Minos' Pond by Reflextions
What will you find in Mino's Pond? Explore an alien world that comes to earth on a meteorite in this classic-inspired real time strategy / idle game. Made for LD38 Jam!
TIP: Hold space to speed up the game.
This was a fun concept to explore and I'd be interested to explore it in a more polished environment. All feedback is welcome!

| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/minos-pond |
Ratings
| Overall | 264th | 3.571⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 371th | 3.19⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 402th | 3.095⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 410th | 3.381⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 468th | 3.286⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 311th | 3.105⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 294th | 2.842⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 313th | 3.35⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 39🗳️ | 5🗨️ |
It seems like you got a lot of the mechanics working here, I think my issue is mainly around the interface and the feedback. Some of the buildings were tiny and blended in with the grass, and having tooltips to explain what things were would have been really helpful. Also some way to jump between the islands quickly. I think you should keep working on it if the idea interests you, there are a lot of things you could do with it.
-Gameplay
-Replay Ability/Fun
-Graphics
-Sound
The gameplay was incredibly addictive, replayable, and fun. I myself am a huge fan of games like these, these simulation type ones, but only if they are pulled out well. It was done exceptionally in your case. The tutorial was great and everything
Plus that speed up button helped so much.
The game's graphics style actually reminded me of an uncompleted LD game I made a long time ago, though I scrapped it in favor of other ideas.
The HUD was something to me that I wasn't sure about. Sometimes I liked the pleasant layout and such, but in the end, I would find myself being wierd over the aesthetic. Sure it was polished, but something about it seemed strange to me. Its probably just me being wierd (I'm a wierd person after all!), so you can disregard that.
I guess what I was trying to say is, some more polish and content, and you sir have a nice game ready.
Also, WOW, look at all the art you made in a LD game!
Now I'm gonna rip your UI to shreds. Sorry.
I REALLY don't like that the X button is what you use to confirm building something. Very counter-intuitive. Feels like that would be a cancel button. There's also a problem with your building placement ghosts showing on the green terrain or even on some of the buildings. There should always be some way to cancel building placement as well. Oh, and tooltips or an infobox available when choosing stuff. I'm not gonna remember what all these things are when starting out. Not thrilled with the UI being semi-transparent at all, either.
It is a great start! City-builders at just super UI heavy and you need to get that beast tamed.
One other problem I had which prevented me from getting _super_ far is that I was able to build a Tree in front of my wood house. After that, whenever a wood Mino made a delivery, he'd get stuck and be unable to leave. Future Minos making deliveries wouldn't get stuck, they'd just drop stuff off without entering the door, but eventually the poor stuck Mino would die of hunger and thirst. Once that happened, there'd be room for another Mino to get stuck in the door and the cycle would repeat. They were dying like this as fast or faster than new ones showed up; by the time I stopped playing, I had 20-40 of all of the other Minos, but only 8 surviving wood Minos.
Anyway, those issues having been noted, I think this is fun concept, and I hope you make a post-jam version.
I've struggled with UI, but nonetheless, good work!
Just have to say the game's quite confusing at the beginning and takes some time to get used to. Also, is there any end? Played for some time but didn't see any end goal.
But i don't understand the target/end? There is one?
It took me a while to understand that you can upgrade everything..
Maybe some threats that come to disturb you could be fun :)
Great Job don't stop developing