Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Summoner's Stand
By mahobear8
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 159 | 3.55 | 22 | |
| Fun | 76 | 3.75 | 22 | |
| Innovation | 190 | 3.27 | 22 | |
| Theme | 116 | 3.82 | 22 | |
| Audio | 234 | 2.80 | 22 |
I really enjoyed this game! I thought that the mechanic and gameplay was really well done, I think this is a game that after more polish could be released. My only real negative with the game was the sfx. I found the effect on the place enemy noise I think a little much.
It took a few minutes to understand all of the mechanics and controls, but when I did I had fun for a while. It got progressively more complex as time went, which is superb. Fits the theme, and had good consistent audio.
After a while, though, I kind of lost interest, and I did not really understand what the goal was other than killing the enemy minions. A clearer goal would be very good for this game I think.
Overall, the concept is very cool and impressive to get working in 48 hours!
Thank you :)
I got 160 on my best run.
The game-play is really addictive, but man it got brutal once then necromancer lords showed up. Just every lane filled with mobs. The tactical depth is really impressive for a short game jam!
Really fun! Is there a way to grow your economy?
Addicting gameplay. Only jam game with gameplay good enough to make me want to play more than once. My only issue is that the mechanics of the enemy and player units are vague or unexplained. It feels like my units are randomly taking damage at times, and enemy units are randomly healing.
Wow! This game is so addictive, it's one of my favorite games so far.
(Edited)
@josemwarrior You are correct that the Art is AI-generated. You're incorrect that this is against Compo rules. That is the reason this entry is opted out of the Art Category. https://ludumdare.com/resources/questions/can-i-use-ai/
@enad96 The economy is rather a bit of a swinging Pendulum. The enemy economy gradually increases. The primary source of your own economy is defeating enemies (be careful though, they also get economy for killing your summons. Things can snowball out of hand quickly if you permit them to clear too many of your own summons). With careful strategy, and a bit of luck, you can successfully stabilize into a position where you are infinitely clearing the enemies with no chance of them coming back (pragmatically, you can say you win here, or if you can't find the way to go infinite, the high score is your relevant metric)
@aou When you hover over the units, there's description hints at what they do, and of course you can learn via experimentation, but you're right that it could have been made more clear/polished. Thus sometimes is the nature of attempting something ambitious within 48 hours
@magnusfurcifer Glad you enjoyed it! The nature of the way the economy is built, either side having units die will result in the other side snowballing. There's a couple intentional difficulty spikes going on (Mainly the Warlocks, and after that as you experienced, the Necromancers), but all ultimately manageable, given sufficient practice/experimentation/preparation, in combination with perhaps a bit of luck
@mahobear8 Oops, I didn't know that
@cibums You're right that at some point you can stabilize to a position where you can infinitely increase score with no real reason behind it after that point. Congrats on reaching that point! You can consider yourself to have won the game, pragmatically speaking. You managed to surpass and stabilize against the deliberate difficulty spikes that might catch the average player off guard on their first couple attempts.
Simple strategy game that is very easy to understand and play. Nicely done. I think it would benefit from slightly more thought out art & sfx. Also it is sometimes hard to tell who attacks who. So maybe the ranged characters should shoot little projectiles.
This was a fun game, I enjoyed the gameplay.
Really nice game! Graphics aren't the best, but it's gameplay where the game shines! Basic loop is very addicting. Good job!
Going by the unit descriptions it feels like I am missing something. The sylph is supposed to be ranged, but I found no way to get it to attack at range. The hydra was supposed to do area damage, but it only did single target, and got damaged every turn. I like the idea, but I think having units that move and attack differently would be a great improvement. Also having more active abilities would help with the strategy, not getting stale. Overall it was definitely engaging to play, and I like the board game / tower defense vibes I am getting from it. Very ambitious for compo, and very well done!
I think it's great that you were able to develop such a concept in compo time. It reminds me a bit of the mini card games from final fantasy. I missed the mana display :)
@blank-3d What I elected to do was have those units attack automatically at the start of the Action phase as their ability (so in the case of the Sylph, that's ATK[-5] on a random enemy per turn, and in the case of the Hydra, that's ATK[-45] spread between all enemies every turn). This is in addition to their normal attack if you happen to be adjacent to an enemy unit. The animations resolve fairly quick, but if you're watching you'll generally see where this damage happens to land.
You're of course right that more unit variety would be a large improvement. Given more time, that probably would have been the top priority as far as possible additions.
The gameplay is really solid. It is rare to see a tactic-card-hybrid game in a compo game, no to say a game with solid implementation.
As some mentioned above, it might be a little unclear about the mechanics of ranged units. It tried to find out which Sylph was the source of the [-5] because I thought the target priority might be relatived to where it was.
Well that's only a small problem. Impressive work after all!
Very interesting game. It somehow reminded me of a boardgame "Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation".
At first, I thought everything was easiest thing ever. My army of gollem stand on the high top line.
But then skeletons started appearing behind, constantly growing by a +million health per turn, and they overwhelmed me with sheer numbers!
My poor army of dragons were just flying around the map and crying.
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Not bad, although it felt like the arrival of the Necromancer Lords is a bit of a difficulty spike.