finally an accurate gamedev simulation :sweat_smile:

A very solid entry! The slow reader mode was a good addition, since without it I found myself just quickly scanning for keywords and not actually reading the sentences. It might have also been a good idea to have the descriptions and functionalities of different demons somewhere outside of the game itself. It took me a while to realise that they even were there :sweat_smile:
But despite my nitpicks, I still think this is a phenomenal entry! Great work!

OK, that was funny! 😅 I liked the characters!

Got 190th place. Awesome job, but it was upsetting that I got the same monsters over and over again and didn't have time to switch them because the time is going. However, it is an accurate jam situation :). Good job!

Very cool game! Also very authentic on how he forget the existance of sound

The characters are cool,
I didn't immediately realize that this window to hell is in 3d and I'm moving through it, I think the color palette could have been made a little less saturated.

Very cool concept and character styling, most interesting dev sim game I've seen this time around!

When the game started the last thing I was expecting was that I would be walking through a fleshy hellscape looking at noise-shapes in search for teammates. Needless to say I was extremely surprised!
Visually charming game, very pretty characters, not super completely sure what I was doing but I had fun reading the dialogue and finding new demons.

It's fun to try to see how your luck can get a better game jam in each replay. I found the 3D space to be a really nice touch for the game!

I had a good laugh about the concept! Pretty creatures tho :)

Visually very pleasing experience! Fascinating and thematic way of implementing two windows

Very cool concept and a funny idea. Loved the portal effects! Good job!

The style of the characters is cool *-* The idea is also interesting, the theme with demons was well played, it's fun

I love this! The idea is really neat, and the text and art were awesome. I would maybe put a little more emphasis on the summoning screen, but overall really nice work! Loved the take on the theme too.

Probably the best execution I've seen so far of the "Summon people to do stuff for you" games. The art is incredible and the gameplay loop is satisfying.

The only thing that took me a while to get was which icon corresponded to which job (And I'm still not sure about some of them haha) Having the icons be next to the names on the bottom right would have helped a lot.

This is an amazing idea, love it! And it is accurate too, this is exactly how the game dev is. I love how dialogs are written, and your graphics and artstyle. I know this will probably sound weird, but I was mesmerised by the walls, they look incredible!

I liked that game idea and realization

Made the game where u need to make games is awesome and cool for jam

Art design and sound is great, liked that game!

Funniest concept I've ever seen on ld55. Nice job!

Haha, this is amazing. I love the idea. Nice job :)

Proud 11th finisher in humor :sunglasses: I really like the summoning concept and the need to balance out different categories. One thing I don't know if I'm the only person to experience is that a lot of the right part of screen is cut off in fullscreen mode, so it was a bit difficult to see how the bars were filling up besides just judging based on their colour. Regardless, I really like the entry, nice job :)

Good work on the sprites!

I think the role icons should be on the description list to make it more clear what is what.

While the inner world navigating is pretty cool stylistically, I think it actually distracts from making meaningful choices. I'd be curious to see the game with all the candidates laid out clearly, right now I think the player is more likely to just hire whoever comes first out of time pressure.

Maybe it would be nice to be able to let go some summons.

It's a cool concept and has nice details but overall feels a bit incohesive and like you were trying to do more than the game really needed.

@grimw0lf Good point! Post-mortem, we also figured that it would be good to have a visual indicator of the trait counts so it's easier to keep track of how many "humor", "mood" etc developers you've had working on the project. Although at the moment, if you manage to max out the Features, AudioVisual, and Polish bars, it doesn't really matter what traits you had for developers :sweat_smile:

@unless-games

>I think the role icons should be on the description list to make it more clear what is what

You aren't the only one confused! Actually, there are no role icons - the icons you see in the description/dialogue are traits like "humor" and "mood", which modestly boost those scores of your final game (see above response to @grimw0lf) Definitely could have made the function of these more obvious :sweat_smile:

>While the inner world navigating is pretty cool stylistically, I think it actually distracts from making meaningful choices. I’d be curious to see the game with all the candidates laid out clearly, right now I think the player is more likely to just hire whoever comes first out of time pressure.

Good points - the "slow reader mode" + "hard mode" is actually my preferred way of playing, which helps deal with this time pressure aspect while retaining the strategic elements of the game and punishing you for not setting up the pipelines correctly. "Slow reader mode" allows you to carefully read the descriptions of the spirits, which give you clues as to what their roles are and how competent they are. You are still in a "rush" to find the right candidates and it's no guarantee of winning/losing, but you no longer have to just spam spacebar and hope you caught the right keywords in the 0.2 seconds you spent looking at the text.

Also, the theming of the game is you have to wander Hell a bit to find team members, sifting through varying levels of (in)competency. Of course we could just have a portal that opens and there are 7 candidates presented to you and you can pick the ones you think you need, but then we would have to figure out a different way of "gamifying" that - since if you know all the candidates and skill levels, the game becomes quite trivial.

>Maybe it would be nice to be able to let go some summons.

We made it so that you are "stuck" with summons to add to the risk/reward aspect - if you end up with an intern you just have to wait it out and read more carefully next time. However, IMHO the "Producer" (the whip demon) is a little under-powered. It would be a nice feature if summoning them temporarily granted you the ability to "burn off" summons you don't want.

I ended up in rank 157! Haha great idea, super innovative! I think the art looks great and the concept very fun!

 loved absolutely every detail of it, from the enter key to put both hands in the keyboard, the designs, one of (if not) the best game i played in this jam, congrats on such a wonderful job!

Really lovely character designs, funny and evocative writing, and a neat and unique mechanic. The visual distinction between the hell dimension and the office was really cool. Great job!