Desert Strife by HuvaaKoodia
Many moons ago the world was engulfed in the madness known as war.
A shadow of its former glory, humanity persists in a scarred world.
Ancient relics of old still linger, haunted by the sins of the past.
Some seek power once again, heedless to the warnings of history.
It is those who have to be stopped at any cost.
Controls:
LMB = select/command unit
RMB = deselect unit
Space = end turn
Team:
Programming - HuvaaKoodia
Graphics - Ranquil
Audio:
Freesound (freesound.org)
Presence of Music (presence-of-music.com)
- Music track: http://www.presence-of-music.com/cn8/cn21/marine_relic.html
Developer's comments
Happy how it turned out, yet the following features didn't make the cut:
- A proper campaign with multiple missions
- Improved AI (threat assessment, intelligent positioning)
- Battle animations
- Certain sound effects (you won't notice, but I do...)
Desktop builds are in!
Enjoy!
A shadow of its former glory, humanity persists in a scarred world.
Ancient relics of old still linger, haunted by the sins of the past.
Some seek power once again, heedless to the warnings of history.
It is those who have to be stopped at any cost.
Controls:
LMB = select/command unit
RMB = deselect unit
Space = end turn
Team:
Programming - HuvaaKoodia
Graphics - Ranquil
Audio:
Freesound (freesound.org)
Presence of Music (presence-of-music.com)
- Music track: http://www.presence-of-music.com/cn8/cn21/marine_relic.html
Developer's comments
Happy how it turned out, yet the following features didn't make the cut:
- A proper campaign with multiple missions
- Improved AI (threat assessment, intelligent positioning)
- Battle animations
- Certain sound effects (you won't notice, but I do...)
Desktop builds are in!
Enjoy!
Especially cool that there is a tutorial level with a step-by-step explanation.
I did't have any sound effects, or background music btw. But maybe it's my Firefox problem.
@cushycode
That is indeed weird. You should try updating Firefox or using another browser, the music especially is worth it.
I enjoyed the game much more than I usually enjoy turn-based strategy games.
The dynamic choice between getting resources and attacking was tough. Plus, I loved the "mystery box"-style of the rewards. Made this rather stagnant genre fresh.
However, I sometimes forgot which ruins were already looted. A graphical queue/ even just removing them would have been nice.
Sound and music worked fine in my Firefox. Again, really cool use of the theme and genre.
Every weapon has a hit chance: low for melee, rather high for rifles and bazookas and extremely high for the tank. Hence battles between similar groups can go any way and even a well armed force can get unlucky at times (the wrong times!). Showing the calculations could be an option for sure, consider it considered.
The tank is a vehicle, if the fuel runs out the driver will come out to fight.
@DespiteSoft
Marking the ruins somehow is a good idea, after all the AI never forgets so why should us humans! I'll think of something for the Post-Jam version.
The whistling wind sets the mood well, and the audio design is pretty nice. The interface explained itself pretty well, but the tutorial was nice. The combat pause was a little tedious sometimes, but not too bad.
Wish there had been a few levels in succession, playing with the existing mechanics. Maybe a level where you have to attack an opponent who was pillaging a rich region of ruins before they got too strong. Maybe even a level with a far-away opposing team with a tank, and you with many ruins to sift through hoping to defend yourselves.
Thanks for putting this together!
It's crazy what you were able to do in three days
Ps: Loved your comment on Chadwik
@Digitaldude555
Added the song link to the description. We had a teensy production issue with art assets. You can read more about that in the up coming post-mortem (hype, hype!).
Thanks for the feedback. I intend to improve the battle visuals in order to make it easier to understand why one side won over the other. Another planned improvement is notifications in the GUI to show when resources (ammo and fuel) are spent to make it more explicit.
The tank is one of the possible technologies you can find in the ruins. Finding another tank with the same group is highly unlikely, but if you do find fuel you can walk back to the old tank and start using it again.
The system is simple but I enjoyed to playing it.
The tank surprised me ^^.
Congrats for the nice work!
Also you background music pretty good
As others have stated already, the music was excellent, the sounds a bit weird (honestly, I don't think ladies can scream like that :P), the graphics quite nice...
What really got me was the thing which should be the most important thing anyway - the gameplay. It was a really nice concept, and incredibly well balanced. The battles are intense, fun, and you never know who will win. My first playthrough resulted in me saying "They have a f*****g tank!" before being crushed to pieces. The next one I was able to acquire one myself, and I've won with just a last lady standing.
With a bit of polish, maybe some more terrain types and some helpful indicators (was mentioned already), this would be one hell of a game. I really hope to see this being continued, it has a lot of potential.
Some point to ameliorate it maybe :
- Add some animation to kwon who attack
- The campain is around 50/50 chance to win depending of the starting location, maybe to add more strategy, you can add
- More differents units.
- Some obstacles.
- More actions choices for each units.
Cool music.
Great job.
I wish there was a way to tell which ruins have already been explored, and some animations would have added a lot, but this is very impressive for the time spent. Nice work!
Overall pretty decent, the core gameplay is solid. What I feel could be added is more feedback mechanisms, like sounds, animations, particle effects etc, which I know you leave out in the interest of time.
Not sure about not being able to attack after moving, it kind of push you to always let the enemy come forth.
Are there more levels? I beat the first level of the campaign and only saw a main menu button...
Had fun playing this!
Fun: Yes and no... there is definitely strategy here, it took me a couple of goes to win. However I didn't feel much urge to continue playing. More maps and more types of units might have helped. I also think it was hindered a little by the mechanics not being completely clear: (i) how are the number of casualties decided in each attack? Is there randomness? (ii) What bonus do I get from each ruin? How come that guy gets a tank?
Theme: It's there in the ruins (not front and centre, but that's fine).
Graphics: I like the graphics. Rearranging the soldiers' positions randomly with each step was a cheap and effective way create the feeling of a crowd moving. I enjoyed the combat animations added in the post jam version.
Audio: Worked well. (I take it you didn't make the sounds and music. But you chose them well.)
Humor: N/A? (The cutesy soldier graphics is appealing though)
Mood: I think everything worked well together to create a good mood... although the screams didn't seem to match the cutesy chibi look of the soldiers.
Overall: An ambitious game that looks and sounds good and has an element of fun but would probably need more complexity to grab a player for longer.