FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD56 → Beetle Era

Beetle Era

By icxon

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1024.0742
Fun764.0643
Innovation1023.9243
Theme334.4043
Graphics4833.7443
Humor6522.8338
Mood5123.5542

Comments

zipirtic 2024-10-08 07:13

Good job, liked the concept of customizing units, game lacks ESC to pause during the game)

kiberptah 2024-10-08 08:33

Love the idea, very cool mechanic with pheromones, everything works great and feels polished. I'm worried that some people might not notice manual level change, but it doesn't bother me at all :)

stormsword 2024-10-08 10:27

Well done! It's a good idea and it works perfectly! Like someone said, maybe a pause button could be a good addition cuz my brain was burning (wait a have to create units, but with which characteristics haaaaa *panic*)

yogurtthehorse 2024-10-08 11:51

I like mechanic of units navigation. Really something unique. Lack a bit of a tutorial because (at least for me) it's not super intuitive, but it may be just me, you know

quasilyte 2024-10-09 07:16

I didn't know that bonuses other than agility affect the workers before beating the game. :D I guess I should have read the description first, but sometimes it contains spoliers. :)

As @yogurtthehorse mentioned, the pathing system is interesting. It also allows you to skip the pathfinding programming in a creative way. :D

Also, as @kiberptah said, adding "click to continue" to the "Victory" text would make the level transition a bit better. But since I've read as far as "this game has 3 levels" I was expecting more. Also, "press tab if many factories" kinda gives away that you might get to that point, eventually.

At first, I thought different slots affected different body parts, but it seems that it's more about stats. E.g. having more agility leads to more legs, etc.? It's probably a quite creative way of handling it. Although it would make combinations like A-A-P and P-A-A look identical (and maybe they should, as their stats are identical anyway).

A somewhat simple addition that I would have is ranged weapons, even if they're pathetic. Because it would make tanky frontliners more worthwhile, since you can only have 3-4 effective melee attackers anyway (there is usually no space for more). If you could have a composition of 3-4 frontliners with HP+HP+HP, covered by ~4 ranged units and a couple of "pushers" (all into power and maybe 1 agility) to destroy the enemy base fast, it sounds like a more balanced group than 10 average buts (e.g. a bunch of power and health upgrades).

I tried making some agility-heavy combat units to flank the enemy base after their initial attack, but it failed. :D

But either way, it's always nice to see an RTS-like game on a jam.

https://youtu.be/vI-I_CPE4Gs

ybzpp 2024-10-09 12:07

Beautiful artwork, very cool unit customization mechanics, game is really nice!

dhim 2024-10-09 14:05

Cool Cool Cool, I'd love to do a RTS some day in a jam, but that's seem so difficult to balance. I loved the mechanisms you had put in the game, the pheromone to guide your soldiers, the body part selection is very innovative as well.

Not super sure of what agility/power do though. Is one related to movement speed ? Are the ability useful for harvester (like max collectable energy, collect speed, movement speed ?)

pious 2024-10-09 20:16

Honestly this is a pretty strong entry with the mechanics and use of stat building and everything. Thoroughly enjoyed the game, couldn't get past the double base part though, felt pretty hard but I'm not a usual RTS player. This was pretty well designed as a unit builder. Saw another game with a similar concept but very different aesthetic and theme and genre. Pretty well done!

chrisbeck 2024-10-10 09:31

Really like this game, I feel like this theme was ideal for an RTS style game. I liked the ability to design your own beetles rather than just having pre set attributes. Really good job!

trogdor-20x6 2024-10-10 14:28

I found the use of pheromones to be an interesting addition and even a bit ambitious. Seems very well polished, the only obvious bugs are the beetles. I also ended up making an RTS like, though they're still so different. Seems it's hard to balance them within such a short time frame.

13x666 2024-10-10 15:39

Ok, the pheromones idea is ingenious. Reminded me of this project by Lychee Game Labs (I removed the link to YT because it embedded a huge player right into my comment, but: ...watch?v=adXr4v0rEBo), a similar idea, both implementations are very cool and inspiring!

I'd like to have a quicker way to select attributes. Maybe something like a color selector with a 2d plane + a slider (x for power, y for agility, slider for vitality or something like that) so I can design my army more efficiently!

Overall a great entry with high replay value, I'm going right back to try and beat that double base level

ticrum 2024-10-11 08:33

Nice simple RTS, the control are simple but efficient and i realy like the units customisation. Also i notice that the AI adapt to the modifier that we choose on the units and that a nice addition. The only down side is that health upgrade is to powerfull against other one and you can just easily steam roll the AI.

royur 2024-10-11 09:18

fun game. only has three level ya? wish have two pheromones so that i can control 2 group of insect. like left click green pheromone attract heart insect and right click yellow pheromones attract power insect.

war.PNG

sockenpuppe 2024-10-11 12:55

Yeah, I agree with the others. The use of pheromones to tell the units where to go is great!

Lost the first time because I only had soldiers and naturally I ran out of sap to get more units. But that was my own fault for not reading before playing haha

Once I knew what to do I cleared all three levels. Feels very polished! And I was very happy to see an RTS here :)

arcadeeleven 2024-10-12 08:18

Many good ideas, solid game. Well done !

someone 2024-10-12 22:43

The was really cool, I played two loops of levels but it became too easy after figuring a good strategy. I really like the pheromone system for movement. It could do with buttons for those extra controls so it can be played entirely with the mouse. Also an auto-queue option would have been useful to save having to keep spamming the add button.

glaikunt 2024-10-13 10:00

This game has been my favorite game to play so far, the idea is just so good. I hope you make a full version of this and flesh it out. From the way you build different units to how you direct them. Amazing job!

Screenshot 2024-10-13 105835.png

thoastbot 2024-10-21 21:55

I LOVE this game, the idea, the execution, the style even the sounds just fit. And i totaly dig the "building" - expand on that and give it some nice ui's and you got an amazing game in your hands :o

lindote 2024-10-24 18:41

WOW. I love the game. It remind me of Warcraft III, or Starcraft kind of game (that I love). WELL DONE. Nice graphics, OK Sound. I had a Great time. Good Job.

kanagg 2024-10-25 21:29

A lot of fun! Glad I clicked on your entry :)