Only the itch.io web version has been updated, both the download below and the embed above will remain untouched
Change notes below
Controls
- Move - WASD, Arrows or drag with Right Mouse - Rotate Camera - Q and E - Zoom Camera - Mouse Wheel - Build - Left mouse
Tiles
- HQ - Central Hub, all buildings need to connect to it to get bonus power - Road - used to connect buildings to the hub - Aqua Road - same as roads, but wetter - Residential - Adds workers, needs power - bonus workers if placed adjacent to each other - Commercial - needs workers and power but provides bonus points for each adjacent residential tile - Park - bonus points for each adjacent residential tile - Miner - needs to be placed on minerals, needs power and workers, provides a great deal of points - Wind Turbine - Provides power, can only be placed on mountains, not next to each other - Solar panels - Provides power, bonus power if placed adjacent to each other, can not be placed next to large mountains - Clear - Remove small mountains, small chance of finding more minerals
Itch.IO version improvements
Buildings can now be incrementally powered on
- Previously you needed to pay all of your power/worker deficit before any building would turn on, now if you have enough for that building it will turn on, this should hopefully make the game much more clear - I blame lack of sleep for this choice :D
QoL Enhancements
- Hover effect for building a new tile first pass - display bonuses before building - Highlight bonus adjacent tiles first pass- now you it should be clear where your bonuses are coming from - New Tooltip system first pass - helps present more focused information - Score target first pass - you can see it in the top right of the UI, now you have a goal each map
Updated building balance:
- Solar panels now cost less workers - it was too restrictive before - Commercial now costs less power and workers - means that they are easier to building - Mines now cost less power when adjacent to each other - Parks now give more points - Nature is nice lets make more
New Daily challenge mode
- Try a new puzzle each day
Minor enhancements
- Moved the chance to spawn minerals to map creation, this was previously procedurally generated when clearing tiles which lead to positions of hidden minerals changing based on the order you cleared
- Updated some building descriptions to make their use clearer - Fixed mouse movement control text - Increased keyboard movement speed - Removed seams from water - Highlight colours tweak - Increased the map max size - Moved play to play random - General Code Refactor
Wow, I love the presentation here! The audio feedback and calming BGM is really nice, and the visual style is excellent. I'm very impressed that you were able to implement so many structure types and differentiate them in ways that provide a meaningful impact to the gameplay. Great work all around! :)
A cool tile-adjacency puzzler. I like this style of game so I was happy to get to play this one. Overall I think it was a well-implemented game, you got in an impressive number of building types for a game jam, along with well polished graphics and sounds. Some of the building activation/bonus requirements were unclear to me, while the mines lit up as soon as they had the required people and power I never saw the solar panels do the same even with several of them clustered. Having a bit more clarity on what was going to light up the time would have been nice. (looking again at the instructions it says they just need to be connected and have enough workers… I could have sworn that I did when I noticed things not lighting up, but maybe I misread the status)
Super well thought out and designed game! Graphics are marvellous, plenty of building types and all so well polished in such a short time. The goal was a little confusing at first even with the how-to, but it didn't take long to understand once I started filling the tiles, and was a super fun lil puzzler. Great job dude!
Very cool atmosphere ! Nice thinking of the theme limited space for the small hex area where the goal is simply to make the most of it. Quite close to a previous concept of mine, so I might be biased from the start but I liked it ! ;)
Very cute game! The UI is very polished, feels very nice to play! I would have like a bit of progression and buidings unlocks to get a better feel of the game, unlocking everything at onces makes the game very overwhelming at first !
@gorglomux yeh, its actually coded to give the buildings out as a reward (they are just all set to 1 so they unlock after placing the HQ)
I could not find a decent balance of order and thresholds same with limited quantity, they are all just set to 1000 and a check in the UI to not show the counter if over 50 or something haha. So I decided to make it more of a sandbox than to spend a lot of time finding the correct order to unlock etc
Fantastic game. The mood is great and the graphics and sound feel awesome. The game needs a progression system but for now it is one of the best games LD54 games I played.
