FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD51 → Tenfold Rim Mining

Tenfold Rim Mining

By purpledartfrog

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4472.8329
Fun4012.8329
Innovation4222.7429
Theme4532.8129
Graphics3223.1829
Audio3652.5329
Humor3601.6522
Mood3842.7429

Comments

daandruff 2022-10-03 05:54

The first impression was a lot! But I liked that you could slow down time to get your bearings. The mechanics felt solid and you managed to squeeze a lot of detail into the graphics as well. I'm not a TD fan, but I can appreciate what you managed to do. Cool game!

jibberwocky 2022-10-03 06:21

Quite an impressive amount going on between all the towers and resource types. It seems a bit odd to start the game in god mode, it took me a moment to realize that I needed to turn that OFF rather than turn it on. Also I could never seem to repair my grinder station and kept accidentally right clicking it my mistake rendering my asteroid mining station immortal but useless for grinding asteroids.

purpledartfrog 2022-10-03 11:23

@daandruff @jibberwocky Thank you very much both for playing :smile: I actually consideres if the god mode should be on as default... and do regret that choice a little. Did you have enough materials to repair - it's quite expensive and it cannot be repaired beyond the value after lightning strikes. (They deal damage to your max health).

:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

trabasura 2022-10-05 15:43

I really like the aesthetic of the game, and I also enjoy tower defense games a lot. It seems like some of the costs for the upgrades are in correct or maybe I'm just understanding them wrong. I wish that the game restarted itself after you die also. Overall I had fun playing it, good job

wubbl 2022-10-05 15:47

Same experience as @jibberwocky had. Somehow i couldn't repair but remove the grinder station =) Graphics and the overall feel is nice =)

purpledartfrog 2022-10-05 16:28

@trabasura @wubbl Thank you both for playing :smile: I think what you experienced with the buildings not being constructed might be one of two things. I have seen an issue where you need One more than required. Can't quite figure out why this is .... I have checked that code several times. The other potential issue might be actual lag - it misses some of the clicks. Unfortunately I haven't quite had the time to debug that last one :smile:

quinn-patrick 2022-10-05 17:41

Took a while but I eventually figured out how to play. This is a very complex game for Ludum Dare with great art so nice work! Be sure to always untick the development build box in the Unity build and run dialogue before doing a build meant for distribution. I got to see all the null reference exceptions your game throws when I try to place a missile launcher.

It's also strange that the game defaults to god mode, although it's basically impossible otherwise, so I suppose that makes sense. I'd recommend having it start a little easier, though.

pixelydian 2022-10-05 18:02

Really neat take on a TD. Great explosions and sound effects. I may need a little help getting going though - are Red Rock, Green gas, and Bio Sludge all supposed to be at 999 when you start? They don't seem to be going up or down no matter what I do. I was playing the windows download build (couldn't seem to get the web build to start.) Please let me know because I want to make sure I'm experiencing the game as intended! I will hold off on rating until I hear from you.

purpledartfrog 2022-10-05 18:43

@pixelydian I think the Windows one was an old package... Could you try again? If it still starts out as 999 - try pushing G... that will toggle "god" mode.

@quinn-patrick I had trouble making it build without "development" mode - I'll try doing another tomorrow.

Thank you both for playing :smile:

pixelydian 2022-10-05 19:00

Ah yes, that's a lot better! I really like the layout, application of the theme, and the different builds you have available. My only constructive feedback is that it is a bit difficult and often jam players don't have time for steep learning curves. I'd play with those resource generation rates and such until you find the newbie player sweet spot! But otherwise, good work and creativity!

madeofst 2022-10-05 19:20

This is cool. First impression was it had a board game vibe, which is a good thing in my book. Very impressive to have incorporated this range of interdependent mechanics and automated operations for a jam game. Only thing is I think it might almost be a bit too ambitious for a compo game! After having played for a while I wasn't totally sure what the goal was. The grinder was destroyed but that didn't seem to affect the gameplay! I think it could have benefitted from a bit more focus, but still had an enjoyable experience.

crwohlers 2022-10-05 20:51

Felt kinda buggy or poorly explained, not sure which. I had many of the same problems that I am seeing others report: the debug console, buildings not working quite right, and so on.

redneb 2022-10-05 21:04

Quite a complex strategy for me. I liked the very idea of building a space base. For some reason god mode didn't work. My guns destroyed everything exactly.

purpledartfrog 2022-10-06 07:28

@crwohlers Was it the WebGL or the windows build? I think you are experiencing a combination og bugs and then the learning curve is too steep. Considering re-uploading a debugged version during this weekend.

Thank you all for playing :smile:

coderaurus 2022-10-06 08:01

I like the concept of the game. Unfortunately I was bit lost of how get things done. I imagined the crackers would harvest asteroids but that didn't seem to be the case (entirely at least). I did get resources from somewhere and could build more defenses. It was unknown to me whether the base regenerates health or not, or if the lightning is basically a countdown ticking.

