Pactbound by Derly
Pactbound is a dark, atmospheric card game where every choice matters. Buy sinister cards, generate money, and try to meet your quota before time runs out. Each card carries risk and reward, and the combinations you create will determine your success - or your failure
shh.. give 5 stars on itch.io
there is already an updated version on itch.io, so here is the original one



| Link | https://github.com/derlyyy/LD58 |
| Link | https://derly.itch.io/pactbound |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/pactbound |
Ratings
| Overall | 109th | 3.386⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 177th | 2.841⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 164th | 2.841⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 71th | 3.786⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 65th | 3.795⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 64th | 3.524⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 107th | 2.844⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 41th | 3.857⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 9🗳️ | 3🗨️ |
I really like the visuals, you got a nice mood there, and it works very well with the ambiant sounds and sound effects. The "arms" are very weird and got me wondering what kind of creature I'm supposed to be :D. The only downside of the visuals is that the in-game cards are way too blurry and barely visible. I thought it made the game unplayable and was ready to quit, before I noticed that hovering over them showed the same text in the UI.
Regarding the gameplay, I tried to understand at first, but it's a bit hard when there is no way to track what cards I already have. Reading descriptions, I didn't find it clear how much I would earn. Also I don't think I understood the difference between "Earn $2 per 1 turn" and "Earn $2"; I thought some cards would be removed as I go, but it didn't seem like it.
Maybe I was lucky, but around turn 3, I saw that I was earning enough to purchase everything, which I did every single time without reading anymore until round 13, where I got over $1000.
Good job overall!
The game is fun, it's not anything complex and it doesn't have to be. I like it...But, this does also become completely mindless when you realize that purchasing every card in the shop every round will always increase earnings go up faster than the quota you need to reach. I think if you wanted to make the game engage the player, have the quota keep rising rapidly like it does in the beginning of the game. Make it increase insanely quickly, but make a reroll mechanic where you can reroll the shop by spending the cash you have over. That or make my insanely large sum of money I have sitting around after buying everything in the shop serve the games mechanics in some other way.
For the gameplay loop I had trouble understanding what the drawbacks where, every card that i can afford seems to be an investment and always met the quota. I'm curious how it would work with the balancing, it would also been nice to see what you have purchased/invested into before if there will be any deeper strategy.
Thanks for sharing!
For now core loop feels more like incremental game. To make it more strategic, I see some proposal (if it needs for you):
Limit cards. For example, make them limited used. Or, for this game, count and synergy only visible (top layer) cards. Because I like the feel when a lot of cards drops on table and save it.
And a method to destroy cards. For example, after couple of rounds random split cards by 3 piles and get player to choose which pile to burn.
As far as the balance, I have the same to say as the other comments and see you are already planning for that.
Very impressive for a jam entry!
I agree with the others in that I wish it was balanced a bit differently. Maybe some anti-synergy between some cards or other downside to buying too much so you can't just pick everything. With better balancing and maybe some extended world-building around it it would make a fantastic post-jam game!
Does the game even have an ending? My quota is 200, but I’m collecting 400 :)
I see that is the point of the game (managing money wisely), but it lacks some balancing, I just ended up buying everything every time in the shop and the game keep going without difficulties
But well done for a compo!