Woah the SFX when map tiles are tweening to final positions is just right, tickles the brain :D Great feedback on player actions, I missed what I needed to do, so I was just aimlessly clicking on the map placing thing after thing
But once I understood that I have to cover the full map - it clicked and I found such puzzle gameplay very fun
interesting game, i liked the background music. the stuff on the right menu was nice and easy to work with. but for a game like this you kind of want to hold the hand of the player for a few minutes to get them goind. other then that was a fun game
Wow, such a beautiful game, even without racing for a big score, just setting tiles and enjoying the mood is great !! It's funny we had almost the exact same idea during brainstorming (but we would have never make it as beautiful as you did). Only thing that bothered me is that the map (at least the first one) is a bit too big, so it might be hard to try to find the "perfect combination" for the highest score. Anyway, well done !
Incredibly atmospheric and enjoyable game! I love resource management strategies, but didn't expect to see it here. You managed to make a rather difficult genre in such a short time and so well. Congratulations!
The game is really nicely done and well polished. The different combinations create a nice puzzle game. The only part I'm not fond of the is randomness created by the mineral which can appear if you destroy a mountain. So for a same map, a player could have a better score due to luck rather than a better organisation. But it's really a small thing, overall the game is really great !
@ezard94 thanks for playing, its actually procedural, so there will always be the same amount, but yes due to the implementation the order that you clear will change the position of the minerals - this is a good thing to point out and an oversight on my behalf. glad you enjoyed
@tyrannas interestingly all of the games are based on a random seed (you can see it in the text box when you complete a map) so I have no idea what map it was 😄 but the hex grid is between 6 and 9 tall and wide so may have been a 9x9
Wow Beatiful game! Love the sound and ambience! Animations are amazing also!
L
LDJam user 03 Oct 2023, 21:51
Neat concept, graphics look great, kinda unclear on what I'm supposed to do? Like I'm supposed to build up resources and such but my actions lack feedback. It's like... I'm getting points and people and energy but for what? Also how adjacent properties affect each other is unclear. I got a thing next to the HQ glowing? Like what? Also the scaling of the screen makes it hard to or clarifying anything. A tutorial level would really go a long way. Still super impressive for only 72 hours! Also MAJOR PROPS on getting the Unity embed on here to work!
Awesome puzzle planner game! Well done! My only problem (if you can call it that) is that because of the procedural generation, there's no real point in playing as there are no goals to work towards or challenges to overcome. But other than that, awesome stuff! Really well done!
It's simple, but it works very well. I love this kind of building game that you need to think where to put your buildings and how they interact with each other. And you did it alone, that is really amazing, good job man!
I ended up with 99 points. I must confess I didn't really understand what I was doing for the most part, for example why some of the tiles didn't light up. I tried to connect them with roads, but I don't think I was doing it right. The graphics and mood are very nice.
(Also, minor typo: The help text says that the right mouse button moves the view, but it seems like it's actually the middle mouse button.)
@mao thanks for playing, for buildings to score and light up they need to be connected to the HQ either by being placed beside it or via road.
They need to also have enough workers and power, currently the check is quite dumb in that it looks at the needs of all your buildings as one.
So if you need 12 power collectively nothing will turn in until you are fully positive and have 12 power even if you have 11 power. This is confusing and a point that I would change.
Very curious strategy game. It has a lot of charm to it, though I didn't quite understand how the whole logic of it works fully. Like, sometimes buildings do light up, while sometimes they don't, even though I have enough power and workers. Still, great game.
This was really fun! I got 154 points on the seed 385323. There were definitely a few things I didn't understand at first (and still don't after playing one map), but honestly that's kind of expected for this genre of game I think? I like figuring things out over time w/ trial and error and found the UI sufficient for most stuff.
I would have really liked to mouse over/click a building that I had placed to see what bonuses it was currently giving me, and found the tooltips for adjacencies to be a little bit confusing (I don't think it specifically says anywhere that solar panels give you +1 power per each adjacent solar panel, just that placing them together is good? And I could be wrong about that, it just seemed to be the case when I was paying attention to it). Similarly, some of the building restrictions were a bit confusing. Mines I understand, but windmills were kind of weird (on a mountain, not adjacent *except* if it's a different height level?), and I had an issue I couldn't figure where I thought I should have been able to place a solar panel but couldn't.
There were a couple buildings I didn't really understand from a balance perspective: roads??? I'm not really sure why I would place a road instead of just placing another building tbh. I guess they don't cost power or people, but I don't really see how that would be an issue considering if you just build solar panels + residencies you'll be positive on both power and population? Similarly, parks seemed kind of not that good either, but they made a little more sense I guess? I also didn't really understand the difference between points granted "when placed" vs "on completion".
