You were enrolled on a 5-days contract to provide it with some much-needed energy.
Use your drone to explore your environment (search for red fumaroles especially!) and invest in energy sources.
After some hours, the city will begin buying some energy. Its consumption (as shown by the red number) will then regularly grow, keep an eye on those counters!
For this 2-days Jam (I could not begin the compo on time) I focused on game mechanics and interactions: * some economics (2 totally different resources), * the passing of time (and a day/night cycle), * a proper simulation of energy production and consumption, * different possible strategies (each energy source has its characteristics), * an "RTS style" interface with proper interactions between the UI panel and the game canvas.
The last point is the reason why I did not check "Do not rate me in Graphics", even if I had no time left for 3D assets and shaders, and it shows... Hope you'll like the strategy part though!
Wow! I liked this one very much Too bad there wasn't any sound effects or music, it would have made the game much more playable. It would be awesome if you developed this further, maybe added some wiring.
Overall I’ve always liked these kind of games, maybe some improvements concerning the graphics but otherwise i loved it! Thank you so much for this experience and good luck in the future! Have an awesome day, and I hope to see you in the next jam!
Hey @liquidbrain, thank you very much for your feedback! Pleased you liked it, I spent more time playtesting and balancing it than usual.
Some sound effects and wiring were definitely on my TODO list, yes. And a day/night render, actual 3D assets... Well, it all boils down to lack of time.
Nice idea but I really missed at least a basic music, sound effects and graphics. I have read that you didn't make it in time but unfortunatly it really breaks the feel when playing the game, even some super basic art would help.
What I would also like is to see what I have actually build, I would love to build cluster of capacitors there, cluster of solar panels there but now it looks all the same. Maybe changing the color of the swuares :)
Congratulations! I was really hooked on the mechanics of this game. It took me 3 tries but I managed to beat it. Now some feedback - The game would be greatly improved if each building had a unique color. When you understand the game, it doesn't matter what you had built, but it would help to learn the game. - The 3d perspective is cool, but the cursor was weird, most of the time I couldn't tell where I was pointing, and exploring was a bit awkward - The first two days were the most challenging, but when I got past that I almost didn't need to build anything else. With the improvements, and a few geothermal stations, I always had reserve and positive net energy.
The concept is solid, too bad you missed one day! I finished it on the second run, it becomes too easy after the 2nd day, at that point it feels you don't need to do anything but wait. However, we know how this goes. With some more time you'd have polished a lot of details. I think you did a great job, doing this kind of game for a jam is a big challenge, and you managed to pull a decent version that's playable to the end. Next time I'd spend 20min generating some music and sound fx (even some quick abundant-music and sfxr effects are better than nothing!) Congratulations!
I lost the first time, but managed to win the game the second time (and I almost discovered all the map just before win). I really understand that balancing is the most difficult part on this kind of games, and if it's far under a perfect game, you made the best you can in so few time (balancing an economics game is a very very long work of tweak-try-tweak again-retry-swear-tweak-retry…, I learnt it the bad way on a previous LD XD). So, yes, some sound would have add a little for the mood, some wires for the challenge, and at least different colors for each kind of buildings to make it funny to build, but, hey, that's LD, we do what we can in the time we have, with the main goal in mind : have a working game to publish before the deadline. tl;dr : certainly could be improved, but you made a working game, and it's yet good on itself. I hope (and I'm sure) you learnt a lot, and you will do better the next LD! :)
Took me a bit to get the hang of it, but it was a pretty cool concept. Losing a day is tough, I think it's good that you didn't spread yourself too thin and seemingly focused on what you had.
Like others, I think having unique colors at the very least for the buildings would help.
The game is great! You have the concept locked and loaded. Though it would have been much more immersive if it had a little bit of sounds. Even if it is a simple click sound when you press the button. Though what i did struggle with was trying to start the game. There was no real tutorial so i found it a little difficult to get progress. I eventually got it and won. I found that the gameplay was a little repetitive, placing the same buildings over and over again. The research building definitely help to break up this repetitiveness. Other than that, it was a great game. Congratulations! :smiley:
Really liked this one. Simple, but addictive. However, at the end of the second day I started to wish there were shortcuts, as I got tired of clicking the mouse on the map, then on the "Build" button repeatedly, and at the end of day 3 I stopped bothering to play and just watched the time pass, as I got more power, than I could ever need. And, obviously, sound effects would have made it better. Overall, wish it was a bit more difficult in the late game (day 3 onwards), wish it was a bit more to it, but the result is still good.
@christina-antoinette-neofotistou As a friend suggested, the city energy consumption should probably increase faster that it does now. Also, I should have ensured that "high end" energy sources were much more expensive, so that solar was a necessity. And it's much more interesting to play since it requires accumulators. Heck, spent probably 3 hours playtesting and balancing it during the jam; definitely demonstrates you can't definitely balance a game without players :)
Damn, It's tough. As you mentioned to me earlier, could definatly use more instructions or a lower learning curve. Once I got into it, it appealed to my building/tycoon addiction. Also I can tell most of the time went to game design and not as much to graphics, the smallest change that would have the biggest effect would be to change the different building type. Overall, if you wanted to work on this more, it has alot of potential. :)
Decent little game. Would have liked a better way to tell the difference between the accumulater, solar, and wind after I built them, as well as de-construction and replacing them. Was a little easy once I got the hang of it, especially with the research bonuses, but could see this mechanic being a lot of fun as the cities demands become more complex.
Interesting game! I have to admit, having some graphics there would have helped me to understand the game better sooner (but I understand you were in a hurry). Good job!
Simple but very fun idea, I like that and beat that :) After few minutes you realize game mechanics and since this moment game starts very easy to play.
- \+ Simple but solid idea - \+ Increasing difficulty (but not enought)
- \- Horrible graphics, it's horror, maybe next time try invest more time to create some better assets :)
Hi there ! Cool management game, nice exploitation of the theme ! it could have been cool to have a few more assets but I guess coding was quite time consuming :) It seems like complex idea, i think I am quite bad playing it but I managed to explore a few strategies, for the most leading to game over ahaha. The best I have found was to expand all over the map and alternate when between solar pannels and turbine until I could build the geothermal plant. I couldn't reach day 5, even after a lots of tries, so I guess i'm doing something wrong. Otherwise than assets, something you could do to improve the gamefeel is greying down the buttons each time it is unavailable, i felt like sometimes it was not greyed and could not build anyway, it was a bit frustrating. Some small help for people playing it wrong could be encouraging too :) Good idea !
Too bad there wasn't any sound effects or music, it would have made the game much more playable.
It would be awesome if you developed this further, maybe added some wiring.
Overall I’ve always liked these kind of games, maybe some improvements concerning the graphics but otherwise i loved it!
Thank you so much for this experience and good luck in the future!
Have an awesome day, and I hope to see you in the next jam!
// Isak (one half of LiquidBrain)