THE TRADE SECRET is a classic adventure game where the player has to uncover clues and solve puzzles to advance the story.
Set in early 2000s Scandinavia, the player takes on the character of Ryen, burglar-for-hire, who has been tasked to infiltrate and obtain research secrets from prominent mining company in northern Sweden. This mining company had recently enjoyed tremendous success that could not be explained by improvements in mining process alone, causing other mining companies to place a high value on its secrets. As Ryen explores the facility, they discover that things might not be what they seem...
I'd say the game concept shows promise, and you have the art and story-telling mechanics for it. If you still have to smash windows after 30min's of play, the loop-mechanic might just do with something new :P
Cool! Maybe a little annoying how my character tells me he doesn't need tools right now or whatever when i am the one wanting to pick them up but not really a big deal. Thumbs up
Really interesting take on the theme, and the story was really well done for a jam game. Visuals were good too. Nice job. I could see the backtrack loop being annoying in a larger game, but in a short experience like this it was actually engaging.
Very fun and impressively polished! Interesting story too. Although I've been trained by other games to just grab everything in sight whenever possible...
This was really well done! The art and overall presence was reminiscent of those graphic adventure games I used to play back in the day :smile:. I really hope you continue the story as you have something promising here.
Great execution and atmosphere! The game left me hooked. I want more of it! :D
I like how player can interact with objects several times and the result will be different, as the story goes. However, storyline seems kinda underdeveloped with things like "the client said I should follow the other direction". :)
Another consideration is a control scheme. I think, the game would benefit of using the same button for text boxes and for actions. Switching between these two is a bit annoying. X_X
Still, the game feels super solid. Superb pixel art! Nice entry! ;-)
@hydrasil Thanks for the great feedback, definitely agree that that would get tedious after a while :) My original concetpt actually had the player go *back* in time after a while, but sadly I ran out of time.
@lanalux Thanks for playing this on the stream Lana! Few things are as fun (or scary) as seeing someone else play your game. Live nonetheless! I really appreciate the kind words! Heading over to play Spaced Out now :)
@nethead It makes me really happy that you appreciated the atmosphere! I planned out the plot before writing a single line of code, but didn't actually implement any of it until the last few hours, which is painfully obvious when looking at the amount of typos :)
@elbapotsnugg Thanks for the nice feedback! This is my second pixel art LD game, and I managed to double the amount of resolution for the character sprites, adding more detail :)
@magnusfurcifer Thank you for the detailed feedback comment! Appreciate the kind words on the story. Definitely agree that the time loop could get annoying after a while, originally I planned to make the loop a bit more random rather than return to the same point every time.
@toasterwerewolf Appreciate the comment, happy you found it fun :) Yeah, I'm also not a huge fan of games where the player realizes something, but the game character that represent them doesn't understand the same fact, it kinda breaks the illusion. Something to improve for future versions!
@kunonooni Very happy to hear this gave a dose of nostalgia! :) I hope to be able to continue the story some day. What was covered in this first chapter is only the beginning...
@koemeterion Yes, definitely agree that it was very short. I was contenplating to add another loop but did not have any good reason to, and it would only have made the game feel artificially longer. Appareicate the kind words!
@endurion Thank you! I'm very happy that you like it, and actually a bit surprised you are the first review to mention the lack of sound. This was something I was kicking myself over as I had a lot of ideas about how it could contribute to the atmosphere, but sadly I ran out of time. Next time!
@yngvarr Thank you for the detailed feedback! :) Yes, the "can't go left" was definitely a bit of a workaround to solve for the lack of rooms. I definitely hear you about the control scheme. Interact was E early on, but I switched it out last minute. In the last hour, I tried using Enter for both Actions and Continuing Text Boxes, but it ended creating an endless loop (!!) of actions and text boxes, so I had to abandon that idea. Very glad you liked the game regardless :)
Very solid point-and-click, I would love to see more of these in LD jams. Interesting story, just the right length and no combine duck with fork non-sense. Good job.
Hey. I recorded a video about the Ludum Dare jam and included your game in it. If you want to cut your game out of the video, let me know. However, if you like the video, I make similar videos every day. I will be happy if you subscribe. Anyway, I enjoyed playing your game.
@listonos Thank you for the kind words! I am a fan of the adventure game genre as well, hoping to give the genre another try when the theme allows for it! :)
This is a really cool story start. I like this! Good luck with your further work on this project. Just a small suggestion on my part. I think you should change the Spacebar and Enter buttons to something else. If I support the A and D buttons with one hand, using the spacebar and Enter with the other hand is quite inconvenient (they are a bit too far apart).
I'm a sucker for adventure games, and this one is great. I love the story and design. It's a little bit too easy to beat, and the looping idea could've been developed further. But overall, it's a nice game, and I've enjoyed playing it.
@zimny11 Thanks for your feedback! Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Interact was E early on, but I switched it out last minute. I should've experimented with interaction a bit more :)
@bereg Thank you for the kind words! Definitely agree that it's a bit short & straightforward. :) I initially outlined a much larger plot, but in the end I only managed to implement a fraction of it. Hopefully I can expand on it in the future. Appreciate the feedback!
This is super-cool. I'm really impressed with anyone who manages to succeed in making a compelling story-based game given how limited time is in a game jam. Really well done to the team! :D
lol i was really confused like the whole time but kept getting smirks on my face as things kept happening. Now i want to know why the scientist would just let me do soemthing since he totally liked murdereded me or something. xD
This is so cool! It's nice when LD games have storylines, and this one was epic. I liked the pace at which you learned about the story throughout the game, and now I want a sequel. The movement was really nice, the layout of the levels was very user friendly, and the art was really pleasing to look at. I'm not sure the four dots around the objects is very helpful, because the rooms aren't overly cluttered with stuff, and it's always clear what you're selecting. I felt it took away from the room and the objects being a room with objects rather than four cool looking buttons. I don't know if that's a real criticism, just personal preference, maybe. Also, I really liked a lot of the lines in the game, like when you select the plant and it says "plastic," or just the whole interaction with the scientist. The only problem I had with lines like that, is that there seemed to be a lot of objects, like the valve at the start, which don't get used during the game, but say things like "I have no reason to turn this valve now," and although I suppose it isn't actually a problem, I found that happening quite a bit, and I think it would have been better if it said something either describing the valve, describing the character moving the valve, or describing the character not being able to move the valve. It's just that the user controls the player, so although the character may have no valid reason to interact with the objects around them, the player does, and it's out of curiosity. That minor complaint went on for far too long here, sorry 'bout that. I loved the game anyway, even if my review focuses more on one negative aspect of it. Also, is the stone in your profile picture the stone from the game, per chance? Or do all your games involve stones, or is it just because of your username? I need answers!
I liked the graphic style and the concept is pretty cool. The Mechanics are good and I only faced one bug where it was "hard" to stand up on the bin. And it was a bit uncomfortable to switch between Enter and Space.
Unfortunately the game was soo short. would like to see more of it.
A nice game! It could of course use more story, but what there is is good.
The controls were a bit annoying. I'd say accept space and enter for both interacting and dismissing the dialog, and maybe also accept arrow keys for moving?
You already know that I enjoyed the game very much and I liked that you hinted at a lot more in the story than I saw in the game. Maybe expand on it? I somehow got Stålenhag vibes from it and that's always a good thing!
I'm not going to spoil the story but beware: nothing is what it seems!