Update for The List

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I submitted the prototype build for this game. Thank you to everyone who tried the game out, left their feedback, and reviewed it for the game jam! A week after submitting, the results came out, and the game was rated last. While it was disappointing to hear that, I knew I wasn't happy with the game yet and there were some great submissions that deserved the praise they got. Since then, I have listened to all of your feedback and used the ranking I got as motivation to make the game what I know it can be.

Updated Visuals

The original submission lacked any actual sprites, and this made me consider not even submitting to the game jam because of how much it bothered me. However, I went ahead and created some textures to help the game actually look like one. I still think there can be some more textures in the game, however, like a parallaxing background for the store.

Indicators

A common complaint the game got was the lack of visual/audio feedback when you interacted with a shelf. This was really something that I should have tried to squeeze into the PlayJam release, but it's finally here! Now the game will play a sound effect when you grab an item and it shows the total items in your basket in the top-right corner of the screen.

While on the topic of shelves, you can also put items back now by pressing the B button. It has a different sound effect and you will hear that and see your total items go down as long as you have at least 1 of the item from that shelf.

Crank Controls

The next most common suggestion was to add crank controls for movement. I completely agreed with this, it felt wrong not use it in any way. Now you can use crank controls to move left and right, and up and down the grocery list, allowing you to move as fast as you can crank!

Timer

The original submission also lacked any sense of urgency, which also led to the game feeling unfinished and not engaging. This has been fixed with a timer that counts down in the top-left corner of the screen. The timer is set based on the number of items on the list, initially giving a generous amount of time but giving less and less time with each additional item. When the time runs out, it will end the trip and check to see if you got all the items on the list, meaning the checkout only acts as a way to end the trip early. Hopefully, it strikes a good balance between adding urgency and not being overly punishing!

Multiple Aisles

Another suggestion I got was to have multiple aisles, which was something I was also hoping to get to since there weren't many items to possibly grab during a trip. This has finally been added, with signs to indicate which aisle you're in. Pressing the up/down buttons while not standing by checkout or a shelf will allow you to go up/down aisles. Currently, there are only 3 aisles, but I plan on adding more to make it feel more like a full grocery store.

Difficulty Scaling

While not something explicitly suggested, I noticed that it would sometimes be too overwhelming to be given multiple items to remember for the first time playing. The game will now keep track of the max amount of items you have gathered in a single trip. Whenever the player reaches a new maximum, the possible amount of items to appear on the list increases, going up to 8 items. This should make the start of the game easier for people to pick up and learn how the game works.

There are still some other additions and changes I want to make to the game, so stay tuned for when those updates come out!