zax 2019-04-29 16:27
Cool concept ! simple but fair enough, this game is well made :v: 4 stars from me ! check out my game too :)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD44 → New Home. New Tomb
By seriar
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 489 | 2.62 | 31 | |
| Fun | 475 | 2.39 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 330 | 2.86 | 31 | |
| Theme | 388 | 2.91 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 434 | 2.62 | 31 | |
| Audio | 371 | 2.20 | 31 | |
| Humor | 379 | 1.98 | 30 | |
| Mood | 443 | 2.41 | 31 |
Cool concept ! simple but fair enough, this game is well made :v: 4 stars from me ! check out my game too :)
I am too dumb for this game(
@Anonymous I should have add a better tutorial tbh. Did not have time for it. Actually i think i can make a video tutorial.
As mentioned above, it's a bit tricky to figure out what to do, but I like the simple style. Reminds of early world building games. Good work.
I had some issues actually playing this game:
I read the help, and started the game. I wasn't quite sure of what the objectives are:
Fill the map? Is that possible in Life, won't they all just die the next turn?
Also I got trapped in the help menu, couldn't exit out when I pressed esc. If that's the wrong control, might be worth putting it on the game page, or just putting the contents of the help page here in general.
After a second attempt, I managed to trigger the simulation, and then harvested the plants, which gave me currency and I ended up in a screen where I could place cells.
But then I had no idea what to do from there, none of the Sow/Pause buttons seemed to do much at this screen.
After a bit more playing about, I figured out that the goal is to profit by making more points when you harvest cells than you spent to start it.
So then I went back to the continent screen, and tried to unlock another one. After finishing level 1, I had 27 currency, and continent 2 looks to cost 10c, but I couldn't figure out how to unlock it.
@b3agz Thanks for the feedback. Working on some intro/tutorial video now to help starting the game
**Thanks for your time and effor @argensis**. Unfortunately, i did not have time (or rather energy) to do a proper in game tutorial yesterday. For now there is some semi decent readme in github (https://github.com/seriar/ld44/blob/master/Readme.MD). I should have a small video showing some controls and what to do.
Unlocking the continent is `U`, once you have slected it.
The challenge of the game is to find a working patterns which will make enough profit to cover the sowing costs, time based drain and to allow unlocking new continents. Once again, you've made quite far with little or no tutorial. Hope it was not too painful of an expirience :)
If you still have the log file (ld44.log in game folder) you can make an issue on github (https://github.com/seriar/ld44/issues) and attach the logs i can check what was the issue with stacking in a screen.
Really nice retro graphics and sound effects. Great atmosphere. Although for such a small game with simple graphics, I am shocked out how big the download is :O
Not understanding the game so I didn't rate it, congratulations for your effort and a tutorial would be perfect. I'm going to keep the game on my pc in case some day I figure it out.
@seb-jones i was also surprised with the result. pyinstall seem to pull whole github inside in order to make an exe :card_box:
I'm wearing headphones and the game was exceptionally loud to my ears. Thanks.
@twobythree Thanks for a feedback anyway! Feel free to ask the question if something does not make sense.
For controls i have added a small video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Ss_8USem_8ZyI9X5EuRPaOkwKGuPBWZZ
For mechanics the cells grow by Conway Game of Life rules, and once they grow beyond the border they increase your currency counter. You can spend that currency to unlock (terraform) the other game fields (continents), and sow the cells on it. to increase the possible revenu. Also you spend that currency all the time (each 100 turns) to stay alife.
Game goal is to unlock (terraform) all fields (continents). The means to it are in finding best patterns in which to seed the field.
Hope it helps
I don't feel this game. Sometimes I cannot get out of the help menu, no matter what I press. When I am in the game I don't know what to do and the help did not change that really. It all seems like the mechanics should be simple and obvious. I feel that this is probably a game with simple mechanics that combine to a good game. But I did not find that game. Please consider making it easier for people to play your games. A hard or complicated game is fine but all games must be accesible.
