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ecoBunker
ecoBunker
By interpixel
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 1905 | 3.19 | 23 | |
| Fun | 2360 | 2.57 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 359 | 3.76 | 23 | |
| Theme | 647 | 3.92 | 23 | |
| Audio | | 3.00 | 4 | |
| Humor | 1953 | 2.00 | 21 | |
| Mood | 2163 | 2.71 | 23 | |
Comments
zondarg
2020-04-23 18:27
Nice graphics and interesting concept. A little tutorial would be nice, in game. (because.. I clicked some gradd or other species. and numbers went up and down mostly and then it was suddenly game over ("Restart"). So its hard to really capture what is going on. :slight_smile: A bit of sound or background music would be nice too. Otherwise.. very good job, especially for the first entry! :thumbsup:
(btw: to get more ratings yourself it is required to play and rate others games and give feedback, then your game will appear higher in the list. And gets more ratings back. Was a bit hard to find in the zero-votes section. :wink:)
@zondarg thanks so much for taking the time to review my submission! yes i scheduled in some time to play through the other entries yesterday but life got in the way.
i agree about the tutorial, i had a friend play through and she was also a bit confused about why certain ecological collapses occurred also (actually this part is based on real life, as the keystone species are often unexpected and removing them can cause rapid and serious ecosystem collapses). The ultimate answer is that every species population, traits and connections to other members effect the energy balance in sometimes unexpected ways. I quickly tried to leave little hints in the analysis section for each sub-species, but probably the game runs too fast to read it before you have to take action :P if i develop the game further in the future i will be sure to take your feedback on board.
The game looks very good. After failing a few tries I read up on the descriptions and tried again, this time the numbers went up and held out a little longer. Definitely not an easy game at first :)
nsadie
2020-04-24 07:01
I really like the idea, but struggled a bit with how to play, a tutorial or even explanation on your itch page would help. Nice job on a first game and entry, though! Keep on working on it and really try to polish it!
@nsadie thanks for taking the time to comment, I have added instructions to the page. I wanted to add tool tips and other things to the game but carpal tunnel slowed me down too much :P programming is slow with only 3/10 fingers usable so this was a real challenge to complete on time, especially as my first game.
reheated
2020-04-24 07:33
Overall: A cool idea and well presented. In my experience, a cheesy strategy outperforms trying to be clever; this detracts from the gameplay depth.
Fun: I tried to treat this as a strategy game, reading the descriptions, and all the variants for the bonuses, working out a strategy and then put it into play. The problem I had is that things happen so quickly that I didn't really have the time to observe the situation and react to it. In the end I found a single sure-fire strategy: Repopulate all the species as fast as I can click. (No variants required. I started with trees and moved clockwise.) I think that this game could provide a lot of entertainment value if (i) things are slowed down to give the player some time to observe and react; (ii) the mechanics are balanced to add strategic depth, i.e., prevent cheesy strategies like mine.
Innovation: Yes! I think the gameplay mechanic is original and clever. I especially like the effort to describe the real contributions of different components of the ecosystem and convert those into gameplay mechanics.
Theme: Yes
Audio: N/A?
Humor: I enjoyed the occasional light-hearted diversion in the text descriptions.
Mood: Professionally presented with a good UI and appropriate images, but since it's a menu-based game I don't find it particularly "moody" - maybe some music would add to this?
@reheated great feedback, will implement it when the judging is over. Didn't realise that you could do that but it's a simple fix i just halve the relative free energy you get at the start so you can't just rely on the starter soil to power your whole ecology to victory. Will probably update the game on itch with everyone's feedback after the judging is over.
raomer
2020-04-25 09:22
Hey, nice little game! The idea ist cool. Its just a little too fast to read and think about the best strategy to repopule the earth. I managed on the second attemp by introducing new species as fast as possible so the bees could help spreed gras and tress and add other elements and variations. This is a cool start for a bigger game i think, keep it going :)
@raomer thanks for the feedback, I was afraid that if it went to slowly it would diminish the challenge too much but at first it probably is a bit fast. It is possible to read all of the species information before clicking start so that you do not have to read the descriptions while trying to use the species creator at the same time. I have added this to the instructions.
vesper
2020-04-25 11:18
I appreciated the core idea of the game, but ultimately felt like I was just randomly clicking different species/qualities as fast as possible to stop that rising red text. Would be nice from the players perspective if it felt a little more skill based. I think being able to pause the countdown while looking into the various actions would make a difference. As it stands right now everything progresses so quickly that you can't really "plan" a course of action on the fly, which seems like a shame.
