Okay, so I got a lot to get through in this review, so this may be another long read. However, I feel this game deserves it because I really think you got something good going here, and so I want to make sure that I am as thorough as I can be on here.
I always like to start positive, so that's where I'm going to begin. This is a phenomenal idea! Making games for the disabled should be (I feel) a bigger deal. There's a lot of untapped avenues that could be explored, and I think this game concept you came up with is a fantastic example. I didn't get to play through the whole thing this time, but I explored enough to get a pretty good understanding of what you were trying to accomplish and what the game feel was like.
In real life, I love cooking, so cooking games do appeal to me quite a bit. My favorite game in Game & Watch Gallery 2 for the Gameboy was "Chef". As such, when I saw this game was going to be a cooking game for the visually impaired, I was immediately intrigued. I absolutely love this, you two. I really believe you got something here if you can manage to polish up a few things which I will discuss here in a minute.
I was surprised by the sheer size of what was available as I know you all made this for a game jam. Lots of different food options and cooking methods, and having thirty recipes is pretty solid. I also really appreciate you having a timer sound for counting seconds. That was a very smart design choice.
For English not being your native language, you did a really good job. I didn't find myself having any problems understanding what you two were saying. Good job there!
Now, there was one major thing that I think you may want to consider doing. I know it won't be fun and will require a lot more work and recording, but I strongly suggest creating an optional tutorial recipe that walks you through each and every step. You did a really good job writing the instructions on your game page, and going over them briefly in the "How To Play" section of the title menu. However, it's a bit of an information overload, and I found myself forgetting the instructions once I started my first recipe. It took me about four different failed attempts before it all clicked.
The best way to combat this would be to have one, maybe two recipes that you walk the player through. Tell them each and every step as they perform said step and offer them the option to replay the tutorial if they need to go over it one more time. You can make it optional by asking the player when they start a new game if they would like to play the tutorial before beginning.
Overall, I really loved this game idea, and I really hope you decide to do more with it. I could see a story mode done for this where you play as someone starting a new career as a chef and maybe include some visual novel (without the visual aspect) elements to add intrigue. You could include time limits for completing dishes, while also having multiple orders being made in the later, harder levels. All of that was just tossing some ideas out there. It's your game, so it's totally up to you, but it's something to think about. I really do believe you could turn this into something amazing for the visually impaired. Anyway, my brain has melted a bit, so I'm going to wrap this up here. However, if you would like to discuss this more with me, you know where to find me. :)
First of all, sorry for taking so long to answer. We have read your comment right when you posted it, but, as Panda told you on Instagram, she has been really busy with her programming finals, plus we have met offline for the first time since we know each other, so it's been quite an emotional time full of to-dos, so haven't been able to write a proper response yet.
To begin with, as always, we want to thank you for your detailed review. It is always welcome and helpful for us to make things better. We are happy that you liked the concept, that our speaking a big deal (I mean, that you could understand everything we said without problems), and that you gave it a try.
As for your suggestions we already took them into account. We had thought about making a tutorial ever since we planned the game, but had it hard to find the time to do so. However, we got it ready and we included it in our game downloads section, which we released a week ago. We hope that you try it when you have time and you tell us what you think.
Regarding your other suggestions (aka including a time limit for recipes, accepting several orders at a time and making a story mode), we also had already considered them. As for the time limit and the several order thing, we believed that it wouldn't be as enjoyable so we discarded the idea, at least for the time being, though we might give it a second thought in the future. As for the story mode thing, we decided to include a little lore at the beginning of a new game, and also, naturally, we explained it in our itch.io post; never the less specifically creating a story mode is not a part of our plans for this project, but we will keep your suggestion as an idea for our upcoming game projects for the impaired.
Once again, thank you for taking your time and for supporting what we do. Let's keep in touch
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Okay, so I got a lot to get through in this review, so this may be another long read. However, I feel this game deserves it because I really think you got something good going here, and so I want to make sure that I am as thorough as I can be on here.
I always like to start positive, so that's where I'm going to begin. This is a phenomenal idea! Making games for the disabled should be (I feel) a bigger deal. There's a lot of untapped avenues that could be explored, and I think this game concept you came up with is a fantastic example. I didn't get to play through the whole thing this time, but I explored enough to get a pretty good understanding of what you were trying to accomplish and what the game feel was like.
In real life, I love cooking, so cooking games do appeal to me quite a bit. My favorite game in Game & Watch Gallery 2 for the Gameboy was "Chef". As such, when I saw this game was going to be a cooking game for the visually impaired, I was immediately intrigued. I absolutely love this, you two. I really believe you got something here if you can manage to polish up a few things which I will discuss here in a minute.
I was surprised by the sheer size of what was available as I know you all made this for a game jam. Lots of different food options and cooking methods, and having thirty recipes is pretty solid. I also really appreciate you having a timer sound for counting seconds. That was a very smart design choice.
For English not being your native language, you did a really good job. I didn't find myself having any problems understanding what you two were saying. Good job there!
Now, there was one major thing that I think you may want to consider doing. I know it won't be fun and will require a lot more work and recording, but I strongly suggest creating an optional tutorial recipe that walks you through each and every step. You did a really good job writing the instructions on your game page, and going over them briefly in the "How To Play" section of the title menu. However, it's a bit of an information overload, and I found myself forgetting the instructions once I started my first recipe. It took me about four different failed attempts before it all clicked.
The best way to combat this would be to have one, maybe two recipes that you walk the player through. Tell them each and every step as they perform said step and offer them the option to replay the tutorial if they need to go over it one more time. You can make it optional by asking the player when they start a new game if they would like to play the tutorial before beginning.
Overall, I really loved this game idea, and I really hope you decide to do more with it. I could see a story mode done for this where you play as someone starting a new career as a chef and maybe include some visual novel (without the visual aspect) elements to add intrigue. You could include time limits for completing dishes, while also having multiple orders being made in the later, harder levels. All of that was just tossing some ideas out there. It's your game, so it's totally up to you, but it's something to think about. I really do believe you could turn this into something amazing for the visually impaired. Anyway, my brain has melted a bit, so I'm going to wrap this up here. However, if you would like to discuss this more with me, you know where to find me. :)
First of all, sorry for taking so long to answer. We have read your comment right when you posted it, but, as Panda told you on Instagram, she has been really busy with her programming finals, plus we have met offline for the first time since we know each other, so it's been quite an emotional time full of to-dos, so haven't been able to write a proper response yet.
To begin with, as always, we want to thank you for your detailed review. It is always welcome and helpful for us to make things better. We are happy that you liked the concept, that our speaking a big deal (I mean, that you could understand everything we said without problems), and that you gave it a try.
As for your suggestions we already took them into account. We had thought about making a tutorial ever since we planned the game, but had it hard to find the time to do so. However, we got it ready and we included it in our game downloads section, which we released a week ago. We hope that you try it when you have time and you tell us what you think.
Regarding your other suggestions (aka including a time limit for recipes, accepting several orders at a time and making a story mode), we also had already considered them. As for the time limit and the several order thing, we believed that it wouldn't be as enjoyable so we discarded the idea, at least for the time being, though we might give it a second thought in the future. As for the story mode thing, we decided to include a little lore at the beginning of a new game, and also, naturally, we explained it in our itch.io post; never the less specifically creating a story mode is not a part of our plans for this project, but we will keep your suggestion as an idea for our upcoming game projects for the impaired.
Once again, thank you for taking your time and for supporting what we do. Let's keep in touch
- Frog