I tend to feel a little stupid when I don't get the hang of a game but then I remind myself that it is not my fault. If after really trying to play a game I still cannot do the most basic interactions, then you as the designer must take charge and provide something more, a tutorial, an easy entry stage, maybe introduce mechanics one by one if there are many, something like that.
I will not rate your game because of this, but I hope that my comment is helpful and that I may be able to play a game of yours in the next LDs :-)
@gonutz Thank you for the feedback and the bug report.
I think the bug is when you press F1 in help menu. Exiting from help was meant to bring you back to previous screen, but if it is a help screen itself, it creates a loop, so that going back from help goes back to help. Will fix it in version 1.0.2.
Regarding clarity, yes i think the goal, control and cell growth should have been described better. Just to clarify did you check the video from description? it was aiming to clarify what goes on, but i am not sure it does it.
**by Anonymous, published 7 hours ago** > I’m wearing headphones and the game was exceptionally loud to my ears. Thanks.
Sorry. I had my sound set to 15% all the time so i did not notice.
I will reduce the volume for v 1.0.2. Also added a warning in the beginning.
Oh OK, I did not watch any video beforehand but I might come around to it later this week and I will give your game another try then.
I think you have an excellent concept for a game, but I'm afraid the presentation is just too clunky. Aside from some of the bugs listed above (loud noises, getting stuck on the help menu, abnormally large download size), just trying to memorize all the different keyboard shortcuts was too much for me. I found myself leaving the game every 30 seconds to watch the video tutorial to figure out what the next acceptable input was. I think you really need to simplify your controls or, as a simple fix, extend the screen to always have the controls visible at all times.
The presentation seems a bit too complicated. I like the idea of the game and the retro feel of it!
I had a hard time figuring out what to do. I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to plant stuff and make it grow but I still couldn't. I wasn't sure how to unlock new continents either.
Sorry! I wish I could figure it out.
@logicon211 yes, as discussed above some better tutorial is a must for this game. For now there is a video explaining some control buttons (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Ss_8USem_8ZyI9X5EuRPaOkwKGuPBWZZ). But it might be not enough, as besides pressing the control buttons you need to be in correct state, and if something does not work, there is no much feedback from the game (like a message if you do not have enough cells to plant stuff)
In two words you need to have a field harvested (H). Then you should be able to strat sowing (S). When you start on the top below your currently available currency will be a price of the plan and on the continent the cursor will appear. Coursor can be moved with arrows and Enter key will add/remove a ghost cell on current cursor position. To enact the plan press (S) again. Beware price grows exponentially so you may quickly exceed the limit (to plant 7 cells you will need 24c). After the sowing was successful, ghost cells should become normal and planned price should disappear from the screen. Press (Space) at any time to pause/unpause the game allowing cells to grow. Rules of cell's growth are ones of Conways game of life (which i think i fail to mention anywhere :/ ) so alive cell will die if it has less than 2 or more than 3 neighbours (of 8 possible diagonals included), and dead cell will turn alive if it has exactly 3 neighbours.
Thank you for your attempt and feedback!
I really like this! I think the idea of building a game around Conway's Game of Life and integrating it as a farming mechanic is quite neat. The DF-like controls and interface are somewhat arcane and could understandably ward off new players, but I can totally understand where you're coming from and I think it's in good taste. It reads like unix manual pages in the terminal, haha— Actually this is exactly the kind of game you could write to be totally playable in the terminal. That'd be pretty cool. Also what niterich said about having the controls onscreen all the time kinda resonates, 'cause before I started playing I just cut the controls off of the help menu with snipping tool and positioned them beside my game window, haha.
@jjoeyay Thanks!
I am actually big fan of DF and in general terminal like keyboard controls. So it was actually an inspiration here, but in retrospective, it is probably not the best source of inspiration for controls for a game that should be quickly evaluated :D
Initial prototyping for the game was done with curses, but for effects and sound and all the stuff that makes game more enjoyable i decided to go for pygame.
Simple, but very nice game. Its little bit confusing at start, but i learned it very quickly.
Simple But Great and fun giving game
This game is good !
Definitely overwhelmed at the start, but I took some time to learn what I was doing and I ended up having fun. Good job!
I took a very long time to understand what I should do and once understood I give up the game