Adventure Company by Venturelli

[raw]
made by Venturelli for LD27 (JAM)
Hi, my name is Mark. I'm the designer of Dungeonland and this is my first time in LD - also the first time I ever make a game completely by myself!

I have a life-long obsession with both Gauntlet and turn-based games, and with this game I think I've hit both of these notes!

Adventure Company is a half turn-based, half real-time game inspired by Gauntlet. Your party of adventurers must find their way out of each level with as much Loot as possible, but don't get too greedy as the monsters get stronger every turn!

In the Hero Phase, you can take your time and place your heroes. During the Monster Phase, the game goes real-time and the monsters will have 10 seconds to kill you!

Features:
---------
* Innovative turn-based/real-time gameplay;
* 3 playable stages with randomly-placed elements;
* Full support for X360 gamepad and mouse+keyboard;
* Highscore table;
* Flying orc bits!

Known Issues:
-------------
* My pathfinding sometimes goes crazy and orcs think they can fly. Please excuse the horrible deaths you will experience because of it :D

Ratings

Coolness 100% 1
Overall(Jam) 4.00 12
Audio(Jam) 3.61 68
Fun(Jam) 4.01 8
Graphics(Jam) 3.58 213
Humor(Jam) 3.02 134
Innovation(Jam) 3.84 23
Mood(Jam) 3.36 132
Theme(Jam) 3.26 218

Feedback

Mental Atrophy
26. Aug 2013 路 23:16 UTC
Hey, this is a pretty neat idea and you guys should continue making this. It's like a combination of two of my favorite things: Gauntlet and tower defense games.
馃帳 Venturelli
26. Aug 2013 路 23:33 UTC
Thanks man :D

But unfortunately it's not "guys", it's just me... Would love to have a good artist and a decent programmer on board!
lulzfish_4
26. Aug 2013 路 23:36 UTC
It was really fun until I realized I couldn't beat the tutorial level. Then I got pissed off.
LegacyCrono
26. Aug 2013 路 23:38 UTC
This is fantastic! It takes some time to master, but once you get the hang of it it's tons of fun. Nice job!
thephantom
26. Aug 2013 路 23:44 UTC
awesome graphics,game play and idea

great job :)(try to improve the tutorial a little because it took me alot of time to know how to end my turn )
BradleySmith
27. Aug 2013 路 00:03 UTC
Really cute a quirky pixel art style going on in this one, very enjoyable game. Rated highly. :)
Feysoura
27. Aug 2013 路 00:04 UTC
Nice. Takes a time to get the hang on it.
馃帳 Venturelli
27. Aug 2013 路 00:04 UTC
Thanks for the comments, people! Yeah, the game is weird, you gotta give it some time, but it's really fun after you learn it :D
Tork
27. Aug 2013 路 00:33 UTC
Like it, I believe I played 1 like this long ago in kong but it didn't have the aiming part.
scottwashi
27. Aug 2013 路 00:40 UTC
I really like this.
kacperski1
27. Aug 2013 路 00:43 UTC
Man that's really awesome. I couldn't get past 1st level but still :P
doctorscientist
27. Aug 2013 路 00:44 UTC
I find this game to be very easy to understand. I guess its because I have played a lot of tactical games. It really fun and I'd love to see a polished version of this.
mtrc
27. Aug 2013 路 00:47 UTC
This is a really superb idea for a game. You absolutely should develop this further. Holy crap this was so fun.
blopit
27. Aug 2013 路 00:56 UTC
Wow that was very fun. It was like a unique TD
DissidentDan
27. Aug 2013 路 00:57 UTC
Neat concept, but I don't think that you really pulled it off yet. It was too slow, both during the planning part and the real-time part (especially if there are no enemies on screen).

It was also a little weird how the turn-based part still was sort-of real-time in that you could move around and collect money.