Overall aesthetics, graphics, and vibe were very nice, reminded me a bit of As Far as the Eye vibe!
Edit: looking at other ppl's screenshots maybe it's the following is a bug? You can just connect buildings through each other to the HQ without using roads at all, and I'm starting to think maybe that wasn't intended? It makes for a fun game either way (very civ 6 district organization kinda stuff), but worth looking at I guess.
It feels like a real game (not just a game jam product), I believe it would be a great basis for an actual city building simulation. Graphically really enjoyable. My biggest issue was that I lacked an objective to complete, but that's not really a problem, more like a personal preference. For people who enjoy sand box games, this must be a really nice experience
@joethehive Thanks for playing! yea, there is some odd logic that if you get into a deficit you need to pay all of it even if you can afford a building. I blame lack of sleep 😆
@ferellia Thanks for the great feedback, hovering over buildings would have been nice and it was planned.
Yes solar panels give more power when placed adjacent and residences give more workers in the same way.
The windmill thing was me liking the look of different heights and trying to make a mechanic from it 😆 unsure if it was needed
Roads are needed as buildings only connect through the same type so to connect miners you need roads - but will look at if there is a bug with the connectivity.
Parks fill a niche where you have a couple of spaces left but your power and workers are out of balance, they also vary the look a little 😉
When a tile is placed it adds its workers and power (if any) and its placed points, When it is connected, powered and supplied with workers it is completed and scores its completed points and any adjacency points bonus (commercial and parks)
Edit:
Looks like its working as I had hoped:
Miners on the left are all connected either with roads or through each other Miner at the top is not connected as it cannot connect through the residential
Though if you were experiencing a different behaviour that is concerning 😆
I think it lacks on the feedback side of things a bit. At first, it was really difficult to understand what was happening because aside from the "+X score" display, it seems nothing is happening when you place tiles. In my mind, I constantly had questions like "Was that a good score for that tile?", "Was that a good or bad placement". But when you start understanding the basic idea of the game, it definitely gets better.
Overall, a very solid jam game. Definitely has potential for more if you keep developing it after the jam.
@nash That is a good idea - and most of it was cut due to the usual time restrictions @vlad-r Yea that tooltip was very rushed and could be redone properly to give much better understanding
Really great game! A bit confusing to figure out how the "connecting" mechanic works, and I kept forgetting which of the two numbers was how much power I have and how much power I need 😅 I played about ten times in a row before remembering I had stuff to do!
Absolutely love the low-poly buildings! I made some for our game but I think yours look much better than mine, well done!
Great game! Looks really nice and pleasing. Wasn't too sure how to get things highlighted but managed to score 125 points and I'm happy with taht 😄
One minor caveat: The UI doesn't fit on ultrawide screens (3440x1440). Was stuck on the "How to play" screen trying to press all the buttons for at least a minute until I figured out to leave full-screen and press the close button.
Very well polished game. Atmosphere and mood are great. Gameplay itself I found a bit confusing. There was lots of text presented at first, which is already daunting, and after that you're still not sure on how to play. For example I had no idea why certain buildings weren't being powered up. And then I wasn't sure about the purpose. Okay, I have to place buildings. Why? Just to place buildings? The sense of purpose wasn't very clear. Overall it's a beautifully presented game that maybe lacks a bit of substance.
Amazingly well done game! There's so much stuff here, it's really impressive you've put all of that within just a short jam time. Visually it looks great, the ambient music is fitting, and so are the sounds. After several playthroughs I've managed to get a pretty decent score:
One issue I had is with the solar panels - hovering over the solar panel button doesn't say it can't be placed near a mountain. I found that out by re-reading the "How to play" screen.
Quite relaxing to play! The graphics are really polished and minimalistic. I like it! Would just edit the background music's end so that the loop is not perceived but it's just a detail. I had a small glitch once where one of the tiles would not allow a solar panel but after trying again it accepted. Congratulations and thanks for checking my team's game!
I had some trouble understanding what to do, but it finally clicked.
And it turned out to be a chill, polished game. There are definitely some strategies that could do a lot more points. I would love to see a screenshot of something clever. I also need to say that I love how it looks, especially the lighted parts and the water tiles are super cool!
