> Polder: *a piece of low-lying land reclaimed from the sea or a river and protected by dikes, especially in the Netherlands.*
Build windmills to reclaim land from the sea, allowing for the growing of very valuable tulips!
Instructions:
- Mouse wheel or right click to rotate tiles - Tiles can only be placed on land - Windmills drains the water in a 5x5 area and provide a starting point for flowers - Flowers must be placed next to at least one matching colour or a windmill - Create chains of matching colours longer than 3 to score points - Longer chains score more points - New windmills are unlocked by scoring points
What is a polder?!
There have been quite a few questions regarding theme for our entry. Dikes and polders are used to reclaim land that is underwater for the purpose of agriculture. Almost a third of the Netherlands is situated below sea level!
Here is one of the images I used as inspiration for the design:
Changelog:
2021-04-29 - Fixed a bug where the game incorrectly detects if any more moves can be made, preventing the game from being completed
2021-05-03 - Implemented better save/load so you can continue a game later - After the initial ludum level has been completed you can now play randomized levels
2021-05-05 - Fixed an exploit allowing you to select the same blocks twice - Added a settings menu to change the resolution and volume
Awesome game guys :) reminded me a bit of Bad North at first.
what I liked: - overall it looks amazing, the music, visuals, menus etc are very polished and cool - love that the theme of the game (dutch dikes) ties in so well with the mechanic - mechanic is interesting and addictive, leaderboard makes it even better
what could've been better: - while the auto generated dutch town names are cool, i would've preferred it if i could add my own name to the leaderboard - there could be more in game tutorials/help as to how to play: - indication as to why an illegal placement is illegal - a shadow showing how much land a windmill would create - random starting map would've been nice (or if not random, more than 1 possibility) - there seems to be a bug where sometimes you can't make your final move and finish the game, for example:
suggestions/nitpicks: - bit of a stretch for the "deeper and deeper" theme, but that's ok :) - the different heights for the blocks look very cool and interesting, but I think they distract from the gameplay, it's a bit confusing at first until you realise it doesn't mean anything - could maybe be more interesting if choosing a windmill meant you missed out on the flower tiles available that turn - windmill generates a 5x5 grid, not 3x3
But all in all this is an amazing entry! Fun to play, I would pay money for this. Well done.
A beautiful entry. I agree with @japes on the lack of tutorial, I got it after a couple of tries but some small control tips in the corner or top of the screen + reinforcing the goal of the game would be good. I hope you finish this game, it's a really great concept. Also I think the scroll view on the leaderboard is broken.
Nice and chill game. Beautiful graphics. I wish there was another end condition other than running out of space; I could have continued expanding my polder for hours :) Well done!
Fun game! After a bit, the strategy/puzzle-y bits start becoming really engaging. Looks great, too. Didn't fit the theme too well, but who cares? Great work!
Very cool game. Took a few minutes to get the hang of it but then I was hooked. The level of polish on the graphics (or in stuff like mousescroll to turn a piece) is impressive.My only nitpick is that I was surprised that the map wasn't randomly generated on every new playthrough. All things considered though, this is an awesome entry.
The gameplay is smart, balanced, engaging and very intuitive. The art is stunning, and the feedback and animations makes for a very pleasant and polished feeling.
Great job too on making the leaderboard really optional to see and letting player just enjoy the chill experience if they want to.
There is a little visual glitch where rotating a flower tile through the ocean will switch its graphic to the water shader, but it didn't impact the gameplay at all. Other than that, this is an incredibly polished and solidly designed experience.
I like these games where the builder genre is mixed with the puzzle genre. You found an innovative game mechanic. Pretty cool. Also your graphics are very nice. The music is a bit to melancholic for me, but that's a question of taste.
Beautiful game. The music, the mechanics, the graphics, everything. Great idea, simple and pleasant. I don't have a lot of constructive criticism, but I supposed it might have been nice to see some little particles of floating flowers when you place down a plot. The only other thing is that the game doesn't really match the theme in any way that I can see. Very nice and memorable game, you should be proud of it.
It's, quite honestly, just awesome! Both graphics and music are pleasing (I love the colors!). Gameplay is well-made, feels polished and is really fun. Would be cool if there would be randomized starts, but that's really just a wish, not a complaint. It's a perfect jam game and my personal favorite so far. Well done!
@fabula-rasa thanks and good score! I had randomized levels in but had a weird bug that I just couldn't fix in time! It is definitely coming in the next couple of days.
