Noice!

I enjoyed the combo mechanic and the changing ingredients at the market. Was a little overwhelmed with all the text in the beginning. I ended up spending a lot of time waiting for the transition between the market and the restaurant to happen, this made me think that perhaps it could be fun with some kind of ingredient list or notebook mechanic to help the player remember what they want to buy?

Good job in time, too complicated for me ;-)

An interesting game. I'm not used to play this kind of game :smile: . The wall of text was a bit overwhelming and understanding the mechanics and combos with the ingredients took me some time. But once understood, we start to see what we have to buy and plan for the next turn ! :muscle: Good job on this entry ! :tada:

@horda @reservoir @matimat @gcake Thanks for the feedback. I added a [hopefully] more simplified how-to to the game's description in LD and itch.

@reservoir The notebook's a really good idea. Thanks.

Nice take on the theme! Interesting gameplay as well. The art style looks a bit primitive, but that's understandable for a game jam, of course :) A few suggestions:

- It didn't really feel like I was gaining money. Not sure if that's by design or maybe I'm plain wrong, but such was the feeling of it. If it's not by design, probably the game needs some balancing?
- It would be nice to have a faster UI (without animated transitions between scenes), ideally with everything always on one screen, so that one can be really efficient about buying ingredients, keeping track of combos, cooking, etc. I ended up e.g. impatiently clicking on a product I want to buy long before the animation of zooming in to the specific market stall ended :)

@lisyarus This is great feedback. I was curious how these specific points would be received. The game changed over the course of the jam, but in the end, I thought the combos should be central to the gameplay. So if you don't cook mostly using combos, you'll lose money. Even then, you need 3x or multi-combos to progress far. I think I might have made it too hard, so I think you're right that it needs balancing.

I like the core mechanics. It feels satisfying to pick up the correct ingredients and make some money! However, I think the UI could have been simplier. The switching back and forth between the restaurant and market screens turned the game into more of a memory game than a management game. In addition, I think the tutorial can be revamped such that the user learn the game while playing, instead of a wall of text in the beginning. That said, well done on the entry!

I like the game, though it's always hard to properly balance random generation, my very first round I couldn't complete any of the combos because the ingredients just weren't in the market, which felt a little frustrating. I gave it a refresh and managed a better start though lol

I really like the idea of the game – I am a big fan of cooking and farming games and I love the combination of it. I think it's impressive that you had time for an in-game tutorial. In my opinion the game would benefit most from a different interface that allows quicker switching and side by side comparison so you don't have to memorize the ingredients. I think maybe like having a market ledger, like a list you can compare the offers in.

Nice managment game!
* Graphics are smooth. maybe brighter colors to be in the mood of veggies and restaurant.
* Nice camera movements in transitions
* Nice music atmosphere
* The mechanic is nice, using trending combos after a bit I realized I should buy any vegetables.
* I think it miss a global objective like "reach XXX yummies to make Robert the client happy" of something like that.
That's a complete and nice game, could not say it was made in only 48h, great job!

@masternoob @papaya I noticed the memory game thing when playtesting, but I wasn't sure if it added to the gameplay. From the start, I was fixated on the market being separate because of the theme. Sometimes, you just need to let go of an idea. Thanks for the UI/tutorial comments and suggestions. I might play around with merging the market/restaurant modes post-jam.

@manchmalscott The combos aren't entirely random. The game tries to look for 1 player ingredient, 1 market ingredient, then a completely random one. It sounds like player/market ingredients should be more probable. I'm glad you could game the system for a better playthrough :)

@sdelay Brigher colours are a good idea. I hadn't even thought about that, but it makes so much sense. I was thinking of adding objectives as you suggest, but didn't get around to it. It would definitely add to the gameplay.

Thanks all for playing. I really appreciate the detailed comments.

I like your game. The mechanic of putting together combinations of things that change each turn, with that limited resource, and making a number go up is classic in a good way. The setting of that being in a market with those icons and little 3d sandbox worked well, it has a lot of character. It felt like it belonged in a Fire Emblem game or something. I would for sure play it every day.

There is definitely a lot more that you could have done here, but it's compo so I'm not sure if that's a useful thing to say. For me... if the score system were more "achievement / objective" based than "high score" based it would have scratched a bigger itch. It's also a natural tutorial sort of thing. I was a bit lost at the start feeling out what I was supposed to do and having like "cook a meal with potatoes" or whatever would be satisfying.

It's nice having some chill music to go with the whole thing. Works well for how short the loop is, though IMO something more lively would have suited it better. A much smaller change would be to make the ground green, brown is a bit depressing.

I kept open a second window with a screenshot of the restaurant to plan market purchases. I think that made the game a lot more fun, especially because I don't have a great memory.

I'm either up way too late or am a god that doesn't need tutorials. Most likely the former, so excuse any incomprehensibility:

The tutorial in this game didn't seem to explain the important parts of what I needed to know, it was hard to discern from the game's background story (which I like to skip unless I'm playing a game centered around that) and I felt like clicking anything other than the 'Skip Tutorial' button would skip the tutorial (:P), due to how I automatically only focused on the area within the tutorial's panel.

The quality of the tutorial didn't matter though, the gameplay was easy to pick up on.
I came in expecting one of those cooking rush games where you have to fill out an increasing number of timed orders while also managing your stock, but since this turned out to be a peaceful turn-based game the fact I missed all the restaurant tips gave me something to learn as I went along, which in turn resulted in a good sense of progression. It also doubled my playtime, because I was eager to start over and apply things I've learned.


Nice job! You've given me some things to think about for my own tutorials, hopefully you've learnt a thing or two too. I'm headed to bed now :P

Fun game! After the tutorial and some experimenting I was able to quickly gasp the mechanic and these combination games are always fun for me! The upkeep mechanic wasn't really clear to me though until I lost my first game. But the second game I was able to gain 1161 money in 3 turn :smile: Also liked the relaxing music and the sound when you try to buy something without money.

Some other thoughts:
* It would be nice if you could see the combos all the time. I guess this was a deliberate decision to let the player remember the combos, but I found it a bit annoying.
* One technical thing: It would be nice if you could shrink the size of the embedded site in itch.io. It is a bit annoying that the came fills the complete window (at least in my monitor :smile:)

Cool entry!

@benk I had planned so much more, and more would've been done had I stuck with a plan. I like how you suggested objectives as the tutorial. I see that in many games, and I'm amazed that I've never tried it that way. I'll have to try that next time. Solid for the tone of the game too.

@benmo Haha, that's a funny solution. I should add that to the "how to play" as if it were planned all along.

@lone-wolf I cobbled that tutorial together because I was worried that the mechanics weren't obvious :) Thanks for saying otherwise. I'll be rethinking my approach next time.

@oadt It was deliberate to keep the restaurant stuff separate from the market, but it turned the game into a memory game. I'll have to remember that for next time. I discovered that the game looks awful below 1080p after I published. I think that it was the tutorial window that was messy, *raises fist at last minute additions*.

Thanks for the kind words too everybody! I love LD and jams in general for this type of feedback. I get a lot out of it.

very nice game idea! also very were executed in just one weekend :) this game feels like having so much depth due to all these different kinds of values. very fun to explore and optimize! :)