I thought the game was going to be really fast paced and technological bc of the graphics but it was actually super relaxing and fun! The graphics look super polished and maybe the orange/blue contrast didn't match the meditative music but each thing on their own was great. I didn't understand what the goal of the game is at first but after playing for a while I think I sort of understand. It would be nice to get a mini tutorial that doesn't require the player to read through a whole manual. I liked how every map you get is different. I hope this gets a post jam version and gets expanded in the gameplay!
It's a very clever idea, I like it a lot! It's a bit unclear at first, had to read the in-game tutorial, play the game, read your comments here and only then I got it... but it's nice once you understand it. There are some bugs with the UI on full screen (might be because of my ultrawide monitor). I really like the aesthetics here, sound design fits perfectly - really good stuff.
@nyxkn Thanks for playing, its basically just a little puzzle game that you are trying to get the point points from a map, it could definitely benefit from a proper tutorial.
Nice and relaxing game, I enjoyed playing it and trying out a few different cities. I like the art style and the soothing music. I also enjoyed how it's a challenge to get a nice city but there's no fail state, which makes it such a calming experience. Overall I'm very impressed with the level of polish and your ability to make the game easy to understand and start playing.
love this game art and feelings,feels so smooth,and all systems working together,while maybe players need some targets to reach, I feel some confused ,dont know which building to choose
I've been building and moving from phase to phase, but I don't know if I understand correctly if anything is happening other than building. I didn't see the money increasing these things...
Great game, very well polished and with really good art and music. It did take me a couple of game to really get the mechanics, but I think they really convey the sense of limited space. Only downside, I am still a little dubious to how roads exactly function, as some buildings seem to ignore them.
Simple lil score-attack city builder. The giant list of rules was definitely a turn-off at first, made it feel like I was about to play Factorio, but it's much more like a simple tile-based puzzle game. The visuals and audio were definitely the best part, very polished and satisfying. Placing tiles and getting points made me shiver with joy. I got a hundred-some points in a couple runs and felt like that was enough, could keep going and really learn the ins and outs but I learned that just spamming parks everywhere made me more points than actually thinking about what I was doing lol, brain still too small for this game.
This definitely was an ambitious entry! A ton of work went into it, the graphics are beautiful and the music is lovely. The gameplay is complex, and as others have mentioned a bit hard to grasp at times. Great job nonetheless, it's an awesome game!
Comments72
Overall I enjoyed the game a lot, well done!
Yea I agree, I should have iterated on the connection UI. It could be much clearer
Loved the puzzle aspect of it all.
Great entry!
@gorglomux yeh, its actually coded to give the buildings out as a reward (they are just all set to 1 so they unlock after placing the HQ)
I could not find a decent balance of order and thresholds same with limited quantity, they are all just set to 1000 and a check in the UI to not show the counter if over 50 or something haha. So I decided to make it more of a sandbox than to spend a lot of time finding the correct order to unlock etc
Great feedback on player actions, I missed what I needed to do, so I was just aimlessly clicking on the map placing thing after thing
But once I understood that I have to cover the full map - it clicked and I found such puzzle gameplay very fun
But it's really a small thing, overall the game is really great !
@cheesepencil @sergei11156 @tyrannas @jcmonkey Thanks for playing and IU hope you enjoyed yourself
@tyrannas interestingly all of the games are based on a random seed (you can see it in the text box when you complete a map) so I have no idea what map it was 😄 but the hex grid is between 6 and 9 tall and wide so may have been a 9x9
@lenan oh what res?
If I could change anything it would be to add a better first time experience
(Also, minor typo: The help text says that the right mouse button moves the view, but it seems like it's actually the middle mouse button.)
They need to also have enough workers and power, currently the check is quite dumb in that it looks at the needs of all your buildings as one.
So if you need 12 power collectively nothing will turn in until you are fully positive and have 12 power even if you have 11 power. This is confusing and a point that I would change.
Thanks for pointing out the incorrect control
I would have really liked to mouse over/click a building that I had placed to see what bonuses it was currently giving me, and found the tooltips for adjacencies to be a little bit confusing (I don't think it specifically says anywhere that solar panels give you +1 power per each adjacent solar panel, just that placing them together is good? And I could be wrong about that, it just seemed to be the case when I was paying attention to it). Similarly, some of the building restrictions were a bit confusing. Mines I understand, but windmills were kind of weird (on a mountain, not adjacent *except* if it's a different height level?), and I had an issue I couldn't figure where I thought I should have been able to place a solar panel but couldn't.
