Nua

by cayurr
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.38
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.29
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.43
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.15
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.62
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.20
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.46
Nua is a puzzle-esque time management game, where each tile costs a certain amount of seconds to traverse and each enemy takes a certain amount of seconds to attack. You have 10 seconds worth of Time Points (TP)
Fight your way through the infestation and defeat the final enemy.

Different power ups help you get to the end.

Current power ups include:
- Tile speed increase: + 0.5 seconds
- Health increase : + 15 health
- Damage increase : + 5 damage
- Reduce attack time : - 0.25 seconds

This is my first game jam and my first ever finished project, and even with it's flaws I'm really proud of it.
I would've loved to add more content such as randomized levels and items, more bosses, more enemies and really fine tune the gameloop, and give more player feedback on what they're doing but alas we only have 72 hours :D

Current known issues:
- There was a bug where at the end of a level, you could keep moving in a certain direction, but I haven't been able to reproduce in a while, so not sure if I randomly fixed it or if it's still there!
- At the end of a level you can walk into a tile, even though you may not have enough TimePoints (TP) to do so.

Things that definitely need more work:
- Player feedback isn't the best, I added a Tab key window to help visualize the different powerups and such, but definitely could've done more there. Will improve on this for the next jam and future projects!
- More lore rather than just Enemy1,2,3 boss etc.

Thanks for playing and all feed back is much appreciated!

Nua v1.1 Update 08/10/2022


Small update to the game as I finally had some time to fix the main issue players were facing when playing which was no indicator as to how much TimePoints would it cost for a tile. Incase there is any confusion, the lowest TimePoints a tile can cost is 0.5.

- Hold space bar to see how much tiles cost in the level
- Changed some flavour text

This update is availabe on my itch.io link below, keeping the base game that I developed within the 72hrs here.

I also managed to bring the file size down from around 120mbs to 100mbs. The chunk of this about 60-70 mbs is the sounds and music and I'm currently looking at ways to bring this down further. As I know its a fairly big file size for the game.

On top of that, I'm looking at getting the web version working, when I do export for HTML5 in Godot4 beta 2, the tilemap that the player moves on disappears for some reason, and I have yet to find out why. Obviously the web version would open up the game to more players, as I can't export to Mac for example and remove the annoyances of downloading.

Nua v1.2 Update 11/10/2022


Fairly decent update as I've been able to reduce the file download size drastically with a very small change, I'm also pushing this file size change to the previous versions and updating the original version here with that change only. Mainly so people in the game jam can have a much smaller download with the original game that I made within 72 hrs.

As with the last update, v1.2 is only available on my itch.io page linked below to keep the original jam entry seperate.

Art & UI


- Completely reworked the UI to allow for smaller text (The text was really big and was difficult to read in many cases, should hopefully be easier with these changes)
- Colour-coded the various player stats on the UI
- Renamed some buffs to make them more coherent and removed most acronyms
- Updated the Main Menu background
- Updated the How-To screen, reducing it to one page (The in-game help screen also received these updated visuals)
- Updated the water tile art (It's possible a lot of you didn't even know this was a water tile :D)

Gameplay


- Added a new popup floating text when interacting with powerups to signify what you just gained and also when attacking enemies to signify how much health you just lost.

Misc


- Reduced file download size from 121mbs to 28mbs, this was done by changing audio files from .wav to a .ogg :laughing:

Thanks again!
Genres: puzzle
Tools: Godot

Comments28

thebmxeur5 Oct 2022, 19:12
I found it a bit hard having to restart the whole game when I fail a level. The game lacks a bit of feedback to show how much time certain tiles take to cross. Could have drawn the time each tile taken on each tiles.
LDJam user 202408
LDJam user 2024085 Oct 2022, 22:46
I feel like this is one of your first attempt at working with Godot, is that right :smile:?

I think the consept of this game is good, and for your first jam game you really should be proud! the art style is nice as well. although I believe that the game could use some more polish on the gameplay side, maybe more level variety, enemies etc.. but as I said before for a first finished project I think you as a developer have a potential! good job
DrummerManSam5 Oct 2022, 22:53
Game is super awesome. I didn't totally understand everything at first but made more sense the more I played. I like that different tiles cost different tp to move across and you can be risky by trying to get upgrades and then using what tp you have left to fight the enemies. The music is extremely cool and sets the mood of the game really well where this is one of the more interesting games in the game jam for sure. Would be nice to get feedback for how much tp each tile cost too but nice job overall!
Cayurrauthor5 Oct 2022, 22:54
@thebmxeur Totally agree and is something I've been looking at for a small update outside of the LD51, just so it feels more refined.

