Signals Intelligence

I hope I didn't miss some obvious things but I kinda struggled. Was it possible to actually build? That button didn't seem to do anything. I also found it impossible to hurt their chopper. In the end I found an almost winning strategy of not attacking infantry and just let them starve. :laughing:

The graphics was nice and clear and I liked the idea of the signals intelligence aspect, but I found the scrolling near impossible and the gain of decoding the messages relatively small in the current iteration of the game.

Play-through with more feedback:

This seems like an interesting idea and quite impressive scope. I like your pixel art too. Still, I really could've benefited from a tutorial. I didn't understand the win or loose conditions and found the signals intelligence completely enigmatic.

I just fixed a ton of bugs. All I had to do is replace all the data structures, re-factor the code for the map, units, text and explosion particles to be actually object oriented, implement A* instead of the hacky depth-first pathfinding I had tried to get to work, and re-work the state management from state=new_state assignments into something that handles state transitions between frames. And wouldn't you know it, this bug fixing replaced 60% of the compo code because if you replace the data structures, you kind of touch everything.
I tried to be gentle, but I changed some animation speeds because I was impatient waiting for text, and I changed some pixels of the UI a little bit by accident, and I may have also changed the way vision ranges are calculated, but the previous way was a bug, and I didn't change the balance numbers. It's still basically the same thing as the compo version, minus the bugs. I did change the starting units, so you start with one of everything, since you can't build. It's probably way harder now.

If you want to rate my game, the broken version is still there on itch. It's unwinnable as is. If you want to actually give me written feedback, you may want to consider the bugfix version.

This game looks soo good and is soo perfect! It kinda reminds me old game from Nintendo DS but I can't remember what was the name of it. Either way, very well done!!

The idea is good and visually pleasing, but it needs some refinement and more visual feedback on your actions.

Although the picture is simple, the overall structure is very clear. Still, some strategy is needed. This idea is also very promising and I'm looking forward to seeing the teachers' subsequent works.

Some good ideas​, but it lacks clarity, be it in the actions (for example you can move 3 times) the units can do or their attack range.

The whole signals system doesn't really feel worth doing, even though the feature looks like a lot of effort was put into it.

Also, commanding unit feels a little tedious, maybe keeping the last unit played as selected would help ?

Overall, a game where i can feel a lot of effort was put into it but need a bit more polish to really shine ^^

> The whole signals system doesn’t really feel worth doing, even though the feature looks like a lot of effort was put into it

C'mon, man! That's the theme, and it's literally the thing I programmed first and built the game around!

Love the stunning pixel art and brilliant signal strategy concept! It’s well structured with thoughtful design and unique strategic depth. Such an original and well-crafted experience overall.

Congratulations! Your game is fun and very complex; it's like a tactical game, which I like. The graphics are very simple, like a sheet of paper, but I like the messaging mechanics and the implementation of food and fuel. This game has potential because it's very complete in terms of mechanics.

It is quite complex so a tutorial is a must have, but other than that the game is really nice. The graphics remind me of some browser games I used to play as a child.

Way more hardcore game than expected, a crazy pygame jam entry.

It would be great if there were a display of the attack range. Overall I really like it.

I played the signals_intelligence_bugfix3_win64.zip version off itch.io - was that directly from the COMPO? If so, it has an impressive scope and includes lots of stuff already. Of course a turned-based strategy game like that can't realistically be built in two days, but it's impressive nonetheless how much you got done!

PS: wish the game would have had a multi-unit move or something, it took quite some time to move my troops around. I'm not sure if moving was bugged or if it was just a bit unclear to me how far units can go (but going farther on the road is a nice touch of game design).

Well done!

@richard-baltrusch
No, it wasn't COMPO. It is a JAM game. I am retyping this because the LDJAM web site ate a long comment detailing the things changed in the bugfix version. I fixed a lot of bugs in the enemy AI, and in the game's state machine, and I made it clear in the UI that building was not implemented. The original build was basically unplayable, because of enemy AI problems. I wrote a whole postmortem about this.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/signals-intelligence/ruthless-criticism-and-self-criticism-a-postmortem

Feel free to yell at me about taking "fixing game-breaking bugs" too literally, because the original version had at least *five* game-breaking bugs, and you can see them in the video uploaded by @local-minimum. I also took out some stuff from the UI to make it clearer that it wasn't implemented. But content-wise, it's all the same units and the same map generation and the same moves and so on.

As for the multi-unit move (UGH I HATE RETYPING THIS AGAIN), there is an implementation problem (pathfinding performance, see postmortem) and a design problem: The player may want to move-attack, but they use multi-move to move-move accidentally. Both multi-unit move and multi-step move may lead to these problems. I guess I painted myself into a corner with this design...

Let's go godless Commies!