Grey Goo by kleinzach
Grey Goo is a game which mixes two genres that I have very little experience in, clicker and text based story. The game is about the wonders of nano technology. The time to play may vary, but from beginning to end and taking my time I get about 8.5 minutes. I'll admit there isn't so much to look at, but it quickly became apparent that graphics which be a huge task for this game.
I would say that the hardest part about making the game was balance. A very small tweak in this game leads to very large outcomes just by its nature, and I know I haven't tweaked it fully to my liking just yet. Also I've tried to space out story in such a way that things are accumulating in the background and that the next story beat is never too far away. I will say that this was both my most and my least ambitious game jam game so far. While it has no audio and graphics like I usually have, the writing and gameplay balance ended up taking a ton of time.
Edit I got an html5 build to work, I just added a link to that below.
Made with unity, all coded from scratch except for using Text Mesh Pro from the asset store.
| Windows | https://www.dropbox.com/s/krcvllhx2ovmyi8/GreyGoo.zip?dl=1 |
| HTML5 (web) | https://kleinzach.itch.io/grey-goo |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/grey-goo |
Ratings
| Overall | 357th | 3.641⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 513th | 3.375⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 348th | 3.438⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 174th | 3.969⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 696th | 2.683⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 264th | 3.656⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 37🗳️ | 37🗨️ |
One GUI flaw: I thought the red cross on the top right was to close the right panel and indeed I had a bad surprise.
Anyway, nicely done!
There was a point towards the end where buildings #3 and 4 couldn't decide if they wanted to go up or down, which felt odd (why would they both automatically construct _and_ deconstruct the same thing?), but overall enjoyed it.
Felt like the early game could be slowed down a bit - I'm a fast reader, and even so by the time I finished reading a headline I'd have a pile of stuff ready to spend way past the next milestone.
I like the way you made this story-game :)
And combining that with a clicker game is quite innovative for all I know.
The story was quite predictable, but I really enjoyed playing the game none the less.
well done.
All in all Good job.
Good job !
In a similar fashion, the news bar, and how it updates, and some of the titles, are really good mechanics and keep the story going.
The mechanics and story elements complemented each other perfectly! The incremental mechanics were a perfect fit for the concept of evolving nano machines, whereas the gradual reactions of the world, as story triggered by specific milestones, gave a clear feeling of progress throughout the game.
Of course, thematically, and in accordance with the game title and subject, the ending of the game was foreshadowed to the point where it was basically a foregone conclusion, but despite this, the journey through the story was still a compelling tale.
All in all, this was a very interesting take on describing a "Grey Goo" scenario through the use of unexpected game mechanics. This resulted in a very interesting game. Nice work!
>Nanites manifest
>the potential of carbon.
>For glory... ruin?
I really liked the story: the lack of graphics is fine, it doesn't hurt the experience too much.
I'm impressed with how much story you wrote, I just wish it came slower, and I really wouldn't mind if the game froze and threw any new text at me to read before the game continues.
Well done!!!