FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD18 → Fail-Deadly

Fail-Deadly

By invicticide

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Innovation24.1730
Fun14.1730
Theme84.1330
Audio103.4129
Overall14.0730
Graphics553.3330
Humor312.8927
Community1471.5917
Coolness916

Comments

invicticide 2010-08-22 18:52

Oh good. I posted this and then my web host promptly went offline. Trying to get it resolved now... if the download links don't work for you, try it again in a bit.

Argh. :(

invicticide 2010-08-22 19:26

Looks like we're back up so that's yay.

mortar 2010-08-22 20:34

Wow, this is really great. good job.

vitae 2010-08-22 22:52

I didn't expect the momentum swings, it made quite an exciting attack-and-counterattack

mpc174 2010-08-23 01:28

I'm impressed, nice job!

chickenwing 2010-08-23 05:48

Whoot, whoot, whoot?! 5 Stars!
Nice one!

jhelle 2010-08-23 11:52

It's very fun to play. Good job! The main flaw is that it seems that there is not always a good reason to keep placing buildings, it will only make it harder on yourselves.

mwest 2010-08-23 14:29

Loved it! It took 3 plays to win and even the ones where I lost were fun! After winning I wished for more levels :P

invicticide 2010-08-23 22:54

@Jhelle Yeah, of the things that didn't make the deadline, that's probably the one I'm most bothered by. I was thinking of triggering an airstrike to destroy some random stuff if you hold out too long, thus forcing you to work to rebalance the system again.

I'll patch it in after the compo. :)

hcs 2010-08-24 05:19

Very cool! The first game I played went smoothly (though I did have to pay attention to keep the balance), but the next three times I tried it was so unbalanced that I had no chance. Lots of fun when in the groove!

danik 2010-08-24 07:03

"If anybody wins, you lose." :D
I loved this game! It was very immersive. Only wish there was more levels. :]

eli 2010-08-24 11:02

One of the better entries!! Very, very slick presentation, superb concept and interpretation of theme, and fun to boot.

Trying to think of ways to take this further... maybe a 3-way multiplayer game, each player with a different, secret goal, all trying to influence the outcome of battling AI armies.....

DeadSpider 2010-08-24 12:05

I had a blast playing and my two sons did as well. I think the "Air Strike" feature that is mentioned above would enhance it even further. And or a randomly spawned "Boss" style character to add some extra chaos into the mix.

Great game

invicticide 2010-08-24 13:06

A few of you have mentioned the desire for more levels. What do you mean by that?

- Different battlefield layouts with chokepoints, cover, etc. so that each level is more of a unique map?
- Different victory/failure conditions, so that each level is more of a puzzle?
- Different sets of available buildings and units?
- Other things I'm failing to realize?

danielzoran 2010-08-24 13:16

Very cool game, clever use of the theme, and also fun to play! Wish the graphics were a bit better though... very impressive for such a short contest, and cool gameplay.

John Axon 2010-08-25 13:43

Different battlefield layouts:
-chokepoints, cover like mountains or bodies of water where only certain enemies can pass.

Different victory conditions:
-vary the length of the matches.
-make one team’s units always weaker than the other
-make certain units really strong for a whole match (i.e. Super Soldiers)

Different buildings and units:
-you don’t need anything; your game is balanced. If you introduce new gameplay mechanics, then you could consider new buildings and units like: air units, anti-air-pillbox units, naval units, shield generators etc.

Other things you've failed to realize (but probably haven't =P)
-controlling 3 teams or more
-survival mode. See how long you can keep the plates of war spinning
-once or twice a round, give players their own unit to control for 20 seconds to directly influence the war for their nefarious plans.

Brilliant game! Thank you.

John Axon 2010-08-25 13:44

The following was supposed to precede that comment:

"This is a fantastic game. I worried that the nuclear explosion wasn't going to be epic enough. It was! I love those 5 seconds after you've launched the nukes where the game continues. So much tension. Wonderful! "

stqn 2010-08-25 14:13

Pretty good! I actually had fun playing it (under Wine.)

switchbreak 2010-08-25 20:03

Super super fun. My first couple of tries it seemed to start off unbalanced toward one side or the other, then on my third try I got them to keep the fighting up for long enough to get to the nukes. Love the concept, love the execution, great stuff.

kayamon 2010-08-25 23:55

This game is damn cool.

mrpiglet 2010-08-26 14:07

I absolutely adored your take on the theme, and, whilst I'd expect replayability to be veeeeery low I did have a blast. The blast was well done too :)

The only real negative for me was that it felt like my impact on the world was less than it ought to be, and, specifically like you were pulling sides to make one side (in my case the blue) faaaar more effective than in other. As such my agency felt unjustly limited.

thegrieve 2010-08-26 15:15

Great stuff man. Loved the Cannon Fodder feel to the soldiers. Its a great momentum game, very reminiscent of a balance game. You keep piling the stuff on and sweat it out as the see saw crash lands on your dreams of world domination. In counter to the "not having to place your buildings" problem I say let the omputer build, randomly and slower than you, so i you stand still it will teeter in one sides favour

John Axon 2010-08-27 10:01

Here's another idea:

2 Player Mode:
-still two teams
-one player is still trying to cause mutual destruction
-the other player is trying to tip the balance of war so that one side wins before nuclear annihilation

Still playing your game =)

jerm 2010-08-27 19:22

One minor thing, when you win the message at the top has a typo: 'Mututal Destruction: Achieved'. Apart from that, this game is awesome.

It was probably too easy (maybe you could have difficulty levels with different time limits). It might also be better if you had more control over things, like maybe you could sometimes choose which building to build or choose between different building types which would alter the probabilities of getting say landmines and turrets vs. barracks and factories.

someone 2010-08-28 10:22

That was great.

invicticide 2010-08-28 10:30

Thanks for all the fantastic feedback, guys! A lot of this stuff is going on a todo list for the next version, so keep 'em coming. :)

moop 2010-08-30 10:07

A really nice twist on the RTS genre. Good fun depite the high difficulty level. It was pretty tricky to keep both sides in balance and very hard to restore the balance once lost, but I liked it that way.

entar 2010-09-04 10:30

Really really good idea for a game, but very much unbalanced. If one side has tanks, and the other doesn't, it steamrolls the other side until I happen to get a tank building (or a landmine to hold them off).

This has some great potential though, would love to see this further developed.

invicticide 2010-09-05 15:00

@Entar The "unbalanced-ness" is actually intentional: I'm challenging you to hold together a system that's trying to spin wildly out of control. The more balanced things get, the less you have to do to keep both sides alive and fighting.

Unless you had a different meaning than I'm interpreting from your comment?

invicticide 2010-09-06 20:55

Re: judging - Well, that went well. :D

Sincere thanks to everyone who played my silly little game and found it worthy of your praise: you've all just made my year. <3

snowyowl 2010-09-07 04:19

The outcome seems entirely determined by who has the most factories. Tanks are good against everything, and the only thing that stops tanks is other tanks. Which would be great, but my ability to build factories is determined entirely by luck.
Still, this is a really cool game, so your victory was well-deserved.