Bugtallion by goodwincek
| Link | https://ecaroh.itch.io/bugtallion |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/bugtallion |
Ratings
| Overall | 162th | 3.977⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 180th | 3.841⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 57th | 4.057⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 317th | 3.932⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 317th | 4⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 140th | 3.875⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 642th | 2.85⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 496th | 3.57⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 44🗳️ | 75🗨️ |



Pretty cool visuals. Nice mix of 2D and 3D though I don't really think the 3D gave anything to the game really besides funky dice. Really liked the pixel art of the characters.
The controls were a bit awkward. The constant extra unnecessary enter hit every turn to roll dice was kinda pointless. There also was a bit of a delay before it registered that enter press on the start of the turn which was kinda pointless. No need to repeat to player what to do at that point anymore when it's already dozens of rounds in. Mouse controls would have probably been the best option here in my opinion.
Allowing a single re-roll and maybe rolling both the dice at once (there were two anyway) would give a bit more chance for strategy. Could even let the player choose which to use for deploy and which for movement.
It was kinda easy as the opponent didn't seem too sharp. Even getting a single small fry next to the king was often worth several hit points as they didn't seem bothered by it at all and only randomly spawned something next to it for a kill. They always also spawned everything right next to their king even though doing it on the other side gives you much shorter path for attack. Easily beat it on my first try not knowing the mechanics or any thing at the start and I was even rolling like garbage all the time, mainly 1s and 2s.
If going for a single player experience, I'd do more of a build up with smaller boards and quicker rounds at start. That'd also ease the mechanics in quicker without that much of a commitment. Could then even play around with asymmetric board shapes and maybe having powerups or something on the board to spice it up even more and keep it from getting repetitive.
Anyways, good job! 👍🎉
The gameplay was awesome. The dice makes your strategy more random and fun, and you can upgrade your bug at most 2 times. Different bugs have different attack method. The basic one can attack enemies from adjective adjacent(not diagonal), advanced one can attack enemies from adjacent only diagonal, and the max rank could attack enemies from both the basic one and the advanced one. That makes the strategy more varies.
Win a game is very easy because the AI was not smart enough, but as a gamejam game that is good enough!
Thanks for the hard work!
I felt like playing a spin of of the "Inscryption" game. Such a beautiful entry. The mood was fantastic, the randomnes but you can control how to deal with it aspect is a lot of fun. I could totally see this being a bigger game with some items to manipulate dice throws. Very impressive to finish a game like this during a jam.
Well done! :)
Well done!
The graphics deserve to be more coherent between each other, if I had to choose, I loved the creatures style !
Good job 🔥
Super good music too, the mood was on point!
The AI logic must have been very interesting!!
My one criticism is they weren't very good at deciding to defend, they mostly played aggressively even though I was in their base.
Would love a more polished version of this or a PvP version.
Loved this! Although the game is very easy, it feels so complete, plays nice and is very pretty - so if you ever felt like doing more with this, I'd definitely stick around!
Congrats!
I can see a few comments from people about unluckly dice, I have no idea whether it's truly random or not, but most games cheat with dice and 'random rolls' because humans usually feel hard done by on rolls that are truly random.
Truly great entry, I love the strategy element, the art is great, but possibly is mismatched in places? I feel like the font on the Main menu and then the start button clash for example, but I'm really having to clutch at straws because there's really nothing about the game I didn't like!
Amazing, thanks.
Also thanks to everyone for the amazing feedback and suggestions so far! A lot of great feedback that helps us see where we need to improve, and which aspects are working. We're really thrilled that so many of you enjoyed the concept! We've already been brainstorming and planning how we might expand this into a full feature game one day.
I would have liked to be able to rotate the dice pattern on the board to place new guys (useful for 2 and 3).
Also, I think it would have been more natural to control with the mouse (as you are using physics, we could even throw the die by ourselves).
I'm not sure what I think about the randomness element the dice introduce. I imagine that with a streak of unlucky rolls, you can feel like there is no skill you can apply that would save you. That's potentially bad. But on the other hand, all the rounds I played were rather on an easy side and I never had a "streak of ones" - so maybe you cheat a little there :wink:
AI could use some more brains :wink:, as it is rather easy to defeat it. But overall, it's a really impressive jam game! Great job!
The gameplay is very simple, yet the upgrading and positing on units really makes you consider your best moves, i love how each dice roll really changes up how to consider your next move.
I would have liked some potential safety nets for bad rolls (like a chance to re-roll but lose a unit or something), but i could picture that being fleshed out more down the line. I could very easily see this being expanded upon.
The audio was great really fit the theme and kept me wanting to play more.
Great entry!