But all that said, I thought the way you implemented the idea was refreshing, and everything was extremely well presented. Though an audio aspect would definitely help to improve the overall feel. Nice work!
nnnikki
2020-04-25 11:44
You have a very good starting base, but unless you give the player some real insight on how the system works and what all the buttons do, they will not understand anything (like me), they'll try random things and be frustrated. If you have a complicated game, then teach the player how to play it.
Cool concept, I like the idea of balancing different species to keep each other alive. The UI is well-done, it looks nice. That being said, I don't really get why I lost every time I did. Some better messaging or warnings would be a big help.
@thebreakfast i feel your pain, i programmed the simulation and was surprised myself at the outcomes at times, but it's the nature of the energy flow being multi-variate, so sometimes a species that was slowly flagging undermines it's niche and that causes a cascading effect on the rest of the food web. for example the herbivore may be too stationary, or the omnivore not employing it's root vegetable finding behaviour and this can lead to a rapid depopulation of grass at the bottom and since that is your primary producer it is usually the thing you most need to take care of. Usually though the population numbers will turn red when a species is in trouble and you will have to quickly modify or revive a species to assist it.
kate90
2020-04-25 18:40
Hi, I cant understand what I'm doing in the game and why I'm losing. Please, make a better tutorial.
@kate90 i have added a 6th step to the instructions on this page to highlight the most common source of failure. allowing your grass to suffer early in the game. It is critical to observe how each species affects the overall system but grass is the most critical since it produces energy from sunlight and healthy soil for the rest of the web.
"Your ecosystem will not succeed if your primary producer (grass) goes extinct, so for your first play through, focus on keeping your grass alive and on the species variants that benefit it and do not negatively affect it early in the game. There are many ways to accomplish success but some are easier than others. "
Great game. I like the clean graphics and user interface. It was fun tinkering with which species to spawn first to get the ecosystem going. This kind of game can leave me glued to it for quite a long time, just watching the number go up and down. Good job! We also made a game about an ecosystem for this jam if you want to check it out.
For anyone else who is totally confused on how to play:
Click a species(besides grass) -> click the 'Repopulate Species' button
If you did things correctly(and they didn't instantly die), you'll see a line between species.
The little recycle icon buttons are species traits. You can change the active one to help other struggling species survive.
It took me a while to figure this out, but once I did I was able to win. It's a neat mechanic, but this game really needs some work on the UI/UX. Slowing down the populate/depopulate mechanic would help. I would also suggest an up or down arrow next to each species to indicate its current state. Instead of having the restart button appear as soon as the grass turns red, it may work better as a permanent fixture set aside in a corner of the screen. The grass turning red seems to be a natural progression of the game, so it may cause alarm for people to see that restart button so soon.
To the creator: Don't be discouraged. The actual game mechanics are good for a first LD. They have more depth to them than most games on here. And while confusing, the overall aesthetics are pleasant too. Treat the average player like a senior citizen who has never played a video game before. If there's a way to play your game wrong, they will find it. Big words are confusing and images are better communicators than text. If you can recruit multiple people to test your game before the jam ends, that could help tremendously. Also tell them to be honest even if it seems harsh. Nice job and good luck with future games!
red-ash
2020-04-29 16:16
Nice job for your first jam ! It's an interesting mechanics, its not easy to figure it but once i got it it was quite fun. I would have appreciated a bit of audio but again, this is impressive for your first jam, well done.
As appears to be the trend, I had trouble understanding what exactly to do. In particular, it seemed like elements that should have contributed to soil quality according to their description ultimately didn't actually help, and I wasn't able to find a combination of species that didn't result in soil quality going down constantly.
I nonetheless was able to win, but it didn't really feel like I actually understood why.
If this game is trying to communicate accurate facts about ecosystems, then that is super cool--but right now it isn't doing a super good job of actually teaching me anything. I think the game needs to make the consequences of your actions clear and traceable, even if they are somehow unexpected. You could even have little text blurbs describing the kinds of ecosystem collapse that happen, so like, if all your herbivores die out for some weird reason, have a text box explaining the chain of events that cause that. I think that would be super neat, and potentially very eye-opening.
Overall I actually have pretty positive feelings about the game. It's presented in a really nice and organized way, and all the graphics are clean. I think it just needs some adjustments to make the systems that it simulates more approachable to the player.