I really do feel like a bot! *botVoice: I must click, I must push packets. Packets have no meaning for me, I just push them.
*melanieVoice: I like it, it is chill. Nothing bad happened, even tho I tried to MzBehave!

Really unique idea, but it wasn't really much fun to actually play, the mechanics are a bit confusing and it isn't really clear how the energy and encrypted packets work. I also wasn't able to get to a game over or end, so not sure if that's intended or not. The use of audio was pretty good in my opinion.

@elementary @melanie-ann-stegman Thanks for playing it!

I had some really large scope on Saturday where there would be a deep, involved story going on in the background. I probably should have tabled that for a possible sequel and just stuck with the core gameplay loop. As it is, there is a loss condition, but I still had a debug value in at publish time - the servers heal too quickly, negating the need for any use of the tools.

The game is pretty challenging, there are a lot of things to learn at first. It's pretty impressive what you managed to do

It's a briliant idea to make game about the network package delivery. I had a lot of fun to make a path from one point to another with limited time. But I think it will be great to adding on the map more challenging mechanics, for example a firewalls or blinked broken wires. However It's nice work! Good luck!

@katamary Thanks for the feedback! I toyed with flexing to the Jam timeline to give myself an extra day to refine the deeper mechanics. Firewalls are a great idea. I had also thought about some kind of hacking entity conducting DDOS attacks on various servers, requiring a possible quarantine. There might be a future to the game, but I'm a little too tired right now to get back into the code.

@defrag
> There might be a future to the game, but I’m a little too tired right now to get back into the code.

I know your feel bro...

REALLY good art and sound polish for a compo. The gameplay is original, but very confusing. The fact that we are playing on a timer while having to read the tutorial doesn't help too.

@thetatautau Thanks for playing! I probably overscoped on what I thought I could communicate to the player in just 48 hours. If I good go back in time to Saturday, I'd drop the tools and just focus a bit more on some simpler mechanics that I didn't get to. FWIW, you can't drop below your starting energy level while in the tutorial mode. You can just let packets expire (if you can live with that guilt).

Nice! ^^ a very hard game actually, especially because the repair is so damn expensive. I think maybe if repair was like half the price you could keep up managing the network, but it being so expensive the games are pretty short. Or maybe im just that bad haha ^^ very fun, also I know you put those messages to distract me haha


very nice game, finally something to play other then delivery boy. so what i would suggest, that tutorial was a bit to handle all at once for my hampster brain. i would suggest maybe give us a mechanic, then let us play with it in multiple ways over a few levels before introducing the next. other then that it was a fun to play with game.

Loved the game! Really appreciated the inclusion of a tutorial.

So that's what's being the internet feels like.

A very visually cohesive game, from the art style to the sound effects, music, and font. I did notice a bit of text overflow in the tutorial panel in the lower left, but everything was readable. Balancing reading the tutorial while playing the game required a bit of mental juggling. But at least it has a tutorial, which is nice! The gameplay is easy to pick up and fun to play. It's even pleasing just to click on nodes and get the randomized sounds, although it quickly got challenging. And it really plays into the theme. Well done!

Like your node system with the sounds to each node.
Fun puzzle game , great tutorial and clean art.
Music good a little to short of a loop imo, 1 or 2 more bars would spice your game up so much.
The game itself with the theme is a good rough gem.
Well made buddy!

Edit: also good use of particles.

I had a lot of fun with this. Really enjoyed the sound effects and the music was a nice beat. The sounds remind me of the dark forces games. The tutorial is very well done, I'm jealous! It did feel a little uncoupled from what I was doing though, but maybe that was just me taking a minute to notice I could move on. Good take on the theme!