I think the RNG is pretty heavy on this one. I played twice, second time (after accidentally closing the game with esc) was a lot rougher. Enemy drones just kept coming and destroyed the base.

Overall I think the game could use some visual and/or audio feedback of what's happening. When crackers mine and when you receive more resources.

The hosted game crashed for me, by the way. You might want to check that.

EDIT: I do like the HUD, though. You have things clearly color coded.

Nice job!

chuckeles 2022-10-06 21:38

It's a nice little game. Initially I was greeted with a heavy tutorial which I though I understood. But when I closed it I did not really manage to understand how to gather resources. I was building towers and randomly clicking on the asteroids. Sometimes the drones went to get the asteroid, sometimes they did not. Not really sure why. Eventually all my towers were destroyed and the enemy ships overwhelmed the base.

lonewolfdev 2022-10-06 21:42

Wow what a hard game. The concept is cool, but I believe adding more clarity on the rules and some balance will make the experience better. Still did not really understand if I can point in the asteroids to make turrets focus on them, or why you need to toggle on/off drones. Actually how the drones works it is kind of confusing (At least for me), because tutorial says you need to point again on a cracked asteroid but this actually does nothing, you need to first enable drones, but after they actually fly alone there??

Overall, idea is cool, but a bit more clarity will help a lot :)

chetthonctus 2022-10-06 21:48

The set of mechanics in the game are really impressive, I think with a bit more polish and balance it could be really fun. I found it a bit hard to follow what was going on though and when I thought I was doing well my towers suddenly disappeared really quickly and my base exploded. Also I'm not really sure what the point of the lightning reducing health was, if I can't repair it afterwards, maybe I just misunderstood something though.

Otherwise nice graphics and definitely a lot of potential.

heine-hohenhart 2022-10-06 21:52

Fun concept! A little difficult at first to understand, but I had fun, congratulations!

purpledartfrog 2022-10-07 07:37

@daandruff @jibberwocky @trabasura @wubbl @quinn-patrick @pixelydian @madeofst @crwohlers @redneb @coderaurus @chuckeles @lonewolfdev @chetthonctus @chetthonctus Hi all, I just did a small tutorial level in the post jam build - so if you're interested feel free to try it out :smile: :fingers_crossed_tone1:

PostJamDescription.png

https://purpledartfrog.com/Games/LD51TenfoldRimMining/PostJam/index.html

purpledartfrog 2022-10-07 09:27

And now for a bit of actual replying :smile: And thank you everything for giving it a spin :thumbsup_tone1:

@coderaurus Thank you very for the extensive feedback. I think the main issue with the entry is that it kinda shoves everything mechanic towards the player at once. I did the update to try and aleviate this. One of the older builds actually did not reset the timer - the new Post Jam one should.

@chuckeles I agree with the core feedback here (as I understand it). A block of info for this kind of entry might not be the better choice .... so on popular demand I did a little tutorial level. :smile:

@lonewolfdev I think the main issue I have with the drones is the fact that they were originally meant as the 10 seconds loop thing - where you had to protect them. Right now there is no real reason to ever close the bay :smile:

@chetthonctus If I do another run on the post jam version - I think I might add health bars to the "other" buildings as well. They actually crumble a little bit - but it's impossible to tell :smile: The repairing will only go up to the maximum health of the "grinder". The maximum is permanently reduced by the lightning (this is a difficulty mechanic - which isn't really explained that well). (That one too)

@heine-hohenhart Thank you for the understatement - in hindsight... I find it really difficult to understand when I think outside the box :smile:

solah 2022-10-07 11:21

Pretty cool game! There are much information to learn before start but then it is a good tower defense! Love the use of asteroids which is clever!

purpledartfrog 2022-10-07 11:52

@solah Thank you very much :smile: and thank you for playing :thumbsup: Good luck with your entry

sleepymenace 2022-10-07 16:59

A lot to take in at first, but you've got a pretty solid game there! You've obviously put a lot of thought into it, and I think just a little bit of polish on how to introduce all the mechanics to the player will make it really great!

Good job!

purpledartfrog 2022-10-07 21:11

@sleepymenace Thank you so much :smile: and thank you for playing. You are absolutely right ... I think I overscoped the number of things in play ... and given the normal average play time per rater this is pretty dangerous.

hungryroy 2022-10-08 05:33

Nice tower defense kind of thing, but as others mentioned there's a lot going on and a lot to take in and it can be really confusing at first; I had to restart a couple of times before I figured things out. I like the larger enemy ships that sometimes spawned and the first time one came out I was like eh, I need more missiles! And was a bit worried that an even bigger ship might spawn lol. I'm not sure why the drones needed to be toggled on and off, were they taking damage?

zubspace 2022-10-08 19:28

I think, it's an interesting tower defense concept in space. There are lots of things to like: The particle effects, the user interface, the sound, the tutorial and instruction manual. After a few runs I was able to build a nice base even in hard mode quite fast:

tenfoldrimmining.png

The use of defense walls is questionable. I have no idea, if they are useful, because I think, concentrating on firepower is a lot more effective. Also the drones are a nice concept, but after upgrading them they kinda turn into an automatic resource generator. So you the only thing to do is upgrading the parts of your base and watch them obliterate the enemies. So, where this game shines, is building up your base, but after that it get a bit bland.

