I am Monish H. Vyas an indie developer from India. This is my first Ludem Dare jam(technically second), I participated in LD44, but was not able to submit. This time I am able to submit my game hope you all enjoy it.
SPLIT or STEAL
It is a small game based on prisoner's dilemma. (in game theory) a situation in which two players each have two options whose outcome depends crucially on the simultaneous choice made by the other, often formulated in terms of two prisoners separately deciding whether to confess to a crime.
You will encounter beings from all over the universe and will enter in a bargain. You can either chose to steal or split in order to tilt the outcome in your favor. Each player is unique and can choose any of both the options. You have to predict what choice they might make and make yours accordingly. However the description only shows the likelihood of a choice, actual choice is random.
Nicee! This is some solid colorful vector art with style, and the characters with their wonky weird sound bytes, and the small prisoner's dilemma problems were fun! Really liked playing, this game has a lot of charm
Fun game with a cool aesthetic. Loved the look of the little alien guys. The only thing that bothered me is that I didn't see a reason not to steal as I believe I would lose half if they stole no matter if I stole or split, I guess I didn't see a reason to care how much the aliens had.
I enjoyed the implementation of the prisoner's dilemma. The graphics were great, and I enjoyed the humor at the end of the game. Wished there was a bit more interaction or something to do with the oxygen, as there wasn't any apparent value as a player in losing or gaining it. Overall, a nice looking submission, congratulations on completing it on time!
Love the art, and the simple decision was surprisingly stressful each time (but like, in a good way, since hard decisions are supposed to be stressful)
Cool, but numbers in rools work in such a way, that there is no reason not to steal. So the funny descriptions become pointless, because for your own good you will steal anyway. Also it would be cool if you could developed some reputation, based on your actions, that would affect chanses that other people steal.
@pokenoufl@tohubohu@gasgiant originally the game was supposed to have an endless amount of interactions, initial idea was to generate enemies at random, assign them reward amount and assign them traits that will be used in taking the split or steal decision. Stealing may not always get you win and when on low you have to split in order to maintain your oxygen, but I couldn't implement this in time, so had to rapidly create some enemies and kept this static. Thanks for your valuable feedback really appreciate it.
Nice start! Although from what I can tell it is literally always correct to steal? Could do with some more mechanical fleshing out to make the decisions more meaningful. Fun writing though!
I like your graphics, and the floating animations! This feels like a great exploration of your mechanics, I would like to revisit some of the players multiple times, and try to predict how they will interact with me.
Thanks @skyeward for sharing your thoughts. I had to rush the gameplay in order to complete the game. Thus the mechanics are not well established. The game is 50% of what I originally thought. Otherwise splitting would have made more sense.
Heyo! The narrative in this game is sooo funny! I LOL'd when the game rule was set to explain the game's universe. Indeed, these kind of narrative also has its set back, one of which is the time necessary to define all the probabilities with each character and etc. Ambitious project for a 72h game jam! Great work, music, ambience and graphics!
Thanks @bernardex for the kind words. At the middle of the development I felt it has become an ambitious project. The price I paid with rushed gameplay mechanics and somewhat unclear instructions.
@monish-vyas I really enjoyed this, simple yet thought provoking, well executed and fitting to the theme. I'll have to give you my highest score so far today of all games i've played definitely. I really liked the unusual and creative concept behind this, a great entry!
Very cool game, the principles are simples but very entertaining, the short amount of text at the time make it enjoyable to read and the mechanics make you to pay attention to what's they say and force you to be invested in the naration. Graphics and sound are also very nice and give to the game a very well polished aspect. Very good job !
Cool, but incomprehensible :D I do not know English well, not everything was clear, but it seemed it was something interesting. Loved the graphics and colors.
Thanks @dodelov sorry for that, I tried to add humor in the enemy descriptions, so it might have not felt much clearer. But the decision making was not completely dependent on it. It was some what random.
Pretty cool game!! I loved the art and sfx, it's a simple approach but a very polished one!! I see it's your first jam, you did an amazing job!! Congrats on finishing!! Great job!
PS: I'm bad with negotiation, I ended up as I started.. with nothin :'(
Nice! Graphics were cute and music is neat. I was able to win almost everything by just stealing so... well except the final boss. I loved that BTP reference! So congratulations!
Thank you so much @theinkskeleton. The final boss is a bit cunning Im sorry for that :) Im glad you noticed BTP reference, there's one more such reference about Jonas Tyroller.
This was pretty funny! The graphics were really slick too. It's unfortunate the game is unwinnable, the concept is really fun, and sort of reminds me of the prisoner's dilemma. I suppose the difference is that there's no "safe" option- even if you predict that your opponent will steal, you can't do anything to prevent yourself from losing credits, so if that sort of opponent comes up, I'm still punished despite making the right prediction, and that's no fun. (Although, given the final boss, I suppose it doesn't matter in the end, anyways!) I'd love to see an expanded version with some tweaked rules and randomly generated opponents!
Thanks @selkkie for playing the game and sharing your feedback. The original idea was to generate enemies at random, but I had to rush the development as couldn't spend enough time on the game. Thus I made the game "Unwinnable" to cover up. I wanted to add many factors to steal or split decision such as your total amount, enemy amount, your last few choices and a random factor.
I first saw this on a stream and I want to point out how fun it was to be played in a stream, it engaged the audience. It would have been cool if it implemented the Twitch API too :thumbsup:
Really nice clean graphics, I like it. Great work!
Haha this was a fun little game, I did not expect to see references to some other content creators (like Blackthorn) but that was a nice addition lol. The art style reminds me of Kurgzegstat (I am probably misspelling that horribly) which is great, and the mechanics are interesting enough for a short game like this. Nice work!
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PS: I'm bad with negotiation, I ended up as I started.. with nothin :'(
Thank you so much @theinkskeleton. The final boss is a bit cunning Im sorry for that :) Im glad you noticed BTP reference, there's one more such reference about Jonas Tyroller.
It's unfortunate the game is unwinnable, the concept is really fun, and sort of reminds me of the prisoner's dilemma. I suppose the difference is that there's no "safe" option- even if you predict that your opponent will steal, you can't do anything to prevent yourself from losing credits, so if that sort of opponent comes up, I'm still punished despite making the right prediction, and that's no fun. (Although, given the final boss, I suppose it doesn't matter in the end, anyways!)
I'd love to see an expanded version with some tweaked rules and randomly generated opponents!
Really nice work regardless!
The original idea was to generate enemies at random, but I had to rush the development as couldn't spend enough time on the game. Thus I made the game "Unwinnable" to cover up. I wanted to add many factors to steal or split decision such as your total amount, enemy amount, your last few choices and a random factor.
Really nice clean graphics, I like it. Great work!