Tiny Colonies

random-storykeeper 2017-04-29 06:40

This game has a great colour scheme with a cute pixelated art style and satisfying sound effects (love that “clip” sound when a tree is cut). I found it a bit slow to play, however. I’m glad you gave tips on how to start, but I found myself confused as to why I needed a farm, and what the third icon from the top-left HUD is supposed to be. I think it’s wheat, but I can’t see how it factors into the gameplay.

Mostly, I just found myself waiting a lot to generate the right amount of resources so that I could construct more things. Ultimately, the time for waiting was just too long that it wasn’t fun after I started off following the guide. That being said, I do like how this game interprets the theme, and it’s pretty cool how you can see this small planet from a distance away, with your character walking only around the outermost perimeters you can see. If there was anything this game could have improved on for the future, it would be the balancing of how you generate resources vs. the cost of placing them down.

blinry 2017-05-01 13:45

Very cute graphics! :) You also provided a good help page, which was definitely necessary to figure out what the different objects were.

In terms of gameplay, we didn't find the concept so original or intriguing, but we enjoyed watching the trees grow and the workers run around very much! Thanks for making this game!

hadik 2017-05-01 18:29

Very nice pixelart work :)

dennyrocketdev 2017-05-01 18:56

Neat little game, I really like the art and the mood.

izunah 2017-05-01 19:23

What a wonderful little game. I really like the way you have presented the game, the art style while very low bit pixel art, conveys all the information you need to manage your planet. I would have liked to have been able to destroy / remove buildings or trees that I created in order to re-arrange and re-optimize the things I need on the go; however it's not a deal breaker.

swamphen 2017-05-02 11:50

This was a cool little world to play on for a bit. I did find my settlers were obsessed with wood cutting and so never made any food. Is that something you can avoid happening? Did I just plant too many trees?

zicboy 2017-05-02 15:03

Enjoyed the pixel art work! Well done!

those-30-ninjas 2017-05-02 15:58

Adorable pixel art. I think I planted too many trees. Really nice entry. If you get a chance check out ours https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/down-the-rabbit-hole

thor 2017-05-02 21:28

This was really cute! I looked away for a moment and my entire planet was overrun with trees. Nothing a few sawmills couldn't solve, though.

radmccool 2017-05-03 04:33

planet.png This is muh planet :D

Is the wee person's hunger tied to how much they've walked? cus i had a couple of planets that had a sawmill at 15:00, a house at 12:00, and a farm at 09:00. And the people just kept going between the farm and house :/

physcokillermonkey 2017-05-06 09:30

Thanks for playing everyone!

@izunah Yeah destroying buildings was one of the things on my to-do list but I just ran out of time.

@swamphen I'm afraid the 'ai' of the workers is very primative, the order that you place the buildings sometimes takes priority of which get workers and thus you can get stuck with them not working the farms. It's something I'd want to fix in the future.

@radmccool Nice! Thats actually more than I managed in the most recent version of the game ;). Peoples hunger and sleep is tied to how far they walk, it was intended to be a mechanic to get you to plan your city better but because of the workers poor 'ai' it just ends up with them walking back and forth like you said. Yet another thing I'd try and fix when I get back to working on this game after my exams :D

rombus 2017-05-07 04:05

I love the game, but I can't seem to find the hang of it, because I end up not generating any money (or generating money but very slowly :P)

Love the graphics and the core mechanic

Edit: Got it! :PCaptura de pantalla de 2017-05-07 01-10-05.png

physcokillermonkey 2017-05-08 12:27

@rombus Glad you liked it, not gonna lie I find it hard to play myself (even though I know the exact mechanics behind everything) There is a lot of balancing to do with this type of game that I just didn't get time to do. I love seeing people who are able to work out my strange creation though :D Thanks for playing!

jishenaz 2017-05-10 01:06

Nice little simulation game! I actually managed to cover up the planet really quickly. The dynamics of the people getting resources and the grass spreading were well implemented. I don't see any problems with it, just new feature suggestions if you decide to keep making this: bigger planets and more building types (and music of course). Wonderful work!

kaisean-games 2017-05-11 20:44

I had an idea for a game like that :)

It felt a little too slow for me, but maybe I just didn't have enough time at the moment.

In-game tutorial would be nice, but it's ok even with the tutorial image.

I wish the planet was a bit larger and that more different things could be built, but I guess 72 hours is not large enough timeframe for my wishes :)

Well done!

davision 2017-05-16 19:57

Nice concept but it is not clear what you have to build and what is what, some sort of unlock mechanic so you have to build them in the right order at the start would have been nice. I like the simple pixel art style except for the fact that the buildings get distorted to fit in the pixel grid.

brotherst 2017-05-16 22:43

Really cute game! I love love love the minimal pixel style.

There were some elements of the game that possibly weren't explained by your tutorial. Like is there a maximum number of workers per saw mill/farm, or do you just need one of each. Do the workers themselves make food? them seem to. My workers love making food so much that it was all they wanted to do and stopped chopping trees altogether.

It was fun nonetheless and I like working out the quirks of games like this (unless they're game breaking quirks :wink: )

Nice job!

If you'd like to check out our game it's over here https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/e-at.

Cheers!

narve 2017-05-16 23:51

Nice little game. I wish that there was more to do, and that buildings could be destroyed somehow, but the bit that does exist works well.

moski 2017-05-16 23:53

I love simulation games, and this one is very well executed given the theme and the style which you were trying to achieve with the minimalistic approach. While it seems to be lacking in balancing and clear in-game instructions, I had a fun time with it once I started getting the hang of it.

The presentation of the game is great. The booting up screen is a nice touch given the art style you went with, and the player is immediately shown all there is to see. No clunky interfaces, no going through menus. Minimalistic to the core. I love it.

Since I'm the art guy on our team, I'm more inclined to analize what other people did with their games, as to see if I can learn something. Here, I keep praising the minimalistic approach that you took, but I have to further applaud that it's not minimal to the point that it's up to the player to imagine what is what. The buildings have clear distinction on what each one is, and the slow spread of trees and grass is satisfactory to see. It's great that you managed to achieve balance in keeping it simple, but not absurdly simple unless the project called for it. Good job!

Now, the game itself is somewhat rough. I had to restart 4 times to actually get stuff done (and this is with instructions outside of the game). Even on the runs where I was getting enough income to get more stuff done, I ended up at one point having no progress at all. I left it open for a decent amount of time, and only got a bit of gold, so there's so much idling. Don't get me wrong. For the time limit, this is impressive, and has a lot of potential to grow. But right now, it's not very fun. It could benefit from an in-game reset button, or an alternate mode that removed the cost of stuff. In the future, if you do decide to expand the game, it'd be fantastic to see what kind of buildings and interactions you can add to the game.

So, basically, I loved the experimental and graphical aspects of the game. There's a lot that can be done to it, and I'd really would like to see what it can become in the future. If you have a Twitter account, do share it around. We, [Whales and Games](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames), have been following the people of the games we've commented on, since we'd like to see what their developers come up with in the future. Keep up the good work! :whale:

cheesymoo 2017-05-16 23:59

Really cool!

I like this stuff

bog13 2017-05-17 00:12

I dont really know how to earn coin and it takes a long time before being able to construct anything. Nice game though, I enjoyed a lot the artistic parts

jdmazz 2017-05-17 00:15

I liked the pixelated element. There wasn't really a goal that I noticed, but it was fun discovering how to optimize the development of the world.