Haul and Pray by Shess

[raw]
made by Shess for Ludum Dare 53 (JAM)

"I am only accepted as long as I am useful. If I don't earn my keep, if I don't constantly prove my worth, I might as well just disappear. And wouldn't that be better for everyone?"

haul<em>promo</em>scr_001.png

Story: you are a jackal-faced demon far away from home, and while there is nothing you want more than to belong, humans aren't particularly eager to open their hearts to you. You should've perhaps grown used to it, but it stings every single time.

You do have a person who takes care of you somewhat, and he ordered you to go and retrieve some very precious cargo. The road to the meeting point will be tough, and your way back through the woods will probably be even tougher.
But there is a chance you won't be alone this time.


  • Haul your cargo all the way back to the Mansion
  • Pray to resolves situations where weapons are useless
  • Collect items to receive useful action cards
  • Receive unique hand-crafted feedback for every action
  • Play in browser!

Controls: mouse only. [DRAG AND DROP] cards into the action card slot, and place items in your inventory to get more cards. [LEFT-CLICK] to go through text events.
Not every item can fit into every slot, and some situations can only be peacefully resolved through very specific actions, but you bet I went full crazy and prepared a description for every. single. possible. choice.


haul<em>promo</em>scr_002.png

Code: Yanrishatum. Gamedesign, story: Shess. Art: Lolita. Music, SFX: Elvendan.

Ratings

Overall 81th 4.172⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 462th 3.569⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 208th 3.81⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 577th 3.931⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 14th 4.741⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 37th 4.345⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Mood 20th 4.431⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 60🗳️ 46🗨️

Feedback

BagHz
02. May 2023 · 08:37 UTC
What an amazing artwork...
Music theme (with "night arrangement") is absolutely fantastic too ! Nice guitar sound, fits perfectly with the mood.

Great job !
SenseiMori
02. May 2023 · 19:23 UTC
wow unexpectedly cool and nice design. The work done is respected
frosty
03. May 2023 · 01:05 UTC
Amazing art, sound, and mood, but the mouse events appear to be broken once the game begins. I think the scale is off off or something? I can't click on anything, except an invisible hitbox for the fruit in the middle of the screen. This is on Chrome and Firefox.
flanne
03. May 2023 · 01:07 UTC
Artwork looks amazing! Gameplay seems interesting but, I can't seem to click on stuff correctly.
Patrick Leonard
03. May 2023 · 01:09 UTC
very high quality and liked the inventory mechanics! Great job!
Rjdrag
03. May 2023 · 01:09 UTC
Fantastic job. I finished it. I didn't expect the pray part. It got a little repetitive but I realize a lot of writing when into this. Great mechanics, great art, congrats.
Tyler M
03. May 2023 · 01:10 UTC
The game looks and sounds very cool, but I had a hard time understanding how the gameplay works. Maybe it's just user-error, but a lot of the things I clicked on seemed unresponsive, and it wasn't clear to me why.
Eli Heinrichs
03. May 2023 · 01:16 UTC
Such a beautiful game! I absolutely loved the art and mood of this game, the interactive story was also a great complement to the art and gameplay. The gameplay itself was simplistic but enjoyable. Great game I had fun playing it!
Braveskin
03. May 2023 · 01:17 UTC
Most excellent game! The art, music and story were just beautiful. I could absolutely see this getting extended so we could learn more about the characters and the world they live in.
EvilScotsman
03. May 2023 · 01:17 UTC
You've made such a intriguing world, I now really want to know more such as what was meant by the warning 'this is your last chance to reconsider', what was the role of the priestess and the mansion. Wonderful game, amazing art and music.
🎤 Shess
03. May 2023 · 01:20 UTC
Thank you for the feedback!

