Unadexus

zelos 2017-07-31 17:39

This seems pretty complex for a Compo game. So let's see... The graphics are really nice. Don't have anything bad to say about it, other than that the UI might be a bit on the smaller side.

I am really unsure what to do to be honest. I've read the description, but I still randomly get 'all your dudes are dead' and I don't even know why. There's a lot of stuff to build and I'm not sure what everything is doing and what I should be keeping track of.

This game seems like it's really cool, but it definitely needs a tutorial or something. I'm so confused on what to do.

That being said - I think you did a really good job and I think it might be just me when I say I didn't quite understand the game. And you hit the theme perfectly of course.

gildar76 2017-07-31 17:39

Impressive game for such a short time!

roycocup 2017-07-31 17:55

There seems to be quite a few things to buy to get you anywhere but I dont seem to be able to survive for long. A few more instructions would help the game substantially. I also did my game in java but I didnt use the framework you had, so maybe the next time I'll try that.

nikrt 2017-07-31 23:27

The visuals are nice. But as others have pointed out, it really needs a tutorial screen. Kinda hard to grasp what to do the first time you step into the game. Good one👍

jimbly 2017-08-01 02:16

I think I got the hang of keeping Earth alive for a bit, and I build a ship, load it with some people, fuel, energy, and some other misc stuff, the range says 400km, there's a planet at 300km, I can't figure out how to go there! I click the "launch ship" button, then click the planet, nothing happens -_-.

hilvon 2017-08-01 05:47

While in theory being the kind of game I'd like, but it is too hectick on the first stages... and a pause button to take a breath and consider your options would help a lot... Also I haven't figured what Roads, Cityes and Solar panels are goos for.

smbe19 2017-08-01 10:49

Thanks for the feedback so far. I know it's a bit too complicated, but there is now a [tutorial](https://ludumdare.games.smeanox.com/LD39/tutorial/). I should probably make simpler games for ludum dare in the future ;)

@jimbly Strange. It should state the reason why it does not work in the lower right corner.

@hilvon Roads are useless, I planned to do something with them but didn't have time for it. Cities increase the number of dudes you can have on a planet by 100. Solar panels only work on other planets; earth is too polluted for them.

qu4k 2017-08-01 13:13

Cool game, I like the drawn style but I don't understand why some tiles are in pixel art

selftitled 2017-08-01 13:46

Wow theres a lot to this :s I couldn't figure out why my coal plants wouldn't work so diddn't get very far. Also I really like the hand drawn cartoon style of the buildings.

jimbly 2017-08-01 13:52

@smbe19 Besides not having enough fuel to get there (which I did, since the previous screen says it's got enough range), what reason would there be for the ship not leaving? Sure there's not a bug =)? I'm playing the web version.

mrnyarlathotep 2017-08-01 14:06

Really feature rich for a compo entry. If you wanted to continue this post jam, I think you could solve a lot of the issues with initial complexity by adding something like a tech tree or research cost where additional build options unlock over time rather than all at the start

smbe19 2017-08-01 15:45

@jimbly Thank you very much for reporting this, it was indeed a bug. Somehow you were not able to select any planets in the web build, but in the desktop version it worked just fine. It's now fixed (although I still don't know what exactly was wrong... :shrug:)

krish8l 2017-08-01 19:43

i tried really hard to undertand what to do, even if its obvious, but it dragged me to learn how to survive some more, so yeah interesting indeed, nice job

doorless 2017-08-01 19:49

I found it a bit confusing at start but after a while I got the hang of it. I like the hand drawn art style, it adds a lot to the game. thanks for participating :)

jimbly 2017-08-01 22:43

@smbe19 Thanks for fixing it, I'm hoping to give it a full play-through, seems like the kind of game I enjoy ;).

jimbly 2017-08-02 04:24

I think I played for about 2 hours before it crashed -_-. "GwtApplication: exception (TypeError) : Cannot read property 'c' of undefined". Was when I clicked to select Space Port to see what it cost on a new planet.

I think I had enough fuel on a planet in the middle of the map to get some people to Unadexus, so I'll call that win! I spent quite a while scouting planets before finding one with any water, had to keep ferrying energy back to earth to keep a small number of colonists alive there because it was the only planet I found (for quite a long time) with enough water to make fuel!

Great fun =).

jin47 2017-08-02 17:51

That is impressive to set this amount of complexity in a compo. as the other said, a tutorial or less choice at the beginning could be a good kickstart to new players.

