The Train Station Mage by Togis
First of all, thank you everyone for joining the development stream on twitch It was an amazing experience and super fun to hang out with you all :smiley: https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis
Description
You are a mage, Mage! And you have been hired by the 72Co Train Company to load cargo onto train! However, budget is tight and the trains can not afford to waste time stopping at the train station for you to load them.
Use your spells to push, pull, and fly cargo onto fast moving train, while managing your mana reserve and being careful of the magical nature of the world!
Instructions & Gameplay
Play with Mouse and Keyboard
WASD / Arrow Keys 1234 keys Move mouse
There is 4 spells in the game:
- The Meditation: replenish mana by clicking on bubble floating on the screen
- The Force Push: push the nearest cargo from the mouse pointer in the direction indicated by the WASD/Arrow key press
- The Vortex: move the mouse around to create a vortex and pull everything towards it
- The Wolrd Impact: change the world gravity (with up/down or W/S) and tilt the world (with left/right or A/D) to combat random events.
Programs
Unity 2020.3 / Aseprite <3 / Visual Studio 2019 Community / Audacity
Gameplay Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sUYrccX8
P.S: We will be playing lots of game entries this time and stream live on twitch. We will be happy to play your game. Come joins us live and submit your game for us to play on https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis
Ratings
| Overall | 912th | 3.404⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 837th | 3.346⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 232th | 3.808⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 840th | 3.442⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1124th | 3.147⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 617th | 3.333⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 425th | 3.439⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 916th | 3.26⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 60🗳️ | 85🗨️ |
This doesn't really seem like something made in a mere 72 hours! The animation is so smooth and the gameplay is so well-thought out, I think this could be a Steam hit if you make a post-Jam version. My only suggestion would be to make it so that cargo is guaranteed for each train, I had a train with nothing but three green cars and none of the respective cargo.
The voice over is surely a thing and the mouth made sounds too ^^.
I had fun playing it and it was a lot harder at some points, than it looked.
Especially since all those obstacles appear later in the game.
Please tell me what did you use to paint it? Microsoft paint? XD It looks soooo nice!
Thank you for this game!
I used https://www.aseprite.org/ to create the art. All the process is visible on my video on https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis
It was the first time I used it but I really enjoyed it. This program is amazing!
This was a neat take on the theme with a lot of thought put into it. I think a cheat sheet for which trains take which materials would have helped me on the first few rounds, and the spells feel unwieldy but effective-- as they should be!
If you were interested in a postjam, I'd like to see more uses for spells or world rule modifiers, or a focus on modifying the actual platform for materials/sorting before the train arrives so that you have more prep work involved in getting a good score before the train arrives.
Great work! Bonus points for the highly realistic train sounds.
This was a pretty neat game, pretty solid physics going on here, graphics were decent, they were clear and it works together pretty well to form a pleasing aesthetic even though they are simple and some parts being a bit crude.
All in all, a good experience, i have to practice my mage skills, but with some elbow grease and patience i think i could finish this game with 3 cogs each lvl
My first tries were quite pitiful, but after a while I did become a loading mage for the ages :). I even felt ready for the Unstable Gravity. Only got to two cogs there, but was quite proud of my magic achievements anyway!
It's a really cool jam game and I enjoyed my time with it. Train sounds are so cool and the voice-over is a nice touch! Controls feel just fine once you get used to them. The amount of work and attention to detail that you put in the game is clearly visible! Even the look of the cargo changes when it gets banged up - so cool. The only thing missing is some animations on the mage himself - but it's a jam, we can't have everything ;)
The only change I'd propose is color-coding your cargo and train carts. Green carts for the green barrels, red for red sacs, light brown for light-brown crates. That would allow the player to instantly recognize what goes where. That would be beneficial in a fact-paced game like this one.
Maybe matching the color of the cargo with the color of the carts could help make it a bit clearer what goes in which cart.
Being given all four spells to start is a bit overwhelming. I like the variety but it might be better to ease players into it instead of just throwing them into the deep end right away.
Such an variety of abilities. It's really a challenge to controll all of them. At start it's very hard, but after a while you get used to them. And still it's fun.
Liked the mechanics of matching cargo and place.
From cons I'd picked: sometimes it's very long time passes between trains.
Anyway, great job!
I like the concept, but I found the controls a bit hard. I tried a few times and didn't get further than 560 points. Controlling the mouse, WASD and the numbers keys was a bit much. I wish I could use the mouse to move the cargo around.
I enjoyed the bubbles, the voice acting and the sound effects. :) Well done!