mizatorian 2021-04-26 00:56
A nice automation game. Buses broke down super frequently though. Need a way to zoom in, else, i got this mess happen :)Clipboard01.jpg
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Bus Crawl
By valid
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 464 | 3.43 | 68 | |
| Fun | 528 | 3.22 | 68 | |
| Innovation | 311 | 3.46 | 68 | |
| Theme | 873 | 2.26 | 67 | |
| Graphics | 628 | 3.12 | 68 | |
| Humor | 558 | 2.13 | 60 | |
| Mood | 679 | 2.84 | 66 |
A nice automation game. Buses broke down super frequently though. Need a way to zoom in, else, i got this mess happen :)Clipboard01.jpg
Very impressive technical achievement. Would have liked for the mechanics to be more focused on the theme. As a sandbox, a good strategy is to start in the deepest part of the city center. Maybe if you were forced to start at the edge, and build inward.
The wrench icon needs to be a little more visible, you have to pay hard attention if you wanna notice them popping up. And I agree with @mizatorian, a zooming feature would help.
I really like the concept of this little game! I'm not sure what this game had to do with the theme though. Just because your intro said "deeper and deeper" doesn't make it so. :) :clap:
Love the game zoom i n would be nice and a repair all button
I played this for too long... wtf.JPG
my-grid.jpg I played way past when I got bored. I wanted to make a million dollars but everything slowed to a halt around when I got to bus upgrades of $28K. Usually I really enjoy this sort of game. The problem is this one has no strategic tension. Every action feels pointless. I wish there was more of a cost to my actions, and something to get me thinking on what I should do next. The visual itself was great, and it was fun seeing the buses path. Thank you for the game.
Edit - btw I do love MiniMetro!
Buses break down very quickly, it was possible to make sure that with each upgrade the time before their breakdown increased, but everything is fine
@ubershmekel thank you for this! I really agree about the strategic tension and enjoy that word(s) for it. Love the picture.
You made this in 48 hours....? This is incredible! I doubt I could ever do something as complicated as this in a mere 48 hours.... (my Compo game is nothing in comparison to this and I barely made the game in 48 hours of pure stress)
So yeah, this is
- Original - Amazingly complicated for a Compo game - Has nice minimalist graphics - Very easy but not boring gameplay
Also, I like making the longest roads in the game. 😄 Here's my first interstate-level road:
Screenshot 2021-04-26 010642.png
@rhoff95 starting from the edge and working inwards would have been a great idea and application to the theme... xD Thanks for playing!
@peace-of-cake-games i love the pic. Making the algorithm put in work hah!
Really cool idea and the the system is well executed, only the wrench could be easier to spot. Also the graphics are spot on for something like google maps. However I agree there was no decision making, I would love to see some coverage mechanic where you are rewarded for each house that has access to a bus stop within some radius or even one step further weight the distance to a bus stop for each house to determine income.
Thanks for those ideas @listonos , they would make the game much more dynamic and rewarding. If I were to expand this I would definitely steal that :)
I love this MiniMetro inspired Game <3
Can't believe how long I played it! It's super cool and really fun. Though I think I really need a Repair All button. :D
The simplified art is so cool and I think you build an amazing prototyp here on which you could build upon. ALSO! I love seeing things explained in the game. You did a great job, guiding the player throug the firts obstacles like routes and broken busses... :heart:
What a game! This is right up there with mini metro. Beautiful and inspiring. The only thing i think it lacks on a bit is the focus on the theme.
Incredible performance! Only bad point, the buses broke down very often. Really good game tough !
Really technically impressive for the time limit! It's a shame you couldn't add sound effects because that would really give some extra oomph. Overall though still a lot of fun to see my bus money tick in.
I like this type of game a lot, but I think that an important mechanic that was missing was the people. MiniMetro kind of got this right, but it was a bit backward.
For 48hrs, though, amazing job!
I love games like this! I think a bit more tweaking on the mechanics and you'd have something really solid! A better way to know how your bus lines are expanding vs when you are adding new ones would be great.
I have a lot of busses on the same route. 10/10 had my attention trying to absolutely break it by adding loads on the same line.
Technically impressive, Nice and performant and a clean look. Good job.
Really interesting idea, the bus routing was well done. I like the idle gaming approach to a very cool mechanic. I would've liked a way to upgrade the buses so they break down less and maybe adding a recurring fee structure so it makes it harder to become Jeff Bezos. Really fun game!
Amazing that you could do this in only 48h! I would have liked to see a way to lose, for instance repairing the bus could cost money, so if you don't keep enough money, you can go bankrupt. But yet, it's a very nice achievement!!! Well done!!!
It's a simple and effective transit sim. The expanding deeper into the city mechanic worked really well and kept me hooked. Were you inspired by the buses in my city with how frequently they broke down? Towards the end game you spend most your time just fixing buses. If they broke down less frequently as you upgraded them that would've made this game perfect. Other than that I really enjoyed it.
Nice game. But why buses go broken so often?
Cool sandbox. Starting with four buses, attempts to quickly fix buses led to the creation of new ones. Recursion)) too-many-buses.png
This was really fun, especially trying to learn how to plan the routes to be as cheap as possible while providing most value. It'd be cool to see you develop this further.
A nice refreshing and relaxing game. Bonus points for explaining the technical specifics. Always interesting to see what's "under the hood". :) Solid submission!
