Life in Libya

dev-314 2023-01-08 22:15

I got to day 13 and gave up. As someone who enjoys mgmt/sim style games, this seems like a good MVP for something in that realm, but honestly, it wasn't fun. It's just depressing. Not sure if that's the goal, but it really does feel too much like what I imagine living life as a middle-aged farmer in Libya is like, which is to say depressing, hopeless, and boring. I appreciated the contrast of the hyper-modern business-app feel with the actual actions and facts presented. That felt like a great metaphor for what I presume is reality. I liked the icons, most of the colors (sometimes I accidentally conflated the stat colors with the yellow/red bad status indicators), and overall how clean the look is. I hope you keep making things like this, cause I don't wana keep playing astriods-but-with-X games forever.

mmkalll 2023-01-09 03:10

Thank you for trying Life in Libya and providing detailed feedback! It sounds like the game achieved what it was going for, although I'm sorry to hear the experience wasn't very enjoyable for you. It's still lacking a lot of visual polish and options that usually go into these types of games.

I'm planning to add saving and scrolling (for mobile users) as post-compo improvements. The core gameplay is exactly what I personally enjoy, though - my best so far is day 99.

verttixpertti 2023-01-09 11:21

I agree with the previous commenter in the sense that it's way too long, but still ok.

jaywoody 2023-01-10 14:10

A great but a tough game. I tried couple of times and couldn't make it more than 32 days. I guess I tried to upgrade too fast the water and food to +2 production and didn't have enough money to scrape by to make it into the next month properly.

Kudos making the whole economic system and varied options available for the player. I think it's an intriguing game. Nice work!

exezur 2023-01-11 17:04

Cool!

likirus 2023-01-11 17:10

Really interesting concept, there seems to be a lot of depth in your game and trying to min-max the best strategy could be fun. I agree that a bit more visual feedback would have been great, it gets a bit repetitive looking at only the small numbers. Quick question though, would I actually need to survive for 365 days to win? That seems a bit insane, especially when you yourself only made it to 99. Maybe counting time by weeks would have been a better option, maybe with slightly altered numbers for the different tasks, so you would only need to get to 52.

mmkalll 2023-01-11 18:52

Thanks for the very kind comments! Yes, the game is intentionally very difficult to min-max despite the simple options available. It is also non-deterministic, mainly because of the random starting conditions, market supply mechanics, and some hidden parameters. Despite that, I spent considerable effort to make all random elements as fair and manageable as possible.

Future plans include different starting scenarios and end goals, effectively providing variety and a smooth "tutorial" into the game. As a starting point, I wanted to experiment with the most difficult and unforgiving scenario first. The goal was that 99% of playthroughs would be beatable in theory, but only 1-5% of players would actually manage to do it. (I do agree it's too long to do in one sitting, though.)

Next plans definitely include visual upgrades, and I'm planning to add save support as well. Post-jam version should be landing in my itch.io sometime next month.

samuli 2023-01-17 17:31

Gameplay wise very solid entry. Overall mechanics felt logical and well thought out. Presentation was just so boring that I gave up after 40 days out of boredom. Random events or some kind of comments from your community between some days would liven up the game a lot.