Bucket Buffet by Don Fouts


HOW TO PLAY ---
Use A+D or the arrow keys to move between the table and buffet. Left mouse button to drag food from the buffet to your plate. You can rotate the food by spinning the mouse wheel. Carefully stack food on your plate before returning to your table. Eat the food as quickly as you can without spilling anything before returning to the buffet for more.
Be careful, this buffet charges you for wasted food. Any food that falls off your plate or that is left at the table when you return to the buffet will be considered wasted.
Try to eat enough food within the time limit to make your money back!
CREDITS ---
- Programming: Logan Fouts
- Graphics: Don Fouts
- SFX and Music: Niles Felter
Restaurant Ambiance: rivernile7, freesound.org (Attribution 3.0)
Inflatable Cactus Studios
SOFTWARE ---
- Audacity
- Godot
- Photoshop
- Visual Studio
| Link | https://inflatable-cactus.itch.io/bucket-buffet |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/bucket-buffet |
Ratings
| Overall | 285th | 3.85⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 395th | 3.642⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 301th | 3.675⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 156th | 4.259⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 219th | 4.179⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 346th | 3.564⭐ | 80🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 104th | 3.949⭐ | 80🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 432th | 3.681⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 54🗳️ | 99🗨️ |
I think the big problem I had was that the core loop just wasn't that fun. It felt a bit repetitive and it did not feel like I was making any meaningful decisions. I can think of some minor improvements for a post-jam version, maybe allowing more control over what food to get and perhaps more challenge with stuff falling off. Some more predictability with regards to physics will help the game feel less random and more fair.
All in all though, a nice polished experience.

This was a nice and short game, good job and congrats on the submission! :thumbsup:
Never managed to get any money back so far.

It's super fun and simple, it's hilarious trying to balance the food with the physics. Great job!
Thank you for your entry!
Great job!

It's funny, the art looks nice, the background noises make for a fitting mood and the idea for eating so much as possible without spilling anything is so very well implemented into a game. Very nice! Oftentimes i am too quick with putting something on the table, and when a big slice of whatever is drawn my whole pyramid of food just tumbles or shoots away to the right. What would be cool in this situation, if with luck, i could flip food from the buffet directly on the table. It would save precious space on my plate. :)
I love it!
Fun game and an interesting take on the theme I haven't seen yet. Would play again. Keep up the great work!
It'd be awesome to also have some sort of funny music in the background, but I did find the background ambient diner noise to be soothing and calming, honestly. The overall vibes were great - and I'm glad I got to play the game. Now to try to stuff even more food on my plate each time...
Thanks for the many laughs - keep up the awesome work!

We brainstormed an idea about building an unstable tower on a tiny platform, but I never imagined it could be about filling your plate at a buffet! That's hilariously creative. Also, you've hit the theme two ways: limited space on your plate, and limited space in your stomach (well, actually, it seemed to be _unlimited_!)
I found the physics to be a little too bouncy, but that was certainly part of the challenge.
Also, hats off to the UI design. That was *chef's kiss*.
The physics effects are slightly "unusual," but they don't feel strange at all. In fact, they fit very well and maybe the author intentionally adjusted them to create that effect.
It's really enjoyable to play, well done!
The controls are really simple and straightforward, but unfortunately my scroll wheel was broken so I couldn't rotate the food, but the drag and drop felt really nice and forgiving, so nicely done there. Although sometimes I grabbed a big food and it just collided with foods on the plate and knocked them to the floor, so I think the plate should be placed further away from the food source a bit to give some "room" between them, that would prevent the issue from happening.
But overall, this is a very interesting idea for a theme like this, really enjoyed the experience I had. Well done on this entry guys!