Outward by chuckeles
Grow your village as the world expands.
Controls
Use only your mouse. Click and drag to move, mouse wheel to zoom. Click to give orders to your units. Click on an order again to cancel it.
✅ FIXED! ~~WATCH OUT FOR YOUR EARS! 🙈 There's a bug where the music occasionally plays way too many chords at the same time, resulting in a loud mess of notes. Oops!~~
Known issues
- Well, there's nothing really to do with the resources you collect. That was "out of scope" for the compo...
- ✅ Fixed: Sometimes the generative music breaks and plays too many chords at the same time, resulting in a LOUD mishmash of notes.
- Sometimes resources near a flag are ignored by units, remove and place the command again to have them register the resources properly.
- Let me know if you find any issues!
Screenshots

| Link | https://github.com/martindzejky/outward |
| Link | https://martindzejky.itch.io/outward |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/outward |
Ratings
| Overall | 13th | 4.068⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 20th | 3.851⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 85th | 3.446⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 8th | 4.333⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 5th | 4.473⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 6th | 4.118⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 70th | 3.234⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 15th | 4.167⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 26🗨️ |
1) Sometimes chord in soundtrack hits HARD. Meaning, way more louder than other sounds
2) Sometimes lepricons don't collect resources in a flag zone. Re-creating a flag in the same spot fixes this
Great game!
I'm sorry about the issue with music, I did not have time to fix it since I noticed it after submitting and I was spent. I added a big warning at the top of the description. 🙈
I really appreciate your feedback. I feel that I have something going on here and I have a lot of motivation to keep working on this one. It's a lovely game and I would at least like to make it into a proper demo or vertical slice, if not a full game. We'll see but so far the reception has been very warm.
Next things for the game I have in mind: placing buildings, better upgrades, spending resources to get better and stronger village and villages, enemies, enemy waves (you have to defend), and prominent locations in the world.
BTW if anyone's wondering, I drew the biggest inspiration from these games: Majesty, Anthill Village, and Sok pop games. I'm so grateful to these games for great ideas!
Well polished and great take of the theme, thank you for these minutes of pure fun :smile:
ALSO IS THAT THE FAR CRY 2 MAP EDITOR AMBIENCE I HEAR??? Those animal sounds are so nostalgic to me!!!
I outlined some rough ideas in a comment above, but essentially, I want to experiment with building simple buildings. Those buildings would provide more units, gear, and improvements to the village. It would make you stronger, faster, etc. And those buildings would spend the resources you collect. In essence, incremental game. :laughing:
The expanding area is done using a simple shader, see the source code on Github if you are interested. :wink:
And I don't know about Far Cry 2 map editor, never used it haha. But maybe I randomly used the same simple who knows.
Now that I'm writing this comment, I can hear the birds. Did you record that yourself?
I'm glad you enjoyed it. For the sound effects and the ambience, I used samples from the internet. There unfortunately wasn't a chance to do a recording myself around here.

But seriously, this is great — I really liked the art style, and the gameplay is right up my alley. The only downside is there’s not enough content. Come on, dev, give us more! If this were on Steam, I’d totally add it to my wishlist — it’s very promising despite its apparent simplicity.
The audio and visual aesthetic is just so great...
If I had any criticism it's that I'd like to better understand the priority system for the littlings choosing which waypoint to go to. But that's minor. Really good job, amazing entry!
@maimai yeah, the priority system: there isn't any. Those guys just choose randomly. I was thinking to maybe expand on this but at the same time I did not want to overcomplicate the controls, at least not for now. Maybe this could be one of the upgrades you get? :thinking:
@lereveur thank you! There will be a purpose for the resources, but it did not make it into this compo version. It will later!
It took me a while to learn how to use the flags, but it wasn't too difficult. Near the end it started to feel a bit repetitious, but that's understandable given the time constraints — there is only so much variety that can be included. Anyway, there is a lot of potential in this game. Nice work.
The sound and music add SO much imo.
Some really nice polish on the upgrade pop-up. The way it rewards you when you complete your tasks.
The zoom and moving around all feels nice, and I like how you gradually reveal the map. I love these resource gathering games.. and this one has a great vibe! with lots of potential to add more :smile:
This is such a great entry!!
This game is so masterfully polished for 48 hours, and absolutely everything in it is perfect - the controls are simple and clear, the quests are clearly understood from the beginning to the end, there is game progression with a small skill leveling system, the graphics are extremely pleasant and the animations are cute and lively.
The sounds (especially the environmental ambience) immerse you well into the gameplay, they suit this settlement perfectly. And a special respect for the generative musical accompaniment, these sounds are a direct 100% hit to the heart!
Brilliant work, I would be very interested to see what this game develops into in the future, good luck to you with the development!
This little game is now my daily long-term project. If you are interested, follow my journey on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@martindzejky
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