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Conway's Currency
Conway's Currency
By klianc09
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 717 | 3.28 | 34 | |
| Fun | 758 | 3.04 | 35 | |
| Innovation | 147 | 3.68 | 35 | |
| Theme | 157 | 3.84 | 35 | |
| Graphics | 727 | 3.24 | 35 | |
| Humor | 498 | 2.90 | 33 | |
| Mood | 796 | 2.98 | 35 | |
Comments
wie
2019-04-30 15:19
It's a very interesting game. I like the colourful graphics, reminds me of old arcade games. The inventory management is a cool idea, but it's a bit unclear, how it works. If i understand correctly, you are supposed to put the coins in your inventory, and every time you move, the coins play conway's game of life? So i'm supposed to make it so, that conway's game of life doesn't delete my coins right? I don't remember the rules of conway's game of life, so all my coins just disappear really fast. Also enemies kill you really fast, and i don't really know how to fight them or dodge their attacks.
I did not understand the game ...
shadow30
2019-04-30 15:21
Cool conecept. But I got really confused in the beginning. But all in all, nice job.
xahell
2019-04-30 15:26
A very well executed rogue-like! By the book, with the addition of the Ludum Dare theme in a very ingenious way.
Congratulations! I hope the Java aspect doesn't prevent you from getting your well deserved ratings.
A bit confusing but looks lovely :)
agurcan
2019-04-30 15:31
Great arcade style graphics however I think the game was a bit difficult to understand because of the unclear instructions at the beginning. Maybe you could include a more detailed explanation in the Ludum Dare description.
I really liked the mix of mechanics between walking and the money changing on your inventory, although I didn't know the rules of Conway's Game of Life, so I was kinda counting on my luck when arranging the coins. Maybe you could show a preview of how the next step would change the coins, so it becomes easier to learn the rules while playing? Also, if someone never heard of the Conway's Game of Life, they will probably get really confused, so maybe you can provide a link to an explanation of the rules? Besides that, the game is very polished and easy to understand. Good job!
ldjsq
2019-04-30 18:16
really good to finally understand how to make money, valuable real life lesson
ldjsq
2019-05-01 12:38
upps I just saw that I already commented and rated this game, but the rating and comment was actually meant for a different game which I can't find anymore to give it its deserved rating.
This game is one of the best I've played so far and I enjoyed it very much. When I got to the final floor and it said the answer is in a different dungeon I had already forgotten for which answer I was searching for... Do I get another final floor when playing it again?
klianc09
2019-05-01 18:19
@ldjsq Congrats for being the first to reach the end, because even I haven't done that, yet. You are searching for the answer to (Conway's Game of) Life, obviously :D The first and last floor is fixed, and only the floors in between are randomly generated. I had some ideas for the final floor, but of course ran out of time to do anything special, I hope you're not disappointed.
rheel
2019-05-01 19:13
Nice idea! It's really hard though, arranging your money so you don't lose it all in a few steps. I haven't come very far, but I liked playing it for a while.
ldjsq
2019-05-01 20:18
@klianc09 not disappointed at all :) yeah it took some times and I think especially in the first levels if you have misfortune with the generation sometimes you cannot win. But it is a really fun game
oroshix
2019-05-02 14:56
Interesting concept, but a bit hard to play.
kirbloid
2019-05-02 15:57
Tough to get into but very ambitious and easy to play (with or without knowing the rules). I really appreciated the tutorial room for the basic gameplay. I could imagine in future iterations that Conway's ruleset could be presented in different ways (like letting the player see how the coins will react on a future turn or something). Great job!
played this game for about an hour! reminds me a little of cave noire, especially the inventory management part, though maybe i'm just a sucker for turn-based dungeon crawlers. i actually love the graphics - i think the oldschool crudeness perfectly fits the genre. and using conway's to tie into the theme was really clever, though the game is essentially over once you learn how op 2x2 coin blocks are. before then, though, i felt like i was making important decisions on almost every floor, which is my favourite aspect of this type of game! other than that small gripe, i think you nailed the balance between risk and reward, and i especially loved the sacrificial potion mechanic.
p.s. the two signs at the end are hilarious.
klianc09
2019-05-03 08:57
@snowdozer Thanks for telling me about cave noire, looks like a neat game and an interesting spin on dungeon crawlers. Yeah, in the end Conway's Game of Life might not be that interesting ruleset for this after all. But maybe if the challenge was tweaked a bit, so that instead of trying to fit far too many coins into a small inventory space, one would get a large (almost) infinite inventory, but not so many coins. Then one would have to find ways to use Conway's Game of Life to their advantage to generate more coins than they initially found, instead of just always building those small stable patterns. But on the other hand, there are known patterns that explode or just generate cells infinitely.
I was a little confused at first, but really I enjoyed the strategy here once I got accustomed to it!
it was a little bit difficult to get the idea of the game but I found the graico very interesting of the game congratulations to those involved.
I made it to the top! The potion was one of my favourite mechanics, taking advantage of large clusters that appeared.
gentel
2019-05-06 23:25
I like the bringing in of smart concepts like the Game of Life. The dungeon crawler aspect of the game was itself well done and a good challenge. The art and general mood of it all worked well. With a bit more tutorial I think there could be a lot more potential unlocked with regard to the strategies. The main thing I got strategically was turning coins into a ton of hearts with the potion which was a lot of fun figuring out and also very effective.
Ultimately despite being familiar with the Game of Life and looking up the patterns I still got confused unfortunately. Like a 2x2 is supposed to be a still life but for some reason stuff would still change when I expected it not to and it really felt more like I just lost items randomly.
The game is very interesting in concept, but really difficult to play. I think it's the huge amount of things to take in all at once.
After I got used to the rules, it was fun to keep going! Now sure there's an ending proper. Would be nice if there was after a certain amount of levels. I made it to Floor 14 before closing.
Maybe better teaching moments in game would help a lot. Also giving the other items gravity wasn't very helpful, tbh. I love the concept of health as an inventory item. I think that worked toward the theme extremely well (Alongside with Conway's Game of Coin!)
hunter-x
2019-05-08 11:49
I like the concept - having to carefully consider where to place your items in your inventory isn't something I've seen in many games before. I did find that I rarely had enough coins to use the potions or buy from the shop, but this might just be due to me placing them badly, and there seemed to be a lot of enemies on each floor relative to the amount of health I had available. The graphics are simple but well-made, and presented a nice consistent theme to the game. Good work!
A really cool idea! I think a lot of programmer's will appreciate the reference to conway's cellular automata. The UI was also really nice, it kind of game me an undertale vibe. A couple things though, I couldn't figure out how to attack, and I couldn't figure out how the coins interacted with themselves and other items. Also the lack of music made the game feel kind of, stale? I'm not sure, the colors were nice, there just wasn't a ton of energy. Other than those things, this is a pretty cool game, good job!
Excellent use of the theme. Got me thinking a couple steps ahead...can I turn this stable pattern into this other stable pattern? Can I find another shop that will sell an item for 1 coin so I can keep these 2x2 blocks in the corners? etc. etc. Well done!