Bidimensional Landscaping

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.58
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.31
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.27
Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.08
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★2.92
Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.82
Coolness★★★★★★★★★★47%
This is my first LD Submission. It's a score-attack puzzler where you control two instances of the game at a

time.

You play as Kent, the bi-dimensional landscaper. He exists in two dimensions

at once, and is expected to build beautiful towns in both.

How to play


Control Kent With WSAD or the arrow keys, and place the current item with

space.

Items placed in the world are awarded Aesthetic points based on what is in the

tiles to the north, south, east, and west of them, according to the following

rules:

* Trees get 1 point for every adjacent tree.

* Paths get 1 point for every adjacent path.

* Houses get 1 point for every adjacent path or tree, but lose one point for an adjacent house.

The goal is to maximize your points across both towns. There isn't a formal

end/lose condition, but eventually you will trap Kent with trees or houses, so

let's call that the end.

About


This is my first #LD48, as well as my first released "game". As such, I stuck

with what I know, which is web development.

As such, everything here is HTML and pngs (no svg, no canvas). I used AngularJS

for the javascript.

I only really tested this in Chrome.

Things I Didn't Get To


I had planned for more items, (i.e. signpost which gets bonus for being at a

forking path, flowers placed at the base of trees, wells in path intersections,

etc) but ran out of time. Much of the logic for adding multiple items to the

same cell is in place, I was just missing the sprites and the scoring logic.

Originally, my goal was to have more than 2 towns. There would be a limit to

the number of active towns you could have, and a town would be removed when

it got a certain number of points. The goal would be to get a high score in few

moves so you could keep the number of villages down. There were far too few

hours to do this.

screenshot

Comments20

43iscoding
43iscoding25 Aug 2014, 14:54
I like puzzles generally, and I enjoyed this one aswell!
INC$D02126 Aug 2014, 14:18
Brilliant.. One of the best ideas for the "Connected Worlds" theme. Very nice.
A lot of stares from me. :)
eyeofbri
eyeofbri29 Aug 2014, 14:19
This game rules. Simple, yet really satisfying game mechanic. Perfectly fits the theme too!
pjimmy
pjimmy29 Aug 2014, 14:49
5 stars for innovation, well done
Stan Sypek31 Aug 2014, 23:39
Got a 42 and 79. Would have been a lot better had I figured out sooner how to split the Kents up. Not to mention that built myself into a corner on the lower one. I know the score could be a lot higher, but have to come back. More games to rate! this was great and one of the best themes so far. Can't get more connected than that. Only down side is lack of audio.
Nuclear Napalm1 Sep 2014, 05:51
Really brain-twisting puzzle! Nice job!
fauge2 Sep 2014, 00:59
very simple yet great puzzle! graphics seemed to match the theme of the game very well!
colludium2 Sep 2014, 02:30
Awesome game - very well done!
vividhelix
vividhelix2 Sep 2014, 03:06
Very original idea, I liked this one a lot!
jukimv19862 Sep 2014, 03:27
Congrats on your first entry to a Ludum Dare! Its mechanics are simple yet extremely clever. Not an easy feat to balance both worlds aesthetics. Well done!
Ted Brown
Ted Brown2 Sep 2014, 03:58
A fine concept for a game, and well designed! Good job keeping the first part of the queue matched up, then switching it later. If you expand the project (and I think you should), consider coming up with ways that the gardener can modify the queue, or have additional trade-offs that aren't just based on points. Good compo!
pikkpoiss
pikkpoiss2 Sep 2014, 04:06
My favorite take on the connected worlds theme so far! The different queues of items for each world, the ability to have the two players get out of sync with their locations, and the need to maintain a path for the players to be able to walk around on made this a really challenging, and interesting puzzle game. Thanks for sharing!
tcarter2 Sep 2014, 04:07
Clean and simple. Very nice! When portraying people from above, it's usually nice to show the side-view as you've done for the houses and trees.
BMacIntosh
BMacIntosh2 Sep 2014, 04:11
Got 125-100 :). Great idea, really enjoyed it.
PowerSpark
PowerSpark2 Sep 2014, 06:34
Very innovative, you should continue working on this.
Endurion
Endurion2 Sep 2014, 07:13
Can't vote as no keypresses seem to register. Using IE 11.
micahcowan
micahcowan6 Sep 2014, 17:23
Really cool idea! Nice interpretation of the theme.
DeltaF16 Sep 2014, 21:16
Same as @Endurion :/

No keypresses are registering. Using Firefox 31
DeltaF16 Sep 2014, 21:17
@Endurion

Try using Google Chrome. It's working for me in Chrome.
DeltaF16 Sep 2014, 21:27
I got 93 and 49 before I couldn't do anytinhg else. in one world I was stuck, in the other I only had houses in spaces all next to houses.

5 stars! The graphics were simplistic, but nice. The theme was brilliantly implemented, and this kind of optimization puzzle is REALLY innovative. Congrats for thinking this up! It was really compelling, and I played the whole thing through, totally concentrated. 5/5, 10/10, 9001/9000, any way you measure it, awesome game!
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