FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD49 → Dominion

Dominion

By shootboots

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2023.6266
Fun2193.5067
Innovation1223.7668
Theme4472.9368
Graphics2143.6067
Audio2563.1665
Humor1663.0963

Comments

jellybean 2021-10-03 23:34

this was rad, the rushes are my favourite part, or making my cells huge. is there a way to reduce a cells size if it's too big to get through the gap? I had to wait for the green cells to rush because I fucked up

doc-kaos 2021-10-03 23:35

I'm not sure if the "Start" button works after you hit "Restart". I'm glad you included a description of the buttons on the page, took a bit to figure them out. Saw your note about not having time for a tutorial, so true :smile: Thanks for sharing!

thehansinator 2021-10-03 23:46

Cute little game! I'm liking the RTS-lite vibes I'm getting, and the drawings and audio are quite pleasant and do their job well.

Question: am I supposed to be able to pan the camera? I noticed that you had a screenshot of the center of the battlefield, but when I was playing in the Web version, clicking on the map or pressing any of the keys didn't do anything to show me past my base. The buttons were also in front of some of my cells, so I wasn't able to click on those cells.

ixchow 2021-10-03 23:46

Very nice polish overall -- consistent graphics; AI to play against; sound effects, etc. Took a bit of experimentation to understand the ability buttons (I didn't scroll down on the itch page until after playing.. oops).

shootboots 2021-10-03 23:52

@doc-kaos Yeah sorry i didnt have enough time to check over everything. Ill definitely fix it in the near future

shootboots 2021-10-03 23:53

@thehansinator Yes you are able to move the camera by pressing the scrollwheel button on your mouse and moving it. I forgot to add it on the itch page, thats my bad but ive added it now.

shootboots 2021-10-03 23:53

@jellybean thanks for the support!

shootboots 2021-10-03 23:54

@ixchow thanks for the feedback, if i had more time i would have added little pop up descriptions of each button, but of course there wasnt time :)

smilewood 2021-10-04 00:11

Awesome concept, great execution. I found this game really fun to play once I had a strategy down. With just a bit of polish I could see this being a game that I at least would play a lot. I really like the physics of the blobs, getting them all to throw themselves at the enemy was quite cool. The AI opponent was fun to play against, it surprised me the first time a wave of green came at me! Some of the interaction with the buttons seemed a bit unreliable, I was not clear when I would have to click again on an action button to use it again, and sometimes when no button was lit up it would use the last one that I had used. Overall a really well done jam game!

shootboots 2021-10-04 00:39

@smilewood thanks for the feedback! I discovered most of the bugs you said and honestly could not fix them without the risk of breaking the entire game. Will definitely look into once the jam is finished! :)

kora0h 2021-10-04 01:48

Really fun to play, very nice. 2.png

untitled-studios 2021-10-04 01:57

Immensely creative and super fun. I feel like this is one of those jam games that would work better as a full game than as a small demo, though.

shootboots 2021-10-04 01:59

@untitled-studios thanks you so much!

shootboots 2021-10-04 01:59

@kora0h haha nice cell you got there!

ethanzech 2021-10-04 02:23

Pretty cool, seems that the best strategy is to make a big cell and launch it at the enemy. You executed your idea very well.

knipsch 2021-10-04 02:26

Really satisfying to play. Once I figured out what to do, it was super neat to do sandbox-y simulation stuff. The aesthetic was great, too! Simple but very clean and cohesive. Nicely done overall!

etrealjunior 2021-10-04 02:46

Congratulations for the game, I really liked the art, I spent a lot of time playing, the only thing that bothered me was starting to get very slow, otherwise it's super cool, I appreciate if you can give your feedback on my game too, a big hug!

shootboots 2021-10-04 02:47

@ethanzech yeah i guess that works as well. personally i would simply create a load of default cells using the first ability and then bomb rushing green with the last ability. Greens growth is really unstable at the beginning so it could grow really fast then immediately fall yk

shootboots 2021-10-04 02:47

@knipsch thats great! Means i achieved what i wanted to anyway!