@microchasm I want to add little particles and effects to EVERYTHING ;) The connection to the theme is that the Dutch had to build dikes and polders to basically allow them to reclaim land from the sea. Huge tracts of land there is actually below sea level! The original plan with this game was that windmills can only remove water from one level below it, that would have meant adding windmills on progressively deeper levels to clear land! Hope that makes sense?
@nsadie That makes sense, and I've actually revised my rating a bit. Although you have to be careful with too much text at the beginning of a game, maybe a little explanation of the premise would help. I wouldn't mind learning a little fact before playing a game, myself.
This was an interesting puzzle game. Those randomly generated dutch town names are cool. If you know the real towns you could guess which parts they are from. 😄
It took me a while to understand the rules and figured out how the game can end. And this was my score on a second play.
Brilliant game. I love the idea and the implementation. Everything so nicely plays together! It looks like a finished game, possibly mobile. Very polished and well done. I enjoyed playing it.
I am glad you enjoyed the Dutch names! We are Afrikaans (from South Africa) speaking which is a language based on Dutch. You can pretty much add any two nouns together to get a valid name ;) Yours means "to the South".
This is one of the most beautiful games I've seen this jam, I love the minimalistic style. As @japes mentions, you can definitely feel Bad North, or more appropriately, Townscaper in this - but this is a compliment, of course :) Well done!
Nice and polished looking game, I like the artstyle and the background music and the animated game UI. At first I totally missed that you can place windmills in the "white" sea tiles! Great game!
The bug where the game does not recognize that there are no more moves to be made has not been exterminated fully. It still happens (consistently, tested 3 times with the same result) when I do a following setup:
Even if I fill that last spot with a windmill (just to fill it with something), the game still doesn't end. I hope that helps squash the bug :)
Congratulations for the game, the art is very beautiful, I sincerely hope that this project continues, as it would be a beautiful game to acquire, a suggestion introduces a history in the game for people to identify more with it, a big hug, and I await your feedback on my game.
The idea is original (I don't know if it fit with the theme, but I don't care it's fun). Arts, sound effect and music make the game pleasant, chill and very polished. I like the wind effect and the water. The controls works well, the UI is well intregrated.
What to improve ? Not much... As @japes said "a shadow showing how much land a windmill would create"
Such a gorgeous little game. It was so soothing to play, and the music and visuals were beautifully done. I had a glitch in the webgl build (win 10, opera browser) where the score bubble at the top of the screen stayed blank, but webgl is a strange and finnicky beast, and it was still very enjoyable to play once I figured out what I was meant to be aiming for.
It reminds me a lot of the initial Jam version of Dorfromantik - it has that same pleasant scenery/soft music/casual worldbuilding vibe to it. You guys did a great job, and I'd love to see it developed further. Well done!
This is so nice! I could see this as a very good mobile game. The music is super good and it fits the game very well. You guys did an amazing job. Grats!
This is hands down one of my favorites I've encountered this jam so far. The level of polish on this one is top-notch, and the concept is simple enough for me to get into while also being deep enough for me to feel like I was improving every time I played. I can absolutely see myself coming back to this one, and I hope y'all continue to work on this in the future!
This looks really nice, very impressive for a game jam. Looks like there's some depth here and will need to come back to explore a bit more. I'm not sure why, but there wasn't any "water", just empty or black space. Maybe a browser glitch or something (Firefox, Mac OS). Very nicely done.
Wow. That was fantastic. Music is spot-on, graphics are spot-on, interface sounds are spot-on, gameplay is fun. I normally try to post at least one critique, but I literally can't find a flaw to dissect. Good job!
the game is realy cool! It reminds me a bit of Islanders! it realy polished and the graphics realy cool! an interactive or in game tutorial would make the game better
@fire-soldier888 thanks for playing! An in game tutorial would help for sure, but it is ALWAYS last on the list in a jam! For our entry this year, it took quite a bit of time for everything to come together and we were furiously coding right up to the end to just get it in a polished state. At least it is first on my list for post-jam feautures ;)
Really good graphics and overall "juice" with the UI and audio feedback for every move! Just feels really good to place tiles and is a very relaxing and chill game overall.
This is a small thing but I loved the water tiles and was a bit sad to make them disappear in favor of land hah.
