Cocoa
- August 24, 2023
- 01 Eron 01
- 6h median play time
Get on itch.io Store"Cocoa" is a delightful puzzle game where you match ingredients to create chocolate recipes, with increasing demands and kitchen upgrades available. Made using love 11.3, it offers around 6 hours of playtime, utilizing only mouse or touchscreen controls. The game is brought to you by the creators of Role of Hex, featuring music, sounds, and art by @studart.h .
Windows
Reviews
- The game offers a fun and engaging tower defense experience with a unique roguelike twist, allowing for creative base building and upgrade strategies.
- The developer is highly responsive to community feedback, actively working on updates and improvements, which shows a commitment to enhancing the game.
- The gameplay loop is enjoyable and addictive, with a solid progression system that keeps players invested for long periods.
- The game suffers from significant performance issues, particularly in the mid to late game, leading to frustrating lag and unplayable conditions during longer missions.
- There are balance issues, especially with enemy scaling and boss difficulty, which can lead to sudden and unwinnable situations despite player preparation.
- Several bugs and glitches, including save corruption and UI issues, detract from the overall experience and can disrupt gameplay.
- story22 mentions
- 9 % positive mentions
- 77 % neutral mentions
- 14 % negative mentions
The story aspect of the game is primarily driven by a progression mechanic that rewards players with permanent upgrades through mission completion, allowing for a variety of gameplay experiences. However, players have noted that the difficulty spikes significantly after the initial phases, particularly around the 20-minute mark, leading to frustration with mission completion and pacing. While the gameplay is straightforward and focused on combat and upgrades, many players feel that the narrative lacks depth, with a desire for more engaging story elements or goals beyond the grind.
“The highlight is the progression mechanic, where you earn permanent upgrades by playing missions.”
“Since certain missions and optional objectives give you certain rewards, you get to enjoy a variety of missions while farming.”
“There's missions that require you to survive 25 minutes, but this new king lurker boss spawns at 20 minutes and most of the time seems completely overpowered compared to the enemies at that time.”
“I played 118 minutes and was only able to complete 3 missions out of 10 that I was given.”
“A boss perhaps, some events (besides the waves), a goal to recover and hold a structure, maybe some sort of storyline, a goal?”
- gameplay17 mentions
- 47 % positive mentions
- 35 % neutral mentions
- 18 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by a straightforward and nonlinear design, featuring a variety of upgrade mechanics that encourage creativity and strategic decision-making. While the core gameplay loop is enjoyable and engaging, some players have noted performance issues and lag that detract from the overall experience. Despite these drawbacks, the game offers a fun mix of quick reactions and long-term planning, appealing to those who prioritize mechanics over graphics.
“The gameplay is straightforward and nonlinear with a good feel for each upgrade (both per round and meta) and a lot of creative wiggle room for you to play around with.”
“The highlight is the progression mechanic, where you earn permanent upgrades by playing missions.”
“Gameplay is a good mixture between quick reaction tower placement and long-term decision making.”
“A very fun game with a relatively simple concept and gameplay loop, unfortunately ruined by lag.”
“The gameplay loop is overall fairly simple.”
“Contains about 45 minutes of gameplay.”
- optimization14 mentions
- 21 % positive mentions
- 57 % neutral mentions
- 21 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's optimization has received mixed reviews, with many players highlighting significant performance issues, particularly in late-game scenarios where lag can hinder gameplay. However, recent updates have reportedly improved performance, making the game more playable, though some users still express concerns about the need for further optimization and better player feedback mechanisms. While some players find the game enjoyable despite these issues, others warn that without continued attention to performance, the game's longevity may be at risk.
“In less than a month, he has not only greatly improved performance issues but also gone on to add content.”
“Update 1.1 wow, the update fixed a lot of performance issues.”
“The only suggestion I'd make is to increase the game optimization; I had one crash and one high-difficulty game where the damage calculations started to cause some very serious lag, but for $8, definitely worth the purchase.”
“Game is absurdly enjoyable looking at gameplay mechanics alone, however the performance is so bad it's arguably unplayable.”
“Developer needs to look over performance ASAP before anything else, or the game will just die off.”
“The main issue is performance; this game spikes to sub 10 FPS regularly, consistently even.”
- graphics6 mentions
- 33 % positive mentions
- 17 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The graphics in the game are generally considered weak and simplistic, leading to significant performance issues, especially during intense gameplay moments, which can hinder player interaction. While some players find the gameplay mechanics enjoyable, the overall visual experience is underwhelming, with reports of glitches and lag affecting late-game performance. Players who prioritize mechanics over graphics may still find the game worthwhile.
“The gameplay mechanics themselves are actually pretty fun!”
“Recommended if you value mechanics over graphics in your games.”
“Graphics are weak, and significant game slowdowns when too much is on the screen, to the degree that it's difficult to register mouse clicks and keyboard presses, which for a real-time game is a killer.”
“Besides some graphical and audio glitches, my most obvious complaints are the poor performance in late stages which can make them unwinnable as it's too laggy to place any new tiles down.”
“The graphics are simplistic, but just enough to convey what is going on.”
- grinding5 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players report that grinding is a significant aspect of the game, often requiring over 70 hours to make meaningful progress. Despite extensive efforts and unlocking numerous upgrades, many find themselves facing steep difficulty spikes after the initial 15 minutes of gameplay, leading to frequent setbacks even against basic enemies. However, the variety of missions and optional objectives provides some enjoyment during the grinding process.
“If you manage to push through the first few hours of grinding - which you will be doing a lot of, so embrace it - scaling in every mission ramps up absurdly at around the 15+ minute mark, and really doesn't get much easier to deal with.”
“Even with several dozen hours of grinding meta progress, you will routinely get roflstomped, anywhere after that 15 minutes, out of the blue, by basic enemies... let alone if you're unlucky enough to reveal the boss.”
“Considering that the last 30 or so hours of grinding has not helped me push very far past the 20 minute wall, despite unlocking an absolute ton of rare meta progress like re-rolls, increases in rarity rolls, starting mission levels, multiple specializations, and even mission start wallets with enough cash to plant half a dozen towers before the first enemy spawns... combined with crazy lucky map generation giving me 20+ data centers (extra levels each minute), and focusing on all the possible DPS improvements I can get in 200+ levels...”
- music1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The music in the game is noted for its emotional resonance and catchy rhythm, despite being somewhat limited in variety.
“The music hits home and, while limited, has a good hum to it.”
- stability1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 300 % negative mentions
Users report stability issues primarily related to performance lag in late-game stages, which can hinder gameplay by making it difficult to place new tiles. Additionally, the sudden appearance of upgrades without a grace period can lead to accidental selections, further complicating the experience.
“Besides some graphical and audio glitches, my most obvious complaints are the poor performance in late stages, which can make them unwinnable as it's too laggy to place any new tiles down.”
“The lack of a grace period when an upgrade pops up is frustrating; if you're trying to place a building and an upgrade appears unexpectedly, you can inadvertently select it without warning.”
“The game suffers from significant stability issues, especially during intense moments, leading to frustrating lag and unresponsive controls.”