Also @flanne and @tyler-m, could you please describe the issue you encountered? Most of the interaction with the game is done through dragging and dropping cards and items into their respective slots, not clicking, but perhaps there was a resizing or a DPI issue that made it hard for your to grab stuff?
Batisdark
03. May 2023 · 01:22 UTC
Great art and music! Interesting concept of inventory use with prompts. Too many of the same events repeated for one playthrough, but that is a time limit for ya :( played several times through just to see if anything else I can see :) Would love to see more of his story tbh...
🎤 Shess
03. May 2023 · 01:28 UTC
@batisdark Thank you ^^
As for repetitiveness, yeah, the game lasts for 40 events, and there are 26 unique events in total, so some of them are bound to repeat (I wouldn't mind making more tbh, but even the text we already have amounts to 6500 words, and that's low-key insane)
We do have a workaround that forbids repeating events within a pool of 6, but the rest is RNG, and boy can RNG be cruel.
Ryabchik
03. May 2023 · 01:33 UTC
Very cool art and sound design. There are in fact several endings and replayability has been worked out. I really liked everything)
Terquey
03. May 2023 · 01:33 UTC
The whole inventory and action system is so cool! The art and story (and overall feel) is just phenomenal, really good stuff!
Tyler M
03. May 2023 · 04:08 UTC
@shess I just ran it again, and the drag and drop functionality was working for me this time. When I tried it the first time, it wasn't letting me pick anything up from the right side of the menu.
SvenErik
03. May 2023 · 16:21 UTC
Now this was quite the experience altogether- really a wonderfully thematic game with quite the moody,adventurous and at times the feeling of not knowing what comes next is in me~ I love the overall aesthetics of it. All the graphics are wonderful, from UI elements to Item icons and the character, all looks splendid!
The sound & music works really well together with the other elements thus it feels like everything enhances everything else. Jolly great work with this!
Allosius
03. May 2023 · 16:23 UTC
A little bit difficult to understand the game due to my limited English, but really beautiful, I really like the style and atmosphere of the game
carkh
03. May 2023 · 16:41 UTC
Graphics are awesome, tho i had a little bug while transporting the priestess she flickers a bit. Music very good too.
Kopako
03. May 2023 · 16:43 UTC
I really like this one. Great mood, overall outstanding quality and the gameplay was quite unique, too
Swordfish
03. May 2023 · 16:49 UTC
This is a really polished entry, probably the best game I've played so far this time around. The graphics are really nice and the music sets the mood well. It kinda gives me darkest dungeon vibes. The amount of content here in only 72 hours is pretty amazing, but I got attacked by that bear three or four times lol. The only thing I can think of that's missing is some sort of health system (unless I missed it), taking damage didn't seem to have any consequence and I seemed to take a lot of damage lol.
Kristallllllik
03. May 2023 · 18:02 UTC
Amazing art !!!
🎤 Shess
03. May 2023 · 18:28 UTC
Thank you for the feedback!
There actually is a health system, but it's hidden from the player. Of course you can die if you choose the absolute worst actions in every possible case, but usually the game is tolerant to small blunders, rewards careful play and lets you regain some health from time to time, too :)
GreenwoodDrive
03. May 2023 · 23:34 UTC
The stunning visuals and enchanting atmosphere of your game is captivating. The music is accompanying the game perfectly. The inventory system mechanic being the center of the game is very original, I never played a game like this before. English is not my first language so please excuse my lack of vocabulary, but I can say that the writing style of your game is both poetic and resonating. Thank you for this experience :)
Waterflow
04. May 2023 · 05:18 UTC
M-a-a-a-n, graphics are just beautiful. But I'm a little sad because there're no sounds for interactions like fire, axe chops or ropes :C But keep it up!
ScrapMetal
04. May 2023 · 13:17 UTC
Wow..... I wish I could score this even higher than 5 stars for mood. The music, art, storytelling... all comes together so perfectly to create this immersive experience. I had a lot of fun with this one and really got into it.

I'm stunned at what you could accomplish in a jam. :open_mouth:

With some additional tweaks, I could totally see enjoying a full version of this on my ipad. :smile: It already fits well with touch controls. And looks beautiful.

