FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD56 → Petri Wars

Petri Wars

By conradoclark

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall124.3025
Fun264.1026
Innovation683.8126
Theme64.4126
Graphics84.5426
Audio104.2026
Humor1613.0023
Mood244.1226

Comments

sviborg 2024-10-07 12:29

Just super! ✨ I like the gameplay and the music really suits the gameplay. Great job! 👍 :smile: :smile:

ejunegao 2024-10-07 12:38

Love the art, and the music does fit well with the theme! The game feels complete, and the fact that Pseudo requires 2 Bacillus nearby to be built did require me to do a lot more micro-decision making while setting up my defense, which seems to be a great way to introduce some quick decisions for the player.

My game did die when fighting against the second wave, so there could have been a bug happening that stopped the game. It wasn't very obvious what the cause was, though.

fint 2024-10-07 12:43

Really fun and cool idea, loved working out the different strategies with optimal placements of the different structures and so on, vibe is pretty dead on too.

Would love to see the ability to select and 'paint' a single structure over and over rather than clicking back and forth.

bitluderrb7804fr 2024-10-07 13:07

I like it! Nice graphical style. And always fun to bulid within constraints.

conradoclark 2024-10-07 13:12

@ejunegao Thanks for playing! I think I'm aware of the issue, it seems to be memory-related. Did the screen freeze but the music kept playing? I caught this problem once during my final playtest before submission, but it was already too late to diagnose and fix it unfortunately.

It happened on wave 5 for me during playtest, when there were too many units/bacteria on the screen. I hope it doesn't happen too often for other people :pray:

conradoclark 2024-10-07 13:14

@fint Thanks! That's a very good idea. I thought of adding shortcut keys for each type of bacteria to ease the excessive mouse clicking but ran out of time :sweat_smile:

jejkobb 2024-10-07 13:21

I love the art, its hard to get such a fluid feeling with pixel art and you did it amazingly well. Feels like perfectly complex game for a game jam, easy to get into, hard to master. Well done!

hotaloca 2024-10-07 13:37

Really solid entry with a tower defense mechanics, a great art style. It took me a time to figure out what bacteria does what but after that it was all clear.

ellaris 2024-10-07 14:08

Pretty cool, although it would be nice to be able to speed up the incoming wave and place the building faster later on, like a hot key. Building also didn't seem to repair, so maybe a repair one which could repair nearby ones if they are not attacked or between the waves.

meep 2024-10-07 15:44

This was really fun! I think for replay value, would love to see a fast-forward button and hotkeys for building each unit type. :P The pace was fine for an initial play, though. Like others have mentioned, I ran into some screen freeze (with music playing) in the middle of I think wave 4 or 5. :( While beyond the deadline, IIRC major bug fixes are allowed as long as new features aren't added (and some changelog is noted).

seth-l 2024-10-07 16:14

I loved this! I also ran into the issue where the game froze and the music kept playing, but you already seem aware of this. This kinda reminded me of the sort of game I'd play on Nitrome back in the day. Super polished, and I loved the music! I think my only complaint was that it wasn't super clear to me what counted as 'being next to two bacillus' to place the pseudo. Super minor, though; I figured it out quickly enough. Overall, great work!

conradoclark 2024-10-07 16:55

Hey all thanks for playing! I really appreciate it :smile:

@ellaris Repair was going to be an ability common to every bacteria (resources in exchange of health) but I had no time left to implement it. Your idea is very interesting though!

@meep Oh, maybe I can take a look into it then! I'll double check the rules and see if I can fix it then.

