Tominrigg Tactics by Dan Allison

[raw]
made by Dan Allison for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

Title.png

​Synopsis

A tactics style game where you fight your way out of a doomed town while trying to save as many civilians as you can at the same time.

​Controls​

Left Click - Select tile and click on buttons

Right Click - Step back

Q - Zoom in/out

Plot

The king has abandoned us. No surprises there, the monarchy only cares about its coffer and a village like Tominrigg is apparently disposable. I'll have something to say to the royal bastard's face once we get out of here. For now though, we need to focus. The town is a write off, there's no denying that but there's still people stuck in amongst the chaos. These bony bastards may claim stake to Tominrigg today but we can still save lives out there! Let's get to it!

Development

Done over the weekend while still having some time to play Elden Ring. All the code, art, animations and writing were done by me. The audio was from resources available online. Everything was done as part of the jam but some of the map logic was based on some rough work I had done previously.

Ideally, there would have still been another level of polish but happy with where it ended up. It would have been nice to spend more time on the UI/UX and tidying up the quips, along with fixing some of the bugs (Particularly some pathfinding issues) but hopefully I can get round to that once the voting is over.

Screenshots

Screen1.png

Screen2.png

Screen3.png

Licenses:

Battle Of The Creek by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com

Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Alagard - https://www.dafont.com/alagard.font

Colour Palette - https://lospec.com/palette-list/kalimba-26

Ratings

Overall 242th 3.897⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 222th 3.81⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 744th 3.259⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 592th 3.741⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 354th 4.05⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Mood 471th 3.69⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 45🗨️

Feedback

Haastregt
05. Apr 2022 · 08:01 UTC
Wow this is a solid game, especially for just one weekend! It is very fun to play, it looks great, and it also feels fluent.

I think that the main thing to improve would be to add an UI element showing the order of turns, because most often I had no clue whether I could attack before a certain enemy, so that makes strategy a bit hard.

Great job!
Hoeleboele
05. Apr 2022 · 08:06 UTC
Well done! Game feels very pollished and i loved the text popups they really give feel to the overal game. Good Job!
lomstfer
05. Apr 2022 · 08:26 UTC
Nice game! Very enjoyable to play and there is a clear goal of keeping the bad guys away.
kr0s
05. Apr 2022 · 08:32 UTC
A nice game, feels very solid. However, I agree with Haastregt about the turn indicators. Also, there can be a situation where a character is surrounded by skeletons and literally cannot die due to being near the healing thing.
Ben Newington
05. Apr 2022 · 08:35 UTC
This is an amazing game ! especially for only 1 developer. The heroes have so much character, you did a great job making them all feel unique. P.S. the art is awesome
Deylinia
05. Apr 2022 · 14:36 UTC
Wow! How did you manage this in the time frame? Seriously impressive.

The Music and graphics are great!
The white intro text + Green title text is a little hard to read.

But I love these kind of games and spent a good amount of time playing this one. I would say maybe its a little bit slow as well, I think having a button to skip the enemies animations or something would go a long way.

Definitely a fun game though, probably my favorite I've played so far.
🎤 Dan Allison
05. Apr 2022 · 15:37 UTC
Thanks to everyone for all their kind words, your feedback really does mean a lot.

@haastregt @kr0s Absolutely agree. It's something I thought of towards the end of development but didn't have the time to get anything decent in so had to leave it. As for the healing statues, I have logic in place to destroy them after a few uses but decided just to leave them as is but I do agree that that situation is a bit broken!

@deylinia Agreed on both points. I added in the logic for showing all of the turns when there was a lot less enemies in the game and it wasn't until testing towards the end that I realised how long it can get as more spawn in so think being able to skip past them is a really good idea. Glad you enjoyed it though!
MrPouletBZH
05. Apr 2022 · 16:05 UTC
Impressive amount of work, the game is very polished and very pleasant to play. Loved the pixel art too!
There is still some balancing problems (I felt that the enemies were spawning really fast and some villagers seemed impossible to save), but even with that it was a pleasure to play. I also had a bug, where I coulnd't have the "save" interaction with a villager which was in range (but he was one hit to die so it didn't changed anynthin in the end uhuh ). Really an impressive entry, excellent work!
🎤 Dan Allison
07. Apr 2022 · 09:19 UTC
@mrpouletbzh Thanks a lot for you feedback! You're definitely right about the balancing and something I've learned while doing the jam but I focused too heavily on the systems at first so by the time everything was coded and good to go there wasn't much time for me to balance after the fact. That's something I'd definitely aim to improve on in any other jams I do. And thanks for pointing out the bug too, I will hopefully have some time to polish and tidy up at some point so I'll have a look into it.
C.Even
07. Apr 2022 · 10:38 UTC
Like the pixel art, and it's interesting to play! Just met an issue that when there are too many skeletons, it waits a little too long, maybe it can limit the maximum amount of enemy turns, or make spawning less often. Overall, it's a nice game and I had a good time with it, great work!
Substain
07. Apr 2022 · 16:30 UTC
cool idea, i like how far you got over the weekend :)
Pixelydian
07. Apr 2022 · 20:43 UTC
Holy crap this was fantastic. I'm not going to complain about balancing issues because it's not like you had time to play test. But for what is here and what is accomplishable in a weekend, regarding game mechanic, art, humor, and overall execution, GREAT job. My husband asked me to make a list of my favorites for him to play later, and you've made the list! :)
vidim888
08. Apr 2022 · 20:44 UTC
Great simple game! I like how you made a simple concept and stick with it. Game feels great to play and I actually could not exit it before I finished it :D Would be great to have some info on how to play - it's not obvious that Skeleton Mages hit houses. Not obvious that Sacred Stones heal your survivors and outright kill adjacent skeletons. You can write it in info for the project if time doesn't allow you to make it into the game :)
ikelucas
08. Apr 2022 · 21:36 UTC
Great concept, I really liked how you can escape with your troops if things start to get overwhelming. Really fits the theme! The graphics and soundtrack are great, the music can be repetitive (only because of the context of long, worn out battles) but it never was a problem, and even after I stopped playing I still was humming the melody on my mind. Very good game!
Stefan Funke
08. Apr 2022 · 22:17 UTC
I love turn based strategy games. So glad I found this game. The pixel art is very cool too!

I played very aggresively on the second run. I wanted to see, if I can stop the mages from taking over more houses. Didn't work sadly. They got a second one. From that point on my team didn't do enough damage to stop them. :(
But at least I could save everyone!

It was nice, that I could "win" the game, although being overrun in the end. It felt rewarding getting everyone out. Many other games I played didn't do that.

Good job on the game!
Christian Zommerfelds
09. Apr 2022 · 08:20 UTC
Hey nice entry! I enjoyed playing till the end. A couple notes:

* Bug: rescuing doesn't work after attacking. Just nothing happens when you click on the villager.
* Amazing music!
* The ordering if things is a bit weird. For example, a character should die or leave the map immediately, instead of waiting for that to happen in the turn system. Otherwise it feels like a bug and things are not working as intended
* Waiting for all of the skeletons towards the end of the game was a bit annoying. Maybe the timing can be sped up if the game knows they aren't attacking.
LDJam user 76491
09. Apr 2022 · 22:53 UTC
Super cool game, it's impressive that you managed to make a tactics game in such a short time with interesting graphics and soundtrack.

I like that the objective of the game was not killing the monsters per se (focusing on them is not a good idea), it gives an interesting twist to the genre.

One thing that bothered me a bit was the fact that enemies could pass through you, so trying to block the passage with your characters is a fruitless strategy when trying to save villagers. Also, after enough turns you have to wait so long for your turn because there are so enemies.

The short catchphrases for the units were a really nice addition and they help give character to them.
Great job!
🎤 Dan Allison
10. Apr 2022 · 10:41 UTC
Just wanted to thank everyone again for all the feedback, it's really nice to hear all the positive things people have to say and I really appreciate people letting me know about problems/bugs and offering suggestions. If I have time (probably post jam) I'll try and put together and updated version with some better balancing and some speed changes.

@pixelydian Very honoured to be part of that list! Hope your husband enjoys the game (And all the others) as well!

@vidim888 There's a tutorial in game but it's not very in depth and it can only be accessed in the menu which isn't great. So think you're right and I'll get something added the game page to give some more information.

@stefan-funke I maybe shouldn't have made it so hard to stop the first house getting taken but my logic with that was that to fit the "delay the inevitable" theme I wanted the town to eventually get overrun. But if they only had one house it would be possible to fight them back. I didn't start the skeletons with two houses so the player would see what the necromancers were trying to do as an almost mini tutorial. But I like your approach in trying to stop it anyway and I think I should have adjusted it slightly so if you know what you're doing and you go straight for the necromancer you can stop it. Almost like a bonus for replaying it with more knowledge!

@christian-zommerfelds I agree about the ordering I think. I liked the idea of still getting attacked while trying to escape but after playing more I think leaving straight away just makes more sense. And you're definitely right about the timing issues too.

@conradoclark You're definitely right about the enemy blocking, it makes much more sense to do it that way. I had planned on this but because of the way I wrote the pathfinding code it made it harder to implement than I wanted to. Realised my mistake too late and just had to leave it as is but it's definitely something I'd change with an updated version.
Timur_Bahadir
10. Apr 2022 · 20:02 UTC
Fun little game! I love the comments the characters give ^^ Towards the end the time between player turns got quite long due to all the enemies.
Kitkii
11. Apr 2022 · 16:11 UTC
Lovely game to play. Got very hectic towards the end with the enemies turns taking a really long time but I thoroughly enjoyed the game with its charming art style and nice background music. I am impressed by how smooth it feels despite being a 3 day project looks very polished and could see this as a small demo of a full game. I liked how the characters had different methods of attacking with distance made it more tactical with positioning of characters.
Likirus
12. Apr 2022 · 10:42 UTC
Really nice game! The pixel art is well made and the music is a banger. Turn based battles are a bit of a rarity in game jams so its nice to see a well executed example of one. My ambition was looking for a way to win the game, but the theme didn't really encourage winnable games. After rescuing some citizens I wondered what would happen when one of the heroes goes to an exit square and you thought of that as well. The heroes can flee the sinking ship and abandon their village :D
MathGLO
12. Apr 2022 · 15:34 UTC
Really nice game! Wow! The graphics were on point, the music too. The gameplay itself is simple but really well done. Great entry!
mactinite
15. Apr 2022 · 22:09 UTC
Awesome strategy game. Everything worked smoothly, really awesome work, especially for a game jam!
Vincent Welax
17. Apr 2022 · 03:23 UTC
Good game, but i wished i could destroy the skeleton houses. But overall great game :D!
🎤 Dan Allison
25. Apr 2022 · 14:20 UTC
Just wanted to post one more comment to thank every single person that played this game. All the feedback, praise, criticism and comments are so appreciated and I'd be remiss if I didn't say thank you one more time. And even if you didn't leave a comment and just played the game then thanks for checking it out.

See you all at LD51!
evgeney24
07. Jun 2022 · 15:20 UTC
cool game.
ledgooled
07. Aug 2022 · 05:28 UTC
this game is fun. 0.39 inch [3391AB](http://www.xlitx.com/datasheet/3391AB.pdf) led [3391AB](http://www.lanpade.com/7-segment-led-dot-matrix/3391ab.html) 7-segment [3391BB](http://www.xlitx.com/datasheet/3391BB.pdf) display [3391BB](http://www.lanpade.com/7-segment-led-dot-matrix/3391bb.html)