Tears and Snails by Lyxali

[raw]
made by Lyxali for Ludum Dare 53 (COMPO)

In this rogue-lite deckbuilder you are a spacefaring alien merchant with a special delivery. Use your cards (skills) wisely to barter with the guards at the stations that bring you closer to the final destination. Make sure to trade smartly and increase your stock, unless you want to stand there with empty hands in the end. Basically no graphics and audio -> code and concept demonstration.

The Basic Encounter: EncounterScreenshot.png

The shop to acquire new cards and trade up resources: ShopScreenshot.png

Ratings

Overall 328th 3.088⭐ 19🧑‍⚖️
Fun 255th 3.167⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 119th 3.607⭐ 16🧑‍⚖️
Theme 285th 3.567⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 397th 1.9⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Humor 183th 2.933⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Mood 346th 2.633⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

TheTiredGuy
01. May 2023 · 02:11 UTC
lovely game, gotta work on the balance a bit and it should be fine. Has potential
blobo
01. May 2023 · 17:27 UTC
I enjoy a good resource management game! I found that trading resources was the wrong move to make. it just resulted in myself running out by the end of the game. Some of the cards were useful, and were worth trading, like gain 11 flubberhair, but I'm not spending 19 snails for a card that lets me gain 3, you know?

In the end, I got to make the delivery, but the "Deliver" button did nothing. My head canon is that the person who ordered the hundreds of snails happily received the delivery.
Dender46
02. May 2023 · 10:21 UTC
This is an interesting take on the theme. The idea and mechanics are great, but I'm honestly just bad at these types of games lol. Even though the game by itself is simple in terms of idea and gameplay to understand how to play, I feel like adding more polish to graphics (icons instead of text, different colors) and some audio would be a leap in terms of enjoyment to the game
CalicoBubbleTea
02. May 2023 · 11:13 UTC
Nice concept! You can make something cool based on it.
Emmelinee
03. May 2023 · 22:34 UTC
I really like the concept! I think even basic art and audio could elevate it so much, especially with such a quirky theme. Great job!
DecadeDecaf
04. May 2023 · 18:18 UTC
Originally played on my laptop (1366x768 resolution) and a bunch of the text was off-screen. Switched to my desktop (1920x1080 resolution) and it was perfect. Solid concept!! Had me playing a bunch to try and meet the quota, but I unfortunately never could. There are some great strategic core elements in here, though. Nice job!
🎤 Lyxali
05. May 2023 · 19:52 UTC
Thank you all for the kind words and feedback! I would have liked to add some visuals and UI that makes this easier to see (I indeed mostly tested in 1920x1080) and add more flavour. That there are no animations makes it also hard to see sth happened.
But your comments are motivating to pick this up again after the rating period, make improvements to the balance, add some variety of cards and improve the other aspects that were pointed out.
the Sÿhl
11. May 2023 · 13:42 UTC
Nice small card game ! It's not an easy thing to make and yet you did it, and the concept is fun, well done !
aile
11. May 2023 · 13:46 UTC
This has potential! I liked the concept, although it felt challenging to make the delivery. I was too focused trying to balance my resources, and forgot about collecting the tears... Completing the rounds was not a problem though, and the purchasing deals felt useful. I was always able to find something I needed (or so I think!).
Possibly, as you gain new cards, it'd be great to be able to switch out/remove/destroy older cards? Also, I absolutely think you could take this idea further, if this is something you are interested in. Can only imagine how cool it could become with some visuals and sound!
CataclysmicKnight
11. May 2023 · 15:23 UTC
I liked the idea of this, and I dunno if it was just bad luck or what, but basically all the cards I could purchase until the second-to-last round were either "cry and reduce cost by 2" or "draw more cards". I needed to deliver a bunch of tears, and when the trades came up post-delivery, almost none of them were for tears.

With that said, I could totally see this being awesome with some more time balancing and such :D I totally get that you had limited time, especially in the compo! And I looooooooove trading in games, so heck yeah!
kanity
11. May 2023 · 16:20 UTC
This was pretty funny, I like the humour and the originality, though I did fail the delivery ^^'
gamescodedogs
12. May 2023 · 11:38 UTC
It can be an interesting big game in future! Don't stop working on it please!
Prakkus
14. May 2023 · 23:59 UTC
Very cool concept! I didn't realize at the start what the goal text actually meant. I read "The order: xx whatever" text at the beginning but had no idea what any of that meant and then forgot about it until I got to the end where I realized what I was supposed to be doing. I was focusing on winning the card game as best I could, but actually it seems like the trades are the more important aspect to focus on. Any resource gains or saves through the card game feel minimal in the face of needing 500 whatevers.

I did enjoy the resource management aspects though and having it be a card game is a cool take. It just needs a bit of balancing and it would be great.
chromaticGray
15. May 2023 · 01:05 UTC
I'm not sure I understand what I just played, but I kinda liked it. It was funny and sad.I hope there were some tears of joy in all that weeping. Good job everything seems to be working without a hiccup. There is potential.
gamescodedogs
18. May 2023 · 08:16 UTC
Concept looks good! Is it any chance to see a HTML5 version?