@seth-l A tutorial was something I had planned but had to scratch because of time. My idea was to have more types of bacteria and induce the player to try different formations to be able to build different colonies, etc, but I severely underestimated the amount of work required to put everything together haha :sweat_smile:

skaaaza 2024-10-07 17:44

Wow, nice graphics and atmosphere. I really like tower defense, so it was enjoyable to play. I think you should develop it further :)

adjo 2024-10-07 20:12

The music is really good! It fits perfectly with the game. I like the restrictions on some structures, it makes it a bit more complex than just spamming down elements. I think it was a little too easy to get to essentially unlimited money, but maybe that could be helped with different types of structures or something.

fnelix 2024-10-07 20:19

Very cool, I like the sleek look, everything fits really well! Gameplay works very good, music is cool, too. After two failed attempts, my colony really took of and I had more than enough nutrients after a while. Very impressive game for the compo!

plasmapuffs 2024-10-08 02:58

I really like playing these types of games! Spamming Cyanos, I survived to wave 5 with an abundance of bacteria (over 2000). I think it would be useful if the builds were instant (for support in fights) and if there was a way to delete bacteria that are already placed.

a-priori 2024-10-08 03:34

Really fun game with some interesting strategic rules, and great pixel art! There's just two things I'd like to see in future, like other users have commented: a way to delete/sell previously placed bacteria and a way to place them faster just because it's a little tedious to place a lot.

braulio-jg 2024-10-08 10:55

The style is fantastic, the music fits the game perfectly and the theme is greatly represented! I enjoyed the experience and reached the end... and the bacteria evolution could fit as a topic for a sequel ;).

dashvirus 2024-10-09 21:59

Hey @conradoclark ! I loved your game, for real it's on of the best compos I played so far. It's simple it doesn't need much explanation yet we can easily see a lot of strategies from where the enemies are coming and thanks to the placement on the grid. I love grid games, I made one myself this year. It's always so satisfying to put things up the way you want to. Unfortunately I had a frozen game during Wave 4, it's a bit frustrating :'( Other than that, the graphics are great, it really looks like a high quality flash game from back in the time. The audio also fits well with the general ambiance. The mechanics and interactions are logic and nice, though it would have been great to make something more useful with the fundations, like upgrading them to make them a bit more useful than being shields haha. I really think it's the kind of game that deserves a scaled version ! If you think about it let me know, it's a super project. Well done !

crcdng 2024-10-09 23:21

very impressed with the game, and also liked the biological terminology. I would like keyboard controls, a bit more clear (audiovisual) feedback when trying to build something that's not possible. definitely excited to try the next version.

archeroffaith 2024-10-10 19:58

Unbelievable, great idea, great realization It really works in jam format!

pikario 2024-10-10 21:44

I loved it! Music is really cool, and pixel art is great, well done 🥳

I thing I reached the end? x) A screen appeared during my gameplay after phase 5, but I missclicked on the button without having he time to read it because I wasn't excepting the end x) But I had a great time, thank you!

sharploaded 2024-10-13 10:00

Very impressive! I would really have liked hotkeys, or that you select what you want to build first and then click everywhere you want it. Now you constantly have to select a tile and then click bottom of screen, back and forth. It becomes more of a "how fast can you aim and click" rather than strategy. Very nice job overall, amazing visuals, good music. Great use of theme, really tiny creatures here :)

sebbernery 2024-10-14 20:56

Nice game ! I like the take on the theme and the execution is great, good art with beautiful graphisms and cool audio. Unfortunately, I had the same freeze at the stage 4 than other people in the comments. Music continue, but all screen was freezed (I use Firefox, last version). It's strange, it's the second time this evening I have a freeze with a Godot game in HTML5. Don't hesitate to fix it if you can find the bug, the rules allow it. The game became a little too easy with enough cyanobacteria, maybe it could have more constraints on the placement.

Bug or not, in any case, it's easy to see this is an awesome entry, congratulations !

silkworm-sweatshop 2024-10-15 21:33

Nice and polished! Looks really great and cohesive and soundtrack fits as well. You can always add more to these games but for a jam it feels just right and not overwhelming. You don't really need that many cyanobacteria before you can pretty much build constantly but that could probably be balanced with more expensive bacteria (or other ways to spend resources) if you ever expanded on this.

shoalmuse 2024-10-22 15:22

The music adds so much to the game. Great theme and execution. Have some sound effect or effect for an action taking place would be great (it wasn't always immediately clear that my click had any effect).