Moderately Exciting Tax Collecting by HaaYaargh
Moderately Exciting Tax Collecting was created for Ludum Dare 58 with the theme Collector.
Here you take on the job of a Tax Collector, visiting houses and businesses to collect taxes and depositing them in the Tax Office. Higher ups need the dosh right now, but it is better to let the Taxes sit a bit, so they grow faster. Well, up until someone decides it is time for Tax Evasion.
It's not a great job, but someone has to do it.
It was my first time doing a solo game jam and, oh boy, that's a lot of work, especially when I started Saturday evening. Half of the nice features I planned, like upgrades or investments, or juicing up the movement, didn't make the cut, because I spent a lot of time looking up a lot of very basic stuff that you wouldn't believe. But it was a good experience. Writing code is really satisfying. I should do that more often.
Game made solo by me. Find me on bluesky
Some of the visuals were heavily inspired or linetraced from Unity Complete 2D by GameDev.tv, a course I did couple years ago.
Update v1.1 I removed usage of F1 for Tutorial as it was conflicting in many browsers launching "Help" section, and especially on laptops with Fn + F1. Pause & Tutorial are now on P button. The old version is still to download, where there should be no problem, since it doesn't run in a browser.
Ratings
| Overall | 608th | 3.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 492th | 3.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 595th | 2.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 260th | 3.881⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 601th | 3.095⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 396th | 2.974⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 700th | 2.85⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 14🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
I liked the push-your-luck mechanic with rising taxes and tax evasion!
I suggest adding some arrow or other indicator for the location of the tax office.
The driving model and collisions are pretty limited and require some polishing.
Thank you for the game!
Really great stuff on this one, well done
I think this game really lack audio and visual feedback. With a sound effect of money collected and some animation and with some car noise and with satisfying effects when the car crashes into something it would be Really Exciting Tax Collecting. 😁
Also, it's kind of annoying when just before you arrive at the house, they suddenly evade the taxes and you end up with less money than you expected.
@woona thanks for encouraging words. That's true; sounds, visuals and vfx can make a game better, much more than somehow "balanced" gold increase formulas that I spent too much time on :sweat_smile: I'll try to prioritize better next time. Thanks for playing!
The driving was functional but a bit annoying. That could definitely use more tweaking to be fun.
I ended up ignoring the roads entirely, though they were useful landmarks for returning to the office.
Also I kept not noticing I had maxed out the capacity.
Probably sound is the biggest thing the game needs. Even something basic from SFXR would go a long way.
Been there with controls needing changing for the web version. I discovered this jam that tab is another key to avoid, and a previous jam used wasd with ctrl for crouch. Reasonable until you try to crouch and move forward...
The driving controls could use a little work, but it also seems like the slightly frustrating controls are part of the experience. adding some explosions or damage as you drive around would give players a reward every time the controls failed them.
Great job, I had fun.
The idea is interesting and I believe some music and audio effects would have added a lot to the game.
The overall concept is cool!
<3
