That and reaaaally little time to play test it ^^. Optimizing is fun indeed. If we make an update I will keep this in mind! Thank you
@koolruz Glad you liked it! The cashier lets you charge two customers at once. We had it at one on the beginning but it was waay too punishing and charging them all seemed too easy.
The original idea was to hire more people and customize their loops too! It would have been too much though! Glad we didn't in the end, but I might consider it for a future update. Thank you!
@mcovert Such is the life of the loop-e-mart clerk! I see what you mean. The difficulty curve is steep and as I said previously we tried to tone it down but it still needs some tweaking!