shootboots 2021-10-04 02:49

@etrealjunior yeah i realised that after the total cell count exceeded 1000 things got really slow. It used to be that even 200 cells were too much and ive tried to optimise the scripts as much as possible

corbeng 2021-10-04 03:24

Neat idea! Feels like a side-scroller RTS. Didn't immediately get that the buttons at the bottom had a cost, or what they did, but once I figured them all out, I flipped the tides of the battle and beat the greens! Nice work :)

shootboots 2021-10-04 03:57

@corbeng nice hahha! Yeah i said the same thing on the itch page but yeah i couldnt really put a tutorial or anything because of the time restraints

3lstmsinatrenchcoat 2021-10-04 04:43

The web version doesn't render properly for me (Firefox on Linux), unfortunately. I see some UI/HUD elements, but most of the screen is just black.

shootboots 2021-10-04 04:45

@3lstmsinatrenchcoat oof im so sorry to hear that. I had only ported the game to Windows and WEbGL. Theres an additional download link at the bottom of the itch.io page for windows. can you check if that works?

3lstmsinatrenchcoat 2021-10-04 05:05

I get the same problem (screen is mostly black) when trying to run the Windows version with Wine. Must be a linux problem, not a Firefox problem. Oh well.

shootboots 2021-10-04 05:17

@3LSTMsInATrenchcoat im so so sorry to hear that. Ill port a version to linux straightaway. Unfortunately i cannot test it but lets hope for the best :)

shootboots 2021-10-04 05:25

@3LSTMsInATrenchcoat ive ported it to linux and at the bottom of the itch page there should be another file for linux. However i need to stress i could not test it and so i dont know if it works. Sorry for the trouble, but i think i should work now :)

3lstmsinatrenchcoat 2021-10-04 05:51

The linux build works!

It's a neat game. What's not to love about throwing a bunch of slime balls at a bunch of enemy slime balls? Very satisfying.

shootboots 2021-10-04 05:54

@3LSTMsInATrenchcoat so glad that it works and you like it!

maggardjosh 2021-10-04 06:21

Hey this was awesome! Had a lot of fun just messing with the different abilities and amassing a huge army. Nice entry!

shootboots 2021-10-04 06:23

@maggardjosh so glad to hear it!

theviraldragon 2021-10-04 06:51

Should've used corona virus for the green cells :D

shootboots 2021-10-04 06:56

@theviraldragon i know right? Honestly I even tried added a 3rd type of cell which was yellow and had the covid spikes things on it, but the scripts kept on breaking so I had to take it off unfortunately :(. You can still find the broken script in the github repository though

mausimus 2021-10-04 08:17

Ok I won my first match but I have no idea how or why! This is very trippy, I love the fact you implemented an AI as that's a rarity on Ludum Dares. Very innovative concept, a mix of Worms, Scorched Earth and something new ... something organic. If dumbed down a bit this could easily be a hit mobile game.

paperaeroplane555 2021-10-04 08:38

i really love the mechanics and the idea! although it was pretty easy and hard to mess up so there wasn't really a lot of strategy as there could have been. its super fun to increase the size and gather your army to rush forwards. overall really fun idea and great execution! the sfx is also really good

listonos 2021-10-04 08:38

This was a lot of fun! It took me a while to figure out middle mouse is panning map and it made much more sense afterwards :smile: Make one cell big and then rush seems to be the strategy to go for. I would be really curious how does this play in PvP scenario. Really cool game, nice looking and overall very enjoyable.

thegreenworm 2021-10-04 08:43

Cool game, but I would have liked better feedback on what buttons and different UI elements do, I was a bit confused at first. The art is really cute :)

cinar 2021-10-04 09:06

Really cool game for a ludumdare entry. Good job! If I should say something constructive. Maybe it can be more fast paced. But well done.

shootboots 2021-10-04 09:10

Thank you all for your amazing feedback!! @mausimus THank you so much for your feedback. I am considering launching it as a mobile game after all this jam business is finished but ive never done a mobile game before. Will definitely look into it! @paperaeroplane555 yeah i agree during the production I spent soo much time on balancing the AI, an incredibly small change such as an additional 1 second of lifetime GREATLY impacted the difficulty, and i mean GREATLY. At this difficulty its not TOO bad, but yeah more seasoned players can easily destroy the AI. My best was like 30 seconds i think haha

@listonos yeah someone mentioned that mouse thing above and ive since added a note in the itch.io page description about the panning :).