Good job!

jotson 2017-08-02 18:11

Very ambitious, lots of systems here. Something this complex would definitely benefit from an in-game tutorial where the difficulty ramps up gradually.

aterlamia 2017-08-02 18:49

Quite complex and very hard to master but fun to try i like the "simple" art style. I tried something similar so i know how hard it is and i think you got more done and a better balance so well done.

ajayajayaj 2017-08-02 18:52

I replied to you on my game

carsen-d 2017-08-02 19:10

Very impressively deep and complex at first glance, but this also means that the game is quite confusing to get into even with the tutorial. I wish that there wasn't such a wall at the start where it's hard to understand how to not keep losing, as I would have loved to play this game for quite some time. Very promising though.

toonteamj 2017-08-02 19:13

This complex game could use a tutorial level. It's fun to play, but I always seem to run out of energy after thirty seconds and I can't seem to replenish it.

maffydub 2017-08-02 19:25

Nice game.

I found that once a coal plant/oil plant/gas plant had temporarily run out of gas, it seemed to stay in "disabled" (brown-colored) state even after there was coal/oil/gas available once more - shouldn't it spring back into action once there are resources available again?

Also, I couldn't get the "remove" action to work.

Other than that, I was enjoying trying to keep my civilization alive.

smbe19 2017-08-02 19:34

@maffydub The "staying disabled" thing is intended (not sure if it was a good decision). You can manually activate it again by double clicking the power plant.

Thanks for reporting the remove bug. I was able to reproduce it and will fix it when I have time. If a building is disabled, it can't be removed. If it's active, then it works.

Note to self: bug is [here](https://github.com/SmBe19/LD39/blob/master/core/src/com/smeanox/games/world/Building.java#L95).

brandon-diaz 2017-08-04 18:41

As others have said, a tutorial would be amazing. I understand that things like that are difficult to fit into a comp time frame, and I'm really impressed with what you were able to build during the window we had; very interesting title overall.

emery 2017-08-05 10:43

Cool Game!! : )

fledgeling93 2017-08-05 11:02

The art style is peculiar at least with its simplicity, and the core gameplay is nice in the way that you always have a goal. It would be usefull to have the ingame desription of buldings

gris 2017-08-05 14:37

Congrats on making such a big game in 48h. I love these type of games and greatly enjoyed it. I do think it takes a bit too much to grasp for an LD entry. I would've preferred adding some music and maybe a little ingame tutorial and a bit less content. But very impressive. Good Job!!!!

fraanns 2017-08-05 14:55

Cool game. Very complex for a Ludum Dare game. Would probably need a tutorial.

realryanrogers 2017-08-05 17:04

This would be the perfect compo game with a pause button, and a little more tutorial!

peachtreeoath 2017-08-05 17:41

What a great game! Took me many tries to figure out an optimal build order for Earth (I ended up going right for oil at the start, only after I realized how inefficient coal was people-wise). Once I did, I entered the next phase of your game-design which was optimally juggling your resources with activating/deactivating the right buildings, and also only producing as much as you needed. The ship-loading phase is a bit scary atm, with time ticking down as you need to figure out exactly what cargo loads to pile on, but that did get better over the course of runs as I learned generally how much resources weighed.

The game concept itself is awesome. The idea of going from planet to planet and stripping them away to get to where you need to go is a 5-star theme to me. I haven't seen something like this and it's very compelling. In a later revision if you really wanted to up the addictiveness you could have the planets potentially have a unique powerup you absorb when you colonize it, like +10% oil gain rate or something, and you'd get that rogue-like feel to it. I really wish people would give this game more time and power through the learning curve, I think the balance of all its game elements is shockingly well done.

And to answer your note on my game about large team size, yes it's absolutely an extra challenge. We brainstormed for maybe 3-4 hrs before we even put boots on the ground, and didn't agree on the final game elements until Saturday night. I'd say 6-8 people is the max optimal LD team from my experience, but I really do enjoy piling on all my friends and making it as chaotic as possible.

zgragselus 2017-08-05 18:56

Interesting game, yet super hard to control and frustrating - as you need to plan while being stressed with resources. You push player quite a lot (maybe too much, as I was more frustrated than having fun at some points).

It is quite lenghty and I didn't make it completely through, as it is very hard (to build enough of everything). Sometimes GUI also failed (especially edit box while packaging ship).

All in all it has more complex idea and I appreciate it, although it misses some tutorial and easy start.