I had a case where I started assigning an attack diretion (whether intentionally or not), and I could exit out of it, and I could revisit that character after assigning an attack direction. Because of that, I thought that it needs a way to go back to a character and change what you want him to do during the upcoming turn.

Finally, I thought that it was odd that the real-time portion just seemed to continue until all enemies are dead. I expected some kind of time limit.
theholychicken
27. Aug 2013 路 01:37 UTC
This game is really fun! The mechanics are well designed and easy to use, and killing bottlenecked enemies is very satisfying!
Tiago
27. Aug 2013 路 04:12 UTC
This game is freakin' awesome! Such a nice idea and implementation, this needs to be made into a full game! Great Job!
Antidote
27. Aug 2013 路 07:31 UTC
Really liked the idea :D You start to formulate strategies on which character to face where, quite interesting ^^
Schwiggy
27. Aug 2013 路 18:10 UTC
Wow. This is so cohesive as a whole and just altogether a good game. I did run into the pathfinding glitch in the second level that led to my demise. As you said, it is a bit similar to my game but dang man yours blows my entry out of the water. It's also interesting how you went more the console route while I went with a mobile control scheme.
馃帳 Venturelli
27. Aug 2013 路 23:06 UTC
Thanks for the kind words, Schwiggy :D
ghostmaple
27. Aug 2013 路 23:28 UTC
Excellent! Reminded me of the mood of the anxious parts in the original X-Com when you position your guys and hope hope hope you'll scrape through to the next turn.
Lord_X
28. Aug 2013 路 00:48 UTC
Seems interesting, but the link is broken, so I can't download it!
馃帳 Venturelli
28. Aug 2013 路 01:39 UTC
Oops, it's fixed now, Lord_X. Dropbox playing tricks on me!
jglrxavpok
28. Aug 2013 路 16:27 UTC
Can't manage to pass level 2 x) But very fun to play! Nice work
ConflictiveLabs
29. Aug 2013 路 07:31 UTC
Interesting and fun game! The first time I tried the game I quit because I wasn't sure how to make the damn game move to the next turn. It was frustrating. I was about to give up on it but then I saw the comments and well, they made it look like it was a really good game (once you know how to play it) so I noticed there was this "how to play" inside the file so I read it.
Then I gave it a second chance and I can totally say this is actually fun and innovative. I quite like it! Congrats :)
馃帳 Venturelli
29. Aug 2013 路 11:36 UTC
Thanks for giving the game some time, ConflictiveLabs :)
Mironix
29. Aug 2013 路 13:40 UTC
It's an X-COM made right. keep on it guys, will be more than happy to play to play the full game.
tokw
29. Aug 2013 路 13:46 UTC
good game its like a tower defense
but more interactive nice job continue with this
lopiky1
29. Aug 2013 路 13:47 UTC
:D
馃帳 Venturelli
29. Aug 2013 路 14:15 UTC
Wow, X-COM? I'm humbled for you to just mention the name in the same page as my game, thanks :D
almightyzentaco
29. Aug 2013 路 14:40 UTC
Loved the music and style. Gameplay was fun as well. Good job!
PaperBlurt
29. Aug 2013 路 14:40 UTC
Good job and well done!
GarethIW
29. Aug 2013 路 14:47 UTC
Fun, fun, fun! Thoroughly enjoyed this and echo everyone else in saying that I'd buy a complete game of this.
Finn Stokes
29. Aug 2013 路 16:00 UTC
This is a great game. I love the tactical positioning and the fact that once you understand the game, every death is due to some obvious tactical error. However, it takes some time to get the hang of the tutorial level, so I think the difficulty curve needs a little work, and restarting the game on death is painful.
ratalaika
29. Aug 2013 路 16:25 UTC
good job
MinionStudios
29. Aug 2013 路 18:43 UTC
An amazing game! Great execution!
Almax27
29. Aug 2013 路 21:35 UTC
Nice idea, really enjoyed it :)
davisan
30. Aug 2013 路 01:56 UTC
Amazing game!
Zammy
30. Aug 2013 路 07:20 UTC
Hey Mark, terrific game mate! Congratulations for putting this whole thing together in 3 days!
I've really enjoyed it. I've never played Gauntlet, but I think I'll do if it's anything like your game!
Some suggestions:
- Put mute sound button there. I wanted to keep it running in the background, but not being able to stop the sounds prevented me from doing that.
- Put "restart level" button too.

