Paid in Blood by Scott Steffes

[raw]
made by Scott Steffes for LD 44 (JAM)

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Best enjoyed with sound!

Manage a village assailed by the gods. Use the lives of your villagers as currency to appease them. Choose an action each turn to gain villagers and sacrifices. On sacrifice day, if you have the sacrifice the god wants, you will receive the god's blessing, if not, you will suffer the consequences. You never know what god will appear. If you run out of villagers, you lose. Survive as long as you can!

The blue god desires maidens. The red god desires goats. The green god desires young lads.

The numbers on the bottom indicate the current turn. A god will show up on turns marked red.

Programming: Scott Steffes, Axel C. Design/Music/SFX: Nate D. Art: もじゃもじゃなおっち(mojamoja naochi)

Ratings

Given 28🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

paragonraptors
29. Apr 2019 · 18:20 UTC
Enjoyed the cards mechanic! I got unlucky fairly often but it was fun while it lasted!
JediNeeson
29. Apr 2019 · 18:46 UTC
Wow good job really nice game!
DigitalLimestone
29. Apr 2019 · 18:48 UTC
This was great fun! I don't think there was much skill involved but I would be more than happy to play this as a phone game. Well done!
pokenoufl
29. Apr 2019 · 18:58 UTC
I loved this game. The music fit perfectly. The cards were fun and there was rarely a correct choice. I managed to get pretty far and after a while the gods didn't matter much because I'd ammased so many villagers. I feel like the dificulty curve was too low (punishments should be turn number /2 or something like that) so that keeping sacrifices is really needed. Anyways, Amazing job !
NoobException
29. Apr 2019 · 19:15 UTC
I've passed about 150 turns and I really enjoyed it.
The game forces to do "right" choices only at the beginning, since as someone noticed, later you have enough villager for every scenario.

Also, I'm really curious whether my decisions have some longer-term consequences or just it is current resource management?

Gameplay is pretty straightforward, but music and sounds add a very nice feel.
I don't know how many cards are there, but there was plenty of them and certainly you had to put some effort with it.

Loved the graphics, especially those drooling gods :smile:

One thing that I would suggest : Let all the events that aren't connented with god, happen after he's gone. I found it quite confusing when a god was still on screen and a task was finished.

Good job!
Dooda
29. Apr 2019 · 19:28 UTC
Great game, I'm glad to see that someone else had a similar idea to mine :joy: Praise to the gods!
Wish I could add some useful critique, but it was an excellent submission:thumbsup:
🎤 Scott Steffes
29. Apr 2019 · 19:38 UTC
@noobexception we struggled to find a balance where you didn't always get wrecked at the beginning. The sacrifice turns get closer together as the game goes on, but I guess that's not enough to kill off your burgeoning village.
Andreadbx
29. Apr 2019 · 20:41 UTC
Very nice game! it's a lot luck based, but i enjoyed it, expecially the game of thrones references!
Sciman101
29. Apr 2019 · 23:21 UTC
I love the visual design of this, it feels really polished. You could probably make this into a physical card game pretty easily, too. Nice work!
Malarpuppet
30. Apr 2019 · 05:35 UTC
Really love the sound effects, they bring a lot to the game. reminds me a bit of cultist simulator but a fair bit easier to process. Maybe the text could be colored to green/red to show if it worked positively or negatively so its easier to read the content.
Great work!
ejmejm
30. Apr 2019 · 07:00 UTC
Loved the art for the Gods!
Tommyflower
30. Apr 2019 · 11:29 UTC
Great sacrifice game! At the beginning the right choice is crucial. I loved the graphics and the music is perfect. Also the feedback are shown in an intuitive smooth way.
caevv
30. Apr 2019 · 18:58 UTC
awesome game concept, i really enjoyed it and had to stop myself from playing! good job
PolyHatSteve
30. Apr 2019 · 20:57 UTC
Really well done, love the worldbuilding and graphics. Sound is suitably creepy as well. I like the focus on risk management and investing in your deck for future turns. I agree with the comments that it does get too easy if you have a good start, but balance is tricky in 3 days, so no big deal. Great work overall!
Twan Mul
30. Apr 2019 · 21:56 UTC
great balance of cards. I'd like the story to stand out more in the cards, the gamer in me automatically jumps to the stats and chances. The choices are important and good to make. very nice concept.
szabe
30. Apr 2019 · 22:09 UTC
Man, I was unlucky... Really unlucky. Nice concept. My only gripe is that because of the luck factor it kinda lacks agency, just a bit more control over the odds would be nice. Nevertheless the texts are interesting to read and add to the worldbuilding! nice job!
plexsoup
01. May 2019 · 04:10 UTC
Nicely crafted variant of this type of game. No issues with the game itself, but I'm not a huge fan of the genre. Seems well polished!
Annie Owl
02. May 2019 · 05:49 UTC
I love text-driven card games, so this game entertained me for quite a while. Unfortunately, it felt too difficult to get sacrifice "materials", because cards that can give you lads\goats\maidens appear rarely, give you just one sacrifice and have a really high chance of failure. I think you should work on the balance if you want to develop this game in the future.
3mpty
02. May 2019 · 10:48 UTC
Simple but effective, very polished, great sound design that was honestly pretty creepy. Good game!
krammetje
03. May 2019 · 11:22 UTC
Very interesting. Seeing the odds makes it feel more strategic. Very nice game!