@0x-void-x0 It is! I've messed around with godot a little bit, but never commited to making anything with it, until LD51! And this was made with Godot 4 beta 2, so there was a bit more issues that I didn't forsee that weren't easily searchable due to docs not being fully completed yet :D ! But I wanted to get up to scratch with the new GDScript. Thank you and completely agree with you that it's definitely missing some simple polish and is something I'm gonna spend more time on in the future, really appreciate the feedback.
Juss
Juss5 Oct 2022, 23:00
I've won!
Great game, and it worms my hart seeing the game made with godot!
Soundtrack is also very nice(especially the track in the fist levels, I've liked it a lot :smile: )
It would be great to have an indicator to know how much it'll cost for me to go trough the block on the ground, because currently, when I encounter new kind of ground, it eliminates any ability to plan my path ahead of time.
Grandblood5 Oct 2022, 23:36
Really good music and I like the art work. Unique idea to have it be the turn timer instead of seconds. Was fun to play. One of the better games by far. Good job!
ActuallyTheMoon
ActuallyTheMoon8 Oct 2022, 19:41
Solid concept. I would have liked for it to be an easy way to retry levels immediately after finishing them, just to try and get all the things in them.
Cogent.Invalid8 Oct 2022, 19:53
Nice innovative concept, having to plan which items to collect was very fun. I didn't realize at first that you had to defeat all the enemies in each level or else you lose. After I prioritized picking up blue powerups at the start, it seemed like tile speed no longer mattered since I had the minimum time on all tiles. It seems like tile speed is the most important thing to prioritize, since it determines how far you can go and therefore how many powerups you can get, creating a positive feedback loop. Maybe there's some way to push back on that feedback loop - although having to also maintain your ability to kill enemies helped with that. It also would have been nice to be able to see the time cost for all tiles (though I see now you added that in an update). Overall though, I thought the game design and level design was really good, and the art and sound design was good too.
Skleembof
Skleembof8 Oct 2022, 19:54
That was cool, I loved the music and the strategy of calculating a route to kill enemies and maximize your rewards. I didn't get how the blue upgrade worked though. I did a playthrough collecting exclusively blue upgrades and it didn't seem to have any effect. The how to play screen says it decreases tile speed by 0.5 but every tile would always cost 0.5 tp. Does that mean that it reduces more expensive tiles to a cost of 0.5? The description wasn't very clear if that's the case.

Overall though, the game is well made and fun to play
Cayurrauthor8 Oct 2022, 21:51
Thanks for the feedback guys!

@actuallythemoon Good idea, I think my initial vision was for a more roguelike-esque gameplay loop, where you start from the beginning constantly, but since I didn't manage to get a lot of those initial features in, it makes sense to allow playing each individual level. Will have a look and thank you!

@cogent-invalid Theres definitely flaws in telling the players more what to do, I think I got stuck in that terrible mindset where since I knew what to do, I assumed other players would too for a bit, and by the time I started testing and looking at how other players might view the game, it became a little too late to do much about it with only a few hours left :smile: And I agree on having more pushback on the blue tile speed item, as once you collect enough, you can much more easily collect other items, an easy(ish) possible fix would be to reduce the amount of these and remove them from some levels I suppose, and maybe make them in harder to reach spots, but will have a look at it! Thanks!

@skleembof Sorry about that! I did poorly on explaining to the player that the minimum cost of a tile will always be 0.5 TP. Later levels, tiles can be 3 TP or more, so if you don't have these it basically means you can't move more than 3-4 tiles. Another thing, I'll look at, explaining in a bit more depth! Thank you!
natpat
natpat10 Oct 2022, 00:49
A nice little tile based puzzley roguelike! I was a bit confused about what all the upgrades did in my first playthrough, but reading your comment here made it clear and I went on to win my next playthrough.

It was a fun little game - trying to plan out a route and prioritize upgrades was fun! I wish I could have known a bit more about what each tile would take in terms of cost, but the sprites were fairly clear most of the time. I liked the enemy design and the barren landscape. As you mentioned though, the game could probably have been more clear in general about the rules and what each of the upgrades did. Maybe just some renaming and clearer instructions is all it would take.
rsninjadev10 Oct 2022, 00:56
interesting puzzle, loved the artwork and interpretation of the theme. I felt discouraged from trying to beat the whole game because I had to play through the whole thing again if I failed a level, I think having multiple stages consisting of a few screens each would be more encouraging personally, but as a difficult puzzle game I think this is a good game!
JesusOnWheels10 Oct 2022, 02:37
Honestly, the people who are bashing on this game are haters. I have played many games this jam and during other jams I have participated in. This game is very polished in comparison. I do agree that some additional help with indicators would be helpful, maybe color coding the health, dmg on the UI would make it easier to remember what each power up does. The artstyle was very visually appealing, and I loved the atmospheric music. Excellent job on your first game jam, I really hope you don't let the other people discourage you from making more games in the future. This was really awesome and I am sure that you will make even better stuff going forward.
LDJam user 267116
LDJam user 26711610 Oct 2022, 07:56
Nice idea, has a somewhat of a puzzle-Rogue feel. I had a hard time plotting an effective course - by the end I was happy just to get a health, so I think I didn't follow the growth curve very effectively :sweat_smile:
fizzbark
fizzbark10 Oct 2022, 07:58
Nice little game, as other people have mentioned it's a quite coherent little puzzle. I think my biggest frustrations were the powerups not really being distinctive - it took me a while to remember what did what and some more relevant icons could have communicated this better than the colors. The minimal vibe is really neat and I love the the font choice on the title page, but it was a bit hard to read on longer bits of copy like the how to play text.
AlexSolonnikovP4
AlexSolonnikovP410 Oct 2022, 09:28
Not a very common game. Interesting in terms of gameplay. It was interesting to play it, it's a pity that I didn't understand the tutorial(
XariusExcl
XariusExcl10 Oct 2022, 18:01
Hey, cool puzzle entry! I'm afraid I don't have much to add other than what was said already (being able to tell which item does what more clearly, knowing the objective). But other than that it's pretty balanced and was a cool playthrough.