I am glad I gave this game a second go after first confusing round. Reading through the tutorial after actually playing a real round helped a lot, because sometimes tutorial is too vague (using phrases "this button" without any emphasis on button, or "it can overload" without showing how overload actually looks).
My suggestion would be to separate resource management and action part: maybe have something like ~10 packets, then spend resources and clean up the mess without time pressure, and then stress-test your uprgaded network again. For now it's just too much happening, too hard to pay enough attention to network status, packet timer, your points and upgrades at the same time (and when should we even read the messages? or is this haste a part of message encryption?)

Music and SFX are simple enough, but I really like how they synergize with each other.

Great job overall on the game, was actually much fun! Would like to see a full game out of this.

The tutorial was kind of stressful, because I had to read the text while deliver packets (I don't actually know if the packets in the tutorial affect anything, but I don't think it was stated, and the timer thing was running, so I assumed they do). I managed to deliver 34 packets, but I think that was mostly due to luck, because I don't actually fully understand how the repair, encrypt and improve nodes. Also, the nodes seem to break down really quickly and I don't have enough currency to fix all of them. Overall, I think this has a lot of potential, but at the moment it's a little confusing. Was still kind of fun though.

The tutorial was kind of stressful, because I had to read the text while deliver packets (I don't actually know if the packets in the tutorial affect anything, but I don't think it was stated, and the timer thing was running, so I assumed they do). I managed to deliver 34 packets, but I think that was mostly due to luck, because I don't actually fully understand how the repair, encrypt and improve nodes. Also, the nodes seem to break down really quickly and I don't have enough currency to fix all of them. Overall, I think this has a lot of potential, but at the moment it's a little confusing. Was still kind of fun though.

This is the second game I see that is related to linking nodes together. Not so many thought about it which is always nice as it is a fresh take on the theme.

I have some suggestions:
* make the tutorial in such a way that you do not have to read a wall of text before you can actually make use of what you learn. I am bad at keeping things in mind, I would have rather had a simple assignment to start with and as I progress the tutorial pops-up and tells me about the next move
* either I did not manage to get any encrypted packet or I did not understand which one is an an encrypted packet :smile:
* I would have probably preferred this kind of game to be more relaxed, with no time-constraint. Just give more time to the player to think about the next move. It would probably make it feel way more enjoyable

It's got a lot of potential. Nice one!

Really clever mechanics going on here. The tutorial was a bit overwhelming and I think I missed parts. But I really enjoyed the puzzle of routing packets, it seems easy, but quickly I started losing nodes. Although I want it to be a bit easier, so I can read the messages as each packet required most of the time for me to route I could not read at the same time.

Good game. Nice to see tutorial but it too many message. I can't read it all on the first try. It too many infomation. I like minimalistic style and sound effects.

It was a problem with text only on fullscren


@makuck95 Good feedback. I've been using TextMeshPro's autosize feature, but I don't like when two text areas have different font sizes. So this time I forced everything to be the same font size; overflow like this was the result. I'll have to think through a way to standardize things while still preventing overflow.

@tinykidtoo @potatocouch Packet has a bit of a split identity. I wanted a cool, simplistic arcade feel, but with some story and RTS elements included. In retrospect, I probably should have just focused on one (ie, remove or greatly expand the time window to allow for reading of packets).

@nozomu57 Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm already thinking of ways to refine the gameplay. I'll probably turn off the story packets, or at least give them a very generous time window to allow for some destress moments. I think the tools probably distract too much from the actual packet routing, but I have a few ideas in mind to still incorporate network improvements without changing the core mechanic. When/if I get around to implementing those, it will happen over at my itch page (where the game is hosted currently).

As others said this is super polished and has potential to become a full release! I think it would be really neat if you could click and drag you're way through the network, instead of needing to click on each node. Also, I feel like the time for each packet was a little too quick, as I was unable to really engage with the actual message at all

Very cool idea! I liked the theme and I thought the art and audio went really well with it. I really appreciate the tutorial as there's a lot of game mechanics to get into. Like other people, it felt like the cost to repair was a little high, or maybe I just suck delivering packets, lol. I appreciated that you had the story elements of the contents of the packets. At first I was trying to read them, but then I had to ignore that to just focus on getting them delivered. From the comments it sounds like you have lots of ideas in terms of future development of the game, and I'd be really interested in playing a more robust version that's had the gameplay iterated on a little bit. I think there's a really solid, interesting base here. Great compo entry! Awesome work!!!

