Universal Information Superhighway Connectivity Simulator 2014 by egdob

[raw]
made by egdob for LD30 (COMPO)
Universal Information Superhighway Connectivity Simulator 2014 puts you in the hot seat as the chief network engineer for a fledging new telecoms expert in the era of the space race.

Establish connectivity on planets before joining them up with juicy high-capacity back-haul to become the Ultimate Telecoms Giant.

Improve your infrastructure by upgrading exchanges, but keep an eye on your Network Rating - keep it above 1000 by maintaining a ratio of 16:4:1 exchanges and having enough capacity for all your customers.

Ratings

Coolness 24% 1907
Overall 3.31 446
Innovation 3.27 468

Feedback

eatsleepindie
25. Aug 2014 · 08:12 UTC
I really enjoyed this game. I found it much easier to play in a small browser window (in a maximized window the buttons were too far from the game play area). The animations on the planets as you interacted were great and helped me keep my focus where I needed to.
Dimir
25. Aug 2014 · 14:16 UTC
Super job! Great pixel grafics!
fizzd
25. Aug 2014 · 14:20 UTC
This is really well done, even though i don't usually play games in this genre. In Safari on OSX the text box blocks some of the options though.
isal
26. Aug 2014 · 07:31 UTC
Awesome :D. beat it on 3rd attempt. Especially love the animations around the planets to keep me informed about whats going on.
Christian Scandariato
26. Aug 2014 · 18:44 UTC
Fun game! I laughed at "Febember".
elkiwydev
26. Aug 2014 · 18:54 UTC
Good job but I feel a need of a better explanation of what is going on when i start the game
INC$D021
29. Aug 2014 · 10:43 UTC
Hard but fun :)
mechabit
29. Aug 2014 · 10:47 UTC
Fun game, first try I was expanding on all planets at the same time. Much easier just to max out the infrastructure and marketing on a single planet first by which time you have enough money to just build back hauls on all the other planets without worrying about customers to win the game.
Rage Paint
29. Aug 2014 · 23:57 UTC
I liked the small animations in the game, though I wish the screen was a bit bigger.
zazery
03. Sep 2014 · 22:16 UTC
Really cool concept. I ended up failing but I'm not sure why. Sometimes it was hard to figure out how each of my actions affected the different numbers.
HuvaaKoodia
06. Sep 2014 · 13:29 UTC
Overall I enjoyed playing through the game, but balancing the stats is a bit arduous as the rating value is rather arbitrary for a few reasons:

- Why 16:4:1 ratio? Why wouldn't everyone just want to use the tier 3 exchange?
- Who is keeping track of this rating value. Is there a Universal Telecom Council who terminate companies that hit the bottom. Wouldn't threatening with termination be a more effective option. After all it's going to be real big hassle to deal with all the infrastructure and workforce left over from the termination.
-Why is there only one company in control of the Superhighway project. If this was the case there would be a project deadline rather than an arbitrary rating.

So keeping these things in mind here are a few suggestions.

The rating value should be indicative of how well the populace perceives your corporation and how willing they are to stick with your services.

Otherwise they'll change to a competitors service, driven by AI opponents.

The rating is based on:
- Connectivity (how many planets/people are connected)
- Speed (the less congestion the better)
- Price (you can set it to whatever you want!)

Upgrading hardware only increases the speed but has no other effect on the rating. Choosing between copper and fiber isn't really a question for most people.
Kayelgee
15. Sep 2014 · 19:12 UTC
Fun Game. I enjoyed it till the end. I actually lost the first time around because my rating randomly plummeted but I won the second game :)