Strategysphere by gamepopper
Vertical Space Shooter + Board Game
The theme for Ludum Dare 41 was to combine two incompatible genres. This was a difficult theme to pull off, since how can there really be genres that are incompatible in this day and age of creativity? It also didn't help that I was away and unable to work on a game for the first day of the jam.
Regardless, I carried on. I figured combining a vertical shmup (a genre with constant movement and fast reflexes) with a board game format (where there would be more strategy and patience) would be my idea. ## HOW TO PLAY
The game is built for five players: Four players take the role of the ships and one takes the role of an enemy controller.
- The ship rolls the dice twice, the number one to six determines how many moves and bullets will be shot (0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3).
- Choose to move (M key) or shoot (S key) first (ships cannot move and shoot at the same time).
- Any bullet that hits an enemy will damage it. Enemy ships that lose all health get destroyed.
- Repeat for each ship.
- The enemy controller will receive cards, these cards determine how many moves, shots to fire and new enemies to place.
- Click on enemy ships to move or shoot. Click on an empty space in the first five rows to place an enemy.
If enemy receives a boss card, the controller has up to ten turns to summon the final boss.
Each ship's goal is to defeat the boss ship before any other ship does.
The enemy's goal is to defeat all of the ships.
Each ship's goal is to defeat the boss ship before any other ship does.
The enemy's goal is to defeat all of the ships.
| Flash (web) | https://gamepopper.itch.io/strategysphere |
| Windows | https://gamepopper.itch.io/strategysphere |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/strategysphere |
Ratings
| Overall | 1023th | 2.955⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1020th | 2.75⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 813th | 3.091⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 739th | 3.386⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 956th | 2.727⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 981th | 1.921⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1095th | 2.357⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 23🗨️ |
My only complaint is about the game speed, I was expecting the game to be faster, to resemble more a traditional shmup.
Congratulations on the project!
I think introducing it as a 5 player game is a misstep, as you're pretty unlikely to find 4 other players on short notice when going through rating LD games. The game itself seems to work fine as a 2 player game where one player controls "good" ships, so saying it's 5 player probably scares off more folks than necessary.
The controls and dice rolls are also quite obtuse; they're explained in the description and it's good that the game calls that out, but it'd be a lot better if they were more intuitive + presented in-game. The dice rolls in particular could simply show the actual number of moves/ammo you got rather than showing 1-6 and giving you a mapped amount.
I also agree with the comments about dice rolling taking too long; the game should do this part much faster. If the concern with making them shorter was that you wanted to give players a chance to see them, you could maybe have the dice rolls continue to be shown while they are making their moves.
I do think this has potential though! It's a shame the issues make it difficult to play, because I have a feeling that the game can actually be pretty fun.