Lizards by jamioflan

made by jamioflan for LD 41 (JAM)

It's a Lizard City Builder! It's a (Stinky) Human Avoiding Stealth Game!

It's LIZARDS!

As we lizards know well, the best place to live is beneath a human city, where they least expect it. Well, except for the drilling... And the tunnels... And the endless electricity bills!

In LIZARDS, you will be building a small lizard city under a human city, while avoiding the humans and their probing drills and tunnel bores. Grow your population and suit up (in human skin) to infiltrate the humans' city council and put an end to the drilling for good!

The entire game is played using the mouse. The scroll wheel allows you to view the deeper parts of the map. On the left are buttons allowing you to - Dig (gather resources and make space to build) - Fill (even abandoned corridors cause suspicion, so make sure to remove unused areas) - Build - Trade - Cancel tasks

On the right are the assignment buttons. Make sure to assign your lizards to the roles you want filled.

Buildings - Mushroom Farm: Worked by 1 farmer lizard and produces mushrooms for your lizards to eat - Hatchery: Worked by 2 breeder lizards to produce more lizards - Storage: Holds 12 items - Trap: Can only be placed on the surface. Worked by 1 trapper lizard to capture humans and make human skins - TV Room: Lizards will go here when they require entertainment. Watch out for your TV bill and make sure you have the money to pay it - Tailor: Worked by 1 tailor lizard to produce a human suit and infiltrate the surface. Lizards who complete this task leave the colony. Once 3 lizards have done so, you win the game! - Dinosaur Bones: You can replant dinosaur bones to stop humans digging through a certain area. You have a limited supply, so use them well

Shop: - You can buy human food here. It is an alternative to mushrooms, but it also provides some level of entertainment instead of the TV

Be careful, your lizards will die if they don't get enough food. If they get too bored they will run up into the city above and make their own fun. Even the humans will notice that...

Good luck!

Windows	https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BKWtTMVR8OA8KjRRFhCbqviFVk2ap01U
macOS	https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PE8nMy83urZ3DQS9dWiIIuk-icf8AlOV
Linux	https://drive.google.com/open?id=1lTcNpUX8pZhPHJnT1zu7KKp0YUB9Rk1K
Windows	https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PPQj1NCzEBpy5G7xRRBygBScbccchKyd
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/lizards

Ratings

Overall	183^th	3.88⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Fun	182^th	3.82⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	561^th	3.38⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Theme	658^th	3.5⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	450^th	3.68⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Audio	368^th	3.391⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Humor	239^th	3.543⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Mood	352^th	3.543⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Given		45🗳️	0🗨️

Feedback

Mark Boots

24. Apr 2018 · 12:03 UTC

Fun game, although the hatchery wasn't working for me which made it quite difficult (Windows version).

neontropics

24. Apr 2018 · 22:16 UTC

Cool game, I do really dig the concept. The people walking around and the little lizards are great and all feel very "alive", especially since you're building and expanding a nice little world for the lizards!

Probably a bit complex - a tutorial or simplified starting level would be great, or even simplified general gameplay (it felt like you had to play a fair bit to get the strategy).

Btw - the helptext on the icons on the top right wasn't really readable since most of it was outside the screen.

agrdev

24. Apr 2018 · 22:23 UTC

Amazing game. I loved the attention to details like lizards having a fight for example. Reminds me of Dungeon Keeper a bit.

TomLee

24. Apr 2018 · 22:28 UTC

Love the play on reptilian conspiracy theory, although I can't tell how this fits the theme. Art made me nostalgic feeling.

Mironx

25. Apr 2018 · 07:18 UTC

Well done. As for me music is not so good, and maybe there should be a button to turn it off.

gegy1000

27. Apr 2018 · 13:35 UTC

I love this. This is really fun to play! The graphics look great, and overall feels very complete, especially for one made in 72 hours. :D

BeamKirby

08. May 2018 · 01:07 UTC

This was a pretty fun game! I might recommend putting a delay at the beginning of the game before the humans start drilling so the player has a chance to get a feel for the game. There's also several bugs, unfortunately. For example, at a certain point it seems my lizards didn't know what a storage room was anymore, and all the resources ended up being left on the ground with 4 perfectly empty storage rooms to be filled. I think there should be a way to tell lizards to pick items up. The danger reticle on some rooms didn't go away properly when the drills left. Also, some tasks wouldn't get finished properly, usually if I give the lizards too many tasks, and can't be canceled either. Finally, this is a suggestion, there should be a way to select lizards and move them, and to tell specific lizards to perform certain tasks. If you can polish this game up some more, this game would be really amazing, more so than it already is!

adhesion

13. May 2018 · 16:49 UTC

Cool, nice concept, good graphics & audio and the simulation aspects are pretty impressive. The rate of drilling was way too high though, it felt like I was just learning how to play the game and I was already getting crushed. I wish there was a sandbox level so I could learn the mechanics at a more leisurely pace. I would love to play this more if the difficulty were tweaked a bit. Nice work!

FuriousWitch

13. May 2018 · 20:11 UTC

The best game I played this jam! Everything about it is great and it is obvious you put a lot of work in it. I played it for about 40 mins and I had a lot of fun :)

The only problems I found in the game are:
- The audio not working (Linux version)
- The hatchery not working
- Bugs of lizards stuck that made it impossible for me to finish the game

If you fix those bugs, then you got yourselves a very solid game that you could finish and sell.

I followed you. Please, let me know if you decided to make a post-jam version of the game.

Tomahawk2001913

13. May 2018 · 20:30 UTC

This is a really fun game! Good job!

Doccrazy

13. May 2018 · 21:49 UTC

OMG the attention to detail in this game is amazing, it's insane you implemented all this during the jam, this game deserves way more ratings!

Sometimes my lizards would walk through rooms I just filled, or stay in solid earth without dying, but that was just a minor issue. And I really miss a difficulty setting (easy/hard/sandbox). Beside that, the game feels really well polished and complete.

nilead

15. May 2018 · 19:57 UTC

Reminds me a little of dwarf fortress