Mycelisation by bereg
Welcome to the first-ever 4X (or at least XXX) turn-based strategy game about fungi! Expand your underground empire! Feed your mushroom emperor with the precious nutrients! Lead your loyal sprouts deeper and deeper underground as your emperor commanded! Leave a mark in the history books of Mycelisation!
Grow the root by moving the sprouts to the available ground tiles. Sprout can't move through the rocks or existing roots. When the sprout got stumped, it dies. When they finished their movement, you can end the turn. There are pick-ups underground!
At the beginning of the turn, all root tiles give you Water, but they will run out of it eventually. Buy new sprouts or upgrade existing ones by spending the Water. At the end of the turn, all remaining Water goes to the mushroom, feeding him, making him happier. The maze is procedural and randomized at the start of the game.
Controls: Mouse, Space - End turn, E/Q - previous/next sprout, WASD & mousewheel - move the camera, Escape - pause.
The game was made from scratch during the jam, except for some preexisting code.
Game by Bereg Studio:
Stanislav Demchenko - game design, code, and music.
Dmitry Kripakov - 3D-art, design.
Tools:
Unity 3D, SideFX Houdini, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag, Cubase, DSP Motion.
There is a Post-Jam version with two difficulty levels, automatic sprout switching and improved camera controls (WASD + Mousewheel).
We've added an HTML5 version for those of you who don't like waiting. Consider downloading though, as the standalone build provides the best graphics and sound quality.
| Link | https://bereg.itch.io/mycelisation-ld48 |
| Linux (Untested) | https://bereg.itch.io/mycelisation-ld48 |
| Link | https://bereg.itch.io/mycelisation-ld48 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/mycelysation |
Ratings
| Overall | 203th | 4.006⭐ | 92🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 284th | 3.822⭐ | 92🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 158th | 3.994⭐ | 92🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 274th | 4.1⭐ | 92🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 288th | 4.239⭐ | 92🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 387th | 3.744⭐ | 92🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 929th | 2.65⭐ | 82🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 799th | 3.575⭐ | 89🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 128🗳️ | 208🗨️ |
I love it.
If i can suggest a few improvements:
- switching to the next sprout when AP are exhausted
- UI can get in the way of the sprouts
The art is also great and looks and feels juicy. it would be nice if the music was a bit more relaxed!
All in all, a really great game, I love it!
The only flaw I see is that the "+1 AP" upgrade seems useless. Since the goal is to survive until the bar is filled, it seems counterproductive to move 2 times, as it can lead to your sprouts dying faster and therefore generating less water per turn.
Amazing game anyway, congrats!
The transition between main menu and game is really neat :)
I was a bit sad that the play grid is not deeper
Awesome work!
I would love to see this to become a big and full game.
As someone said above, the map can generate in a frustrating way that prevents you from expanding far just from bad luck, but my first run I finished in 42 turns I think it was.
It looked really nice and I had a good time! :)
Very nice graphics and sound)
Here's my no commentary playthrough:
https://youtu.be/SHU3LFOBfZM
Some possible improvements if you want to do further work on this could be auto-scrolling to the new sprout when using next/previous buttons ,combined with maybe some adjustments for common screen sizes (it *nearly* fit for me on 1920x1080, one or two fewer rows or slightly smaller graphics and scrolling wouldn't have been needed at all); having a way to skip sprouts with no AP on next/previous; graying out or hiding the upgrade button when the sprout is fully upgraded; and having escape close the upgrade dialog. All of those are fixes for minor things that are entirely expected in a jam game, nothing major at all.
It's also quite fun and engaging. I just think I was unlucky with my map layout and there was no way for me to win, as after a good third of the map there was just no other way to expand as everything was blocked by stone. Not sure if there was a way for me to win the game in these circumstances. But maybe I'll have a nother go later on and see if things work out better. :)
Only tiny complaint I have is that the UI could be a little more streamlined. E.g. upgrading could surely be handled with fewer clicks and extra windows, especially considering there are only two upgrades to begin with. But that's really all I could come up with. Great work!
Gameplay is just fine, controls work well, and I didn't meet any bugs. If I have one complaint, it's the difficulty. There really seems like there is no way to fail and even not much reason to upgrade your roots.
Maybe it needs some more "Dangers" like Bad Spores or evil myclia or so and it was unfortune that in my Hard try, the whole Left Side of the GAme was totally unreachable. This should also maybe changed. And Sometimtes it wasn't clear where do get my water exactly from and what does the spores are exactly do.
But Overall it is a great Game which I enjoyed a lot.
Well Done Great Work
EDIT: Lo and behold, there's the post-jam build with hard mode added! Yaaay
It's very soothing to sit and plot out paths, with that juicy crispy sound, and as time goes by, it becomes a beautiful network which is satisfying.
If you will continue to work on it (I hope so, because it's great!), here's some feedback (although you probably know about it already, then just ignore it):
* This UI element blocked me a couple of times:
* I wish it was easier to upgrade the sprouts (maybe right-click -> tiny menu) or something. I loved that there was a "finish round" shortcut, but I didn't find one for the "store"?
Nice work!! I think I have to fry some shiitake mushrooms for dinner today :heart_eyes:
Gameplay feels nice and casual, maybe a bit too easy. I could really use a Civilization style "end turn when all units moved" option though. Great job overall!
What an impressive game, it's not frequent to see a 4x (or xxx in your case) game that also has very good graphics and audio.
I really enjoyed the mechanic overall, my video was on easy mode but I went back to the game and played the harder version with blockers later. I never even had to upgrade any spore in easy, but it became very handy in the hard mode.
I'm really impressed by this game, congratulation!
Great mechanic and SFX, missing some music while in game, but great experience :smile: good job!!!