Ultra Rainbow Bake Sale: singleplayer, deck-building, baking

[dcecile]

Today I'm releasing my first game, which also happens to be my first real project using both Lua and LÖVE.

I found the development environment quite fun (very fast change-run-test loops), and I will definitely continue using and recommending it.

This is a free alpha release of Ultra Rainbow Bake Sale, a singleplayer, deck-building, baking game. I'm looking for feedback from players as I continue to add features and make improvements.

I've posted the game online at Itch.io, and here's a teaser screenshot to give you a taste of what's waiting for you in-game. Let me know what you think!

https://dcecile.itch.io/ultra-rainbow-bake-sale

P.S. If you'd like to take a peek at the Lua source code, it's all open source over on GitHub.

[Plu]

I like it! It's quite hard, too.

Also, where do these Ennui cards come from? They seem to randomly appear, although I think there's probably some kind of rule?

[dcecile]

That's so great to hear. My only other responses online so far have been two people who got stuck at the obtuse UI and weren't able to really start playing the game.

Yeah, it's hard. There's a learning curve to be able to bake both batches and clean up fully. How well have you done so far?

One Ennui card gets automatically put in your discard pile at the end of your turn (two once you're down to turn 8). The particle effect is a bit fast in the version you played, and I've since slowed it down.

This method of getting Ennui cards is a stand-in until I add a real "Despair" opponent. When that mode is implemented, then as long as your mindsets can defend against the opponent's mindsets, there won't be any bad cards getting added to your deck.

By the way, I've published version 0.1.52 today. It includes a new "tips" system that automatically recommends cards to play, to help new players get started learning the mechanics. Try it out, and let me know what you think!

Here are a couple screenshots showing the new feature:

[Plu]

Finally managed to bake both batches

The tips help, but I think you could do with a few more. Primarily, it wasn't until very late that I figured out that Morgan and Alex's secret abilities can be played for bonuses, and I still don't understand what the numbers behind their names are for or how their abilities work exactly.

[dcecile]

Great!

OK, that's good that the tips help. About explaining the secret abilities... at first I thought I'd keep it "mysterious", but after hearing from others and now you, I think it's definitely best to make this more clear. In the end, I want the game to be more friendly and approachable.

It's simple to choose the condition for Alex's tip: when there's not enough hope to bake. But for Morgan's tip, I set it up to minimize masking of the standard baking tip, so right now it only shows up when you've completed between 2 and 4 baking tasks and 4+ hope.



These two tips are included in version 0.1.57. If get a chance to try it out, can you let me know if these tips are a good improvement?

The next improvement that I'm planning is to finally add the Despair opponent and mindset conflict...