Siege Engineers

juutis 2026-10-20 09:57 ♥ 2

This was such a great entry! Very nice use of the theme! All the mechanics, the UI and the instructional texts were quite a lot to take in at first so it took me a while to figure everything out, but after that the game was super enjoyable and interesting.

I had some frustrations with the engineers, though. It seems that work was assigned somewhat randomly (or maybe with a rotation?) so quite often eg. a bridge building task would be assigned to the furthest-away engineer and he couldn't make it to the site in time and I would lose all my soldiers. It's especially bad since by default the engineers would hang around at the end of the soldier column. In that sense it was kinda counter-productive to hire too many engineers.

Also the timing for some sections is very tight. Especially in the beginning with a single engineer you kinda need to immediately pause the game and assign all the work right away. Combined with all the information you need to take in at first, I needed to retry the very first section quite a few times.

These are minor gripes, though. The bridge building mechanics work really well and overall the entry is super solid!

kryakikrya 2026-10-20 14:52 ♥ 2

One of the coolest games of all 5 Ludums I've played. I had a couple of problems because a character wouldn't throw Sandbag if you'd already planned a building next to them, so they'd throw Support without Sandbag, and my guys would just drown ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ. In any case, the game is very cool, special thanks for the Linux build ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ

lllarso 2026-10-20 17:16 ♥ 2

Very fun game! It is a lot of fun getting the soldiers to the flags. :)

The archer on the tower seemed a little bit bugged or placed wrong, because when he wanted to shoot my soldiers, he just shot his tower. The feedback on the other hand, when you destroy the tower, is very satisfying! :)

Did one of your team members made the music?

The checkpoints were fairly placed and the gameplay offered a lot of variety. I also like the visuals of the game. Everything was fitting.

mascoll 2026-10-20 17:31 ♥ 3

@juutis Thank you kindly for your review! Finding the right level of tutorialization in a game like this was HARD! But I appreciate that you soldiered through (pun intended 😆 ) Thank you for reporting on the engineers - it turned out it was an actual bug so hopefully it should be as intended now. Regarding the timing feedback - I think that we will try to inform about the pause to plan mechanic more clearly if we develop this further, after the Jam. Overall thank you for your excellent feedback!

@kryakikrya That is amazingly high praise! Thank you! The sandbag issue you mention is actually an interaction we didn't foresee. Well spotted! I'll add it to the post-jam dev todo so we fix it if we develop further after the jam! Thank you again for your feedback and review! I'll send on the thanks for the Linux-build to our dev member [Voxar](https://ldjam.com/users/voxar) who year after year sets up excellent GIT-repos for us for LD with some sort of script voodo that makes builds in itch as soon as we push to main.

@lllarso I'm glad you enjoyed our little game! We have a very basic (old-school)ai where the archers should move towards the edges of the towers, but honestly - some of the levels I finished tiling an hour or so before deadline so I've probably just placed them wrong in Godot. 😆 The music tracks are by our super talented team member [Mannyfrog](https://ldjam.com/users/mannyfrog)! Thank you for your review and great feedback!

fis 2026-10-20 17:46 ♥ 1

Really nice entry, mood is great, audio suits well with the graphics - I really like the shaded night with the point lights - well done!

kuzey 2026-10-20 17:49 ♥ 1

So cool, love the music as well, it is so catchy. Bridge mechanic is solid!

bokanik 2026-10-20 18:16 ♥ 1

nice game for sure. fun to watch as well and this could a bit chaotic considering lack of command ability to soldiers. decent execution, even though ux is a bit crowded, understandable gameplay carries fun for sure.

petroxa 2026-10-20 18:16 ♥ 1

loved the idea of the game mechanics and the relation with theme! i couldnt get to the end but it was fun to try over and over again. good work!!

astoeth 2026-10-20 19:32 ♥ 1

Very fun ! I just dug a tunnel bellow the ennemi's fortress in the last level and not sure if it's intended but it trigger a victory ! (logical though, now i'm behind them niahaha !)

Great entry, nice to see, fun to play, nice to ear ! Well done !

eugenik 2026-10-21 02:45 ♥ 3

The chaotic nature of directing the engineers against the unstoppable King's army is a really unique concept. I especially enjoyed the atmospheric visuals, like the shaded night during the siege. Great job making the process feel so big and crucial!

nbumgardner 2026-10-21 03:09 ♥ 2

Nice job polishing the game so much, I like the gradient of colors going up from the gray rock to the night sky above. The game has depth where the more you play, the better you get and can strategize by knowing more about how the game works and bridges fall apart. After playing for roughly an hour on stream I have many thoughts:

- Suggestions: - Having deserting soldiers doff their armor similar to Ghosts and Goblins would be charming and a way to explain why they can jump so much higher than before. - Maybe having the last soldier have infinite patience would be a good easy mode? Could call it the One Man Army mode. - Learning Curve: - Learning to pause the game made it much easier, I kept running out of time the first few playthroughs before the first checkpoint. - When I was trying to dig under the enemy tower to save wood resources, my engineer kept trying to retreat behind the army, instead of digging the second then first block each time, to maximize how long the soldiers would wait before abandoning their post. - I did not want to spend my gold at the first rest site because I did not know if there would be components that need gold, or if having a second engineer would increase building speed or not, especially since the engineer cost 2.5 times as much as a soldier. - A Flavorful Theme: - It made me laugh immediately to see in the introduction cutscene that the soldiers walked to their deaths, while the engineers stopped at the edge and looked on - you can tell someone (the developers) liked engineers better than soldiers! - The theming of the gameplay is great, having a relentless army and overworked engineers seemed likely. - I felt like a cold calculating engineer when I woke up the knights over and over to test their fall damage.

