Ludum Dare 59 - Cell The Signal

defrag 2026-04-20 02:05

I had a similar idea. Your presentation is much nicer than where I was able to get to! My biggest feedback was that it is difficult to visualize what populations are contained within a tower's range due to the isometric perspective coupled with apparent height. I couldn't tell if the source of the "signal" was coming from the 2D screen position of where the tower's antennas were on the screen, or somehow if it was being "orthogonalized" within the fictional world. Not sure if that make sense - the gist of what I'm trying to say is that I couldn't tell which tower location would be best suited to capturing a building.

My uncompleted version of a cell network sim is here: https://jclayton128.itch.io/signal

rhewid 2026-04-20 02:12

Interesting concept but would need to be faster? Lots of time sitting around and waiting. Also not sure if and when I messed up. Like at the north were 0 people. Do I need to build towers faster?

floonace 2026-04-21 00:46

The graphics are nice and the game is easy to understand. I liked it.

richjbaron 2026-04-21 00:53

Graphics are awesome and this is a cool modern concept. I had Starry internet in LA which this reminded me of haha. I would've loved a little more clarity from the UI/gameplay on what I'm supposed to do but I understand that's hard to implement in a short time, especially for a strategy game. Nice work!

mcramon 2026-04-21 00:54

This game has a lot of potential and i feel it. At this state though it is a bit lacking in content and some things are hard to understand, but regardless it is a very decent compo entry!

rafa-fiedo 2026-04-21 18:43

nice concept! really like the graphics! sadly there aren't sound effect?

bonedaddy 2026-04-21 19:23

This is great, would love to see this finished up a bit. I could see myself spending a lot of time playing it (especially if you went for more of an idle clicker route where you never lose, you always gain). It wasn't always clear to me why I couldn't get people onto my network, but I enjoyed the mechanics and graphics a lot

pres2300 2026-04-21 21:02

Simple game, but fun concept! I don't have much to add from what others have said, but I enjoyed playing your game. Nice work!

ble 2026-04-22 03:49

Nice concept and art style! would like to see a bigger map!

maggardjosh 2026-04-22 16:50

Cool concept! Enjoyed slowly expanding the network, didn't quite understand what I needed to do to convert people over to my network so I just upgraded everything evenly and that didn't work :smile: still enjoyed this entry, good job!

gdman 2026-04-22 17:58

Nice looking town! Interesting idea, with lot of potential. For example, there could be various events, like hardware needing repair or new houses built, also there could be some pr campaigns you can manage, that way time can be filled with mini activities.

henk 2026-04-23 14:59

I don't think this game is possible to win? You can't win customers in buildings with zero approval and all of the little houses in the upper right drop to zero approval within 2 months, way too quickly to build the two towers needed to cover them.

technicalitycreations 2026-04-25 14:33

Nice graphics. I also liked the design of the city. It could definitely use a bit more complexity, however

shoalmuse 2026-04-26 04:36

Great simcity-esque graphics and concept. Some sound/music would really help as there is a lot of sitting around waiting.

xedur 2026-04-26 07:23

Like some others, I'm not sure if the game is actually beatable right now. I feel like the game could definitely guide the player a bit more. For instance, some buildings were within my towers' range, but none of them were using the network. Increasing range or signal didn't have any effect on them. I wasn't sure what the intended strategy was and as the game is 95% waiting without anything to do, I didn't feel like trying again.

The game captures the theme well and there's the seeds of what could be an interesting game, but it needs a lot more work and polish to get there.

bereg 2026-04-26 09:38

s an idea, it’s really cool. But in its current state, it doesn’t feel fully playable yet. It’s very hard to understand the rules behind how the values change in the building next to the antenna. I also couldn’t get the signal across the river at all, since every house there had zero people.

If you add some visual hints that clearly communicate what changes and why, you could develop this into a genuinely interesting full puzzle game, or even a strategy game. Also, the graphics are really pleasant.

fifut 2026-04-26 18:41

A solid foundation for a video game that can be built upon :thumbsup:

daniel 2026-04-26 23:48

Neat idea, and clean presentation! I wish there was a bit more info or feedback from the game on how to convert and retain customers though, I kept upgrading towers but still was losing customers so there may be some game mechanic that I wasn't understanding. Cool jam game though, and love to see management-type games done with this theme!

ganonsspirit 2026-04-27 02:52

There seems to be a bug where some buildings suck up signals far beyond the number of people inside them, which causes other buildings to receive zero signals for the customers inside. Cool idea though!

flightless 2026-05-03 15:05

I enjoyed the visual design. The game mechanics seemed a bit random, but I see potential.

killthealias 2026-05-08 18:45

Really lovely visuals, made it feel like a Sim City minigame of some sort. I only wish the game was a little bit harder!