Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → Battle of the Alamo
By frosty
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 143 | 4.00 | 23 | |
| Fun | 147 | 3.92 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 318 | 3.66 | 23 | |
| Theme | 453 | 3.85 | 23 | |
| Graphics | 634 | 3.71 | 23 | |
| Humor | 1011 | 2.36 | 20 | |
| Mood | 519 | 3.65 | 22 |
I Liked the historical aspect of the game. The graphics were really nice, the generation of the enemy troop positions, the defenders, and the fort. Interesting gameplay mechanic. I did feel though that it did get a big mechanical and was a bit too based on luck. Is it possible to win this? :/
Capture.PNG
Overall great job, had a fun time playin, would love to see an expanded version with upgrades!
I don't like war. But I like the gameplay and art :) Great work.
It's a nice game. But I lost :(
Good time playing
Nice game, nice grafics, beautiful sound gesign. Only dissapointing thing - a lot of cards for sides with no enemies. For one of the round I got no playable cards at all. Also I felt like the allies coming in 20 turns neglectet the "inevitable" part of the theme. It would suit better with "survive as long as possible".
@jul-li Good point on the survival aspect of the theme. =) If you get a bad hand, you can use Travis to deal a new hand.
@adrien-tremblay It's possible, but just like the historical event, it's very unlikely. =) Using your special abilities is key.
Great game, I like the audio and atmosphere. I did find myself thinking about what the best strategy was, but I didn't win. The only thing I'd suggest is having the description of the powerups appear as UI in the game other than an alert in the browser. Other than that I had fun playing it.
@moooks I agree with having the special abilities as UI, but I ran out of time. =)
Took me a sec to understand, but I ended up liking it. Would be nice to have more animations/visual cues!
This game has a super fun gameplay, even under a bleak background. The visuals are consistent, and while I'm not very into games about war, I think it's very interesting that this game is based on a real historical event.
I'd love to see a full fledged version of a game like this. Great job frosty.
WOW, this is a really good entry. It's a great high-level thematic choice, and it's executed so well. I assume these are stock sounds but they are well-chosen and well-used, with a special nod to the snare drum as the enemies fill up as a great touch. The graphics are pleasant and really clear.
Is there a bug with the victory condition? My first game, I swear the game did me dirty: My weakest wall was the south where I had one guy left, plus my Crockett. I did not activate Crockett because I got the enemy down to four. They didn't shoot. Then they reinforced, the game said DEFEAT and my guy was gone.
Then in my second game, the opposite thing happened. I was like "well this is it" and they killed my last north-wall defender. But the game did not end, the enemy reinforced and I got a whole next turn. Only after that subsequent turn did the game end.
Here is the situation after the enemy killed my last north-wall defender, then reinforced, and the game has reset my cards and is inviting me to play:
Alamo.png
From that position I fired the cannon north, it failed to clear them below five, and then I lost after this turn.
Possible bug aside, if I could grant the player one boon in this game, it would be to make Bowie more convenient to move. It's tedious to click him around in a circle and have to dismiss the tutorial popup each time, and it's something you do frequently.
Bowie was an EXCELLENT idea though: it's a fantastic part of the game that makes me feel a lot more agency, and blunts the RNG feeling. He also powered up the rifle cards as compared to the cannons nicely. All of the special icons were nice, but Bowie really shined. In fact I liked Bowie so much that I wished he had his own slightly different rifle sound so that I could say "THAT is the bonus shot right there!" Sounds dumb but I would have found that satisfying.
I only played the two runs, and I'm not quite sure why I didn't play more, because I feel like I could win this game if I tried more. I think it takes too long. Maybe it's the pace, or maybe the length? I don't know. The pace feels very nice in the moment, but something squashed that ONE MORE TIME feeling.
Another choice you made that I REALLY liked was to not make death inevitable. It's clear your idea flowed well from the theme. But you made the call to make it winnable anyway, and I think that wasn't an obvious decision, but it significantly improved the game. It would not be nearly as fun to play if it was "see how many turns you can live" which is how many games in LD50 ended up.
Dang, I think I mentioned more critique elements than praise elements, but that is not how I feel. I really enjoyed this game, it's impressively fully-realized for a solo jam entry, and you should be really proud of it. Great work!
Simple but fun, I think the theme is well implemented. The sound effects are very good and the mechanics are very fun. Nice job! xD
Surprisingly addictive, nice Mexican flag at the end. I had a lot of rounds, where I couldn't shoot at the side where the most enemies were.
@pkenney Wow, thanks for the super detailed feedback! Yeah, there are probably a couple of bugs around the async timing of events that will take a bit of work to unravel. And thanks for the feedback on Bowie -- it took me longer than I would have liked to decide what his bonus would be, and that didn't leave me much time left to add polish. =)
For being a very simple game graphics wise it did not fail to suck me in and make me feel like i was in the fort commanding my troops. The special units also added a lot of variety and stragety.
Nice game! Simple but great fun.
Interesting and fun little strategy game. I had fun trying it, and I could easily see my self trying this again. Well done.
Honestly, one of the best entries I've played so far! Didn't expect to win my in my first go, but did by a small margin. But yeah, very impressed!
Screenshot 2022-04-15 at 20-21-01 Alamo Crop.png
Very cool idea for a game! I think this could also work quite well as a boardgame. Really cool to use a real life scenario and teach a bit of history. Maybe I got very lucky but I managed to quite comfortably win the first attempt.
Excellent game! Mechanics are solid, and the visuals/audio fit really well. Seems well balanced too - I eked out a win, but barely (down to just 1 defender on both the north and south walls)!
Alamo.PNG
The special abilities are good too. I _do_ think the game should warn you of the limitations up-front though (Bowie being unable to move after his wall has already attacked, or Travis having to be used before playing any cards that turn). Additionally, the activation prompts for the abilities could fit the rest of the game aesthetic better, instead of just being standard "Windows gray" interface boxes :-D
Great entry, really enjoyed!
Very nice! It took me several rounds to formulate a semi-good strategy, but I enjoyed playing! I really like the background sound effects and the graphics did an excellent job at conveying what they were meant to. A bit more explanation of the different parts of the game would have been helpful and the popups didn't fit the style of the game, but besides that the UI was very effective. Overall, excellent entry!