Don't sink by Doctor Broccoli

[raw]
made by Doctor Broccoli for LD27 (JAM)
You are the king of the glorious island of Sinktopia.
Unfortunately for you, your kingdom is sinking.
Every day, you have to order your citizens to shore up parts of the island and build villages in
order to slow down your inevitable demise. You'll have to think fast though, seeing as every day on
Sinktopia only lasts for 10 seconds.

---

How to play:


The game is controlled with the mouse only.


You left-click on a tile to start a construction project. You can only start a certain amount of
construction projects each day.
If you click on a FOREST or FIELD tile it will be turned into a VILLAGE the next day.
If you click on a SWAMP tile it will be turned into a FIELD the next day.


The island consists of different kinds of terrain, each with their own properties:

-WATER and OCEAN tiles are bad. They can cause neighboring tiles to flood.

-VILLAGES give you more actions. They can be built on FIELDS and FORESTS only. However, villages
will destroy the surrounding environment.
A VILLAGE will starve and turn into SAND if there are less than 5 FIELDS and/or FORESTS within 2
squares of it.

-FIELD tiles will flood and turn into SWAMPS if there are three or more WATER or OCEAN tiles
adjacent to it, they will also dry out and turn into SAND if there are more than two VILLAGES
within 2 sqares of it.
If there are three or more FORESTS next to a FIELD tile it will turn into a FOREST.

-FOREST tiles are more resistent against flooding and will only flood if there are four or more
WATER or OCEAN tiles adjacent to it. FOREST tiles will be chopped down and turned into FIELDS if
they are adjacent to a VILLAGE or if they have 2 or more VILLAGES within 2 squares of it.

-SWAMP tiles can be shored up and turned into FIELDS. They will flood and turn into WATER tiles if
there are three or more WATER or OCEAN tiles adjacent to it.

-SAND tiles will flood and turn into WATER tiles if there are three or more WATER or OCEAN tiles
adjacent to it.
If there are three or more FIELDS and/or FORESTS next to a SAND tile it will turn into a FIELD.


Every day, you will earn 1 point for each unflooded tile and 5 point for each VILLAGE that you have.

The game is over when every tile has flooded and turned into a WATER or OCEAN tile.

TL;DR:
Yeah, the instructions are a bit long, sorry about that. The gist of it is this:
Your island will flood, click on swamps to shore them up and slow the flooding or click on fields
and forests to build villages. Villages give you more actions and points each turn.
Build too many villages too close together and they will starve.
The game is over when everything's flooded.




By the way, my own personal high score is 3477 points over 42 days. See if you can beat it.

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall(Jam) 3.59 83
Audio(Jam) 1.70 485
Fun(Jam) 3.38 115
Graphics(Jam) 3.94 114
Humor(Jam) 1.96 399
Innovation(Jam) 4.09 8
Mood(Jam) 3.07 236
Theme(Jam) 3.46 131

Feedback

Parappa
26. Aug 2013 · 17:02 UTC
Awesome little game! Makes me want to play Fire Emblem. :) Interesting cellular automata mechanics, and a strong ecological message in there too. Thumbs up all-round!
nihilocrat
26. Aug 2013 · 17:07 UTC
I got a score of 1415 over 14 days. I used as many actions as I received, so I ended up going into explosive growth and turning the whole island into sand. I like the idea of a turn-based building game that has time pressure.
Schwiggy
26. Aug 2013 · 17:11 UTC
This is pretty complex for such a short development time, it's fun to try to keep track of everything on the island with the time quickly running out. I think my problem was that I built villages too close to the forests but I made it to day 18 and had 1458 points.
Ravetcofx
26. Aug 2013 · 17:44 UTC
no Linux Version, no votes
javifugitivo
26. Aug 2013 · 18:03 UTC
A larger version of this game would be very very interesting. Good work!
Xaychru04
26. Aug 2013 · 18:10 UTC
One of the cleverest game concept I've seen on this Compo/Jam.
I enjoyed playing this little game a lot! :)
madk
26. Aug 2013 · 18:51 UTC
Fantastic game! I was able to get 25 days and 2060 points.
Noah Ratcliff
26. Aug 2013 · 18:52 UTC
Very fun! I made it 17 days.
coreym1988
26. Aug 2013 · 19:12 UTC
Really cool concept. It was fun to play, but I never felt like I had any control over gameplay. It didn't really seem to matter what I did, and instead, felt more important to use my actions before the ten seconds were up. With a little balancing, this game has a lot of potential.
voltorben
26. Aug 2013 · 19:43 UTC
Will comment here so i can can find it later, if i get my hands on a computer with windows!
Looks and sounds really neat. Also saw your blog post (a screenshot) about it on the front page during the jam, and i've kinda been looking for it :)
imef
26. Aug 2013 · 21:49 UTC
That's an interesting concept you have here. I'm sure a bit of digging could make the game even better!
Delca
27. Aug 2013 · 10:54 UTC
21 days - 1904 points is the best I could do. I found it a bit short (because I was no good) though ; offering different sizes of island or slightly-altered game mechanics would enable everyone to enjoy it a bit longer.
That being said, I loved every second of it (yes, even the unstoppable flood of the last squares of sand I got was kinda fun to watch).
Also, great use of cellular automata! The closer I got to a game with them was cave generation ; it is nice to see them used in a different and interesting way.
RobotParking
27. Aug 2013 · 13:15 UTC
I SUNK :(
elementz123
27. Aug 2013 · 13:19 UTC
This is quite a nice idea! I really like the graphics too.
Xgor
27. Aug 2013 · 21:40 UTC
Really love the graphics on this one, It's kinda confusing but it works well and it interprets the theme in a neat way.
lordjosephdeburg
27. Aug 2013 · 23:44 UTC
Made it to 15 days and thoroughly enjoyed it! Reminds me of populous
Starspell
28. Aug 2013 · 18:02 UTC
The game crashes whenever I try to play it unfortunately. It's a shame because this sounds like a really innovative game which looks good as well. All I could think looking at the description and screenshots was Wetrix for the N64.
Supercannon
28. Aug 2013 · 18:04 UTC
Very cool concept and pretty good graphics. Good work for 1 weekend!
ratking
28. Aug 2013 · 18:18 UTC
Really, really cool game. I like what you made of the game of life.
The only that irritated me while playing was the camera movement, it's annoying. And some sound and music would be great.
lopiky1
29. Aug 2013 · 14:44 UTC
Nice!! :D
ashdnazg
29. Aug 2013 · 14:53 UTC
Quite original and very pretty!
Brejlounek
29. Aug 2013 · 14:57 UTC
My best were 14 days... Very interesting. And depressing, watching villages turn into sand so quickly... :(
phi
01. Sep 2013 · 09:11 UTC
I love this one. Very clever mechanics, well thought out. Only when you run out of villages, you just sit there and wait till it's over. The graphics are amazing. Thanks for making it!
phi
01. Sep 2013 · 09:12 UTC
I love this one. Very clever mechanics, well thought out. Only when you run out of villages, you just sit there and wait till it's over. The graphics are amazing. Thanks for making it!

