Whiskerbrink by OrdiNeu
Can your tiny village prosper in these tough times?

Whiskerbrink is a card game where you collect townsfolk to add to your town.

Buy cards from the Market at night, then send your townsfolk out to gather resources during the day. Each card will contribute to your stockpile in a unique way. Combine multiple of the same card for more powerful effects and unlock new abilities.

The game ends after 7 days. Can you complete enough Victory Conditions before the week ends?
Music is "Lost Frontier" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Please consider playing in Fullscreen! Some of the assets get confused in the web browser version.
| Link | https://perpetuallifecrisis.itch.io/whiskerbrink |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/whiskerbrink |
Ratings
| Overall | 302th | 3.79⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 450th | 3.516⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 226th | 3.694⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 788th | 3.344⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 269th | 4.1⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 288th | 3.621⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 608th | 2.92⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 299th | 3.817⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 38🗨️ |
I did run into a bug (haha), no really, a game bug, where after day 2 I could no longer buy creatures even though I had the funds, and some cards would drag to the bottom but then disappear when ending the day. Sadly wasn't able to fully experience the strategy in this because of that, but it seems really interesting with resources, the buffs and effects, and was excited to try upgrading animals! If you guys are able to fix that would love to try it out again ~
@sofimei Thanks for playing! We ran out of time to do a ton of bug squashing, sorry it made it unplayable for you. Were you playing in fullscreen? Some of the assets get mushed together in the browser window mode.
@damien-black Thanks for playing! It's a bit scrunched in the web browser version, unfortunately. Did fullscreen work for you?
@jesse-ray Thanks! The one of every animal type was a strange bug, and we couldn't really figure out why it doesn't work, so congratulations on finding it!
@hakusai We would have loved to add more cards and strategy, but ended up short on time. Thanks for playing!
@tavox Thank you! Good luck on your next try!
It is a bit difficult sometimes to understand what a card will bring you.
But the whole mechanics are very nice :blush:
First run through I got 2/4. Second 4/4. In was in the second run through I realized how to combine them.
I was still a bit confused about what I'd get in the payoffs but enjoyed it. Nice relaxing music.
I did figure out to switch to fullscreen as soon as I noticed screen being cropped, and only THEN noticed gray letters in main menu suggesting fullscreen :) I suspect it was added last-minute, but just pointing out the text is not readily visible.
But also, I believe, you can choose the height and width of your window when you edit the game page on itch.io - maybe check that out as well?
About the gameplay: took a second to figure it out, especially since it seems I have to *very* carefully place the card *exactly* on my deck spot for it to register as taken and fill said spot.
Also: when we are in the Shop section, I believe the button should say "Start the day" instead of "Next day", otherwise it is confusing. Then, when my villagers can take action, on that screen would be great to have button for the action itself, and separately "Next day" (or keep just one button and rename it so it is like "Action(gather?) and end the day" or something along those lines). I think it would make the process a bit more clear, because at first I was like - next day? but I didn't do anything yet? (first in shop window, then on the next screen too!)
It's a bit strange I bought many different creatures along the way, but my card still said I only bought 2. Sometimes it felt like creatures didn't yield resources (for example, +resource appeared on first three, but then not on the last two) and I am left confused why some creatures disappeared from my deck after the turn (did I, after all, not manage to actually "buy" them? or they need constant in-flow of their resource to be kept around?)
Overall, I think the game has a lot of potential, and it's a great jam entry! Hopefully you continue working on it and polishing <3 Music is very relaxing and creates a calming atmosphere.
P.S. Went to rate and I don't see the art category. Is it not by you? While audio is there even though it's credited to someone outside of jam?
@damien-black @eranot @runningopenloop
Yeah the UI being the wrong resolution is a thing we've done poorly in the past -- I just put out a patch that should fix it so that everything is visible.
@jesse-ray
Yes that partictular victory condition was bugged on the first release, so I just put out a patch.
@kanity Thank you so much for your detailed review! I have a strong feeling that the UI sometimes does not register buying animals properly -- if you lose resources it definitely worked but otherwise I'm not sure why you ran into that many miscounts... We were trying something new with the UI and I think that messed some basic things up :(
what do we have here...
The gameplay is very interesting, moderate difficult to achieving thr goals, I love it!
@stames Thank you! We designed the cards first, then tried to jam them into the sprite, which didn't really help with readability unfortunately.
@kazzter Thank you! We were pretty happy with the card playing sounds.
@runningopenloop Payoffs for leveling cards got pushed past the deadline, but we were hoping for more clear rewards and incentives. Thanks for playing!
@aripize Thank you!
@lucy-z Thanks! I'm glad it brought you in. Took me a hell of a long time, haha.
@kanity Thanks for stopping by again! We've been trying to focus more and more on first- play experience, and this is great feedback. Thanks for catching the missing art category. That would have been tragic, considering it was most of my weekend, haha.
@enad96 Glad you liked it, thanks for playing!
@vyffea Thanks! We were planning on having a cute "end the day" animation, but ran out of time. I was thinking of adding a rooster sound, but it got very annoying, haha.
@pachino55 Thanks for playing!
@joshua-reumann Thank you!
@nemuikoda Sorry it wasn't to your tastes, but thanks for playing!
Good job!