LudumData

Necrothrone by CiaranW

[raw]
made by CiaranW for LD 40 (JAM)

Screenie.JPG

You are in control of an enchanted throne who likes to get crafty with the corpses of dead bugs (and likes grain).

Try to farm as much grain as you can, while keeping the bugs under control!

Oh... and the more grain you have, the more bugs come at you!

Distract them with Grain Bait, block them with Dead Walls, Shoot them with Enchanted Corpses!

Costs:
Farm: Costs 2 dead bugs, produces some grain every few seconds
Wall: Costs 4 dead bugs
Bait: Costs 20 grain
Turret: Costs 4 dead bugs and consumes 1 grain per shot

I aimed to submit this for the compo, but got carried away making the engine from scratch. The few hours after work on Monday finally gave me enough time to finish it off, but it is a bit unpolished. Hope it is enjoyable nonetheless, it was great fun to make - pushing out code like this without worrying about maintenance isn't a common luxury!

In the end, I did manage to fully implement all of the features I aimed to, might play a bit more with tuning it in the coming days to see if I can make it more fun. Feel free to check out the source code if you're interested, but I warn you, it does get progressively worse as the competition went on!

All Code in C++ from scratch
Using SFML Game Framework
Graphics drawn in GIMP

Source code https://github.com/CiaranWoodward/LD40
Windows https://github.com/CiaranWoodward/LD40/releases
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/necrothrone

Ratings

Overall 769th 3.225⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 810th 3.026⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 863th 2.842⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 574th 3.447⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 637th 3.375⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 360th 3.361⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 482th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 19🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

srakowski
07. Dec 2017 · 00:48 UTC
Ha, I chuckled pretty hard at "Use C++ they said, 'it's faster' they said". I liked the isometric board. I wish the game was paced a bit faster, but otherwise a solid entry. Well done :)
CallumLTurner
07. Dec 2017 · 00:50 UTC
Had tons of fun with this one my only real complaint would be the lack of audio. It would have been nice if it had more variation in bugs but its real impressive speaking you made it with C++ from scratch.
Congratulations on the great game!
🎤 CiaranW
07. Dec 2017 · 01:15 UTC
@srakowski Thanks haha, I wrote all of those in the spur of the moment during the finishing minutes :P And thanks for the feedback, I agree it should be faster, but I feel like it might be a bit cheeky to change it at this stage of the competition :P
🎤 CiaranW
07. Dec 2017 · 01:18 UTC
@CallumLTurner Glad you liked it :) and I would have loved to have been able to put audio in, it is one of the major things that makes a game feel 'complete', but ofc I hit some bugs and ran out of time :P
Tiberiusuciu
07. Dec 2017 · 02:31 UTC
What a morbid game! hahahahahaha I like it, and the text you have appearing is pretty funny, especially when I know that you made your own engine for this game hahahahaha

Considering that this is your own engine, this is pretty good, im impressed! :) There's only the sound missing but I can understand due to the lack of time.

Good job! :)
Arkthalohs
07. Dec 2017 · 02:34 UTC
Nicely done. I like how the art has kind of a gritty feel to it to fit with the atmosphere, and some of the lines the throne gives are pretty amusing. It felt a little slow, and I'm not entirely sure if there was an end goal beyond just survive, but it was fun to build up a little base.
Simon Rahnasto
07. Dec 2017 · 02:39 UTC
I think the game looks just as good as it plays! I am very impressed you managed to do all of this alone, and to code it from scratch is just hardcore! :D


Great entry!
dimesto52
07. Dec 2017 · 02:40 UTC
this game is very complicated started without reading all the explanation of the page
Aviland
07. Dec 2017 · 03:20 UTC
Allow me to share my inner monologue while playing this game, **ahem**

*"Hey, either I'm suddenly good at tower defense games or this is too easy (several minutes later...) okay now I'm dying... wait! now I have ALL the grain! :D oh shit you know what that means :O welp game over and my score is 4294967295! pfft yeah this game was way too easy lol"*

All in all despite the "bugs" I'd say you have a good game on your hands, throw in some sfx a little music and don't forget to sprinkle in more visual feedback and you'll be on another level :smile:
THX1342
07. Dec 2017 · 13:32 UTC
This is a unique tower-defense like game. I enjoyed the mechanics and the flavour text was very entertaining :) Games like this must be difficult to balance so it's very understandable that it started very slow and picks up really fast after a while. It is fun, however, to have a central point of defense which for me was unique in a TD game. The game would benefit from a clearer explanation of how things work in-game. Simple text over each kind of building would help immensely but even better would be to replicate the instructions here, in-game.
🎤 CiaranW
07. Dec 2017 · 19:55 UTC
@Tiberiusuciu Thanks! Yeah i would have liked to add sound, but ran out of time :(

@Arkthalohs Thanks for the comment! I agree it starts a little slow, the aim is to collect as much grain as possible (which causes more bugs to attack)

@Simon-Rahnasto Thank you, it was a pretty intense weekend!

@dimesto52 Thanks for your comment, I agree, unfortunately just ran out of time

@Aviland Haha, I like the commentary, thank you! That score sounds like a bug... Damn i thought i fixed it! I might spend next weekend trying to add some basic polish to see how it feels, would be nice to have a more complete game (And prepare for next LD :P)

@THX1342 Thanks for the comment! I agree, I wanted to add in some mouseover text and instructions but alas, no time :P
MarjorieP
10. Dec 2017 · 01:50 UTC
nice job with this game! Everything was really entertaining! A more in-depth tutorial would help the game a lot, though.
Frenk
10. Dec 2017 · 22:37 UTC
Cool idea, but maybe it needs to be balanced a little more in terms of costs and speed of the game.
Enot487
16. Dec 2017 · 13:58 UTC
I couldn't build megapolis of grain and dead bugs, but it was very exciting! At the beginning of the game, the resources are accumulating rather slowly, but there comes a certain point when there are hordes of bugs around your throne and you are scared. It seemed to me that the number of attacking bugs increase depending on the grain received as a whole per game, and does not depend on the grain that is in the vault at the moment. This greatly complicates the gameplay and, in my opinion, at some point, there are conditions in which you can not in any way affect the situation and fight off the bugs.

Overall, I like base mechanics, sprites and atmosphere in your game. It remains only to refine the balance, interface and sound. And you're a real hardcore developer, if you made the engine from scratch! Great job!
stmatn
23. Dec 2017 · 19:43 UTC
Nice entry :) The game is a bit slow at the start but gets fun, when more bugs are around. Maybe it was just the case for me, but the number of bugs seemed to jump up quite fast at one point. It would be nice, if it would ramp up a bit more smooth. All in all nice game