This was really fun to play, and creating your own routes is so enjoyable!
This is a nice game and a unique idea. Well done!
I enjoyed this game, right up there with Mini Metro. A lot of people here are complaining that the buses break down frequently, clearly they are not public transit users ;) You already joked about audio but yeah, that would definitely take this to the next level. (I recommend ChipTone for sfx, Abundant for music - you don't need any musical or audio-engineering talent). Great job on your entry!
@shawn-moore thank you for the audio recommendations, I will definitely look into those!
Nice unique game. I like the original gameplay and simple graphics.
Weirdly addictive even though it's so simple! Enjoyable as it speeds up and satisfying to see all the buses speeding around the island. Great work, I like this one a lot
I enjoyed playing this! The graphics, while simple, were internally consistent, effective, and charming.
My critique: clicking the wrench to repair the buses felt a little bit finicky. Intuitively, I wanted to click the bus to perform the repair instead of the wrench. Expanding the clickbox to encompass both the wrench and the bus would feel much better. Making the waymarkers and buses expand slightly when you mouse over them would also make a world of difference. It would be nice if the bus made money on both ends of the route (even if you halve the amount of money made) for consistency, and so that it's a little easier to evaluate the value of the route. A small animation when the bus makes money might be nice.
I think you've got a really good base to keep building on, and I very much enjoyed what I played. This is well-done.
A, I do love me some graph algorithms. And it felt a bit like a cookie clicker, with more consideration on selecting routes.
You should really consider expanding this, maybe with something like flows to model residential and business areas and requested routes. Or you could allow for the expansion of routes, etc.
A solid submission.
Amazing withing a 48h compo, well done!
Gameplay wise bit boring though
Played this for a bit on stream. Simple mechanics and not much to do in its current state besides build new routes to get money to build new routes etc. I had fun with it, though! Nice, small relaxing game.
Spammed a lot of buses on one short route. Kept making more money than I could spend. Ended up repairing buses ALL THE TIME. Nice :D
This was fun. My second bus was a mis-click that resulted in a super short route. I was fun checking on how fast that little bus would fly after each upgrade. Very impressive simulation. If you add to this, you might consider a way to cancel a new route after one waypoint selected. You might have an optional bonus pop up from time to time, connect this stop to that stop in a limited time. New factory needs bus for workers. Thanks for making this game.
This is overall a good and interesting compo jam game. Even tough I really liked playing it, I also wished there was a way too lose the game.
Hey, nice to see a fellow Phaser developer (I didn't used Phaser for this Jam but I use it regularly). This game immediately catch my attention as I'm a big fan of tycoon games and public transportation.
I really liked the map view, it's all we need for a game like this ! The gameplay mechanics are simple and is nearly a clicker, I guess you had plenty of ideas you didn't had time to implement because the core development has been probably long to develop !
Tips for the next Ludum, I found that making a main menu, even a quick one (one color screen, the game title and a button to play) is cheap to do and enhance the player experience as you don't feel like catapulted in the game.
Congratulations for your entry !
I uploaded our gameplay of your game on youtube, you can find it here:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.be/watch?v=hhHv4dLfMoE&t=391s
Part 2: https://www.youtube.be/watch?v=KLwrzc7DkDo&t=0s
(Sorry we lost internet in the middle of your game)
Thanks for being part of the stream, yesterday was amazing! :smile:
This is a very relaxing and cute game, the balance is a bit off as it's too easy to make sooo much money but that's easy to fix. Very good entry!
Capture.PNG
Not sure if that's a bug, but busses never took this path (red circle on screenshot)
Also not sure why would anybody want to take :bus: , which will mostly likely break during trip :smiley:, but it was actually good addition to game and pretty realistic from my experience :sweat_smile:
@exewin good catch, its actually because i forgot to add an on-ramp that was close to those neighborhoods :( If you look at the graph in the description you can see that going through there would be such a long path as it would have to go all the way to the left to get onto the freeway. Oh well, live and ya learn! Thanks for playing.
It's a neat concept that is super promising but as many have said there are some tweakings to do.
* the roadway network seems off and the buses takes sometimes strange roads. There should be some road hiearchy ( arterial, collector, local roads ) You have a lot of cul-de-sac right now, and express buses that link area are using local road instead of going on the highway. Balancing maps that are challenging and realistic will be a road for development of the game in the future.
Some ideas I'd extend this game
* multistop bus lane
* Some kind of mechanism of limiting the number of bus lane on a specific edge could creates game mechanic when competing against an AI ( like taking the bridges as crucial choke points )
* different kind of lane, local bus loop with multiple stop. Or express buses from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
Great game played more than I should have, maybe more variety in the types of repairs, and traffic as well maybe. (Repair all will be like cheating no? But maybe you could make a repair truck class that go and repair the buses)
Great game for a jam. I really enjoyed plaing it. There are some features in my mind, that would make the game better, but I know that the time restraints of a game jam don't allow everything you wnat to include. I think I did find 2 bug though. every time I build a new bus route it deducts $200 from my balance. I need to have enough cahs to reach the points further away, but then it still only costs 200. And I never managed to make any bus use the northern bridge. The always go way around and use the bridge on the south. But that didn't make me enjoy the game any less
How do you place more than two stops for a route?