The Harvest Inspector by John Gabriel

[raw]
made by John Gabriel for Ludum Dare 52 (COMPO)

"Good morning, Inspector. At 2300 hours last night, cargo vessel LD-52 arrived in orbit of Mudul IV. We believe that one of the consignments has been poisoned."

A fragile peace has mere minutes to live. It falls to you to uncover the truth: which consignment was poisoned, who is responsible, and who are they targeting?

2023-01-08 17<em>29</em>18-The Harvest Inspector (DEBUG).png 2023-01-08 17<em>28</em>48-The Harvest Inspector (DEBUG).png

Ratings

Overall 51th 3.921⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 140th 3.474⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 55th 3.789⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 173th 3.658⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 61th 4.079⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 9th 4.211⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 10th 4.263⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 23🗳️ 22🗨️

Feedback

Footkick72
08. Jan 2023 · 22:13 UTC
Very well polished and reasonable replay-ability? Now that's a good game!
derpygamer2142
08. Jan 2023 · 22:18 UTC
Really good. The models are great, the story is in-depth, and as someone who likes puzzles I think that the difficulty was just right.
dob
09. Jan 2023 · 05:14 UTC
Wow, great mood, really cool graphics and music and a very original idea. The timer made me nervous, but I was able to get it the first time with about a minute to go thanks to making notes and comparing. Nice work!
LDJam user 287424
09. Jan 2023 · 17:26 UTC
Very polished presentation! Super impressive considering this is a compo. Great work!
Depression
10. Jan 2023 · 01:19 UTC
It was interesting to read about all the factions to try and determine who was the sussy baka
Xandruher
10. Jan 2023 · 22:55 UTC
Interesting game. I liked the visuals and the music! Your new album rocks. I am not disappointed by the "Morning Jammies" Guy.
streq
11. Jan 2023 · 16:30 UTC
Loved the presentation, the music, the text, the initial sequence. All of them, excellent! Felt a bit intimidated by the timer and ended up guessing some of the stuff (wrongly lol). Really well done!
kythehuman
11. Jan 2023 · 21:08 UTC
This is the most polished compo game I've played for LD52. High-quality all around. I genuinely enjoyed the timer, which increased the urgency/intensity of the matter at hand (though I personally could have used a bit more time for my first playthrough). The randomized elements in the prompts were a must for replayability, so kudos for implementing that too!
Lone_Wolf
12. Jan 2023 · 01:51 UTC
I think this needs a handholding option, e.g where you provide a screen with all of the info displayed together, and maybe allow drawing on it too. I spent 5/6 of my playthrough trying to figure out how to break down/process the data I was given, and that's really hard when switching back and forth between the different menus, trying to rely on my unreliable working memory, or pulling up a notepad external to the game/computer.

My first step was to pull out Flameshot (A [screenshot tool](https://flameshot.org/)), screenshot everything, pin it on my screen together, then end the game and add the result to my collection of data.

Once that was done I drew a bunch of lines, testing different approaches, and eventually figured out what I needed to do.

![unknownd11h17_3.png](///raw/ffb/42/z/5632f.png)

With my approach in mind I then started a new game, screenshot-pinned all of the data on the screen again, and with that I was able to solve the mystery, with a minute or so to spare.

![unknown.png](///raw/ffb/42/z/56334.png)

### TLDR:
Instead of figuring out the game's mystery I (personally at least) had to first figure out the game, and then its mystery.

---

Overall this was a great compo game, I was pleasantly surprised by the 3d models, and everything was polished well.
I don't hold a grudge for the potentially unintended experience, I got double the content from it lol
Cloughd
12. Jan 2023 · 23:06 UTC
I did not go into this expecting to be playing as an investigator trying to solve a mystery. The timer countdown had me quickly switching back and forth trying to find all the relevant data. Not my usual kind of game but I had fun. The intro scene was well modeled!
Porcus_Pie
14. Jan 2023 · 02:31 UTC
Gorgeous, loved it. You really set the mood here fantastically. You took what was quite a simple game and premise and gave it a lot of polish and charm in presentation and atmosphere to really set the mood of the scene well. I felt like I was playing some TTRPG and had a GM breathing down my neck. This has been the only game to get me to break out a pen and paper, which I just love doing. To use the overused journalism line, it made me feel like an inspector. I think my only complaint is that you could have maybe fleshed out the UI a bit? With the atmosphere, the rewarding puzzle and all the theatrics, it felt a little flat having just text on a screen. That's a very small complaint though, I was so surprised by the polish and by how engaging this was, was a great time. Congrats!
Fabian Denter
14. Jan 2023 · 15:21 UTC
Fantastic mood, I especially like the music and how it fits the tempo of the countdown. Made me really nervous and anxious (a good thing in this game!). I also liked the way I had to figure everything out just by being given a fixed amount of information, though I think some sort of help or guidance would make it easier to approach for people with bad short term memory (like myself). But overall, great game with an even greater presentation!
Oiluuuj
14. Jan 2023 · 17:34 UTC
The game is great! At first I was confused with what I should do and how to correlate the informations.

I agree with @lone-wolf, I think it would be easier to understand what is going on if the informations were all in one screen and if maybe we could draw some arrows or circles correlating the informations given.