Congratulations on making this gem of a game!

fassenberg 2026-10-21 10:29 ♥ 2

I liked the visuals! The gameplay is interesting but hard, it takes a while to get used to it and figure out what to do. Also, my character keeps running to the back of the column. But it looks like he should go to the front, because if you’re at the back, the army dies on the pikes. A tutorial and fullscreen mode would be nice!

mascoll 2026-10-21 10:40 ♥ 2

@fassenberg Thank you for playing!

The first (and part of the second) level is a in-game tutorial - The signs across the level tells you about the different tools and where to use them.

Did you feel that they didn't give enough info?

The engineer isn't part of the army so he keeps safe in the back, but the engineers will run and finalize any orders you give them. If the army dies on spikes you need to build a bridge over the spikes or dig under them. The army will always walk on, out of your control, so planning is needed - But if you feel stressed you can pause the game with spacebar and plan out your orders.

There is a full-screen toggle in the menu (esc) under settings.

I appreciate your feedback - If we develop this further we will might need to taka another pass on how we communicate to the player.

fassenberg 2026-10-21 11:13 ♥ 2

@mascoll Thanks for explaining! I replayed it. I’d say the problem isn’t too little info, it’s too much at once. There are three signs on the first screen. They’re hard to read and they pop up instantly. It’s a tutorial, so it should be easy. I tried 6 times and couldn’t beat the first level. Last time my soldiers drowned because I didn’t have enough dirt.

Basically, there are too many things to do and keep in mind. It’s too hard for the start.

Also, the game doesn’t tell you to use pause a lot (or I didn’t find it).

About playing as the engineer and not controlling the army: I agree, that makes sense.

As for fullscreen, I didn’t think to look in the settings, my bad. For a web game I just expected an easier way to go fullscreen.

Anyway, I see a lot of potential in this game. I liked it, but I can’t keep replaying it so many times. Because of that, I’m missing all the content that could have surprised me.

john-shen 2026-10-21 11:23 ♥ 1

Incredible entry. Reminds me of Lemmings. Challenging but the learning curve works. (Learning to pause and to get the 2nd engineer asap)

septah 2026-10-21 11:36 ♥ 1

give me lemmings vibes :D i think it's quite nice only thing is that pausing should be in some kind of in your face tutorial :D

pidifussel 2026-10-21 12:49 ♥ 1

Very fun game, nice graphics and audio. I was not too good at it but still had my fun while playing. It can get really stressful from time to time

indiepanda 2026-10-21 14:19 ♥ 1

I really like the concept. The art, sound, and atmosphere are also top-notch! However, the game’s pace proved too fast for me; I kept failing to build everything correctly in time. Still, I did manage to reach the watchtower.

justinmullin 2026-10-21 14:49 ♥ 1

Very cool! I stopped playing on day 5, but part of me wants to see how much farther I can go if I get more time to play. The mechanics are simple but work well. It took me a while to understand how to build bridges properly, but things mostly worked well after that. The biggest thing I needed that I didn't notice the game was trying to explain to me was pressing shift to string together bridges - this is crucial later in the game! I thought I needed to place the supports first, so was having a lot of trouble. Impressive entry!

tigerj 2026-10-21 17:32 ♥ 1

I had some struggles at first but then I was educated in the ways of multi-bridge. A small interactive tutorial on each 1-5 ability would reduce a lot of learning curve challenges I think. Thanks for brining it to my game jam show and thanks for making such a fun strategy game. I enjoyed it and I am happy I was able to achieve victory. (lets not discuss the failures) ;)

https://www.youtube.com/live/E8Z34ElYNi0?si=g86Dp_KRcRBs10vI&t=14245

helgust 2026-10-21 20:46 ♥ 0

I really like how the idea of indirect control works! The whole mechanic of building bridges reminds me of a similar smartphone game. I especially like the ability to dig, which is sometimes very helpful

ingi 2026-10-22 00:06 ♥ 0

Really cool idea, and it plays well. The one thing is that I’d make the game a bit easier balance-wise, since I had to restart three times just to reach the first checkpoint 😄

juanrod707 2026-10-22 03:31 ♥ 0

Wow! really cool twist on the lemmings formula, you nailed the implementation and pacing so well!

stingdragon 2026-10-22 20:22 ♥ 0

Wow that was STRESSFUL! I didn't realize I could pause and still build. My god these knights are impatient and dumb! Can't keep themselves alive or moving for two seconds without me!

tanjou 2026-10-25 15:16 ♥ 1

This is lovely! Love me some sandbox like games and it's a very creative approach to the theme. Excellent and highly scored!