Nice concept though and had fun playing it!

trouv 2022-10-09 01:15

I'm really impressed with the amount of features this has for a compo game.

My experience this, like many others, had two stages to it. The first was struggling to figure out what's going on, and the second was kind of doing nothing as my base had become perfect. I think the difficulty needs to scale up a little more quickly, or maybe higher than it is now. Really swarm the player with enemies by the end of it, vampire survivors style. Also, more tiers of upgrade would have kept me playing longer than I did. Maybe an ability to expand the frame of the base would be good too.

I think the asteroid count should increase drastically as well. I like having the asteroid cracker since it automates a very tedious task. Realizing that you should rush to make a +AI asteroid cracker, and then reaping the benefits, feels really good. But there's no reason to have two of them with the current game. You would need more upgrades, more enemies, and more asteroids to justify it.

Maybe the game does eventually scale up like that, but I didn't see it. Unfortunately, my keyboard doesn't have a numpad. It would have been nice to be able to speed up the game without having a numpad.

But, like I said, the feature count here is staggering for 48 hours. It feels like a pretty complete TD that just needs a bit more balancing. Great job.

jimbly 2022-10-10 03:18

Cool game! Glad to see someone else also doing asteroid mining ;). I seemed to get an undefeatable base set up, and let it run until about 10 minutes on hard mode, and it wasn't hard, but I had fun getting there. I'd like it if there was a little more feedback on what is going on early-on, it took me a while to figure out (even after reading the tutorial text) how cracking asteroids and sending drones to mine them worked - if it showed a highlight or any kind of feedback upon click so I know that "this asteroid is now targeted to get shot at" (is that a thing, or was that part automatic?) and "this asteroid has a drone assigned to pick up the resources", that would have helped understand the basics much quicker.

Nicely done overall, and I like the complexity!

misfire-dev 2022-10-10 17:58

Really good game, took me a couple plays to figure out how to get the lil bots collecting my resources but once I got the hang out it it plays really nice and the fact you can slow time down helped me so much while setting up. I may of accidentally cheesed it by right click selling my base with the hp attached to it though.

enderswype 2022-10-14 10:10

i have an error launching it in the browser, fine on windows build tho

purpledartfrog 2022-10-14 10:55

@enderswype Are you sure it doesn't load in the end? It gives a yellow warning -but should eventually load?

enderswype 2022-10-14 10:58

@purpledartfrog fair enough i didnt stay long enough ahah

purpledartfrog 2022-10-14 11:21

@enderswype No worries :smile: I'm considering if I should move to itch next LD... I am fairly that certain that it's my domain provider that does not allow certain features.

jrevel 2022-10-14 16:21

Cool game, a bit confusing at first but quite fun to play ! I think there is a lot of information to understand at first and it might require a proper tutorial to show the features one by one. But it's really hard to do a good tutorial for management games, especially during a jam, I also tried to do that kind of game during a previous ludum dare and it also suffered a similar problem... I've tried the post jam version and it's way better, here are the things I think still could be improved : - I think you might simplify some rules : I'm not sure having 3 resource types is necessary for your game, as I actually collected everything I could, I didn't feel there was strategy needed for resource collection. - Resource collection might be automated a bit more. It feels a bit tedious to have to crack asteroids one by one, and then clicking them again to collect their resource - Walls don't really feel like they are useful, it is not really clear how they work and they take space that I feel would be better with damage dealing towers. - It took me time to understand where the resources are displayed in the UI, and it's at the opposite side of the screen from the place of the building panel, so I constantly had to look up and down to know if I had enough resource to buy what I wanted. I hope the feedback will be useful, keep up the good work !

ale 2022-10-15 16:04

This is an impressive amount of gameplay, but it has a really steep learning curve. Even after doing the tutorial, I couldn't figure some stuff out, and I'm not sure if it's because of my misunderstanding or a bug in the game.

You should definitely keep working on this as it looks promising, but you need to improve the tutorial experience. Maybe get some friends or family members who haven't tried it yet to playtest the tutorial in front of you so that you can see what confuses other people.

But other than that, nice entry!

purpledartfrog 2022-10-16 08:39

@jrevel @ale Thanks for playing and the extensive feedback. Especially the point that the resources are displayed in the other end of the screen. It's often difficult to spot these things when you are in the middle of the jam :shrug: :smile: