FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD41 → Stoical Domination

Stoical Domination

By colin-misbach

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3923.3121
Fun3003.3421
Innovation3083.4421
Theme2233.8421
Graphics5042.8421
Audio3092.9421
Humor4002.4618
Mood4672.7919

Comments

vilix64 2018-04-23 04:59

Aaaah why is this so hard? :smiley: Extra points for implementing a top down strategy in just 48 hours.

sky 2018-04-23 05:03

Took me a bit to find the controls, but the game is rather straightforward and easy to play once you know what to do. Not bad 👍

harry-light 2018-04-23 05:12

very cool concept! would be totally fun to play starcraft like this haha

dakota-jones 2018-04-23 05:14

Really great! You feel very rushed during your turn and you have to choose carefully between farming resources or moving your pawns. It's very good and feels fun to play. Nice music too :)

starzzdrak 2018-04-23 18:49

Graphics could be better but otherwise its really fun to play :smirk:

derek-volker 2018-04-23 18:53

Nice concept and congrats for implementing an RTS in 48h.

ben-hopkins 2018-04-23 18:54

I love it! I would probably choose to just have a set amount of crystals collected automatically each turn, or maybe a button with a cooldown to click that collects 100 or so. It's just a bit strange that collecting is based on click speed.

A fleshed-out RTS with the turn mechanics would be really interesting. I like how you have to consider how your units will act on the opponent's turn. Nice job!

alleskapaul 2018-04-23 18:56

I like the concept of having a limited time each turn. It took me some time to realize that you need to click the crystals. THe level is quite easy to beat but all in all a nice LD entry!

ab200 2018-04-23 19:02

Cool concept but when playing with computer turns seems too long, and when playing with human - too short.

colin-misbach 2018-04-23 19:05

@ben-hopkins Yea, I see where you are coming from. It's not 100% determined by click speed, however. I limited the amount of clicks you can collect crystals (.2 seconds, so you could collect a maximum of 25 crystals per second). I didn't want it to be all about click speed, but I also wanted to make the player feel like they were doing something.

Thanks for your opinion!

bitjester-media 2018-04-23 19:34

I won! Great work. The only addition I would have is for the build unit buttons to be bound to 1-3 on the keyboard since time is so important

colin-misbach 2018-04-23 21:33

@bitjester-media What?! You beat my unbeatable AI :smile: jk

Yea, I really wanted to implement that too, but I just had far too many more pressing matters.

It's a great idea, thanks!

flameo326 2018-04-24 19:36

The art, audio and controls were good.

But the game mechanics were difficult to understand at first. It felt weird having to harvest materials, build units and control them within only 10 seconds.

Providing a tutorial would be helpful.

Also, more feedback for input.

slashee-the-cow 2018-04-25 00:46

As others have said, pretty impressive that you managed to make a strategy game in 48 hours. I liked the music, too. The graphics were alright, I think it really would have helped if the ground (not just the path) had a bit of texture to it.

Like others, I was confused at first - I would show the help screen that's available from the pause menu before you start playing (I was wondering why the AI was getting crystals at a seemingly constant rate and I wasn't getting any).

colin-misbach 2018-04-25 01:14

@Flameo326 Yes, you have completely a completely valid suggestion. I knew I needed to make it so you could tell if you selected troops or not. The bottom line was I just didn't have enough time.

Thanks for your opinion.

colin-misbach 2018-04-25 01:19

@slashee-the-cow Yep, valid point. The first asset I created was the ground, and what I had in mind at the time was I was going to make other assets to put on top of the ground, but I just never got around to it do to time constraints. And what I ended up with was a green rectangle that someone took a shit on :smile:

I had a lot of ideas to give a helping hand to beginners, but they take a decent amount of work, and I just needed a game first. I can see how you might think "hey he's getting crystals, why not me?", and just adding some tool-tip to show you can mine your own crystals would help a lot.

P.S. I did have a help screen in game (pressing escape), but I should have had one on the home menu too.

I appreciate your compliments. The music was sort of a last minute thing, and I just basically went with the first good sounding thing I made :smirk:

Thank you!

riordan 2018-04-27 21:51

Reading your description, turn-based and RTS seems really contradictory but they actually play together well. The limited time to perform actions felt a little bit short, but I guess that's the turn-based mechanic for us.

It took me a bit of time to realize that I can mobilize my units to attack; initially, I thought they would move on their own slowly.

My main concern is with the UI. An indicator to tell that it's the enemy's actions and crystals at the bottom during their turn would be great. At first, I thought they were mine.

Aside from those, the game's concept is nice. The graphics could probably have some more love, but stuff in the game gets the point across quite fine so I guess that works. Good job!

colin-misbach 2018-05-03 01:47

@riordan You make some very valid observations. The genres I chose were definitely supposed to be contradictory, as that is what the theme of the jam was. I'm glad you thought they worked well together, I think so too.

I do understand that 10 seconds is not a lot of time, but I felt if I gave more time per turn it could potentially drown the turn based aspect that you mentioned. It's a hard balance that I didn't mess with... at all really.

I knew that I absolutely needed some better ways to show what you need to do with indicators and what not, but I really needed a game first, and my hope was that people could figure it out and once that was done, they could enjoy the other stuff I put all of my work into.

I'm not the best artist, and when rushed, you can't expect anything eye-catching. I'm not proud of the art I made, but I'm happy of what it let me do in other areas of my game.

Thanks for your opinion, I appreciate the kind words!