Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → More Room!
By skosnowich and Matjes
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 36 | 4.13 | 25 | |
| Fun | 36 | 4.00 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 562 | 2.78 | 25 | |
| Theme | 405 | 3.39 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 327 | 3.68 | 24 | |
| Audio | 201 | 3.43 | 25 | |
| Humor | 289 | 2.86 | 24 | |
| Mood | 268 | 3.45 | 24 |
Wow, it's awesome! I mean, you made a whole strategy game and even managed to make the tutorial, that's really cool. The town/village selection is quite painful because of the weird hitboxes and I had to use the frame selection all the time, but despite of that game is really nice.
Hey man! Tried your game out. It was difficult to play at first- but after taking some time to re-try the tutorial, I think I got the gist of it and was able to play for a good 5-10 minutes or so! :D
Well- I think it seemed like an incredibly complex game for me- so it was hard to understand. I don't normally play a lot of strategy games- so this took some time for me to sink in and all.
It was a good experience in the end, but I do feel like simplifying the art and UI more would have helped keeping things easier to communicate! :D
This is one of the best game I played this LD. Well done! Love it!
I love strategy games!!!!! And this artwork reminded me of that time when I playing Mushroom Wars.
The art design and style are special, and unique. The whole gameplay has a high completeness.
A good JAVA(or maybe Scala?) game anyway. GJ.
If you have time, I would appreciate you taking a look at our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/run-cola-run
I loved this one, the best one in terms of gameplay and the amount of content, also nice graphics and some audio. On top of that the tutorial and some AI. Well done guys I really loved it and I would buy it as a full game (with some additions).
What I would love if it would be full game: Some way to automatically send troops, it get's annoying to click all the time from the far vilages to get troops to the front ones! Some better way / explanation how upgrades work, I didn't really need them and I know it probably did something, but I didn't feel it in the game after purchase There is many more features you could implement like different types of soldiers / cities / islands. More types of resources, .... really lot of
Keep up the good work, if you finish it I will buy it! (I would prefer is on iPad but I see you are using Java :D)
I love swarm strategy, so this is right up my alley (to criticize!).
I second the automatic troop sending feature. It is a must and a mainstay in similar titles. Another nice mechanic is setting the troop sending percent to anything from 0% to 100%, the scroll wheel is fine for this purpose.
I can recommend two swarm strategy titles on Android: Starlink and Auralux. They are both extremely well designed and fun. (It seems Starlink is playable in the [browser](http://starlink.tasharen.com/) too, with the old Unity Web Player plugin)
Good work!
Wow! An excellent strategy game!
I really enjoyed experimenting with the different upgrades, and seeing the effect on the battles. It gave a tangible feeling of progress which, combined with the gradual assimilation of the map nodes, worked really well.
The art and UI was effective in conveying the "grid" as well as the current status, and also conveyed a good mood, especially in combination with the background music. I wonder whether the ability to auto-send soldiers from the consolidated areas would be a good extra feature, or if it would take away part of the "multi-task"-management challenge - while it was sometimes a bit frustrating having to do so manually, especially when the action became frantic, it also imposed an extra tactical element (rather than being purely a "quality of life" features).
The tutorial was very effective (and funnily written), and I loved how the scale of the game kept increasing every few levels - a sad, but perhaps realistic view on the evolution of war.
It's a pity that the source code is not available. I try to learn as much as possible from other LibGDX developers each Ludum Dare, but this time, without a proper search function on the new site, finding other LibGDX games is a matter of pure luck.
>Always expanding. >The world is our birthright! >We... demand... more... room!
This crashes on startup for me :( Win10 64-bit, java 8 update 101
Thank you everybody for all your kind words.
@Fingerpass It is written in Java.
@wolar, @Somnium & @HuvaaKoodia Yes, the automatic troop sending feature first was on our to-do list. But we removed it, because we had the same thoughts somnium has about this feature. It would take away the multi-tasking and that is somewhat the idea of the game. On the other hand I agree, that it becomes pretty tedious in some levels to manage all those nodes you have.
@Somnium If you are interested, we will maybe release the code. But we have to see when we are able to do so. I'll inform you. :)
@MHGameWork Ok, does it show any errors on startup? If there aren't any errors, could you please navigate with the commandline (cmd.exe) to the folder with the "More Room-1.0.0.jar" in it and execute the following command: **java -jar "More Room-1.0.0.jar"**. Now it should either start or give you more informations on the error. It would be very kind of you to send us these informations. Maybe we can then fix the problem. :)
Really nice game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpLa_G-bsto
War, war never changes...
