Island of Revolution by mikethewayne
For my 10th consecutive Ludum Dare entry, I have gone for a top-down unit management RTS-style game. Fun fact, my game also fits in with LD31's theme.
=== Description === Inspired by the Tropico series of games and that one episode of Miami Vice, you're in charge of a Caribbean island ruled by your communist dictatorship. Unfortunately, communism in the east is falling apart, and the people of your island have heard about it. They are getting restless, seeing that maybe your regime could be toppled too.
You must control your island's military and police forces, to fight off rebels and deal with protests, all while collecting money by "borrowing" from your nation's treasury by bribing bankers, or seizing the assets of islanders with police forces. Your power over your nation is constantly decreasing, however.
=== Instructions === 1. Gather some initial funds by going into the police menu (in the side bar), and assigning some police forces to seize assets. 2. Send armed units to patrol the forests (in brown) for rebels 3. Move your dictator to banks, and bribe different bankers in order to make big money 4. Slow down the decay of the power bar by purchasing media campaigns from the media menu (in the side bar) 5. Send your police to deal with protests and riots, which cause your power bar to decrease faster 6. When you've "borrowed" enough money to get a good score, go to the airport, and get a plane ready 7. When you're ready, escape from your island! - To move a unit, click on it, then click where it needs to move, or on the icon it needs to deal with. - To change the effectiveness of police at dealing with protests and riots, change their tools in the police menu
=== Tools used === - Java Eclipse (Juno, it's on an old laptop) - Paint.NET - Evernote
=== Features I planned but ran out of time for === - Assassins - Military being able to take care of protests/riots - Escape the island on a cargo ship or fishing boat - MUSIC (again) - Police and Military rebelling when power is too low
Thank you for playing!
Ratings
| Overall | 412th | 3.167⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 482th | 2.833⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 185th | 3.444⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 177th | 3.778⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 491th | 2.778⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 327th | 2.278⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 433th | 2.722⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 7🗨️ |
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I thought this was a really creative interpretation of the theme! In terms of gameplay, I enjoyed the variety of things going on, which forced me to constantly pay attention to the map while also planning on raising enough money for the flight. It's pretty hard to make an RTS-style game in such a short period of time, but I think you did a pretty good job.
Some other things:
- The list of 9 instructions you have is way too much to take in at once. However, the in-game help screen was extremely useful, so kudos on that.
- For some reason, the police seizing assets pop-up kept appearing when I clicked on units on the map (and I think it even appeared when I clicked on the help button). I'm not sure if this was intentional (and I still don't completely understand how seizing assets works), but this was pretty distracting.
- I would have liked a clearer indication of how I was losing power (like maybe having numbers periodically appear over riots/protests that indicate how much power is being lost). I think this would have added more strategy to the game, since you can plan better with more information.
- Similar to the above, it was very unclear what the newspaper campaign did. You said that it slows down the decay, but it would have been nice to see some indication of that.
- Sound effects would have been nice.
- The forest was clearly dark green, not brown. :P
Overall, this was quite solid, and if you added more mechanics/balance I could see this being a really creative strategy game. Nice job!
Anyway I had fun and the setting was very cool. The instructions were quite clear for the complexity of the game. Good job !
There are a few bugs and issues, though:
* A police force assigned to seizing assets should have a different icon to show that the order was received.
* There is no way to see the hours left on a bank without going there.
* After a while all the police forces set to seize assets started swimming in the ocean. Maybe they wanted to leave the island the cheap way.
* Bought the mid sized plane. They didn't charge me any money and 12/12 family members escaped?
Little things really. Good work!
Regardless, I am impressed by the volume of mechanics that you implemented in such a short time, and happy that you made the "Running out of metaphorical power" theme work. Great job!
Graphics look good and I understood how to play thanks to your Help button.
When I ran out of power I panicked and fled right to the airport, but I guess going by the jungle wasn't the best solution as rebels came instantly and killed me haha
So a good game overall that could be really good if you finish implementing everything :D