Please, no installers in LD. If every entry comes with an installer I have to reset my OS anew afterwards.

Neat little game. However it does not feel like I have much control. Obviously the options have direct influence, but it works best by not doing anything :) Scored 2879

Music is always good, but the loop is quite short and gets annoying fast.

If you change out the installer for a single run-time exe I'll give it a play.

@conk will do it now
Edit: single run-time exe is uploaded :)

Cool resource management game! I think some more feedback in the gameplay mechanics would help a lot though. For example, you can't really tell when you don't have enough money to buy something - it makes the same sound but doesn't have any effect, so a different sound or visual would be good there. Mouseover info on the different options would help avoid having to go the help screen a bunch, and visual feedback on the planet of what you buy would help the player feel the progression a bit more. Would be cool to see this improved. Nice work!

Idea is interesting, implementation is good, art and sounds are beautiful. Good job!

The mechanics are a little hard to understand. Even after reading the help page, I didn't really know the direct influence all of my decisions had on the planet. Like @adhesion said, giving some feedback on when things happen would do a lot for the game. The only thing I bought during the game was the light bulb. It seems to always increase the happiness rating, whereas buying trees always seems to lower the happiness rating. This game has great potential; it just needs to be worked on a little more. Cool entry!

i couldn't really understand what effect i was having on the game so i kinda of quit quite fast. The graphics and music i liked.

Bit hard to grasp at first but got the hang of it after a bit. Graphics and Audio were great though! Love the style!

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Please check out our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/plutus

Thanks! :smile:

I think, it would be better, if progress in game affected view of the planet. Like light bulbs would make it brighter. Yet nice resource management game.

Are you sure adding trees would increase happyness? It goes down every time when I plant a tree.

Good job on finishing the project. Interesting mechanic, simple gameplay. Very neat graphics :)
Scored 9874.

**Let's see what could be improved if you decide to update your game post-jam:**

- trees: adding trees seems to reduce the happiness, even though the help says otherwise.
- different sound should be used for when you click an action and there's enough funds to do it and when you click an action and can't perform it. Only after a while I noticed that to know if action was performed I have to watch the money counter while clicking
- Why does adding trees and energy-efficient lamps decrease overall happiness? More greens, lower energy bills - less happiness? :) Over-population and too much oil usage could be the sources of un-happiness.
- help says red lamp, but there's a white icon, which is confusing :D

Differentiating action success/fail and clearing up the help would improve the feedback to the player very much - sounds for that are extremely easy to create in SFXR / BFXR in little to no time. Pair that with clearing up the help screens, and basically all the confusion that might arise for a new player would be gone. Question of the happiness/un-happiness source is a matter of debate.

I don't mean to be overly critical, it's just the things that come to mind how the game could be improved without changing it too much. It's a fun idea, so why not make it even better :)

Cheers and stay awesome!

Interesting game, the graphics and sound are good. But there is a bit of a learning curve and as others have said some feedback on your actions would be nice. Overall good job!

Interesting concept. Graphics are decent enough, although the audio does tend to get repetitive after a while. I think both a tutorial and some feedback is needed to make the concept more understandable for a new player. Good job! :)

The idea is nice, similar to our entry in some way I think. Graphics are very appealing and the music/sound is nice also, though the music loop is a bit short but it has kind of "impending doom" sound in it :smile:

What I missed is that there's no in game indicators about cost and effects of particular items player can buy/build and even though I went to read the help I didn't really memorize the costs and effects. This is definitely something that should be improved. Overall I think that it fits nicely into the theme and the mood is good as well!

Keep up the good work! :thumbsup:

A good entry with nice graphics and audio. The mechanics of keeping several stats at balance are quite interesting, but it was not really clear how the actions affect the game, i.e. clicking the trees made happiness go down despite the help stating that it would go up and also oxygen did not increase. It is a nice take on the theme though, good job overall!

I like the concept and the graphics, it feels very sim-earth-like to me. The moving stars were a nice touch at first, but a bit dizzying after repeated play. Great use of the theme!

Like everyone else, I'm confused on what I should be doing. Maybe graphics of people getting squished by trees, or snorting oil, or some other way to provide feedback of what I'm doing is or isn't working.

Also it took me a long time before I realized I was trying to buy stuff but didn't have the money to do so. It sounded like a click!

Interesting ideas, first time I've seen a "clicker" type game in LD!

Wasn't entirely sure what was going on, for reasons already presented in copious quantities. Resource management clicker games are always interesting, so it could work with some polish.

Interesting idea. Some suggestions:
1. I would try to give the different actions some feedback, even a little bit of text in response to my actions would go a long way
2. The music loop is a bit short, causing it to become a bit repetitive.

Cool concept.

The concept definitely has potential, but as it is right now it's a but repetitive and simple. I tried making a simulation during a game jam before and it had basically the same problem.

This feels like a good start, though there's very little content as yet (of course, it can be hard to fit everything in during the compo). Other commenters have already explained the UI issues, and as @candlesan mentioned, the music loop is a bit short.

All that said, I like the look of this, and although too short a loop, the music is nice. Congratulations on completing in time for the compo, as well!

The music loop is a little too short and feels repetitive really quickly. I think it's an interesting concept, but it's hard to tell what each of the resources does right off the bat (it seems like light increases happiness, and trees increase oxygen?) I couldn't figure out what the thing next to the tree does, and sometimes removing trees makes happiness go up? It's nice that you have a tutorial at the beginning, but I think it would help more if you explained what each of the resources were, too.

Good concept though!

Nice idea, but the lack of visual feedback makes it feel quite pointless. Also very hard to figure out without reading the help.

Nice little game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piKz6z64rgg