Ludum Dare #54compo

Limited card space

by zirrrus

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.42

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.53

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.92

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.61

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.16

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.59

A card game about finding synergies with very little space.

Check out the HTML5 version on itch.io, it can be played in fullscreen mode

Fixes

I spent a little time to fix some of the many crashes, which were mostly caused by effects triggering too many times or cards trying to do things after already being destroyed etc.
Also found an option in the project settings which just magically made the game playable on bigger screens by scaling it up.

Notes

This was pretty fun to build, but there are also many things I did not get to in time:

I wanted to create a proper system for showing the effects happening. Right now all their changes just happen instantly, which makes it hard to follow. They could also do with some animations etc. This is the biggest thing that is missing, I feel.

The game needs more interesting cards and combinations. The ones currently in there are just the ones I was able to think of quickly while under pressure. Who has time to do balancing when the game is still constantly crashing?

After a few minutes I stopped working on a deck builder because there were so many other more pressing things to fix. It would probably make the game more fun, and give you some time to spend with cards to figure out good combinations.

Custom cards! The system for the cards is pretty configurable, there is almost nothing hard-coded for them (except the Reactor, couldn't think of an elegant way of implementing it). Instead you create configuration files per card, with slots for effect configurations. It should be pretty easy to build a card editor leveraging that, but no time.

Genres: card game

Comments17

TasakaSama2 Oct 2023, 12:45

The web version doesn't work properly on LD but works on itchio and I had a few crashes. The idea is good, I like card games, but I find that it lacks a bit of explanation. Maybe a project to continue post jam to give it a little polish

Zirrrusauthor2 Oct 2023, 17:03

@tasakasama Thanks for the feedback!
I applied the fix from the embedding guide, hope the HTML5 version works here now too.
There is still much to fix and I have many ideas for improvements, so I'll probably keep tinkering.

LDJam user 38082 Oct 2023, 18:44

It was little confusing to just see different combinations. Adding progression would help to explain the rules and slowly add pressure for the small amount of cards you can have each turn.

EvoGenGames2 Oct 2023, 19:04

Ah, this was pretty fun, and really impresive that you did all this in such a short amount of time.

Well done!

Matt Blake2 Oct 2023, 19:12

I like the idea! I was more familiar with what cards existed on my second playthrough, but it would be nice to know how many of each card are in the deck, so I have the ability to plan further ahead.

jellycopter2 Oct 2023, 22:50

I spent more time than I thought playing with this, the mix and match of charging/destroying was very fun and got a lot better with each round. The only thing I can think of that was a negative was that you can hammer the "end round" button when you're out of cards and lose all your points before the game actually ends. Otherwise, very very good work. Love it!

LDJam user 2374133 Oct 2023, 08:28

Neat card game, although it is hard using a lot of icons stright up. I needed to read the how to play a lot and couldnt remeber what each stood for, but it is fun once you get going. Great submission

LDJam user 2331383 Oct 2023, 17:29

Maybe that there a too much icons so it can be difficult to understand, but cool game still

Pincushion3 Oct 2023, 22:51

This is a really good time sink. The cards and their interactions are really well thought out. The controls feel so smooth. Interesting that you wrote that the cards are pretty configurable. You could do a lot with the current set of rules. It would have been nice to show the points that cards scored on a turn. Something like floating text. I think you have a good idea that you can take further.

I find it funny that you "turned on scaling" and when I fullscreen on an ultrawide monitor, that message takes up half the screen.

I tried so hard to do better, but here's my best:

Christian Zommerfelds4 Oct 2023, 06:54

Really liked the game! I agree that the rules are not immediately obvious, but on the other hand on play though was enough to understand what was unclear from the "How to play".

I wish there was some different game end mechanic, as just maximazing the score is not the most exciting thing for me. Idea: have different levels with different decks, and you need to reach a certain score to beat the level. That being said, I get that we had limited time ;)

Well done!

Devil_ovo6 Oct 2023, 02:00

Really a fun game. It reminds me of the Inscryption(A digital game). I still remembered the time when I have so much fun using the robots cards group as well as witch cards group insides the game. It has the similar mechanism as your game. I hope you could find some inpsiration from it, and makes it become a true game someday.

cheesepencil6 Oct 2023, 02:29

tooltips over the symbols was all I was missing

indivicivet6 Oct 2023, 10:58

good:
- interesting mechanics, seems like there's a fair bit of gameplay complexity for a short game
- it's cool that you made the card design modular/file based! not sure if you'll do any followup here though :)

bad:
- the icons for different parts of the turn aren't 100% intuitive, the first play or two is a bit confusing. I think having text (+ icon) would be much clearer; maybe also colour coding?
- graphics are a bit minimal/plain; maybe just more of a background etc could help

Netarion8 Oct 2023, 14:01

I didn't get all the idea at first but it's a quite good idea

Untitled Studios10 Oct 2023, 02:18

Slick, easy-to-learn, beautiful, fun. Really great concept, and great card design. With some roguelike mechanics, you could end up with something like *Balatro*, which is fantastic. Literally incredible that this is a compo game. Good work.

ThomasLebel16 Oct 2023, 08:03

Really well polished ! Smooth and pretty :)
Nicely done !