Mineral Cities
This game is from the old Ludum Dare platform. You can try viewing the original page on Web Archive
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Mineral Cities is a city-building, resource-management optimisation game inspired by my fond memories of SimCity sprawl, the LD48-23 theme and a game of 7 Wonders on Friday night.
Primary control is of the tiny world itself (cursors or WASD), with the number keys 1 to 4 building either grass, water, hills or cities.
When built close to each other, those features produce resource based on their dependencies (e.g. grass needs water, water hills, cities both water and grass). Each feature costs a different amount to produce.
Production slows to a total of 5 iterations, but can be restarted by building something new nearby.
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Cities get more expensive each time you build one...
...but cities are the only way of obtaining minerals (just build a city on top of some minerals).
Over-arching progress is in accumulation of minerals. There are 50 mineral spots each time you play -- and they can be harvested by as many cities as you can get close enough (3 in most cases, 4 if you're very careful).
Because the cities get more expensive, your play tactics and overall strategy have to adapt during the course of play.
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I'm enjoying the play curve, though looking forward to getting some feedback from others -- I've generally been using the following tactics:
- leave gaps (go in and build hills there later to restart production)
- cluster around dependencies (e.g. grass around water)
- be patient (don't restart production until it's over, as you'll waste valuable cycles)
- cities themselves can earn a lot of money, use them wisely (don't build just because you can)
Would love to hear someone prove out the math at the top end -- I've played this through on the final build to just over 20 minerals.
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Some background on what was used:
- Unity (first project in Unity -- generally pretty happy with it)
- Propellerhead's Figure (iOS synth) + Audacity for the background music
- Cfxr + Audactiy for the sound fx
- "Cheri" font, Illustrator for instructions page
- Lots of lemsips
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Easter egg: if you're using WASD, you can also use Q and E to "roll" the tiny world.
Primary control is of the tiny world itself (cursors or WASD), with the number keys 1 to 4 building either grass, water, hills or cities.
When built close to each other, those features produce resource based on their dependencies (e.g. grass needs water, water hills, cities both water and grass). Each feature costs a different amount to produce.
Production slows to a total of 5 iterations, but can be restarted by building something new nearby.
-------------------------------------------------
Cities get more expensive each time you build one...
...but cities are the only way of obtaining minerals (just build a city on top of some minerals).
Over-arching progress is in accumulation of minerals. There are 50 mineral spots each time you play -- and they can be harvested by as many cities as you can get close enough (3 in most cases, 4 if you're very careful).
Because the cities get more expensive, your play tactics and overall strategy have to adapt during the course of play.
-------------------------------------------------
I'm enjoying the play curve, though looking forward to getting some feedback from others -- I've generally been using the following tactics:
- leave gaps (go in and build hills there later to restart production)
- cluster around dependencies (e.g. grass around water)
- be patient (don't restart production until it's over, as you'll waste valuable cycles)
- cities themselves can earn a lot of money, use them wisely (don't build just because you can)
Would love to hear someone prove out the math at the top end -- I've played this through on the final build to just over 20 minerals.
-------------------------------------------------
Some background on what was used:
- Unity (first project in Unity -- generally pretty happy with it)
- Propellerhead's Figure (iOS synth) + Audacity for the background music
- Cfxr + Audactiy for the sound fx
- "Cheri" font, Illustrator for instructions page
- Lots of lemsips
-------------------------------------------------
Easter egg: if you're using WASD, you can also use Q and E to "roll" the tiny world.