Gerald's dog by Ikrad
The goal of the game is to keep Gerald's dog alive.
controls:
E: toggle dog's stats
Q: toggle Gerald's stats
WASD/arrows: move Gerald



Ratings
| Overall | 2244th | 2.95⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 2325th | 2.625⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 2128th | 2.775⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1349th | 3.6⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1860th | 3.1⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1305th | 2.925⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1534th | 2.575⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1809th | 3.026⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 38🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
It is tough work to keep a dog alive and it kind a succeeded :). I like the concept of many games in it and the mechanics that you have incorporated. It seemed like the difficulty of the simulation was constant - is that correctly understood?
It would be nice to add some scoring and some indicators of different parameters on the main screen. - I can see now on the screen shots that it was the windows build not loading them for me...
And the game is a little too difficult, imho. It seems quite impossible to keep the dog alive a long time, or maybe I'm too tired and I didn't understood everything.
Nice job, I enjoyed it, and the feeding and walking minigames are cool.
I kept running into a bug where the dog bone kept "vibrating" on top of the screen until I pressed the "up" key to get it unstuck (maybe the "up" keypress state was somehow stuck after walking up to the dog bowl?).
I think it would be a great improvement if you could move diagonally.
The only problems was the controls getting jammed a couple of times.

1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo:
Foi difícil começar a jogar porque o jogo funciona em poucos navegadores (mas consegui, no final das contas, hahahah).
A mecânica é baseada em cuidar de um pet, alimentar, levar para passear e viver em função de cuidar dele (trabalhar e fazer compras).
Creio que um pouco mais de feedback poderia ajudar (como um mostrador para como estão as necessidades do pet, ou efeitos sonoros ou visuais que mostrem quando ele precisa de algo).
Aprender a jogar foi relativamente claro (só faltou retorno de informação mesmo).
O fluxo de jogo não ficou tão claro, porque eu não sabia se havia alguma avanço na direção de condição de vitória (apesar de ser intuitivo que há condição de derrota (inclusive perdi)). Creio que fica como sugestão de melhoria aumentar esse tipo de informação para o jogador.
O controle do personagem falhou às vezes (não sei se é culpa do navegador, do flash ou do meu computador, mas só tive tais falhas neste jogo até o momento).
Um dos minijogos (alimentar) ficou confuso. Não sei se o objetivo era acertar o cão com o osso ou escapar dele. Se demorar alimentar me faria perder energia (faltou algum feedback nisso também).
Passear foi mais claro, mas muito mais difícil. Algumas vezes era basicamente impossível evitar chocar com outros cães na contramão.
2 - Gráficos, Áudio e Narrativa:
Os gráficos foram extremamente simples, mas passaram a maioria dos conceitos (aumentaria a passagem de informação de algumas coisas, mas está bom para tempo de game jam).
O fundo sonoro ficou legal, mas faltaram efeitos sonoros em alguns pontos (com o tempo a música vai se tornando um pouco desagradável também, mas nada que polimentos fora do tempo de evento não consigam resolver).
A narrativa não foi o foco, apesar de estar bem claro que é "cuidar do animal". Então não há muito o que falar por agora. Se a ideia for continuar o projeto, uma coisa bem simples seria dar um pouco mais de personalidade aos personagens. :)
3 - Cultura:
Cuidar de pets é algo que chama bastante atenção cultural; tanto por ser algo educacional, quanto por fazer sentido para muita gente.
Creio que o jogo possa ser evoluído partindo de conceitos assim (ou de outros, como o humor etc). Tirando proveito dessas facilidades para encontrar o nicho de jogadores.
4 - Monetização:
Creio que o jogo em estado polido e estendido poderia ser vendido em stores como itch.io.
1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow:
It was difficult to start playing because the game works on a few browsers (but I managed, after all, hahahah).
Mechanics are based on taking care of a pet, feeding, taking them for walks and living in order to take care of them (work and shop).
I think a little more feedback could help (like a display for how the pet’s needs are, or sound or visual effects that show when he needs something).
Learning to play was relatively clear (there was only a lack of feedback).
The flow of the game was not so clear, because I did not know if there was any progress towards victory condition (although it is intuitive that there is a defeat condition (even lost)). I think it is a suggestion for improvement to increase this type of information for the player.
The character control failed at times (I don't know if it's the fault of the browser, the flash or my computer, but I've only had such flaws in this game so far).
One of the mini-games (food) was confused. I don't know if the goal was to hit the dog with the bone or escape it. Taking too long to feed would make me lose energy (some feedback was lacking in that too).
Walking was clearer, but much more difficult. Sometimes it was basically impossible to avoid hitting other dogs against the grain.
2 - Graphics, Audio and Narrative:
The graphics were extremely simple, but they passed most of the concepts (it would increase the information flow of some things, but it is good for game jam time).
The sound background was cool, but there was a lack of sound effects in some points (over time the music becomes a little unpleasant too, but nothing that polishing outside the event time can't solve).
The narrative was not the focus, although it is very clear that it is "taking care of the animal". So there's not much to talk about right now. If the idea is to continue the project, a very simple thing would be to give the characters a little more personality. :)
3 - Culture:
Taking care of pets is something that draws a lot of cultural attention; both for being educational and for making sense to many people.
I believe that the game can be evolved based on concepts like this (or others, such as humor, etc.). Taking advantage of these facilities to find the niche of players.
4 - Monetization:
I believe that the game in a polished and extended state could be sold in stores like itch.io.
I really liked the simple art style-- in particular, adding the black outlines to highlighted objects was a good, low-confusion way to add contrast and make the game feel more alive. The music was good and helped add to the tone of the game. Unlike many resource management games in this jam, this one felt difficult and a little more complex, with more stuff to manage, leading to longer engagement. The stat displays are clean and clear while also fitting with the art style of the game.
Areas for improvement:
A little more in-game instruction would have been nice-- I didn't figure out the controls for the stat displays at first, which diminished the clarity of the game and meant I missed out on some of the experience. The mini-games felt pretty bland; I understand that that didn't seem to be much of a focus, but adding a little more engagement, particularly to the feeding minigame, might help. This could also be a good place to add personality to the dogs, as gustavo.christino has advised. The background was a little bland in the hub-- maybe you could fill the empty space in the middle somehow. Occasional movement bugs.
Overall:
This game feels extremely polished, clean, and complete, which makes it fun to play and really makes the most out of a relatively simple concept!