Awesome game! Graphics are the best I've seen yet. Very satisfying to fill the land with matching colours. Sometimes it's hard to see where to put objects, maybe have a higher-up camera view? A pity the full-screen mode doesn't work. Greetings from a (fellow?) Dutchman.
@loveapplegames Thanks! I agree it is sometimes difficult to see which tiles are open especially when next to a windmill on a high block. I like the current angle so I was thinking allowing camera rotation and limiting the height difference between tiles.
Comments54
what I liked:
- overall it looks amazing, the music, visuals, menus etc are very polished and cool
- love that the theme of the game (dutch dikes) ties in so well with the mechanic
- mechanic is interesting and addictive, leaderboard makes it even better
what could've been better:
- while the auto generated dutch town names are cool, i would've preferred it if i could add my own name to the leaderboard
- there could be more in game tutorials/help as to how to play:
- indication as to why an illegal placement is illegal
- a shadow showing how much land a windmill would create
- random starting map would've been nice (or if not random, more than 1 possibility)
- there seems to be a bug where sometimes you can't make your final move and finish the game, for example:
suggestions/nitpicks:
- bit of a stretch for the "deeper and deeper" theme, but that's ok :)
- the different heights for the blocks look very cool and interesting, but I think they distract from the gameplay, it's a bit confusing at first until you realise it doesn't mean anything
- could maybe be more interesting if choosing a windmill meant you missed out on the flower tiles available that turn
- windmill generates a 5x5 grid, not 3x3
But all in all this is an amazing entry! Fun to play, I would pay money for this. Well done.
I agree that the connection with the theme is a bit of a stretch but otherwise solid game.
Good job!
The gameplay is simple but quite deep.
I encountered a problem, the game ended even when I had a windmill left.
But it's a great game !
Felt incredibly well polished for a jam game!
Well done!
The gameplay is smart, balanced, engaging and very intuitive.
The art is stunning, and the feedback and animations makes for a very pleasant and polished feeling.
Great job too on making the leaderboard really optional to see and letting player just enjoy the chill experience if they want to.
Thanks for the game 💕
There is a little visual glitch where rotating a flower tile through the ocean will switch its graphic to the water shader, but it didn't impact the gameplay at all. Other than that, this is an incredibly polished and solidly designed experience.
You can find the timestamp of when your game was played here: https://tinyurl.com/LDJAM48-ursa
@microchasm I want to add little particles and effects to EVERYTHING ;) The connection to the theme is that the Dutch had to build dikes and polders to basically allow them to reclaim land from the sea. Huge tracts of land there is actually below sea level! The original plan with this game was that windmills can only remove water from one level below it, that would have meant adding windmills on progressively deeper levels to clear land! Hope that makes sense?
It took me a while to understand the rules and figured out how the game can end. And this was my score on a second play.
I enjoyed it.
I am glad you enjoyed the Dutch names! We are Afrikaans (from South Africa) speaking which is a language based on Dutch. You can pretty much add any two nouns together to get a valid name ;) Yours means "to the South".
Great game!
Even if I fill that last spot with a windmill (just to fill it with something), the game still doesn't end. I hope that helps squash the bug :)
I fixed some backend stuff so I should be able to recreate it now!
The idea is original (I don't know if it fit with the theme, but I don't care it's fun). Arts, sound effect and music make the game pleasant, chill and very polished. I like the wind effect and the water. The controls works well, the UI is well intregrated.
What to improve ? Not much... As @japes said "a shadow showing how much land a windmill would create"
Awesome game 👏 👏 !
It reminds me a lot of the initial Jam version of Dorfromantik - it has that same pleasant scenery/soft music/casual worldbuilding vibe to it. You guys did a great job, and I'd love to see it developed further. Well done!
I wanted to create something without conflict or the concept of losing that is fun to create something beautiful!
This is hands down one of my favorites I've encountered this jam so far. The level of polish on this one is top-notch, and the concept is simple enough for me to get into while also being deep enough for me to feel like I was improving every time I played. I can absolutely see myself coming back to this one, and I hope y'all continue to work on this in the future!
It reminds me a bit of Islanders!
it realy polished and the graphics realy cool!
an interactive or in game tutorial would make the game better
Cool visuals and game loop! Very nice job!
This is a small thing but I loved the water tiles and was a bit sad to make them disappear in favor of land hah.
We are South Africans, so close enough 😄
I couldn't help myself but to restart a game directly after the first one, to try to make the best score possible.