There were a couple buildings I didn't really understand from a balance perspective: roads??? I'm not really sure why I would place a road instead of just placing another building tbh. I guess they don't cost power or people, but I don't really see how that would be an issue considering if you just build solar panels + residencies you'll be positive on both power and population? Similarly, parks seemed kind of not that good either, but they made a little more sense I guess? I also didn't really understand the difference between points granted "when placed" vs "on completion".
Overall aesthetics, graphics, and vibe were very nice, reminded me a bit of As Far as the Eye vibe!
Edit: looking at other ppl's screenshots maybe it's the following is a bug? You can just connect buildings through each other to the HQ without using roads at all, and I'm starting to think maybe that wasn't intended? It makes for a fun game either way (very civ 6 district organization kinda stuff), but worth looking at I guess.
Screenshot 2023-10-04 022402.png
@minjutin Thanks for the kind words 😄
@ferellia Thanks for the great feedback, hovering over buildings would have been nice and it was planned.
Yes solar panels give more power when placed adjacent and residences give more workers in the same way.
The windmill thing was me liking the look of different heights and trying to make a mechanic from it 😆 unsure if it was needed
Roads are needed as buildings only connect through the same type so to connect miners you need roads - but will look at if there is a bug with the connectivity.
Parks fill a niche where you have a couple of spaces left but your power and workers are out of balance, they also vary the look a little 😉
When a tile is placed it adds its workers and power (if any) and its placed points, When it is connected, powered and supplied with workers it is completed and scores its completed points and any adjacency points bonus (commercial and parks)
Edit:
Looks like its working as I had hoped:
Miners on the left are all connected either with roads or through each other
Miner at the top is not connected as it cannot connect through the residential
Though if you were experiencing a different behaviour that is concerning 😆
I think it lacks on the feedback side of things a bit. At first, it was really difficult to understand what was happening because aside from the "+X score" display, it seems nothing is happening when you place tiles. In my mind, I constantly had questions like "Was that a good score for that tile?", "Was that a good or bad placement". But when you start understanding the basic idea of the game, it definitely gets better.
Overall, a very solid jam game. Definitely has potential for more if you keep developing it after the jam.
I found the top right UI just a bit confusing - I'd love to see a detailed explanation on hover (e.g 10 workers available / 20 workers needed).
@nash That is a good idea - and most of it was cut due to the usual time restrictions
@vlad-r Yea that tooltip was very rushed and could be redone properly to give much better understanding
Absolutely love the low-poly buildings! I made some for our game but I think yours look much better than mine, well done!
One minor caveat: The UI doesn't fit on ultrawide screens (3440x1440). Was stuck on the "How to play" screen trying to press all the buttons for at least a minute until I figured out to leave full-screen and press the close button.
Will investigate the ultra wide UI issue thanks for reporting @heremeus
One issue I had is with the solar panels - hovering over the solar panel button doesn't say it can't be placed near a mountain. I found that out by re-reading the "How to play" screen.
Would just edit the background music's end so that the loop is not perceived but it's just a detail.
I had a small glitch once where one of the tiles would not allow a solar panel but after trying again it accepted. Congratulations and thanks for checking my team's game!
And it turned out to be a chill, polished game.
There are definitely some strategies that could do a lot more points. I would love to see a screenshot of something clever.
I also need to say that I love how it looks, especially the lighted parts and the water tiles are super cool!
I'm posting this because I skimmed through the thread and I think it's actually a high score 😎
Hexak is surprisingly fun!
@enad96 @hellhound @enver-arco @andruid Thanks for playing
@lcstark Thanks for playing, nice score!
@okshirl Thanks for playing and I am glad you enjoyed it, again it needs a teach by playing tutorial rather than wall of text
@thelastslowpoke Very well build looks quite optimal, challenge accepted 😆
@kasmilus Thanks for playing, yes it 100% needs an interactive tutorial. I have seen other reports of the UI breaking on ultra wide.
Thanks for the kind words and feedback
On the other hand, the massive rules list was a bit of a flop for me, and the game came off as a little too complicated and unintuitive.
Anyway, nice work and good luck!