Hi! MD speaking. I have come here to present SCAN OR SUFFER, my latest project in collaboration with Pudding Man from my team. Programmed, planned and modeled by me, with spritework from Pudding, I bring you a Demo of SOS, packed with cool content and quite complicated gameplay revolving around selecting items and scoring them based on their price. Demo is for constructive criticism and everything seen is subject to change or removal when the full game rolls around. Once finalized, the game will be up for cheap and most of what may be messy here will be ironed out. Thank you for your time!
Im so sorry I cant download it because I have a Mac⌠could you make a video of the Game
Hi! Iâm sorry Iâm only getting back to you now. I managed to get exported and uploaded to the gameâs page a Linux and macOS version. Iâm not 100% certain theyâll work as expected from the Windows version, so I apologize in advance if nothingâs to your liking and hope to hear from any mistakes you may encounter. Cheers!
Some images and/or videos of the game would help a lot when describing it.
Also, you really have to change the font on the gameâs itch page. Itâs really hard to read.
1 Like
you came back
I gave it a spin 
I like the concept of being a lowly cashier scanning products, but presumably the gameplay will build to where the player is actually making (interesting) decisions later.
My notes, as they appeared:
- The scanning beep is terribly loud
- When is throwing away an advantage? It may be possible to profit by throwing away cheaper items, but the player has no way of knowing what will be drawn afterward, so itâs essentially like roulette, with no informed choice. Maybe it would work better if the player could see the next products that will be drawn, or (for example) was âprotectedâ from getting the thrown-away products in the next draw?
- Over time, it might work best to assign the player challenges rather than letting them choose of the three available - itâs easy to select the same easy challenge over and over, but generally more interesting to have a rising level of difficulty.
- The music is fairly suitable (up-beat but hollow and commercial), but the in-game music loop is quite short and doesnât loop neatly. It gets a little grating.
- I think it would be nice to explain the âthrow awayâ feature, in story / world terms - why is that allowed in the supermarket? It would work for me if the supermarket was just the absolute worst, and people only shopped there because it was fast and cheap, despite the employees occasionally throwing oneâs shopping on the floor
- Ending the game over one failure seems harsh - if you really intend to keep that mechanic, you should probably introduce (auto/manual) saving at some point.
- The name text could be much bigger when doing the name animation (beginning of challenge), and why not leave the text during the âmatchâ? I feel like the NPCs have character and should be recognizable.
1 Like
Hi, happy to know you gave the game a try! I was actually really hoping Iâd get a message from you here, having seen your criticism on other projects/posts here. I analyzed and took into consideration all of what was presented here and separated into things I wanted to fix and things I wanted to justify, considering some were part of the vision I had for the game.
- âThe scanning beep is terribly loudâ: That Iâm aware of. This game was made on a computer that has no sound, so everytime I wanted to test anything revolving around sound effects and music, I had to export it to another computer, which took around 5 minutes per test. That said, I really do want to improve whatâs already here, beep included.
- âWhen is throwing away an advantage?â: The frustration I can understand, though I feel the need to tell you that throwing away items was supposed to be a risk-management tool. You could throw away an item that you donât have use for to get something better, but in turn of not knowing what item the customerâll place in front of you, you also have to deal with the itemâs value decreasing from your score (which could serve as the customer displaying insatisfaction with the cashier chucking their items on the floor). That Iâm currently satisfied with, but I really do hope to make a system where you can select which item you can get by throwing it away, which can get you to think about whether or not youâll go through the trouble of throwing something away to get something better whilst losing score or rolling with it and simply ignoring the item.
- âOver time, it might work best to assign the player challenges rather than letting them chooseâ: I tried getting over this with the randomly selected gimmicks for each purchase and inspection and hoped to expand on it, so I agree with this as a progression thing rather than core disagreement. This three stage selection system was more for early game/demo so the player could get acquainted with how progression works, only for them to get caught off guard from the score meta for each hour getting more demanding and each already existing gimmick only working to make the stage harder for the player.
- âThe in-game music loop is quite short and doesnât loop neatlyâ: Same reason as the beep, though Iâm not gonna use that for an excuse and I, instead, will say that I too wish I had something more for music. Iâll work on making it longer or anything that makes it sound more pleasurable to listen whilst playing, promise.
- âIt would be nice to explain the âthrow awayâ feature in story/world termsâ: This is something that I feel that I should justify but communicate better at the same time. In SCAN OR SUFFER, Frac is supposed to be this cruel, awfully-run supermarket that cares more about numbers, performance and logic rather than dignity and customer care. So you, Reggie (our dear protagonist), are to be accustomed and favorable of being handed items by customers and throwing it at their faces because you donât feel like scanning them. I do agree, however, that this shouldâve been framed better and I will work on framing this better.
- âEnding the game over one failure seems harshâ: This one has much more justification. Given the tone of the game, I wanted losing to be a lesson for you to build more consistency in future runs rather than always going in and brute-forcing your way through the whole thing. I still understand where this comes from, though, and I will tone this down slightly when working on SOSâ full release to make this just a little more forgiving. Either that, or Iâll find a way to frame this better, too.
- âThe name text could be much bigger during the animation, and maybe stay during the matchâ: I super agree with this, especially because my vision was for every character to have their quirks and humorous traits, so I really cannot justify my reason for making it like this. Will fix, for sure.
Once again, super thank you for giving the game a go, itâs criticism like this that really gets me going and Iâm really glad this helped me reflect on what I should keep, fix and replace in the future. Thank you for your time!
2 Likes
Did you consider changing your itch page font as well?
No prob, itâs nice to feel noticed
I think some of the game mechanics will become clearer once you start building the experience. More progression means more levels, bosses, that sort of thing, and ways for the player to get stronger and overcome greater challenges.
I wasnât even aware of the backstory, though I may have missed some of the text that auto-forwards quickly. I think itâs a really funny concept, and Iâd suggest communicating it more to the player, which can be done in all sorts of ways - maybe your evil boss keeps popping in as a dialogue head that tells you to sacrifice quality for productivity, ie âIf youâre smiling on the job, youâre working too slow!â. You could have motivational posters hanging crookedly in the store like âanything worth doing is worth doing cheaplyâ or whatever. The place could also look awful⌠and it might be fun if youâre actually encouraged to cheat the customer out of products or change whenever possible.
Should be okay, now. Changed it and made it bigger.
1 Like