And a bug report:
On the second stage, at the center near the key, the monsters killed 3 of the heroes, then suddenly instead of pursuing the 4th one, they've just continued on the vector they've chosen to move before that. They've continued to move across walls and off the sceen, as if collision stopped working. Check the screenshot:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8311249/adventurecompany_bug.jpg
After that, no other monsters have been spawned.

Please continue developing this title! With better graphics it'll be real gem!
馃帳 Venturelli
30. Aug 2013 路 13:02 UTC
Thanks Zammy! The pathfinding bug is a known issue (see description), but at least I think it's the only bug in the build.

As for mute and restart, I ran out of time =( I can't add those now, I guess, since that would be adding new features to the game and the rules forbid it...
BenWhi
30. Aug 2013 路 17:11 UTC
Wow! Great, original game you've got here! Music + cool graphics gave it a really cool character!
Crazi456
31. Aug 2013 路 02:07 UTC
Very interesting tactics game, nice work!
Gabriel
31. Aug 2013 路 05:25 UTC
Hey, Venturelli! Gabriel from Pixel Cows here! Congratulations, AWESOME game! I loved the tactics / tower defense hybrid approach, really makes for an equally deep but less brainy approach to this type of game. As others said here, this is surely a concept that deserves to be more fully developed to see where it takes. Personally, I think dragging and dropping characters within their allowed movement circles instead of moving in 8 directions style would make it a little faster to set up the heroes at each turn. Also, it seems I stumbled on a visual glich that would have the floor replaced by random bits of other images, take a look: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/69894467/Adventure%20Company%20ground%20glitch.jpg

Still, surely one of the best games I've played in this LD. I'm a total sucker for tactics games, I guess. hahah

Great work! Congrats!

Cheers from Brazil
Danex317
31. Aug 2013 路 15:19 UTC
Great Job! The tutorial level is a bit difficult but I still liked it.
Alexander Ponomariov
31. Aug 2013 路 15:45 UTC
Epic one!
馃帳 Venturelli
31. Aug 2013 路 23:45 UTC
Thanks Gabriel, your game is awesome!
farmergnome
31. Aug 2013 路 23:57 UTC
Please continue with this, I had a lot of fun with this one!
Hegemege
03. Sep 2013 路 14:28 UTC
Really awesome game, enjoyed it a lot!
Foxtacy
04. Sep 2013 路 01:04 UTC
3 seconds playing -> BAM. NEW FAVORITE GAME! <3
panurge
04. Sep 2013 路 21:05 UTC
Awesome! One of my favourites so far. The mechanic is perfectly balanced - not too tricky but just difficult enough to be really satisfying when you get it right. The style is great too.

My only complaint is one which others have already noted - it took me a long time to work out that I had to place all the attack cones to end my turn.

Overall, an excellent entry. I really enjoyed playing and hope a full game will come of this!
kibertoad
04. Sep 2013 路 21:45 UTC
Great game!
SnoringFrog
14. Sep 2013 路 19:18 UTC
The third level took me much longer to beat than I expected, but it was still a great game. I got really lucky on my winning run and had most enemies only spawn from one side long enough for me to wipe out the spawn points on the other side. From there it was just keeping everyone tight together till I got to the exit.
馃帳 Venturelli
17. Sep 2013 路 02:27 UTC
Wow, blown away by the high ratings, guys! This is my first time participating in LD, I'm really happy for this! Thank you very much :D