Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Hextayin' Alive
By le-slo, kl0z, Canijo, alareo, manuxbl, PijusMagnificus, derean, Iwitha and sregea
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 779 | 3.67 | 50 | |
| Fun | 1087 | 3.38 | 50 | |
| Innovation | 273 | 3.83 | 50 | |
| Theme | 310 | 4.11 | 49 | |
| Graphics | 921 | 3.83 | 50 | |
| Audio | 401 | 3.76 | 48 | |
| Mood | 509 | 3.78 | 48 |
Great game, it feels extremely polished and cohesive. The blend of randomness and strategy kept things engaging, and the best score I got was 153. As for suggestions, I think it would be nice to offer a small incentive for placing resources, as I had a couple of runs where I placed the walls I wanted early on and then more or less just waited for things to play out.
there needs to be more introduction I think. You can add some small tutorialish episodes so that one can get the sense of the game before full world. Beside that, the idea and the mix is good
Quite an interesting concept for a strategy game - an almost endless game, just like Life. I absolutely love everything about it. My only possible qualm is that being dropped into the full scale conflict is somewhat daunting at first - but that doesn't detract from what this is.
The inspiration is obvious, but still minor, the originality of this project is great. Rest in piece Mr. Conway - may your Game of Life inspire many more of us, for much longer than you have.
Nice game. Needed a bit of time to get hang of it and many trips to info page to check what did all those different colors present. But overall this was moody experiment to mess around with!
As mentioned above. It would be great to have some more introduction, for a while I was stuck and did not know what to do other than place things randomly also the text font did not help as I had problems to read it. But in the end it was joyfull play and nice entry :)
I really liked this. It's a nice twist on game of life and definitely turns it into something that feels like a game. Step-wise real-time strategy is a concept I haven't seen before, and took a little getting used to. This feels like a game that could have quite a lot of depth to it, even with simple rules, which is a really hard thing to achieve. Nice work! Would be interested to see something with different goals to aim for (rather than just maintaining balance) and perhaps different scenarios, which could allow players to get a lot of mileage out of the same simple set of core rules.
This game is very polished, everything is animated and just works well. Although I think there should be a way to see well when people are cured by the hospital, or else u cant really see if its working or not I never thought you could turn conway's game of like into an actual "Game". Thank you!
I played the HTML version of your game. There's lots to like. It is very polished, the graphics and soundtrack are both very good. I was a bit puzzled about the objective being to "maintain a balance" between humans and the virus. I played the game twice and both times ended with running out of viruses, as if it were bad. Seems to me that should be the objective. Otherwise, if the objective is ton "maintain a balance" then a successful play through would be never ending?... Or perhaps I am missing the point? But overall, I was hugely impressed. Hope you'll find this useful and will play and rate our game.
Very interesting concept and well polished one. What I missed a bit was some info about the particle I am placing directly inside the game (not just in info). So I wasn't sure what I am doing before I read the info. The sound works well with the visuals and the concept. Great job!
I saw that everyone wrote about more instructions and I agree. It was nice to plan everything and see how viruses and people move on the board. I also liked the music, it was relaxing and it fits the futuristic visuals.
Hard to understand what I am doing right/ wrong, but a cool sequel to a classic game.
Gameplay is a bit chaotic, but that's just what you were going for I think. Pretty fun to play around with, feels nice to play. It's highly polished. Great work, over all.
However, I'd love to see this playable with a smaller grid. I think I'd be able to build up experience more easily if the state space wasn't so huge right off the bat. Easier to wall off, hospitals and infectors would have a greater effect (due to a smaller populace) - it'd just be a bit easier to get a handle on.
I think there's a middleground between being so small it introduces a stable configuration and so large it overwhelms the player. :)
Hard to grasp what's going on at first but after a while I started enjoying myself despite not really understanding the rules.
It's very meditative but very hard to understand what to do, Like it)
Thank you all! We really appreciate your comments, as they'll help us to improve our future designs.
Almost all of you agree on the need of more explanation at the start of the game. That's right, we would have liked to add some kind of tutorial, but we run out of time. We mistakenly thought that getting the hang of the rules by trial-and-error would be easier. Maybe the simplicity of the gameplay confused us. :shrug_tone4:
@pie75 Yeah, to make an endless game was an early decision as soon as we knowed the theme (keep -the game- alive). I'm glad you like it and you find it original!
Also to @supercool-guy: yes, you get the point! Maintaining balance leads to an endless game. In regards to running out of viruses, in our hexagonal world they are the only way of increasing death rate. They are needed to avoid an exponential growth of the population that would end any free space in the world. Maybe an idea a little bit Malthusian ^^U but we liked the concept of a game about the balance of an ecosystem.
@hgcummings Thanks! We agree that a lot of depth is hidden under simple mechanics. I am especially proud of this achieve. And yes, the game would definitely have benefited from having different scenarios and configurations. :wink:
@the-jahn Using a smaller grid was an idea we thought about. I think it would lead to a more strategic and less arcade-wise game. We'll experiment.
Thank you again! And continue playing. :smile: We'll love to know about your experiences with the game.
I agree with everyone else in that the game is _super_ daunting at first, but once I played a few times I had a much better understanding of how things worked. I'm not one for strategy games, so I couldn't get that far in, but I found the concept really interesting and the presentation was really well done. I'd be interested to see an idea like this expanded into a longer form game. Good work! Rest in peace, John Conway.
I struggled to understand this game but I had fun watching the chaos insue. Nice work!
I really like this game. I would play a lot more of it but The feedback seems a little weird. When I lose I can still see some of what it says I don't have. Like I can still see I have people/viruses but the game still ends.
really neat game! Graphics, audio, and mood are on point. I replayed it a lot trying to figure out exactly what was going on, but unfortunately left a little confused still. I think a little more introduction would be awesome for this - because I was still unsure of what I should be doing after a few playthroughs. With a few minor tweaks to learning the mechanics, this would be that much better.
Great work!
Took a few rounds to understand the underlying strategy, but a fun experience nonetheless. The main menu looked really good! Perhaps a few scripted tutorial stages would help in the endless mode :) I didn't encounter any bugs, sound effects were clear and gave the game a good polished feel to it.
Really cool game. All elements are consistent between them. I took some time to understand why if I put something here or there, different things happen, even if I read instructions. Great job btw!
Clever but difficult game! Very original! Maybe needs some tutorial as others have said but other than that, well done!
The game looks great, plays great, and sounds great. It's really fun once you get the hang of it, but I think there needs to be more of an introduction. Nice job!
Game is well rounded. UI design is great. Couldn't seem to get a grasp of the game so did get very far, but the idea is good and game is packed with plenty of mechanics for the time frame. Very impressive game.
Seventh GOL inspired game on LD46 I have seen, mine included. Interesting, but too confusing. I think it weould work better turn based.
Really nice polish and atmosphere. I just couldn't figure out what the different hexes meant and what to do. e.g. the instructions say resources are at the top right -- did you mean the top left?
Otherwise, nice entry!
Really interesting game with unique concept, though I couldn't figure out what to do. Maybe the game is too complex for me personally for nevertheless great work!
With so many things going on I'd like a pause/slowdown button :sweat_drops:
Fantastic! Really clever mechanics once you figure out how it work.
UI was great! The music/audio did a great job of setting a mood.