LudumData

Antarctic Skirmish by Meep

[raw]
made by Meep for LD26 (COMPO)
My take on the theme, minimalism, was to take a typically complex and overwhelming genre of games and simplify it to its core gameplay.

Antarctic Skirmish is a minimalistic real-time strategy (RTS) game. There are two main objectives: to farm resources, and to fight. Penguins may farm fish at fishing holes, and additional penguins may be hired at the cost of some fish. The game ends when one team's igloo is destroyed (Effectively preventing the team from hiring additional penguins).

This is my fifth time entering the Ludum Dare competition, and probably the closest I've gotten to the deadline. D: Unfortunately the game lacks sound, but I hope its in-game visuals can compensate for it.

Details on how to play are in-game, but for redundancy:

- Left click + drag to select penguins
- Right click to issue target to selected penguins
- Left click igloo to hire penguin for 5 fish
- WASD/Arrows to scroll around map

The Windows (.exe) version is of much higher quality, as the HTML5 version has some anti-aliasing issues with resizing graphics.

Windows (.exe) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10477021/ld26/LD26_Antarctic_Skirmish.exe
Web (HTML5) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10477021/ld26/ld26_antarctic_skirmish.html
Source (.gmk) https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10477021/ld26/ld26.gmk
Original URL https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=2629

Ratings

Coolness 85% 2
Overall 3.43 303
Audio 1.41 1061
Fun 3.37 243
Graphics 3.46 283
Humor 2.39 452
Innovation 2.62 923
Mood 2.86 566
Theme 3.28 810

Feedback

timtipgames
29. Apr 2013 路 16:39 UTC
I think this is a really good version of a minimal rts. It's really stripped down to only the important elements and the controls are well done. I have not been able to win in 3 games, but I'm really bad at RTS games, so that doesn't mean a whole lot. Good job :)
FuzzyWuzzie
29. Apr 2013 路 17:42 UTC
This is extremely well done! Very well done with the theme! Fun to play too! AI actually forced me to really try to win. Would have liked some sound and the ability to micro individual penguins and their targets, but overall I think it was excellent!
馃帳 Meep
29. Apr 2013 路 17:51 UTC
Thanks! :) You actually are able to micro individual penguins/choose specific targets for individuals, it's just unfortunately not clear as I didn't have time to add some indication of sorts. :( They auto-attack the nearest enemy within a given range, but issued targets from the player take priority.
Polar
29. Apr 2013 路 18:42 UTC
Great game :) Is there any reason that my penguins didn't seem to be attacking very fast (compared to the enemy) or is that just me being bad at the game?
馃帳 Meep
29. Apr 2013 路 18:45 UTC
Your penguins should have the same attack rate as the enemy penguins; It might have to do with repetitively changing your penguin's targeted enemy.
MaxguN
29. Apr 2013 路 18:47 UTC
Really basic rts mechanics really well implemented. Fighting the AI is challenging. Like it :)
dualtagh
29. Apr 2013 路 20:13 UTC
Cool, I'm a fan of RTS games, so I'm impressed to see one for a game jam!
sfernald
29. Apr 2013 路 20:14 UTC
Really cute game. Fits the theme perfectly. Quite polished. Starcraft lite lite lite lite, lol.
graytest
29. Apr 2013 路 20:19 UTC
Very difficult, but a cute little RTS game. This could probably be made into a great game!
Covenant
29. Apr 2013 路 20:19 UTC
Great game, lots of fun! Took me 3 tries to actually make it! :)
VDOgamez
29. Apr 2013 路 22:04 UTC
The AI's a bit too fast for me in this, I can't seem to win. What the game really needs I think is a better ability to automatically target nearby enemies. I've noticed that my penguins will just keep fishing while the ones next to them get killed off. It's at least somewhat effective to stay on the edge of a big squad and pick them off without triggering aggression from the whole group. I really liked the art in this, and I thought the limitation of penguins on the ice holes were a good choice to influence expansion of territory. Overall a pretty good implementation of minimal RTS mechanics, and I think despite my frustration at the difficulty it's better to have the AI be too hard than too easy.
Benjamin
30. Apr 2013 路 17:23 UTC
Really like those fishing rod lines :) This little details add a lot to a game. Managing the differents penguin was fun. It should have been difficult to work on AI on a game like this...
patrickward
30. Apr 2013 路 18:18 UTC
I found this very challenging. I couldn't get my penguins to fight back for some reason. The enemies always overpowered my little guys. That's probably me though! The graphics, game play, and concept were neat. Very cute game.
Beldarak
30. Apr 2013 路 18:23 UTC
I'll never be able to beat it since I suck at RTS but I liked it. You should add the fact that you can target a single ennemy with all your penguins in the key descriptions. Before knowing that I thought the ennemies pinguins were stronger than mine.
Oye Beto
01. May 2013 路 03:03 UTC
Wow.. the AI made me think it was impossible but it wasn't.

- Great game, it was very fun (5/5).
- It's like a Zerg rush mini game :D
- The images resolution is too low and the text is blur.
- Good job on the AI.
- Not very "minimalistic"
- It's good that you put a mini map.
someone
04. May 2013 路 21:04 UTC
That was good. Well done for making an RTS.
Seemed odd that the menu required the keyboard for a mouse driven game.
Would have been nice to have some different feedback for attack orders.
HD408
06. May 2013 路 01:56 UTC
Cool strategy game, but only one level. I'd like to play more of that. Those game mechanics could sustain like three levels without a single change, just new maps. Nice sprites, too.

I ended up hiring like 200 penguins that got past the map borders because of the lack of space, while AI tried to fight me with some 5-10 penguins once per a minute or two.
Super Hamster
06. May 2013 路 23:38 UTC
The game was really simple yet so complex. It was interesting finding the winning strategy, it would have been nice if there were like different modes of hardness or something to make the game last a bit longer because I feel that once I have beaten it, I can beat it over and over again and not lose. Really great job on it! :D
RealyUniqueName
07. May 2013 路 21:02 UTC
Too hard for me :)
henrykun
11. May 2013 路 04:15 UTC
I enjoyed it a lot, it looks like you work a lot, even though there was no time for sounds, the NPC behaviours are really good and hard, nice.
sboerwinkle
16. May 2013 路 22:40 UTC
Liked it alot! Took a while to defeat those pesky penguins, but I finally did it.
sP0CkEr2
17. May 2013 路 05:01 UTC
that was fantastic -- great use of theme and very nice rts -- good job
Brassawiking
19. May 2013 路 17:17 UTC
Extremely good balance in the game. It took some effort to beat the computer actually. Really nice work. I usually suck at RTS which is why I like these simplified ones.
michail
20. May 2013 路 23:18 UTC
Really good job, nice graphics and good AI. I took me 2 rounds to win.