Power Plant by Noam
Goal
To grow as many flowers as you can.
At the start of the game there is a lot of space for everyone to grow their flowers on, but after a bit of flower growing, the space will run out and you will have to fight other teams on the space that is left.
Rules
You play as the yellow/orange team.
Flowers will create new flower of their own type next to them every few seconds.
Flowers that are surrounded by other teams' flowers will die.
You can plant a new flower every 1.5 seconds (The planting cooldown can be seen using the bar under the cursor.).
The game is 60 seconds long and the winner is the team that had the most flowers at the end of the game.
The colorful bar on the top of the screen shows you the quantities of each team's flowers, and the timer above it shows you the seconds left until the game end.
Flower types
Specializes in damage to other teams' flowers.
Can handle large quantities of other teams' flowers.
Makes his surrounding team mates capable of handling larger quantities of other teams' flowers.
Controls
Left mouse button to plant flowers and click buttons. Scroll wheel to switch between different types of flowers (The gray flower icon on the top left side of the window shows you the selected flower type.).
Tools used
Programming: Game Maker 1.4
Graphics: Game Maker 1.4 and Aseprite
Sound effects: sfxr
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Noam_DEV
| Windows | https://noams.itch.io/power-plant |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/power-plant |
Ratings
| Overall | 107th | 3.813⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 111th | 3.729⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 43th | 3.957⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 17th | 4.37⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 145th | 3.792⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 379th | 2.833⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 424th | 2.079⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 180th | 3.318⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
Nice!
It would have been nice if I could have switched flower types with a hotkey, like 1,2, and 3. The scroll wheel felt kind of awkward.
I didn't see any indicator that told me if the delay between planting flowers had run out or not, so I often resorted to clicking multiple times with no effect before it let me plant again, which made the game feel unresponsive.
I'd suggest implementing either a visible cooldown indicator, or maybe even remove that delay entirely and replace it with a currency that you spend on flowers. Then you could add a fourth flower type to increase generation of that currency and add another layer of depth to the game.
The rounds seem just long enough to fill the board and push against your borders just a bit. It would be fun if I could choose to extend the round timer and try to wipe out the other colors, or make a big underdog effort to make a comeback, instead of just doing the land grab phase.
The sound effects were sufficient, but I think with some more time they could be more enjoyable and engaging.
Great entry though.
I tried to make everything in the game controlled by the mouse, but I will try adding hotkeys linked to the flower types.
Also, there's a small bar under the cursor that fills up each time you plant a new flower and then slowly goes down,
and when it's empty you can plant a new flower.
Though your ideas sound interesting, I will test them, and maybe upload a post jam version.
Graphics are cute, simple but the popping animation feels very good. The sounds are simple too and could be improved but they work fine.
Suggestion: I think having the current flower shape follow the pointer would make it clearer than having to look at the corner.
I will test your suggestion.
The AI is pretty aggressive, it's a real flower war :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
There's not much audio, but what you do have of it is decent.
The game as a concept fits the theme, but I think maybe it could be done a little better. Although the flowers do take up room, I feel more like it's time I'm running out of and not necessarily space.
This game felt a little too quick for me to enjoy it at first, because I felt like it ended before I could make any progress; however, that was probably because I was still learning the game. The difficulty was just enough to feel rewarding.
All in all, this game is a good experience! It's something I would like to see be expanded upon in the future!
And your planting couldown. It's original. :D
Good job. :clap: