Beware the Kraken by HellBlazer

[raw]
made by HellBlazer for LD33 (JAM)
This is a strategy RPG(-ish) in which you play a kraken attacking passing ships. With the number of games in which there is a ship voyage when a kraken gets killed... now it's the kraken's revenge! The goal is to destroy ships and level up until you are strong enough to attack the human city that lies in the archipelago (hint: somewhere in the north).

This is lacking quite a bit of polish and depth, unfortunately, but well, you know how it is with Ludum Dare. I wish I had time to do more, but I'm relatively satisfied with the state of it, even though it's still a bit rough. Sorry about the crappy graphics.

On the map, you can move with WASD or arrow keys. In battles, it's all controlled with the mouse (a bit wonkily, sorry about that). When it's your turn, click one of the tentacles and a menu with commands will appear. "Move" will move your tentacle to the desired location within its move radius. "Attack" will strike at an enemy if he's in range. "Wait" ends the turn of this tentacle without making an attack. You can move and then attack, but not the other way around. You play one of your units, then the enemy plays one of his, and it alternates this way until every unit has acted, then the next round begins and you can use all your units again. If one side is outnumbered though, it's possible to have many units from the other side play in a row.

Everything is done by me except the (pretty cool!) music by Joseph Gilbert / Kistol, found on Open Game Art. The songs are "Glutton" and "Sigil": http://opengameart.org/users/kistol

Thanks for playing!

Ratings

Coolness 53% 3
Overall(Jam) 2.86 834
Fun(Jam) 2.79 726
Graphics(Jam) 2.24 969
Humor(Jam) 2.16 838
Innovation(Jam) 2.93 588
Mood(Jam) 2.68 840
Theme(Jam) 3.48 503

Feedback

GAFBlizzard
25. Aug 2015 路 06:40 UTC
The tentacles can move to the middle of ships and attack through the floor, and I'm not sure if that's intended. Also, existing tentacles could interfere with the placement of new tentacles.

The battle music was a little annoying to me.

One thing that made it hard to use strategy was, I did not know which crew members would attack first, so I did not know which ones to target.

I hope you will pardon my comments -- I know jams are a lot of work in a short time -- it's a cute idea, and I played it all the way to max level and defeated the city!
UrbanHelsing
25. Aug 2015 路 19:16 UTC
Gets stuck after attacking a boat
馃帳 HellBlazer
25. Aug 2015 路 19:35 UTC
@UrbanHelsing Like, right after you press space? Which version (and browser if applicable)?
WubAlliance
25. Aug 2015 路 20:51 UTC
First off, this game idea is AWESOME. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Love how the level select works. Really, the only things I'd improve are the graphics (like you said), but even those were pretty good (liked how the spears were actually thrown), and maybe the controls for combat. Overall, this game is AWESOME.
馃帳 HellBlazer
25. Aug 2015 路 21:47 UTC
Thanks WubAlliance. :)

@GAFBlizzard, I just tested the moving into the ship thing, huh. That was *not* intended. You're supposed to be able to move through/under the ship to reach the other side, but not stop on the ship. I'm pretty sure that worked initially, so I must have introduced a bug at some point, oops.

And regarding the music, in my case it gets all distorted in the WebGL version for some reason. Not sure if that's what you tried, but don't judge the composer too harshly if it sounds weird in a browser. :)
Sergi Montaner
25. Aug 2015 路 21:50 UTC
It looked very simple at first (level 1 monster vs level 1 ship is always the same fight) after this it gets trickier.
At the beggining I didn't know what to do because it is not clear that you have to select a tentacle to bring up the menu. This could be automatic.
Also agree with a coment below that says that it would be important to know the next human that will move.
Anyway, good job!
ChosenCharacter
26. Aug 2015 路 23:23 UTC
I see what you were going for here, and I appreciate the concept. The map theme/execution was nice. The game itself, though, just didn't have much to it. More so, the music kept getting weird and distorted and I don't know whether that was intended or not.
crucknuk
26. Aug 2015 路 23:34 UTC
An interesting vision of the Kraken theme: the idea of strategic battle is pretty good
stahlmanDesign
27. Aug 2015 路 03:41 UTC
The WebGL sound distortion kind of works with the Kraken attack phase. I liked this game, it just needs polished. It took a while to figure out the attack phase requires the mouse. I almost gave up thinking it was buggy. I got to level 3 and the Unity player crashed.
tweedle
27. Aug 2015 路 03:41 UTC
Really like the turn-based nature of the game. The XP and progression system adds a lot as well.
Great job!
Lady Beardo
27. Aug 2015 路 03:45 UTC
Strategic & turn based-- I like it!
Reisen
27. Aug 2015 路 03:49 UTC
Reminds me of the Kraken battle in Shining Force 2.
uvwar
27. Aug 2015 路 21:36 UTC
I wish I could see the entire map in one screen, the constant zooming back and forth was getting to me, but overall a fun strategy game!
Electron
28. Aug 2015 路 14:21 UTC
Good top - down , I enjoyed it
Feetsalot
30. Aug 2015 路 20:25 UTC
Good Idea! Could have used a turn indicator to show which enemy will attack next as well as a enemy range indicator. Battle music was kinda wierd, pherhaps add a music controller. Other than that great simple concept game! ;D
GraciCebola
30. Aug 2015 路 20:33 UTC
Not into turn based games, but it's very interesting!
Random Seed Games
31. Aug 2015 路 17:45 UTC
Interesting idea. I'm not a huge fan of games like this, but it seemed well made.
Nurbs
04. Sep 2015 路 03:00 UTC
Those cyanide and happiness guys will think twice about going boating now
AlexFili
05. Sep 2015 路 11:48 UTC
Interesting tactical take on the whole 'monster attack' idea. I liked the idea of planning moves carefully but the soldiers always seemed to have the advantage. A great concept and one of the best this LD. Note: Play the non-web version or you will wince at the music getting corrupted (this shouldn't happen normally for web games!)
andreiichim
08. Sep 2015 路 02:34 UTC
That's a neat idea. I like how you're a single entity but you play as multiple units.
The gameplay is basic but good enough to be fun to play.
Dianouille
08. Sep 2015 路 15:29 UTC
I don't really understand the strategy, so I die quickly. I think it's due to a lack of feedback / rules explanation. But it's a funny game, good job.
Brightstar
08. Sep 2015 路 19:57 UTC
This is pretty cool.