My score was 1900 over 23 days.
JokerDen
01. Sep 2013 · 09:45 UTC
It was cool. I very like games with onnovative rules. I know that the theme was "10 seconds" but you must make game into turn-based. It have some Life mechanics but it's only positive. May be it need some improvements because always my island turn into sand island and few last turns I just wait until the island in sink. Good game!
PS: I have x64 Win7 but it's run perfect.
kibertoad
01. Sep 2013 · 10:49 UTC
very impressive engine, but the 10 sec thing only hurts it. also it would be nice to have control over camera. never expected to see this level of terraforming in an LD game.
X-0r
01. Sep 2013 · 18:50 UTC
Just... wow!
This game is one of the best I've ever seen in a LD!
Cellular automata for the win. My best was 30 days, 2219 score.

I actually "precalculated" a strategy in order to actually beat the game and continue playing it as long as I wanted. Still, I never managed to actually use that strategy, since I don't have enough moves to apply the needed changes...

V... Village
S... Swamp
F... Forest
f... Field
0... any supply (Forest/Field)
?... any non-village (Forest/Field/Swamp/Sand/Water)
~... Water

~~~~~~~~
~VfFFSV~
~S0000f~
~F0??0F~
~F0??0F~
~f0000S~
~VSFFfV~
~~~~~~~~

That way, you have 4 actions (4 villages), and each turn, you can fill up 4 swamps, and 4 new swamps will be created, which can be filled next turn until infinity =)

That should work... right?
🎤 Doctor Broccoli
01. Sep 2013 · 20:04 UTC
X-0r: Yep, that looks like it should work. It'll be very tricky to pull off, but it should work. Also: you just put more thought into this game than I ever did, so congratulations with that.
klianc09
02. Sep 2013 · 11:57 UTC
This is really hard, but fun. I just wish there was a way to plant forests, as they would be the only thing to stop the flood. But this inevitability of defeat just gives it a much more intense atmosphere.
Also was this supposed to tech us something about environmental protection? ^^
🎤 Doctor Broccoli
02. Sep 2013 · 17:28 UTC
Klianc09: Nope, I didn't actually realize that the game had environmentalist undertones until way after I'd submitted it. I just needed some way to balance out the power of building villages. Destroying the environment seemed like the way to do it.
smrt_co
03. Sep 2013 · 20:33 UTC
Excellent game! I loved it! :)
Yakka
04. Sep 2013 · 10:54 UTC
I really love the idea! I don't think I understood very well how make optimize my score but I think you could go further on this game and get an awesome little god game!
TobiasW
13. Sep 2013 · 20:59 UTC
Thanks for your comment on my game! To answer your implicit question: The game considers you to be in a dark area when you touch a dark area with any blue part. If you are in a dark area, your shield (the white circle around you) will start to be used up, and if you continue to touch the dark area, once the shield is used up the game is over. Now on to your game!


It's quite cool, I like it - although the feedback could be a bit clearer. It's probably quite easy for you to figure out what will happen, but for those reading the rules it isn't, so maybe mouse-over help and arrows where the ocean will move would've helped a lot.

Apart from that though I enjoyed playing it. I really like the colorful graphics.

I'm wondering a bit why there's no music and sound? Being a jam entry, you have plenty of resources for those, like Open Game Art, Incompetech, Freesound.org and the Newgrounds Audio Portal - it's fairly easy to find, and makes any game feel MUCH better.