@thegreenworm i totally agree with you on this point. At the beginning I barely made the whole system work with all the button disabling and enabling etc. I would definitely fix this if I add extra time but I afraid if i tinker with the code too much i'll end up breaking the whole game xD

shootboots 2021-10-04 09:11

@cinar too too true. I definitely should add like a difficulty option honestly

owca 2021-10-04 09:22

Fun game :smiley:

Maybe you could copy the description from itch.io page here to LD page. Like some other people I also didn't scroll down to the bottom and at first I was frustrated a bit about the controls and abilities.

wuppos 2021-10-04 10:19

Really cool and unique game! At first I struggled a bit with the controls. It was especially not very clear to me that you had to press on the cells to make them do things. Perhaps it would help if they light up if you hold your mouse over then? Or some other feedback? To give the impression that they can be interacted with. But, once I understood the controls everything was very self-explanatory! With a bit of experimentation it became clear :) It was a lot of fun! At first I felt like i was losing, because there were so many green cells. But in the end I managed to win :D This bar up top that gave the amount of cells was really nice and added a lot of tension to the game. I enjoyed this a lot! Thanks for making it :)

dobryn 2021-10-04 10:24

It was fun to play. The best part I think is how efficient the AI appears to be. Very optimised.

slimmerburger 2021-10-04 10:29

It's such a unique idea, I haven't seen anything like it in the jam yet. Really fun take on the theme

zimny11 2021-10-04 15:09

Really well executed idea. It was fun to try it out. Great job!

teddyincdev 2021-10-04 15:10

I was having Fun breeding my creatures When I looked Right. I didnt know I was in the middle of a War!.

bewelge 2021-10-04 15:12

This is a really great concept. Could definitely see a full game built around it!

dekajoo 2021-10-04 17:28

Great job. I really enjoyed playing.

The buttons where a bit unclear at first but playing with them you quickly understand what they do. I still wonder what is the optimal strategy 🤔

mogaiskii 2021-10-04 17:40

cool meditative game! is camera movable somehow? i couldn't figure it out.

wamien 2021-10-04 19:19

I enjoyed playing it, I've seen that gameplay before and never imagined that it could be done en less than 48 yours!

I wasn't able to move somewhere else than in the production line. I just made sure to have a lot of blob before sending it blindly to the opponent! :smiley:

kalevrk 2021-10-04 20:44

This is a cool concept! As some other users mentioned if you moved the buttons maybe to the bottom of the screen or on a side menu out of the way of the cells it would be easier, and I had to read the comments to figure out the camera movement. Otherwise, it was fun trying to figure out different strategies and play around.

trexxak 2021-10-04 21:52

Awesome idea and realization! What's working in terms of this years theme: The framerate drops immensely if you have a little bit too much fun with cloning cells, but other than that, I enjoyed the game quite a bit! Great job!

shootboots 2021-10-04 21:52

oh dear it seems like so many people didnt know how to move the camera, thats probably my bad but i guess not many people scrolled down on the itch page haha (You press the scrollwheel button on the mouse and then drag it)

@owca yeah ill definitely do that after seeing these past comments

@wuppos um im pretty sure i did add feedback, like the cell's colour would become darker and more saturated if you hovered over it? I think maybe you might have tried to click on a dead cell? The smaller, darker kind.

@dobryn Thank you so much!

@slimmerburger Thank you for your support and feedback!

@zimny11 thanks! :)

@teddyincdev good to know that you figured out how to move the camera! haha

@bewelge many other users said the same thing. I might make a mobile game around it if i feel motivated enough!

@dekajoo ok lets see here. Other players have decided to make one GINOURMOUS cell, then full send that single cell forward to get a good trade-off (1 dead red cell vs 15 dead green ones), but i personally send every cell at the very beginning to just before the green cells, then mass produce using the first ability. Even if you have a bit less total cells than the opponent if you bomb rush them most of the time you'll win! My personal fastest time for winning was actually 30 seconds !

