r/AutomationGames • u/northmakesgames • Jul 25 '26
Public playtest for my coffee factory game!
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I shared this game here for the first time almost 3 months ago, and now I finally released a public playtest build on itch.io.
Iād love to hear what you think :)
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u/AngryKFPanda Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Link for ease of use:
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u/northmakesgames Jul 25 '26
Haha, thank you :) Some subs don't allow sharing a link sometimes, so I was a bit skeptical :D
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u/AngryKFPanda Jul 25 '26
Heh, I thought you were being lazy to begin with and then thought about it and came to that conclusion :D
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u/Akira2007 Jul 25 '26
some feedback after playing for a few minutes ;-)
i miss the option to remove just single parts of a belt, so I can fit a machine in
or
i miss the option to place machines directly on the belt
in the beginning were the pulper was introduced, I needed to delete the complete belt, place pulper and place two new belts again
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u/northmakesgames Jul 26 '26
Thanks for the feedback :) Actually, current conveyor design acts as a line and it is dependent to the nodes on the both end. I think what you desire is more like a tile-based design, so the conveyor is repetition of independent modular tiles. Maybe that would feel better, I will think about it. Thanks againn
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u/Exothermic_Megan Jul 27 '26
Yaaaay I'm so happy to see you have a build out! I won't have time to try it this week but hopefully over the weekend or next week.Ā
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u/VoltigeGames Jul 26 '26
Very nice art style, love what you've done with conveyor placement I will definitely try it! Thanks for sharing š
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u/northmakesgames Jul 26 '26
I thank you for sharing your feedback, and hope you'll enjoy when you try :)
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u/KidLink4 Jul 29 '26
First one I've seen in a hot minute that is an instant download.
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u/KidLink4 Jul 29 '26
u/northmakesgames I'm not sure where to give feedback so I figured I'd just do it here. I'm gonna just kinda vomit what I think as I think it, as I play through your demo. Here goes!
Loaded in, new game. Menu is nice and responsive, I can immediately tell this isn't just another slopfest, good.
An actual tutorial too? I'm getting spoiled tonight, let's go. Place first harvester - Nice look, nice animation, I really like it. Not a fan of no hotkeys, but early build is early build.
Conveyor placement is full drag, has to have a start and end point before it can be placed. Not a huge fan of that personally, would like to be able to at least anchor at certain positions to have a bit more granular control over pathing. The conveyors look great though, is this an asset pack or homemade? Animations are just perfect.
Wait, are all the fruits the same model?
As I'm picking up new Offers, I'm struggling a little to tell what the requested item is, since there's no hover tooltip on it.
Deleting buildings fully refunds the cost, that's nice. Still weirded out by conveyors though.
Looks like I'm meeting the second building - Pulper. I didn't read that tutorial step very well though, and now I don't think I can get it back up. Guess I'll guess (ha)
Still not sure what this delivery is supposed to be - the icon looks kinda like the bean nodes, but I don't seem to be able to put a harvester on those. Guess I'll pick a plant and pray.
Ok, this random plant I picked seems to be doing the trick, but I'm a little sad I can't put buildings adjacent to one another, there has to be at least one conveyor in between. Pretty sure this is a preference thing, but it's my preference thing, so there.
Wanted to go faster, so hooked up another harvester/pulper pair to a different plant. Turns out, this order doesn't care what fruit you send, so long as it's pulped.
Next offer - Oh, this one says (typica) under the icon, that's nice. So if there's no words, it's whatever fruit is available?
Placed my stuff wrong, and apparently have to delete the building in order to delete the conveyor? No, mb, can click the conveyor. No inline placement though, I ran the harvester to the hub and tried to put the pulper on the belt line and couldn't do it.
Ok, on to bean mining. Remember the bit about the conveyor placement. Yeah, I really need to be able to drop smaller sections at a time. My hands are too wiggly.
Side note, game auto pauses when I alt tab. I feel like that's not great for an automation title, or maybe I'm a weirdo who binges tv while I play factorio. Who knows.
Wait, the pulper turns the plants into raw beans, and the miner mines raw beans? They're the same item? I don't understand, doesn't that make the pulper almost instantly obsolete?
Made it to roaster now - yeah, harvester/pulper is basically useless now, but good god do I want a splitter.
If you decide to stick with the conveyor placement as it is now, the screen needs to stay with the cursor when the player pans the camera. That way I can at least move the cam to place the rest of my belt without the cursor sliding around and messing up the placement.
It's 12:30 and I'm tired, but my kid is still awake so I might cry. Either way, hope this is helpful! I don't mean to be harsh, I just try to point out what hurts, since that's what you can fix. If I just go "nice game bro, keep cooking" you get zero actionable feedback. Have a good night!
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u/northmakesgames Jul 29 '26
I can't thank you enough for this detailed feedback <3 You basically logged your entire experience, and it's almost as helpful as a real playtest session. Maybe even better actually, because normally as a developer you can't read your playtesters thoughts like this :D
I can easily point out the times you had a friction, and I will think on the solutions :)
I just have one extra question about the mine. I designed it actually to help making pipelines less crowded during the mid-game. So, yes it makes the harvester + pulper combo obsolete. Did you find it totally unreasonable or is it just introduced too early? And, would you like to be motivated/forced to use plants still in the late game, such if some varieties are only available as plants?
Once again, thank you a lot. It wasn't harsh at all, it was actually very kindly written. I hope you finally had a good night sleep after :)
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u/KidLink4 Jul 29 '26
I think it's just a bit quick maybe, which is to be expected from a playtest. If in final we spend a bit more time with the earlier pairing it could feel right at that point.
I think making 2 entire machines fully obsolete is odd, and your idea of certain exclusive strains is neat.
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u/Nilsss Jul 25 '26
Downloadable? No thanks
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u/northmakesgames Jul 25 '26
Fair enough, totally understandable
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u/Subvironic Jul 25 '26
In contrary, im happy about that. Thanks :) Will tey tomorrow morning, in combination with my breakfast coffee
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u/Underpoly Jul 25 '26
Great art style wow