Super fun and classic game! Enjoy it!~
@skosnowich That I am, so if possible, that would be excellent. Thank you :)
Conquer thy neighbour! Here’s the quick rundown of my thoughts:
PROS - Fun strategy game that works well - Rules are simple but have lots of strategy and timing to them
CONS - Would be nice to have some means of sending troops automatically
For full criticism and breakdown of ranking, as well as candid reactions to gameplay, do check out the video~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjQOngi3b-E
Cooool. This has a decent amount more depth than I was expecting at first glance.
The different enemy AIs did a good job of keeping things interesting - however, in many cases, it seemed like keeping every area selected and focusing relentless attacks what the winning strategy against every one.
Graphics and audio are a nice package, too. I'm always impressed by decent strategy games during Ludum Dare, and this one did not disappoint. Great job!
Cool game. Space invasion is a nice turn!
It would be more convenient to have more keys in the controls: add to units selection on Ctl and hotkeys for upgrades. Otherwise it was great!
It always impresses me to see a simple mechanic and see it turned into a full game that scales well. This is a pretty complete game, the player needs to make tactical decisions and there are ways to level up. The tutorial beforehand ties it all together, because I am pretty sure I would have given up a lot faster without it, and it doesn't do the thing some tutorials do by overwhelming the player with information right off the bat.
The art is simple, and I think you could've benefited from a good colour scheme and better execution of perspective, but I clean clearly see what's what, so the functionality of the art is there. The same goes for the UI, it's very simple and could've used some more love, but it's not actually _lacking_ to where it's a problem. The music and sound effects are solid as well.
I think the _room for improvement_ I am thinking off in this game looks at the game as a full feature rather than a jam game, because you delivered what feels like a full game rather than a jam game. So, all in all, a very good entry!
I love this type of game, and I think it is great how you move the story one level up each time, instead of just going through multiple scenarios.
It's great! Very, very strength game! Good job!
Multiple scenarios is a great touch. This was an ambitious concept and it succeeds. I feel like the unit control could use some tweaking.
Its a great entry, thanks for sharing.
A well-made simple strategy game. Not to mention it is very well polished. All I can do is to congratulate you for this submission.
A neat little game! Nothing too overly complex, but fun and well made nonetheless. I liked the little sound that it made whenever you took a settlement. :3
Additionally, it was cool to see the same mechanics applied in a bunch of different time periods and scales.
There's not really much to say here other than good job! Keep it up!
-Skruffye
A neat take on a common genre. The upgrade system provided some extra depth compared to the typical iteration of this concept, though I do wish the upgrades were explained better. There are some quality-of-life features I also wish I had - send all (so I don't get repetitive motion strain from all the right-clicking :P) and the ability to set up supply lines, and the ability to zoom out - but the basic features and mechanics are all there and they all work well, including the all-important tutorial (oft neglected in Ludum Dare). The one main thing I think could be improved is the difficulty curve. Two of the levels - the one where you conquer the world, and the one where you're conquering other solar systems (I think) - were far more difficult than the rest. I stopped playing at the latter of those two, but it still kept me entertained much longer than most entries. Overall, very solidly put together despite the fairly ambitious mechanics and visuals. One of my favorites so far!
P.S. After reading your response regarding the auto-send mechanic, the rationale makes sense, though I do think being able to zoom out and see all the action at once might reduce some of the tedium while still keeping the frantic multi-tasking feel.
Graphics don't show it at first but the game is deep and very polished. I enjoyed it immensely especially the tutorial, which is a rare sight on LD. Main mechanics are well executed, nothing to complain. The concept of increasing the scale of operations was a nice surprise for me, great. The game shows you are ambitious and have done a good job.
This is a super well-polished, compact-but-complex strategy game! I'm really impressed by this. I must've spent an hour playing to the end. Strategy games often add too much in my opinion, and I really enjoy how simple yet engaging this was. A Ctrl-A to select all would've been really helpful, as well as the ability to zoom in and out. For extending the game, I'd recommend keeping the levels you have as-is in terms of features, and adding new levels that could include new features as well.
Again, I love how smooth and polished this game is!
This is _very_ good, it's got a great difficulty curve, and the way the situation keeps escalating is really cool. A way to pause the game might be nice, but other than that, I've really got no complaints about the Jam version.
If you're looking to expand the game, one thing you might want to look at is introducing a few new elements over time, the way that @dgspitzer did with Song of Fungus (admittedly a puzzle game rather than a strategy game, but similar in some ways nonetheless). Basically, keep the players interest with some Differences in Kind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBR1z-ue-I
I don't think it would take a lot of new elements (indeed, too many new elements introduced might damage the game, or at least make it a different kind of game), but I think if you introduce a new twist when every once-in-a-while (no more than one per major scale shift, I suspect, and probably fewer), it'd help maintain interest and keep the strategizing fresh.
In any case, very good job, lots of fun to play, and pretty funny, too!