Control Planet Improver 2000 on its epic quest to terraform some bug-infested remote planet circling some forsaken star system somewhere out in a cruel and uncaring galaxy. Planet Improver's super-advanced text interface makes administrative tasks a breeze. In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only planetary mining!
Control by pressing the highlighted keys, press R to restart the game, requires a recent browser - try to figure out the rest by yourself...
--- TECHNOLOGY USED
This game was made in HTML5/CSS/JS. I made all the assets myself for LD. Let me know if/when you run into bugs! Oh, and the user interface sound effects are all made by my mouth, so in case you're wondering why they sound like they do...
--- FIXES AND CHANGES
I should have done this weeks ago: fixed a bug that sometimes caused the Killbot option not to appear in the menu. Also, the R key now restarts the game from scratch if you're in an unwinnable situation.
A help screen and a message board have been added to the game post-LD.
--- HOW TO SKIP THE FIRST PART
While many people seem to enjoy the economic simulation that is the first act, it's apparently not for everyone. If you lose patience, just build 1x Extractor, 1x Furnace, and 1x Reactor on the best dig site you can find. This should be enough to get the machine parts that allow you to build a Killbot - enough to move on to the second act.
Is there a way to reset my game? I got it into an unwinnable/unplayable state after about 30 seconds. I guess I spent all my money on extractors so I have lots of ore but no way to do anything with it. Now what?
Looks great and nice take on the theme. Requires a bit more time than some of the other more pick up and play games, but it's great at creating the mood it wants to go for. Impressive that you only used html/css/js!
I really wanted to like this game, the issue is that before you know what anything does you are buying stuff and you can get your game unwinnable at that point and then refreshing doesn't reset the game.
I really like the originality of these kinds of games, and I wish I could play this one, it looks really interesting.
Nice mood for a text-based game. I loved just building random facilities and pretending to know what I was doing. And after a while, I actually understood it, too!
Atmosphere is incredible. 5/5 for audio & mood. The concept is great. I'm not a huge fan of text based games, but this one is probably one of the best text based games of the LD 29. Cheers
However, needs some in-game help, at least to know what to do with elevators, decontaminators, whatever... For exemple, I guessed that elevators was needed to change stratum (or get ore from deeper), but, even after builded two of these, nothing happens (except vanished µ). And KillBot action is lot too random. Sometimes I managed to reach 4th or 5th level, and other times the bot dies after 2 attacks on an ennemy. About that, there is a bug (or is it on purpose for unlucky players like me ?) : when you reload the game, a new bot appears and you can go with it free of µ...
Really good mood anc great interface and visuals. Sadly the systems weren't really clear and not easy to play around with so I didn't experiment much. After a while I just didn't get anything from the furnaces anymore and it wasn't winnable... Still really impressive entry, just needs a bit more accessible mechanics.
Hey, thanks for reviewing. Yeah, some areas had to be left unfinished due to time constraints. Your guess about the elevators was right, you should be able to change strata (I'll look into it).
If you reload, most the game state is preserved, but again due to time running out after one day of coding the Killbot dungeon restarts from scratch. That's OK though, if Killbot's dead a new one is required, but if you left it alive, it will just restart at the beginning.
I love the old fashioned terminal look (although I'm not sure why a culture advanced enough to have space travel still has them?!?).
The problem I have is that the game seems to give you a lot of choices that you don't have enough information to make. You said in the description that figuring out how it works is supposed to be part of the game, but it just didn't motivate me to do that. Sorry!
Neat idea - could be fun too, if it got some more work. It's really nice - i like the feel.. the theme.. but the funfactor seemed somewhat in the background.. and it was quite slow too.. :/
Well, since I already wasted 2/3 of my time on another game before making this second attempt, yeah, some tradeoffs were made ;) I don't think it's that badly paced though actually - but seeing how few people actually make it to the second part is kind of discouraging.
Aaaaaah... I love the mood so much. I think discovering the game mechanics is part of it too. I really enjoyed exploring the menus. I don't know, I feel like a steep learning curve is part of any roguelike ( 2nd part ) experience. Excellent job!
I'm sorry but even with hard refresh (ctrl+F5), and restart the game from begining (R), the elevator I build don't grant me acces to the deeper stratum (and the site I choose have 5 in depth). Is there something I missed (like 2 elevators needed) ?
It does work for me. You'll probably have to clear your browser cache - browsers have a nasty habit of storing Javascript files forever if you don't force them to reload.
By the way, I didn't think of it at the time but the term "depth" was a bad choice of words. In that context it means "thickness". It does not influence how many strata there are.
But I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Maybe you should add some rewards to see if what the player do is good or not. I guess I can stay stucked some times without noticing it.
Game with lots to discover. The game looks complete and is fun to play, the sound effects are awesome. One thing I don't like: The game doesn't fit on my screen.
V
voxel17 May 2014, 20:33
Love the atmosphere, and I for one enjoyed the economic portion of the game
Comments42
I really like the originality of these kinds of games, and I wish I could play this one, it looks really interesting.
This was really extensive and complex.
Nice job and real impressive!
The concept is great.
I'm not a huge fan of text based games, but this one is probably one of the best text based games of the LD 29.
Cheers
However, needs some in-game help, at least to know what to do with elevators, decontaminators, whatever...
For exemple, I guessed that elevators was needed to change stratum (or get ore from deeper), but, even after builded two of these, nothing happens (except vanished µ).
And KillBot action is lot too random. Sometimes I managed to reach 4th or 5th level, and other times the bot dies after 2 attacks on an ennemy. About that, there is a bug (or is it on purpose for unlucky players like me ?) : when you reload the game, a new bot appears and you can go with it free of µ...
Still really impressive entry, just needs a bit more accessible mechanics.
If you reload, most the game state is preserved, but again due to time running out after one day of coding the Killbot dungeon restarts from scratch. That's OK though, if Killbot's dead a new one is required, but if you left it alive, it will just restart at the beginning.
The problem I have is that the game seems to give you a lot of choices that you don't have enough information to make. You said in the description that figuring out how it works is supposed to be part of the game, but it just didn't motivate me to do that. Sorry!
By the way, I didn't think of it at the time but the term "depth" was a bad choice of words. In that context it means "thickness". It does not influence how many strata there are.
But I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Maybe you should add some rewards to see if what the player do is good or not.
I guess I can stay stucked some times without noticing it.