Color Graphics Adventure by Eniko

[raw]
made by Eniko for LD29 (JAM)
Help CGA-ko survive the dungeons beneath the surface in her quest to defeat the evil EGA-sama! A CGA-retro palette themed card-based dungeon diving game.

Instructions are below the screen. Didn't manage to get sound/music in, or multiple mobs. But it's more than playable, since the slimes get scaled forever anyway! Also, the story didn't manage to get anywhere near done.

This was a solo jam entry. I didn't feel I could do the concept justice in the compo, despite it being source-public, and made solo from scratch. :)

Ratings

Coolness 26% 1930
Overall(Jam) 3.47 197
Audio(Jam) 2.13 610
Fun(Jam) 3.55 95
Graphics(Jam) 3.96 152
Humor(Jam) 2.72 311
Innovation(Jam) 3.60 127
Mood(Jam) 3.00 398
Theme(Jam) 2.16 711

Feedback

sugarbyte
29. Apr 2014 路 01:54 UTC
Fun and I love the graphics. Not sure how it fits the theme.
HacksawUnit
29. Apr 2014 路 02:02 UTC
Really fun! It begs for a mobile port, I know I would play this for weeks if I could take it on the bus with me.
馃帳 Eniko
29. Apr 2014 路 02:07 UTC
Thinking of doing a post-compo version with story, more features, more mobs, and a proper full-screen mobile version. :)
Crowbeak
29. Apr 2014 路 02:24 UTC
This is another one you should polish up for release, if (when) you ever finish MidBoss. I really like the on the fly deck building combined with semi-RT-semi-turn based action. It's unique.
Cambrian_Man
29. Apr 2014 路 03:33 UTC
Cool concept, and the mechanics actually work. I'm terrible at card games, but I understood this one. And, it goes without saying, the graphics are excellent. I'd play a full version of this one.
caranha
29. Apr 2014 路 04:38 UTC
I like your "platform" links :3

The game was pretty cool, there are many mechanics to keep track (such as the rock-paper-scissors) colors, which I kinda like.

How are the attributes at the top determined?

There should be some meta-cards: Cards that reshuffle your hand or something like that.

Cheers, and thanks for the game!
jeffz
29. Apr 2014 路 12:36 UTC
Incredible artwork. This has quite a lot of promise. Looking forward to an update if it gets sounds and music. Well done!
Captain_Genial
29. Apr 2014 路 13:02 UTC
Great Game ! It was reall really fun.
i hope that you gonna make a update :)
馃帳 Eniko
29. Apr 2014 路 13:19 UTC
The attributes at the top are determined by the monochrome cards. Monochrome cards are equipment cards that increase an attribute indicated by the icon (A=sword, M=wand, D=shield, HP=heart) by their strength.
voxel
29. Apr 2014 路 13:43 UTC
I was really hoping for a midboss cameo enemy but despite being utterly disappointed in that regard I loved everything else about this. I did find it a little difficult to distinguish between purple/cyan and red/cyan though, but maybe that's just because I'm trying to play this in direct sunlight. GG
rnlf
29. Apr 2014 路 14:02 UTC
Also not sure about the theme, but the game itself is fun and really nice to look at, even if i don't like this kind of card based gameplay.
Gamepopper
29. Apr 2014 路 18:07 UTC
Retro graphics look nice, card battling system is spot on. Cannot hear any music though.
plash
30. Apr 2014 路 03:28 UTC
Man, this game is a challenge! I managed to make it to 3F with the help of some chests and equipment cards.

It's pretty well balanced (challenge/fun) for an LD game. I like the art style, and CGA-ko's color changes are a small but nice touch. It definitely needs more enemies than slimes, though! And some glorious low-bit sounds. The vibes are there even without them, but it needs some more feedback to the player.