@mogaiskii if you have a mouse you press the scrollwheel button and then drag. Im sorry it wasnt clear enough.

@wamien You can press the scrollwheel button on your mouse then drag it to move to camera. sorry it wasnt clear enough.

@kalevrk True i didnt think that far ahead thats my bad.

Thank you all for such support feedback and Im truly grateful that you enjoyed my game!!

shootboots 2021-10-04 21:54

@trexxak yeah i realised as well as soon as the total cells break the 1000 barrier things practically kill themselves. At the beginning of development I couldn't even have 200 without unity crashing so Ive tried to optimise the scripts as much as possible!

omegafalcon 2021-10-04 23:23

Neat game! Would be nice if it was all on one screen I think

shootboots 2021-10-04 23:28

@omegafalcon did you find out how to use the camera? Because if you press the scroll wheel button on your mouse and drag it you can move the camera to see more of the map, and theres also a minimap at the top of the screen

omegafalcon 2021-10-04 23:36

@shootboots Yea I could move the camera, I just found myself wishing it was all on one screen so I could react to the green team faster. Or maybe a low detail minimap showing me approximately where groups are?

acarc 2021-10-04 23:40

Very cool concept! Can tell a lot of hard work went into it. Should be proud :)

dprings7 2021-10-04 23:41

Super cool concept - loved the variation in abilities and felt like a nice challenge trying to work out an optimal way to take out the enemy! Really impressive for 48 hours - nice work <3

shootboots 2021-10-04 23:42

@omegafalcon when you say low detailed minimap, do you one thats less detailed than the one i have currently? (Top of the screen below the bar btw) saw ur yt video btw great game

shootboots 2021-10-04 23:46

@acarc thank you so much!

shootboots 2021-10-04 23:47

@dprings7 your feedback is very much appreciated!

javicoder 2021-10-04 23:50

what a wonderful game! can see that it has some inspiration from other game mechanics but it is also original in itself. very fun to play, a bit easy as soon as you get the point. Visually very good, and sound too.

shootboots 2021-10-04 23:54

@javicoder yeah ive realised that right after the player becomes more seasoned, the game loses all its difficulty. it was incredibly hard trying to balance the AI during development, very small changes would drastically impede the player from winning, or provide little to no challenge whatsoever.

c64cosmin 2021-10-05 00:42

This was addictive to play! The popping sounds were so satisfying to hear, popping the AI was so great, kept playing because it felt good. Bit complicated to grasp at first, didn't understand that the numbers mean how much resource I pay, thought they are keyboard shortcuts, should have used an icon.

omegafalcon 2021-10-05 00:48

@shootboots Oh shoot, I never saw that! Thanks! That's exactly the kind of map I was meaning. Replayed and it was way more enjoyable! Before I was spending a lot of time moving the screen back and forth just to see where the enemy was

shootboots 2021-10-05 00:48

@c64cosmin your frustration is quite understandable. Due to the time constraints I was limited to just the core game and no tutorial unfortunately. There are descriptions of each button at the button of the ludum dare description and the itch.io description as well.

shootboots 2021-10-05 01:28

@omegafalcon glad to hear it!

edevjogos 2021-10-05 01:57

it took me a while to figure out everything, that the abilities had a cost and that the number on the icon is this cost, and also i kept forgetting what each ability does, but once i did it was quite fun, don't know about best strategy, but making a huge cell and throwing at the enemy is certenly the most fun XD

shootboots 2021-10-05 02:19

@edevjogos thank you so much for playing the game! Other players have decided to make one GINOURMOUS cell, then full send that single cell forward to get a good trade-off (1 dead red cell vs 15 dead green ones), but i personally send every cell at the very beginning to just before the green cells, then mass produce using the first ability. Even if you have a bit less total cells than the opponent if you bomb rush them most of the time you’ll win! My personal fastest time for winning was actually 30 seconds !

