Tecta by techsec

Controls: - Click on one of the 3 building option to the left and a valid building spot (white square) to add it to your city - Click on a building built to see its name and stats, click multiple times to see it's history
Goal: - Build the largest City
Tecta is a city planning game where you build your civilization downwards into the sea after catastrophic global warming floods 70% of the world’s landmass. Every turn, you will choose from 3 tiles to place in different ways on your structure. Make your way down to put houses next to more food, and grow your underwater city. If you want more information about a tile, just click on it. But beware, rival factions will soon spawn to influence your citizens and fight with one another. Build a variety of speciality buildings to keep your factions happy and avoid a revolt against you. Each faction wants a different building placed, and are happiest when the building is in their territory and next to a resource of their type. When you run out of food or happiness, the game ends and your score will be based on your total population. Good luck!
| Link | https://techsec.itch.io/tecta |
| Link | https://techsec.itch.io/tecta |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/tecta |
Ratings
| Overall | 1308th | 3.286⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1188th | 3.161⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 415th | 3.661⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1127th | 3.482⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1605th | 2.839⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 707th | 3.444⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1240th | 2.25⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 867th | 3.536⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 32🗨️ |
I can definetely see this was trying to accomplish way too much for the scope of the 3 day jam, and it shows in the lack of instructions or clarity on how the mechanics work, but you got me curious so I tried to figure it out and the more I discovered the more surprised I was. You have a civ-style game, with what could be considered as a "card draw" mechanic with a hand of buildings each turn, then those building have to fit next to each other like a puzzle game, cities get influenced and convert to different factions, and they even have randomized little names and all? In a game jam? As I'm writing this I'm still amazed. This was like trying to solve a mystery, and the more I find the deeper it gets. Wait, what?
The metrics as I write this are all 0's but I'm really hoping this is not an abandoned project, game jams are not only for flashy cool polished games, they're also for the crazy stuff, this was a really fun entry to try with very interesting ideas.
I felt fairly lost at the start of the game, as I played it became a touch more clear, but I still don't feel like I entirely understand how buildings are supposed to be placed. I honestly think this could be fixed with a more interactive tutorial.
My only other complaint is that the UI is reeeeally small on my Macbook Pro, I had to squint to read everything.
@bamallama Yah for sure we need an interactive tutorial or something just issues with timing and all that. Going forward we will had it for sure.
Thanks both of you guys!
Keep it up! Great work!
It seemed when ever I hovered over the top or bottom building blocks the game would scroll, which was a bit disorienting. It would also be a good addition to add a quit button - either as a menu option or hitting escape
I'm really interested to see where you were going with this idea, and I hope you continue to work on it and flesh out a demo a bit more!
Also, eventually I was able to just take all the food on the map, and then I slowly starved to death. It would be nice if you could just expand endlessly deeper.
The little lore details you put onto everything were really cool. I liked being able to click on the buildings and see a little history.
Pros:
- Cool gameplay idea
- Huge scope to tackle for a jam
- Very nice soundtrack
Cons:
- Hard to understand how to play the game without trial and error
- Graphics didn't match what things did - it was hard to distinguish the different buildings and the sea turtle being science research threw me off before I realized that's what it was.
The overall gameplay and the mood/soundtrack were the best components of this game for me!