Congratulations and keep up the good work!

evanmhm 2017-08-06 06:18

As others have pointed out, the scrolling is a bit broken but the intriguing gameplay made up for it. Its more complex than a lot of games I have seen before, especially for Compo! Nice job :)

somnium 2017-08-06 13:55

The complexity of this game was impressive, especially for a Compo game! It was a quite interesting take on the theme as well.

The player has to juggle quite a few different parts, and that balancing act was compelling. It felt a bit unforgiving, I had to restart several times before being able hit the right combination of build-order and timing to survive long enough to be able to leave Earth.

The graphics were clear, and the UI was efficient (if a bit bare-bones). The ship-loading and control had a few "gotchas" though, e.g. sometimes not being able to unload dudes when loaded by mistake, or having to destroy ships at a destination world in order to send the next ship there (because of insufficient fuel at the destination to let the existing ship fly away). The "colonization" part could perhaps have been simplified a bit with a "colonize" ship-type/action, which would automatically consume the ship at arrival to form a basic "colony", automatically unloading the cargo and dudes.

If you are making a post-LD version, I would suggest adding some tooltips to the different icons, and definitely a pause function. Using sliders for the ship-loading might make it a bit easier to tweak as well (and/or pausing the game while on the cargo screen).

Overall, it was a quite interesting game, with impressive depth!

>Our future looks grim... >We're running out of power... >To Unadexus!

linus 2017-08-07 17:51

This is definently my favourite game so far in this Ludum Dare. Amazing game with very impressive complexity for such a short time period as 48 hours! This strategy game is certainly one of a kind, I have not seen anything alike in this Ludum Dare :p

I agree with Somnium that tooltips would have helped certainly and the helper text in the bottom right corner really felt akwardly positioned, I wish that the text popped up at the cursor position on screen so you can clearly see what it says and having some audio play would also make it even clearer. It took me 5-10 minutes before I understood how to generate power and how to sustain it but after that and thanks to the very detailed tutorial you provided (though external) I had a lot of fun and played the game for a long time.

With this complex strategy it becomes hard to balance of course but you did a reasonably good job. I just kept running out of power on earth (-66 power per second haha): game.png

What made it hard was all the combined factors and the fact there is no renewable energy source available (which is of course part of the game), for me it became a challenge and I found it very fun to try build a good enough infrastructure on earth to be able to travel to other planets but it just becomes a bit too much micromanagement to be able to keep up. You run out of power so quickly :p

I will try again some other day to see if I can beat the game but I would really like a post jam version of this game with an in-game tutorial and easier controls (sliders and high level management system for planets). The realtime factor can be improved is just what I am trying to say.

This game will certainly be something I will remember from this Ludum Dare, thank you for making such a cool game!

You have done a marvelous job with this game nonetheless! :grin:

elede 2017-08-07 19:26

Awesome game in 48 hours!!!

What I liked more is that you used libgdx!!! I will learn a lot reading your code!!!

Great job!

paracatgames 2017-08-07 21:57

So much going on for a compo game! What an achievement. :)

wh05herlock 2017-08-09 02:24

This is a really cool game (my favourite out of all the ones I've reviewed so far).

There a few things I'd change about it though: - It would be nice if there was music (of course). - If you put some dudes in a ship, e.g. 20, and then there becomes not enough space on the planet to hold any more dudes, but you want to put more crew on the ship, you can't backspace the 0 so you can increase the number to 25 (because you can't move 20-2=18 dudes back on the the world), making it impossible to change the number of dudes on your ship. It should be that the game doesn't check whether you can move that many of a resource until you press enter or something, so that you don't get situations like this. - The other planets seem to be REALLY small compared to Earth. Maybe make them a tiny bit bigger? Or at least provide a way to scan them so you know what you need to bring there and what you don't, that way you don't end up planning to build a metal mine there to get all your metal you'll need, but find out there is no metal to mine on the planet and end up being stuffed. - It's a bit stressful that you are already running out of power from the very start. Maybe make it so that you start with a few coal mines and a coal factory or something, so that you don't start off losing power.

Other than that it seems like a really cool (although very hard (I am yet to even get dudes living on another planet other than Earth)) game. :)

smbe19 2017-08-10 15:52

@peachtreeoath @somnium @linus @wh05herlock

Thank you very much for your very detailed feedback! If I find time I will incorporate your suggestions into a post-compo version.

mathiouza 2017-08-15 13:07

Cool game ! I like the idea and the art is not too bad. It lacks obviously musics and sounds. I confess that I am not really good at this game x) I do not really manage to get really far but yeah, the game is cool, and fit to the theme. Congrats :)