2021-10-05 07:56

It is a fun and satisfying game! I struggled at first to know what to do but I got the hang of it. Great game

purpledartfrog 2021-10-05 11:44

It took me some time to figures this out.. congrats on the entry - it's a cool idea :thumbsup_tone1:

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

hadik 2021-10-05 13:42

Good and clean art, that what I want! :). Thememaster, thats you are, fit into the theme. I like little that audio, maybe next time. Inovative and good gameplay for me. I like mood in this, game really I like it. Chmm, that game is really fun, good for you :). Overall that game is good, good job.

One last note: I always write down honest review, because everybody need that, not just nice craps with some bullshit, but sometime I will aperceite very good games. So if this review insult you, but use it well :) Anyway every game is counting so :)

shootboots 2021-10-05 21:37

@archie-arch thank for you playing!

@purpledartfrog yeah but you saw the notes on the ludum dare and itch.io pages?

@hadik thanks for the constructive feedback, especially the about the audio, really appreciate it!

purpledartfrog 2021-10-05 22:04

@shootboots Yes I did actually read that - but it's not easy keeping all of that information in your head while trying a game for the first time :wink: it's often difficult to find the correct balance when introducing something. Still a good job :thumbsup_tone1:

shootboots 2021-10-05 22:37

@purpledartfrog oh ok thank god so many other players just skipped it but Im glad you liked it!

stroe-andrew 2021-10-06 00:41

Ayyyy oh @Kora0h - that's a big one, haha !

ShootBoots: The game was really really cool. Love the style and the way to interpreted the Theme. At first I was like ":O WTF". Cool entry. Congrats

shootboots 2021-10-06 00:58

@stroe-andrew thank you so much for playing and im glad that you enjoyed it!

icxon 2021-10-06 07:25

Playing this game felt easy. Crowd control is a fun mechanic! I wish the enemy was more active and challenging to fight. It is super fun to experiment and try different tactics.

Here is my attempt:

https://youtu.be/gz6ZimtbyRk

shootboots 2021-10-06 08:35

@icxon I cant believe you put so much effort into playing and recording! It really means so much to me! I understand that the difficulty is quite easy, and Im working on that post-jam. If you would like, I could tell you once the game is in a more playable state seeing as you enjoyed it so much? If so, you could reply with your email or communication by choice and ill get to you once im finished! So glad you enjoyed! :)

icxon 2021-10-06 16:28

@shootboots sure! I am going to subscribe on itch.io to get a notification once it is updated!

shootboots 2021-10-06 21:24

@icxon im so glad to hear it!

fancyreckless 2021-10-07 10:15

Really like the mechanic, very satisfying and gives a lot of room to experiment. My only complaint is that it's a bit short, since I really wanted to play this game more.

xpoho 2021-10-07 17:59

Я чую дух Momodora... Эти глаза повсюду...

На самом деле почему-то навеяло духом Patapon ^_^

shootboots 2021-10-07 20:30

@fancyreckless thank you so much for playing! Its true that its a bit short, so im working on adding a LOAD of new features post jam. If you want ill give u an update if you want once the game's completely finished so you can play?

@xpoho извините за мой русский, я использую гугл переводчик, ха-ха :)

Спасибо за игру! Хотя я не знаю, что такое момодора, я также чувствую, что глаза немного жуткие! Честно говоря, это было то чувство, к которому я стремился, и это означает, что оно сработало. Рад, что вам понравилось.

mrtroy 2021-10-08 02:33

I need more of this game in my life. This was so enjoyable I was hoping there would be additional levels or something along those lines. I've been playing it for a long time now(I think about a half hour) and I still haven't gotten bored. If I didn't have other Ludum Dare games to play this would be what I would be playing for the next hour or so!

Great job!

shootboots 2021-10-09 01:28

@mrtroy wow im so glad to here it! Im currently still workiing on this game post jam so ill definitely tell you once the game is completed

lcstark 2021-10-21 15:11

A fun and interesting game! I love tug of war games, so I loved this one immediately. It has some control issues, but once you get past that it's amazing. The artstyle is great, everything has nice audiovisual feedback. It's fanstastic already, I hope you keep working on it, as it has a lot of potential. Well done!

shootboots 2021-10-21 21:14

@lcstark thank you so much for enjoying the game! I cant believe you still have the guts to play the game when there's like 2 hours to results! I definitely dont have the stomach for it haha. THanks for playing the game again.