Freshly Squeezed Progress Report – Workers Working

Last week’s sprint report talked about getting workers into the game, as well as my focus on getting something playable as quickly as I can.

Sprint 8: main game loop

• Process a single turn sequence
• Create player inventory of toy parts
• Allow player to command worker to put toy parts together
• End game when last Good Toy enters shipping container

Last week I managed to get the workers to pull a Bad Toy off of the conveyor belt, then spend a few turns working on separating the pieces.

I tried to focus on fast implementation, but I also thought it would be good to make it obvious what state everything was. I found rotating the toy to be on its side when being worked upon and showing the worker’s progress in the form of stitches were quick ways to make it clear what was happening.

I also implemented an inventory of toy parts. There are currently two types of toys, dolls and bears, and each has a head and a body. I’m not a user experience expert, but I thought it would be helpful to group the inventory parts so it is clear when you have at least of each part to create a particular toy.

I did not get to the point of actually telling workers to craft Good Toys out of parts, so there are still no Good Toys in the game or a way to win.

I think some of the work went more smoothly this week. I had vague ideas of how the toy separating and putting together would operate, but I finally managed to get the details hashed out mentally.

But it also means that there was a lot more to do than I originally anticipated. It seems straightforward to separate toy parts across turns, but there are multiple steps to implement. Just collecting the toy off of the belt means first finding idle workers, figuring out if there is a toy adjacent to them, then kicking off animations to make it clear that the worker is picking up the toy.

And then of course testing it. What happens if there are two workers next to each other? I had a humorous bug in which a worker would steal the toy from an adjacent worker because I did not mark the toy as being worked upon.

But I’m finally playtesting a bit. Even though the core of the game is still incomplete, I found myself experimenting with changing the order of operations for a single turn. Does the worker collect a Bad Toy off the conveyor belt first, or do the toys move first? Should a worker be able to pick up a toy immediately after separating a toy, or should they wait until the next turn?

Putting together a Good Toy is next up, and I think I can really get into playtesting. I am pretty excited.

Thanks for reading!

—

Want to learn when I release updates to Toytles: Leaf Raking or about future Freshly Squeezed games I am creating? Sign up for the GBGames Curiosities newsletter, and get the 24-page, full color PDF of the Toytles: Leaf Raking Player’s Guide for free!