I love the inventory system. It made for some interesting choices. And needing to choose what to keep/get rid of.

I also loved experimenting and trying diff items, there was a nice sense of discovery. I think for me, there were a couple things that would've made the experience even better?... (maybe in ver 2? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: )

- It lacked a bit of tension. This was the main thing missing for me. It was such a great setting, with great character, and there were a lot of interesting player choices... but I didn't feel like I had enough indication or info on what some of those choices meant. Or why I would want to get rid of an axe to choose an apple etc? That's a really interesting choice, but there wasn't much reward or consequence in either. If I could tell my hero was about to die of hunger, choosing some food or fruit over a weapon could feel really rewarding. Or if I had hung onto my axe, and it pulled me out of some bandits stealing some stuff, that could feel satisfying as well.

- I already mentioned this above, but I think just a better indication of the state of my hero? Maybe it was there and I missed it somehow. But just some way to know am I low on health? Are massive mosquitos going to kill me? Am I about to die of hunger? (As a side note... I also couldn't figure how to cook the meat. :laughing: )

Ok, this is way too long a comment, but I really really loved this one. :heart: And with a couple tweaks to make the choices feel more meaningful, it could be really amazing.
🎤 Shess
04. May 2023 · 14:11 UTC
Whoa, thank you for your detailed review, @scrapmetal!
I genuinely enjoyed making this game, even within the tight time constraints, so I low-key want to work on a postjam version for the first time in my life. This type of feedback is incredibly valuable to me: whatever's understandable and forgivable for a 72 hour project can still be improved upon later.

So you're right, while the game surely tracks the hero's physical and mental health, this info is hidden from the player by default. I didn't want to add visible meters with percentages and such because it felt too "game-ish", but introducing something less immersion breaking as an indicator is a good idea.
Based on other feedback, I think adding more events is a nice idea as well, since RNG can be an absolute spoilsport and spam you with the same type of event over and over.

Wanna make prettier win/fail screens, too ^^
ScrapMetal
04. May 2023 · 15:21 UTC
@shess Yes!! And I realized a lot of that was tough within that time constraint. Like near impossible maybe. :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: I'm honestly impressed how many events and items you had! :O

I also don't know what the right solution is. Just having a UI meter I don't think quite fits your vibe in this... so not sure what that is? But could even be some indication in a story event? Or maybe a change on the character ui inventory? Some way to give that tension. Since with it hidden I didn't know if I was close to dying or hungry etc.

I'll have to keep an eye on this one, as I'd totally buy it later. :wink: :smile:
Gmstochetto
04. May 2023 · 19:51 UTC
I really enjoyed it, I found the idea of the items you have being the possible choices for events very creative. The atmosphere, sound, music, art - everything works in harmony. Perhaps a skill point system for the character would be a nice addition, just a suggestion. The game is complete and I can't find any bug. Congratulations, it is a great game :3
yumykon
04. May 2023 · 22:40 UTC
The art is so good, I loved the music, atmosphere, and sound effects, everything matched perfectly and brought the game to life! The story is charismatic and engaging because it's possible to take different paths depending on your choices. An incredible job done in only 3 days, congratulations on your game! (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧
yoddaa
05. May 2023 · 14:18 UTC
@yanrishatum @elvendan @shess very cool game with art music story. good job.
Falk Hoeppner
06. May 2023 · 15:45 UTC
The art is phenomenal and the music and sound design really help set the tone of this game. Excellent all around, than you for sharing!
TheSmellofOxygen
12. May 2023 · 20:13 UTC
This one gives a really strong first impression for sure! Great visuals, lovingly written text for every interaction, and a somber lonely mood that sells it. Very impressive. I would have liked a little more feedback in terms of overall health/sanity, as I only realized they were a stat when I read over the endings afterward. I like the inventory management, but didn't feel like I had much input. Or perhaps the lack of numerical feedback was what prevented me from feeling like I made important decisions. Either way, the atmosphere, visuals, and many interactions carried the game even when the actual gameplay became something of a slow burn.