billknye 2011-05-02 06:09
Certainly different gameplay, seems a bit too random.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD20 → It's Not Easy Being Muammar
By badgerpriest
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Innovation | 113 | 3.17 | 30 | |
| Fun | 195 | 2.40 | 30 | |
| Theme | 160 | 2.63 | 27 | |
| Graphics | 142 | 2.93 | 30 | |
| Audio | 55 | 3.24 | 29 | |
| Humor | 80 | 2.89 | 27 | |
| Overall | 160 | 2.83 | 30 | |
| Community | 256 | 1.77 | 13 | |
| Coolness | 156 | 3 |
Certainly different gameplay, seems a bit too random.
I had a bit too much fun with this...
That music seems familiar!
Nice, a timely geo-political exercise. :)
Congrats on clearing the LD48!
This reminds me of that time the Libyans hid their tanks in a hospital and it blew up.
I appreciate the political satire, and understand that its a commentary on the use of human shields in Lybia/ wars. Couldn't understand the gameplay for the first few levels, but was able to intuit what was going on by the end (didn't read the instructions until afterward).
this was entertaining, but having to replace 12 items on every failure of the last level was kind of annoying. i did beat it eventually, though! also i couldn't discern what value moving things around had after the first couple levels. was there any?
Seems a bit ... random? A bit like playing one-sided battleship against the computer? Hmm...
Ooh, topical. Felt slightly dirty for winning.
It was an interesting idea. However it did not feel like the player had a lot of control over the result? I think it is possible that playing the same lvl multiple times with the same placement would lead to completely different results?
The levels are not deterministic: playing the same level multiple times with the same setup would lead to different results. Fine-tuning the level of randomness was tricky, and judging by the comments, I feel maybe I made it a little too random. On the other hand, I guess that "too random" is better than "not random enough" for this kind of game.
In response to vandriver, moving does have several effects. Moving items in the middle of bombing makes them temporarily more visible. However, moving troops regularly makes them less visible, because their visibility increases fairly rapidly if they stay in one place for a few turns.
The sound is nice
This is an interesting concept, gameplay-wise. I can tell a lot of work probably went into balancing this but it is not intuitive enough yet why NATO bombs where they bomb or what effect troop movement has. It might be interesting to see a cross-hair where a bombing is to take place, and have troop movement in real time (i.e., you see your troops moving, and see the crosshair respond to their movements.) However this is ludum dare! =) Bottom line is I did like the gameplay concept, it was just difficult to get a sense of strategy because the bombing seemed arbitrary. (I did read your notes above, which were important!)
It's different and interesting, but I too felt like I didn't have much control. Maybe adding some interactivity that requires some degree of skill would help, like placing decoys that draw attention or something.
The music was good and sfx were ok.
Very interesting concept with good graphics and sound - well done on finishing!
Agree with everybody that said the balancing was still a bit too random, but given the time constraints that would be hard to improve...