i liked it

Simple nice game.

Chain Reaction :)

Overall I cannot vote fairly on Fun, since as single player it's no fun at all. The speed could be a bit faster, it feels really slow.

Also, is there a win condition? I got rid of all atoms of one player but he could just continue on an empty spot. Filling up the entire field would take ages.

That, and sound would go a long way :)

simple but nice mechanism for strategty game

btw is there an instruction? although I kinda figured out what it is.

@endurion Yes, players get eliminated, when they can't take a turn anymore (i.e. the board is completely filled with other players' neutrons). I played it a few times with my wife and I believe a two player round is on the order of 15-25 minutes. Will take your feedback to work on my presentation, so thanks a lot <3

It was fun, The animation was very slow but it probably comes from the lag, you didn't needed 3d for this game :)

WEbGL does not scale too well - so for others... it might make sense to go at least 1920 x 1080

Seems like a good idea - but maybe my brain is a bit squushy from the jam - so could not get anything but "dropping balls".

Congratulations on the entry :thumbsup_tone1:
:purple_heart: :dart: :frog:

I love how it's simple mechanics yet deep. Those are the good kind! :) Positively surprised that you decided to go for a strategy game for the theme. Nice entry!

Simple sound effects for placing a ball and for a chain reaction happening would have gone a long way.

For the gameplay, I think either starting out with a smaller grid, or having some or all of the grid start with some neutral balls already on them would have made the game feel a bit faster. For a game like this I feel 5 - 10 minutes would be the sweet spot of where you want to be.

As a perfect information game it might be a bit more interesting to have a limited quantity of different ball types that have different effects. For instance having a larger ball that counts as 2 or 3 balls but you only get 2 or 3 of them for the whole game. Another idea would be to add a wall item that allows you to block chain reactions on a certain column or row.

If you wanted to switch it to an imperfect information game, you could have the chance of a chain reaction go up with each new ball, but that might make it feel a bit too random.

I think changing the win condition might also produce interesting results. Instead of controlling every square, having it so you control 2/3rds of the board might be better. Or you could have certain squares that are 'target' squares and if you control all the target squares you win the game.

Overall you have a very interesting mechanic that has a ton of potential with variants and different rule sets.

@phlip45 Wow, thank you for taking the time for such an extensive feedback. I agree that there are super exciting modes possible. I'll let it sit for a few weeks after the Jam and see if I can make a more polished version of it. Many things weren't implemented simply for the time constraints, because I roughly had 15 hours (hands-on work time, with brainstorming a bit more) for this jam.

mechanic is rly interesting. i like it. agree with phlip45

really fun and engaging. great job!

Lategame is calculatable yet so chaotic. You can be left with 2 fields and straight up win the game from that turn. Really unique and engaging entry.

A really interesting idea! Though I played it single player, controlling two players myself, I enjoyed quite a bit. It's really satisfying to put one ball on the board and watch the chain reaction slowly propagate across the entire field. ;)

One thing I wish for this game is to be faster. When you're placing a ball, there's a really long time before it falls down to the selected field. In case of some fields, you're not even sure the click happened, since the ball is spawned off-camera and you can't see it until it comes really close. Also, sometimes when balls are exchanged between two fields they can get stuck on each other for a few seconds, further slowing the game down.

Another issue was the colour scheme. First time I played, the Player 1 colour didn't really stand out from empty fields, making it difficult to see your conquered area.

Also, you might want to set your Itch.io game window to a higher resultion. On full-screen it works fine, but it the default window the introduction screen gets squished really bad:


The game has a lot of potential for improvement. One idea I had was to introduce different types of fields. For example, you could have a moderator field, which would require more neutrons before splitting. You could also add walls between some of the fields on the grid to make some more interesting level layouts.

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing this one. Well done! ;)

I really like the concept and love these types of board games but agree with others the pace needs to be sped up, especially for the sake of quickly learning the game during a jam like this. I found myself getting frustrated not really understanding the game and it took a while to really feel like I'm getting it with how slow the pieces move and how many turns it can take for something to happen. My partner gave up before really trying, but that's her own fault ;)