What about adding some feedbacks to know how much walking a tile cost, or how much hp you lost to the enemy like in RPGs? The little numbers appearing like "5 DMG" or "-10HP"

Good entry!
Cayurrauthor11 Oct 2022, 04:56
Thanks for the feed back guys, I've updated the game taking a lot of what you all have said with v1.2, much appreciated!

@natpat I've done some renaming and UI work to hopefully make things a bit easier on the eyes, so thanks for the feedback on that!

@rsninjadev Ah yes I agree, and will probably be the next thing I look at, thanks for playing! :smile:

@jesusonwheels I appreciate the kind words! I haven't felt like anybodys been hating really, just general feedback which is to be expected! Thank you so much!

@animawish Thank you for playing and I've hopefully made it a bit easier to understand with the latest update! :smile:

@fizzbark I agree that more distictive icons would probably be better, and if I continue developing this, I'll probably start looking at that! But for now I'ved made some changes to hopefully make it a bit easier! Thanks!

@alexsolonnikovp4 I'm sorry the tutorial didn't help you, was very rushed near the end of the jam, I've made it a bit easier to read from all this feedback and hopefully things make a bit more sense, so thanks for playing!

@xariusexcl Thanks for playing! I actually ended up adding that idea from your feedback! With popup text when you collect an item, attack an enemy and such. Haven't added it for tile movement yet, but am looking at it! Thanks again!
LoneWolfDev11 Oct 2022, 21:01
Cool idea, I like that time act as a currency to move/attack through the game! As others mentioned, some little feedback about dmg dealt, received... will be awesome!
Kushimoto12 Oct 2022, 19:27
I like the concept here. Contrary to others' opinions, I thought the icons were very intuitive, and had no trouble beating the game on the first try (I did start on v1.2 though, so maybe that's why).

I was surprised to find that I could move over any type of tile, be it water, thorn, etc. I was also surprised that I did not take any damage when stepping on a tile that looked like it would hurt me (thorny tile for example). I think those elements could be used to enforce the puzzle aspect of the game because it was rather straightforward to beat each level.

Overall, the mood was great, the gameplay was very intuitive, and I had a good time playing it. Congratulations on putting out a great first jam game; I hope you keep it up!
Talops
Talops12 Oct 2022, 23:05
For a first this is really, really good!

The amount of content is just right, the concept works well and the visuals are great. Speaking of which, I could tell you spent a lot of time working on varied sprites for the enemies and environment, maybe that is what prevented you from rounding out the few polish corners you had to cut?

Aside from that, the level design was solid and the boss basically being a big stat check made optimizing upgrade pickup paths worth its while and rewarding.

Congrats on the nice submission, you're ready for LD52 compo now :wink:
DeltaMain
DeltaMain16 Oct 2022, 13:37
I liked it! Especially the idea, (that unfortunately do not really match with theme). It's the type of puzzle I enjoy the most.
StudioKraze18 Oct 2022, 12:41
Nice graphics. Similar-ish concept to my game. Theme was a bit of stretch as it wasn't real time based (instead it was action points essentially). Was a bit confused as to why the player warps to new maps once time points run out.

Played on my stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zedkraze
Cayurrauthor18 Oct 2022, 17:01
Thanks for playing guys!

@studiokraze I watched the stream VOD and thanks for playing and rating! I understand the criticism on the theme. But, every move you make does take a certain amount of seconds, I've just renamed seconds to TimePoints for lore reasons. So a tile that takes 0.5 TimePoints to cross, actually takes 0.5 realtime seconds. So you have 10 seconds worth of time to figure out the "puzzle" and at the end of the 10 seconds, you move onto the next level or have failed.

It may be a stretch, but I personally didn't see it explicitly state it had to be a countdown of 10 seconds literally. So I tried to be creative with it but stay to the constraints that something must happen every 10 seconds. I think the only thing that breaks this, is that there is that issue where you can still move at the end of a level even if you don't have enough TimePoints.

Also, I assure you it was not a premade idea that the theme was tacked onto. I spent most of Friday night when the Jam started thinking through ideas and this was what I came to, with small changes throughout development. :smile:
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