Also, I love that card queuing and un-queuing works. I usually end up nit picking on gameplay stuff like that (i.e., getting in the way of the player), but kudos for getting it in!
euske
30. Apr 2014 路 13:55 UTC
I like the graphics, but the mechanics was hard for me to remember. Can you put a color chart or something in the game page?
gre
30. Apr 2014 路 21:52 UTC
Awesome! graphics are epic!
Very great game, my only critisms: no audio, theme?
zatyka
30. Apr 2014 路 22:40 UTC
There's not a whole lot, but what you have is really cool. I love the graphics, and commend you for taking on this genre of game in LD. I hope you keep working on it.
renegadeninjanl
01. May 2014 路 12:46 UTC
I enjoyed the game very much. Very original idea compared to other entries. Good job.
PapyGaragos
01. May 2014 路 15:05 UTC
I like the mechanic of the game, I think that with more polish and feedbacks to the player, this could be a great game
finefin
01. May 2014 路 16:15 UTC
the theme is kinda hidden in the "story" but apart from that I really like this game! I give a 5/5 for FUN and 4/5 overall.
2HitAdam
02. May 2014 路 14:27 UTC
Damn, that is an incredibly fun and addictive core mechanic. Anything with card draws I'm in for, but the scissors paper rock system was a really neat way to compound it. It's a great foundation, could make a genuinely awesome and innovative game if you keep working with it!
f7f5
02. May 2014 路 16:01 UTC
I'm not a big "deck-building" fan, but this was of fun. Definitely something I'd play on a mobile phone. Pity about the lack of audio.
mrexcessive
04. May 2014 路 18:12 UTC
Hi. Shame no sound. Like the presentation and idea, shame nothing except the combats.
Daniel X. Moore
05. May 2014 路 02:44 UTC
Pretty fun. It simple enough to learn yet fairly complex, with some refinement and polish I could see this being very good!
1ucid
05. May 2014 路 20:42 UTC
Pretty cool! I don't think it fits the theme. I got all the way to Level 8 and then hit an interminable game state: the enemy had very low attack / magic but very high defense, so we just took turns doing 0 damage to each other. The game should probably have "critical hits" that pierce defense to prevent this. Good stuff!
BlazeCell
06. May 2014 路 04:00 UTC
Awesome concept.
馃帳 Eniko
06. May 2014 路 12:16 UTC
Odd, the game tries to detect if you can't do any damage to the enemy and the enemy can't do any damage to you and should call that a draw. Maybe there's some kind of bug in there. O_o
shadow64
07. May 2014 路 05:49 UTC
I think the graphics look great and the gameplay is pretty good, I just didn't feel like I was getting anywhere. It just seems like you play until you die? You might want to add rounds or a level display to make the player feel like something is being achieved. Right now it just feels like you're in a loop.

I think the game would benefit from a background - especially to hammer home the theme of being beneath the surface. You say we're in a dungeon but we could really be anywhere.

Overall it's a good start, but I think there's a lot that could make this game better. Keep working on it, thanks for sharing, and thanks for rating/commenting on my game! :)
AlexFili
11. May 2014 路 08:44 UTC
I love it, very good use of the card game mechanic and overall a brilliant retro graphical style. Would love to see this as a finished game somewhere.
Jupiter_Hadley
12. May 2014 路 01:50 UTC
One of my favorite cards games from a game jam! I included it in part 25 of my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you'd like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/06U_lc3kLp4
Daveloper
12. May 2014 路 18:56 UTC
Nice submissions Eniko, I like the use of color as a gameplay mechanic
Atridas
13. May 2014 路 19:15 UTC
First of all: awesome graphics.

Gameplay is good. It took me a while to get it (I tend not to read instructions :-P) but anyway, you can play it for a while having fun. It may be worth to deepen the concept, if you like it.

I see where you wanted to put the theme, but the end result ended having few of it. Maybe you'd miss backgrounds (FF-like?) but I understand making those is (very) time consuming.
Adrian
14. May 2014 路 13:13 UTC
I didn't like the graphics, but that is probably because I am too young to feel nostalgic about them... :)

The gameplay however was cool. It could use some polishing, as expected of a Jam game, but overall it was fun. I am impressed by the quantity of content you added!
VDZ
19. May 2014 路 16:50 UTC
I tend to really like TCGs and deckbuilding games, but that's mainly because the cards that tend to be so different in effect. Unfortunately, that isn't the case here, with all cards adhering to the same pattern and giving no surprises. And surprises is what I feel the game lacks; it felt like I was just grinding through the enemies and that there was no point to it all. You encounter treasure chests between battles, but I never felt excited by the treasure. I feel that adding some kind of progression, be it finding more interesting/unique cards, battling other monsters, arriving in different locations, and so on would make this game much more interesting. Then again, grinding games have been really popular on smartphones lately - maybe you're doing things exactly right and this just isn't my kind of game.

As others have said, graphics are great, it should really have music and sound, and I couldn't see any relation to the theme.