Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → The Duke's Cartographer.
By wolfier
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 930 | 3.25 | 22 | |
| Fun | 895 | 3.12 | 22 | |
| Innovation | 366 | 3.60 | 22 | |
| Graphics | 941 | 3.07 | 22 | |
| Mood | 525 | 3.61 | 20 |
The control scheme could have done with some more explaining; maybe have the first circle around the caste already mapped as an example. Also, the mouse seemed to have a weird offset? I would constantly 'miss' objects when I'd click them and they'd appear some 20 px left of my mouse.
Loved the visuals and the chill music!
It's a great idea, but it could use a little work.
I tried but couldn't find anything, but the concept is cool - especially if fleshed out a bit more, like cartographic minesweeper - if you say came across a grassland and clicked it, you'd get a bonus flood-fill of several blocks.
Liked how chill this game is, was fun exploring and seeing what was next. Quite satisfying to chip away at completing the map too. Could see this idea having a lot of room for expanding too, with a bit variety and some fun secrets to find. Main bit of feedback is that I would have loved something to tell me if I was correct or not with my map stuff after a certain amount of time. Good job overall though (And I also voted for the cartography theme haha)
i love maps
i like the game play and general mechanic
i love the art, the player sprite is so cute
i appreciate the player speed
not sure what the icons are for
not sure how to do this: "If you’ve found at least 1 additional city to your starting one, before the start of a new week you can draw a path between them by dragging the red dots to score." -- what red dots?
An interesting idea. Art is nice, though the icons for the map tiles are a bit unclear. Good effort!
@p-man When you hit the button that says "Click here to end the week" a red dot shows up on all the cites you found.
Really interesting concept, I like it!! Loved the aspect of getting to peek at other places based on the edges of a tile, and map out tiles without having to visit them.
Super fun and interesting idea. * I think this is best a 2 player game.. One player to run around and one player to map. I kept getting misaligned and confused. * I wonder if it there could be an easy mode that had a dot where you are and then you can focus on mapping for points. - I also wish I could use keyboard keys to switch between plains/forest/mountain/unique to allow me to keep the mouse closer to where I am, moving it back and forth caused me confusion. * I wish I could move diagonal to save time.
Is there any end game? Thanks for the fun game.
It's a work that sounds laid back but is actually a lot of work. The concept of making your own route markers and using them as the core gameplay is great. Wish the scores were settled more often, and more to show. Nice work!
@runningopenloop I don't know about 2 player, but I think an easy mode would be me not swapping around the tiles on you.
Very nice game. The game feel is very nice to use, I was happy to see my character just path around the stumps if I held a direction down.
Because of the square grid shape it took me a bit to realize I was mapping the edges and not the tiles, but then was able to stamp stuff down.
The mechanic is interesting. I do like the chill atmosphere. Controls felt a little weird. The art was simple but cohesive. Nice entry!
Nice entry! While playing I really wished for kbd shortcuts for mapping. And, dunno about the changing part (read it after playing), but I felt like my mind is playing tricks on me - tracking where I am was hard enough _without_ already mapped terrain to randomly swap. That tbh was bit frustrating -_- But overal, nice chill game :)
@ajpl I did want to have number keys for mapping since it would be more fluid, but I didn't get time. As for the changing map, it is designed to confuse you, but I guess I need to make that more clear ingame. People probably assume that it wouldn't happen and play with the idea of the map being static.
I do need to strike a better balance between confusion and clarity though because just telling you what's changed would ruin the idea.
This is *actually* such a cool idea for a game!!!! The idea of being a cartographer that has to explore the world, mark it all down and make the best paths between points of interest has huge potential! I really like the graphics and choice of music. I was enjoying myself a lot just wandering through the map and placing down my paths. I didn't really understand how scoring works, I found a city and dragged my mouse to it and somehow got -20 xD but that's fine. Still had fun.
Although, I seemed to always get lost the further I played, like my map suddenly became wrong, and then I read the description and realized that the tiles were changed around every week, and... unfortunately I just don't think that's a fun idea... I was having a lot of fun mapping the places I visited. My personal goal was to fill out the entire map and send a screenshot. But as soon as I realized my map had become incorrect due to a game mechanic, I didn't want to bother anymore :< I really appreaciate this game's idea, but I think you tried to add a sense of challenge to a game that didn't need it. Knowing your way around and marking everything correctly so you know where you are and need to go is already challenging and fun enough! Having the tiles swap around takes the fun out of it in my opinion...
I think you have something truly special here, for real! While I was just vibing and mapping I honestly liked this more than any other game in this whole jam! If you made a version of this game that was just the chill mapping, I would play it to the end and want more.
@wolfier There is never enough time during Jam for finishing xD And, what is not always sure with games from jams, here there is this 'that idea is surprisingly fun' part - I would consider it really successful prototype :) You could easily make cool post jam game from it!
Just as @fupi said, drop the end-week-randomizing, as its frustrating as hell, and focus on core feature of pure mapping and exploration, and just add minor gameplay elements on top of it. e.g. I would also ditch the 'be at city after one week' in favor of some mild rpg/survival elements. Maybe adding some more landmarks or ability to place own signs. With that, even adding some kind of getting lost mechanic would be cool, as long as one can find some recognizable spot (maybe even make map draft in meantime, than joining it with the main one).
There is lot of possibilities to develop it further - I would actually loved to play such game :D
@ajpl Those are some great ideas! I was thinking like, an easy way to post jam it would be to, instead of randomizing the map after the timer ends and the screen fades out, you could just teleport the player to a random tile, as if you got lost in the middle of the night. That way, you'd still be punished for not getting to a city in time, but you could still find your way back, so you're rewarded for actually filling out the map correctly.
This is a really neat concept and the gameplay/music felt very relaxing. I do think it's a little challenging that if you get off by one square without noticing your entire map can end up incorrect. I really liked how you used the color filters to show the day/night cycle. Nice work!