RoboKitchen by quadtree
With orders coming in every 10 seconds, you've decided to automate your kitchen. Robots will enter from the left to grab ingredients from stations that you place. Click the buttons on the right panel to select stations, and then place them on the grid. Robots can only make 5 turns, so don't make them turn too much. You can see on the left upcoming orders.
Controls: - Ctrl+R - Return to title - Left Click - Place plan - Right Click - Cancel plan
2022-10-17: I've added a new version with threads enabled. I added threads during the LD, but I ended up disabling them because I was worried they'd cause unexpected bugs. In theory this version should be less hitch-ey and work better on older computers. I've also enabled scaling on all versions to increase the chance it'll work with different screen sizes. I've also added a WebGL1 version, in case browsers don't support WebGL2 correctly.
| HTML5 (WebGL2) | https://quadtree.me/ld/ld51/html5/ |
| HTML5 (WebGL1) | https://quadtree.me/ld/ld51/html5_webgl1/ |
| Windows (Threads) | https://quadtree.me/ld/ld51/win32/ld51_threads.zip |
| Windows | https://quadtree.me/ld/ld51/win32/ld51.zip |
| Link | https://github.com/Quadtree/LD51 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/robokitchen |
Ratings
| Overall | 414th | 2.978⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 453th | 2.565⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 277th | 3.217⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 417th | 3.065⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 439th | 2.587⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 361th | 2.565⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 289th | 2.342⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 423th | 2.425⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 19🗳️ | 14🗨️ |
apart from that, the hard level are challenging and engaging, I liked them!
I then played the windows version. It launched in a window way too big to fit on my screen and I had to resize it. The game did run a lot smoother, but it was still rather glitchy. The robots would spawn in the upper left corner, and then come across the middle. After a while they stopped spawning completely. All in all the game did not work well for me. Good try!
Unfortunately I only saw this in the HTML version.
In the web version, I checked the console, and there are quite some things printed out, that doesn't help for the speed of the game! From the logs it seems that the pathfinding need some optimization, because often the game would freeze for some time during these calculations. It seemed like the pathfinding was not updated when you add stations during their walk, I saw a robot walking through a newly build station. I am curious what kind of path-finding algorithm you used, since sometimes the robots would do an unnecessary round of steps back to the same spot. But later I thought maybe this is the case just to pass some time, to wait till the station is available again? I was also surprising to see that two robots could be at the same spot.
In the Windows version, I completed my first level with a score of 663. On a random level I scored 933! It was not clear to me how the score was calculated. I wondered if there is a way to lose the level?
For a long time it was not clear to me when the robots spawned (because the game would freeze often) and what they would make. It took me a while to realize it takes ten seconds for the next order on the left to be on the top, and that at that point it will be calculated if that order can be made. If so, a robot is spawned.
Then the question was, why did some orders got canceled, while the stations were in the kitchen? I had already noticed the loading bars when the robots were at the water or at the cooking station, but only much later I realised that the other stations also have a cooling down period when they have just been used. Can this cause the next robot to not complete its order?
Some robots would spawn in the upper left corner. Are they waiting for the stations to be free?
Quite late I discovered that the stations on the right have a hover over text. But unfortunately, it was behind the other buttons. In general, a little more feedback would be nice. For example when the next order is at the top, maybe it can be highlighted, or flash, or fly towards a robot, to indicate that order is being processed. Some more feedback whether or not you have enough funds to build a station would be welcome. I think it would have been nice to give the robots a different color than the stations.
Levelwise I think it would be fun to also have levels for which the doors are not exactly opposite each other, and perhaps some extra walls or obstacles. I often ended up placing all the stations above and below the straight walking route.
Nice sound effects for each of the ingredients and actions. :)
In the end I managed to beat the Hard level with a score of 844! :)