Gut Check by matt1will

[raw]
made by matt1will for Ludum Dare 56 (JAM)

An idle, deckbuilding game about balancing your gut microbiome.

Note: This game is not very polished or complete. My main goal was to explore this concept within the short timespan. I hope to expand this post-jam :)

gut<em>defender</em>8.gif

Ratings

Overall 921th 3.105⭐ 21šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Fun 1008th 2.605⭐ 21šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Innovation 532th 3.316⭐ 21šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Theme 276th 3.975⭐ 22šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Graphics 573th 3.625⭐ 22šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Audio 676th 1.571⭐ 16šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Humor 927th 1.967⭐ 17šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Mood 1015th 2.611⭐ 20šŸ§‘ā€āš–ļø
Given 12šŸ—³ļø 5šŸ—Øļø

Feedback

Vlad_Russu
08. Oct 2024 Ā· 06:27 UTC
Interesting idea, cute tiny pixel artstile
ruruie
08. Oct 2024 Ā· 06:42 UTC
This thing would actually be really compelling if completed; the pixels look really good. I think it falls victim to the brutality of true randomness. Both my runs turned into hovering my mouse over the antibiotics but I would only use it protect my one green because I never drew it again.
LDJam user 312900
09. Oct 2024 Ā· 15:51 UTC
Cool take on the theme, was a little confusing at first but once you get it really fun
rkhadder
09. Oct 2024 Ā· 15:54 UTC
Cool idea but I wish I was able to replenish my deck.
andymetoo
09. Oct 2024 Ā· 15:54 UTC
This was a neat little idea and I hope that you expand on it. It took a little experimenting to find out what was actually going on (I just used all of my cards ASAP at first and didn't know how to get new ones lol), but the next time around I kind of let it idle on one of my screens for a bit. I can definitely see a card based observation sim like this having some promise, though. Keep it up!
N-lan
09. Oct 2024 Ā· 18:18 UTC
So cool that you could use the jam to experiment with this new concept and I“d love to see what you do with the game in the future, e.g. with several levels and the possibility to buy new bacteria after each level.

I noticed that there is no penalty if all bacteria are selected directly and sugar, fat and fibre always remain at 0-1. Perhaps it would be better if e.g. the sugar level has to be kept within a certain range. That way the player can lose due to hypoglycaemia too and not only with hyperglycaemia.
ellearx
13. Oct 2024 Ā· 22:17 UTC
A bit confusing for me but cute idea and microbe design! :)
BuzzyDev
14. Oct 2024 Ā· 10:01 UTC
Need a tutorial.

It took me a while to understand the goal of the game.

The card descriptions are not intuitive. The symbols for fat, sugar, and fibrinogen (is that it?) are very unclear. Sugar is intuitive, I guess. They could have written something like: "Reduces sugar", etc. The stripes need to have a red line, because I didn't know that I would lose if I had too many of all the elements at once. I was just keeping the balance.

Overall, the game is very cool, and the idea needs to be developed, so far I have too few levers of pressure on the situation. But it makes the game more interesting. Which is good.

Definitely a like. I got into the game and played it for more than 10 minutes.
LDJam user 395647
24. Oct 2024 Ā· 13:21 UTC
![Screenshot 2024-10-24 at 15.18.35.png](///raw/f79/06/z/69111.png)
look at me go!!! I agree with one of the comments above tho - my first two runs were not fun, since I never drew the fat bacteria and was left watching my arteries clog up :slight_smile: With some more polish to the gameplay this could be even more addicting!
tetrapteryx
24. Oct 2024 Ā· 17:05 UTC
I think it could benefit from a faster pace, but it's a neat concept. I like the minimalist aesthetic. The RNG was cruel to me every time, so a little balancing would be helpful.