Cool game! I like how you get a tune from routing, almost make it feel like a rhythm game or something. Visually appealing. I wish it had an interactive tutorial instead of just clicking on the dialog. I got the feeling you had the parts for it. But once I mistakenly tried to move a packet it was go-time and there was no time to read anymore. And this unfortunately applies to the (most likely) interesting messages you get bottom left. I just didn't have time to read them.

Perhaps you could have change the timer to limited moves so the player can take their time to adjust. Or drop the urgency altogether since the servers have durability and require action from player.

I also liked the menu transition.

Good work!

An interesting take on the theme. I like when people do that. The tutorial felt a bit long. I wonder if each mechanic could be introduced one by one in each level.

I really liked this take on the theme! The overall vibe is very cohesive and I think you did a great job creating the feeling of pushing packets around. The tools and server load mechanics did a great job of making me think about how to route the packet tactically instead of just mindlessly clicking the fastest path immediately. The tutorial was very welcome feature; I'm always impressed with how much people manage to get done in 48 hrs for a compo. Nice job!

It's a pretty deep idea. Could be interesting as a bigger version of the game, where you have more time to learn the complexities of the game slowly, since the mechanics seem quite complicated. I am still somewhat sleep deprived, but I didn't understand the upgrades and the encryption from the tutorial alone. The tutorial also was quite long for a jam game, which I understand since the gameplay is complex and it is remarkable that there is a pretty well made tutorial at all in a compo submission.

The biggest flaw with the gameplay would be the text messages in my opinion. There is a pretty fast and strict time limit on completing the deliveries, so there really is no time at all to read the text of the messages. That is some unfortunate dissonance between gameplay and narrative. Maybe those messages could come between deliveries in a time stop, so you actually can read them without losing precious thinking time. There are some other nitpicks about visuals and UI, but those can be mostly neglected for a jam game, imo.

I really did like the mood and narrative of the game, though. It felt very fitting and the music supplemented the mood very well. Overall I'd say it's a great idea but the game design was maybe a little overscoped for a short jam. Could be interesting if you build on it, though!

Interesting turn on the theme. The graphics are nice and the sound is relaxing.

like this design,but to much to understand

Well done - really clever mechanics. The tutorial was a bit overwhelming - too hard for me, but I really enjoyed the puzzle. The main aesthetic is good enough. Thank you for your entry. I wish you the best ++

This was an interesting concept that was a little overwhelming to play at first, but was pretty fun once I understood the concepts. The gameplay is a little repetitive and a tad too fast for me, so it felt more like making quick decisions instead of necessarily good ones, but I suppose that fits with the plot of the game. I liked that the packets had some information but because of the fast pacing, I couldn't ever read them. The visuals and the audio were very well done.

Cool game! As others have mentioned, it'd be nice to try the mechanics bit by bit and have the tutorial pause the gameplay. Cool vibe!

Pretty neat game. Really reminds me of the hacking minigame from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Dunno if that was a point of inspiration or not, but I like how active your game is compared to most other games like this.

That being said, I think having a phase between deliveries to use the repair tool and other tools would have been helpful. Game felt too fast paced, like I had to click nodes for my life against the timer to focus on anything other than that. Since the nodes had to be delivered so quickly, I never read the messages being delivered.

I think maybe a 'start/stop' mechanic where the player can pause the game to take in the fluff you've written would be one way to solve that problem.

Music and sounds really helped set the mood. Art was simple but clean and the particles looked good!

Pretty mechanic heavy game for a Jam, and that's impressive! Nice work!