Cruelty by Jeasonfire

[raw]
made by Jeasonfire for LD33 (COMPO)
Cruelty is a simple, easy and short RTS that brings a certain ethical aspect of many videogames into spotlight..

The game's tutorial should suffice, but the controls aren't explained anywhere, so here are the controls:
* Move around the map: WASD
* Zoom: Scrollwheel
* Rotate the camera: Q/E
* Reset camera: C
* Select units: Left-click
* Move units: Right-click

NOTE (Audio, important!):
Because I forgot to trigger any sounds in the game while the compo was going, I have decided to opt out of the Audio category, since the original build didn't have any sounds playing.
However, if you'd like, you can now go to the options menu, and set the music/sfx sliders up. That will enable the sounds. That option was added after the compo. All audio resources were created during the compo. (You can check this by looking at the commits in the git repo that's linked as "Source")

Story (spoilers, duh):
The point is that you're an evil overlord that controls every aspect of his/her subjects' lives (ie. where they move and what they gather in this case) and makes them kill other tribes' men. I guess it's a bit of a leap of logic, but eh, I couldn't come up with anything better to fit the theme :D

Some notes, read these if you will :)
About winning the game:
It isn't exactly typed out anywhere but here, but the objective of the game is to kill every living thing that you can't control. The green guys.

About FOV:
I recommend using the default field of view (FOV), 60, or lower, because then you'll get the best visibility and clarity (in my opinion).

About combat:
It's literally just running equipped units into enemies. Like, equip your character (explained in the tutorial), and move the unit at an enemy.

About resources:
To store the resources after they're collected, move the worker that collected the resources into one of the smaller houses.

About the camera:
If you've rotated the camera to a degree that isn't roughly 0/90/180/270, the selection box won't work as expected. Use the "C" key to reset the camera.

Ratings

Coolness 41% 1578
Overall 3.04 540
Fun 2.43 822
Graphics 2.91 558
Innovation 2.57 722
Mood 2.55 727
Theme 2.09 919

Feedback

Raspadsistema
24. Aug 2015 路 17:26 UTC
Quite cute and cool, looks pretty and like you put some effort into programming side, though has nothing to do with compo theme.
kidando
24. Aug 2015 路 17:42 UTC
I tried to make my villagers cut trees, but they kind of just froze. Congrats on your submission though! You have an rts in the making.
Shinmera
24. Aug 2015 路 17:49 UTC
Let's see.

Primarily the problem is that the game doesn't seem to fit the theme very well. It is a neat start for a general management/building game, but other than that there isn't much to say about it.

When selecting a group of people, they can become wildly out of sync in relation to where they're moving if they're hitting something and get held back because of that. It's very hard to get them to actually gather resources, it seems that it requires a very particular positioning to get the entities to actually 'get' it. When running into the building to get the spears it's all too ease to drop it again by hitting the building again. There's no way to scroll back in the message log, and the small backlog is just too small to be able to make it out properly. The enemy AI doesn't really seem to do anything beyond just hitting the trees and rocks.

It's nice that you put some effort into getting a day/night cycle and making the map look appealing though. Generally the style of the game is alright, though it could have been streamlined further by making all objects very hard-edged (particularly the rocks and the surrounding terrain) to fit in with the rest of the trees and buildings.

So yeah. This seems like a base to start out from. With some more time and work this could turn into a nice game.
馃帳 Jeasonfire
24. Aug 2015 路 19:19 UTC
Thanks for the feedback everyone!

@Raspadsistema @Shinmera
I guess I should've made my point a bit clearer, about how "you're the monster". The point is that you're an evil overlord that controls every aspect of his/her subjects' lives (ie. where they move and what they gather in this case) and makes them kill other tribes' men. I guess it's a bit of a leap of logic, but eh, I couldn't come up with anything better to fit the theme :D
raducumiczzz
24. Aug 2015 路 20:04 UTC
Look nice and cool. Congratulations. The mastermind that controls everybody.
commodoreKid
26. Aug 2015 路 09:08 UTC
Good start for a real-time strategy but there is a long way to go. I ended up killing my own soldiers and I guess there wasn't anywhere to capture was there?
馃帳 Jeasonfire
27. Aug 2015 路 14:17 UTC
@raducumiczzz
Thanks!

@commodoreKid
Yeah, I didn't bother to give the AI the ability to look at where they're pointing their spear, so accidents happen ;) At least it's realistic!
Also, no, I didn't have time to implement a capture mechanic or anything like that, the objective is just to kill the green guys.
cynicalmonkey
30. Aug 2015 路 11:07 UTC
using a touchpad for this was really difficult as the tutorial zoomed by and there didn't seem to be any way to reverse it to actually read it. I also agree that even with seeing your reason below it didn't feel like it fit the theme, maybe if you had made it a village of trolls or orks instead of people
MAnimal
30. Aug 2015 路 11:15 UTC
Now you have nice rts engine, you have to continue to expand your game.
Slashee the Cow
30. Aug 2015 路 11:29 UTC
Cool that you managed to implement so much of an RTS in two days (I don't think I could). I didn't seem to have much luck killing the other guys though, my guys just seemed to die instead.

Nice graphics, too.
McFood
31. Aug 2015 路 02:49 UTC
Great job making an rts in 48 hours!
I seemed to lose two of my villagers some how, one of them walked into the barracks and never came back. I still managed to win though.

The units would have been easier to control if they converged on my click location, rather than all moved in the same direction.
AndyBrown
07. Sep 2015 路 21:22 UTC
Interesting RTS engine you have here. I had some issues with the text scrolling past multiple messages at once- and not being able to read them once they were in the chat log area. I think your entry fit the theme, but some dialogue for your units with complaining or something would have really sold it.
Gaius Baltar
13. Sep 2015 路 15:37 UTC
I didn't really get the gameplay. It wasn't all that responsive, but great work for two days.