ClonkFight! is an auto battler where you put pieces of old tech into the arena to fight each other (just go with it). It's a multiplayer game, in the sense that you battle other player teams that cam before you, so it's not in real time. And there is a highscore list.
You can kitbash devices together into one horrible abomination!
It's your job to build a team of clonks, upgrade them, combine them with each other, and send them to the arena to fight other teams. There are 3 stats: health, attack, and speed. When a clonk reaches 0 health it's out of the fight. Attack is the damage the clonk causes. Speed is compared to the currently active opponent clonk's speed to decide who acts first.
To start with: 1. buy two clonks from the shop, mouse over their special abilities to get a feel for what these do 2. order your clonks in a way that you feel causes the most damage 3. only the activated (first) clonk will attack. It will stay in front until it dies or an effect moves it 4. after the combat, upgrade your clonks, buy more team slots, or kitbash two of your existing clonks into insane new abominations!
How this was made
_The graphics_: I drew the devices in ink on paper, scanned them in, and then shaded them in Krita. Later graphics I made purely in Krita. This is an HTML game, so animations are in CSS. I used two fonts that I didn't make: "Pink Chicken" and "White on Black" both of which can be found on dafont.com.
_The audio_: Logic Pro X for the soundtrack. It's a bit monotone, but I wanted to make something for this Compo instead of using a song I already had. The sound fx are just mouth sounds. For editing I used Audacity.
_Programming_: this game is written in PHP server-side and vanilla JS. I pulled in my trusty Canvas Game Starter (https://github.com/udo/canvas-game-starter) however, I ended up not using it except for the audio player.
Everything for this game was made during the event. No AI. I ended up not submitting to the Compo due to running out of time, and I'm glad I took this extra day to add features and refine everything a bit.
Post LD fixes
- a text reminding the player to repair/upgrade (thank you @pooki) - fixed the combat timer sometimes getting stuck
Intriguing graphics - stunning, I’d even say! I’ve played five times and haven’t won once. The mechanics are generally good, and the theme is a perfect fit. The issue is that the bonuses and abilities aren’t very clear.
The design and drawing are nice. However, the whole game lacks color. It would help the visibility and the understanding of the game if you hightlighted and coloured informations and buttons in order of importance. Also, fight are slow, I noticed I could speedrun them by going into profile of settings. Are they decided immediatly at the start?
Solid jam experience! Simple, intuitive, and very well put together. Left full ratings across all categories! We’d really appreciate it if you could test out our game too when you have a minute! Keep up the great work!
@maxxxmax thank you for your feedback! I was afraid that it's not really clear what the player is supposed to do. I tried adding mouse over hints to the abilities but in retrospect I should probably have made a mini tutorial.
@tatawanda thank you! Yes, fights are decided on the server, the browser just plays them back. I agree about the color scheme, however, since this is my first hand-drawn game I realized too late that it's not really holding up that well.
Lovely graphical style and chill music! Good idea to offer log to check and also scouting was clever addition. It was pretty difficult and a little bit misleading that reroll/purchase rotated all cards when they did not change. After a combat the repair part was little bit unclear at first so I went to battle without one unit. Bonus point from having boombox like we! Overall solid entry with all pieces!
@tykki19 no that's a graphical bug. Only the rerolled card is exchanged, the other stay - the problem is just that the animation plays again for all of them and I didn't have time to fix it. About the defective units: you're right, that should have been clearer from the UI. Thank you for your feedback!
Awesome art style and fun concept. I don't play a lot of deck building games so I was quite confused and couldn't follow how all the clonks interacted with each other. It seemed like there was some quite good combos which was cool. A few times I got in a infinite loop for the 20 turns where the same actions happened every round and all clonks healed the damage away so it would have never ended if the turn limit wasn't there.
imo. currently there is a bit too much chance in the game and I'd like to have a bit more influence on the game. maybe some way to boost exp. on one clonk or some other way to build the team.
@pooki thank you so much for your feedback! Hats off to you for creating an endless fight, there should be some kind of achievement for that 😆 In retrospect I think I should have put in a limit of 5 or 10, because 20 is really too much...
The fights are completely deterministic, there is no randomness. What you perceive as too much chance is really only my failure to make the game communicate what's going on. When you say you saw no way to build the team that's a bitter pill for me to swallow. The game is designed for the player to upgrade and combine clonks, reorder them, buy new team slots. I should have made a better UI 😢
kitbashing old tech into horrible little clonks and sending them into an auto battle is a great use of the theme, and the idea of fighting teams that came before you is a clever way to make it feel multiplayer. the art has a really distinct look too. i did find the upgrade and bonus side of things a bit dense at first, but it made me want to keep experimenting. how did you balance the combining so it stays fun instead of just stacking one stat? nice work.
@perrarancino thank you so much! I hate to say it but the balancing is mostly based on intuition. There are a few abilities that are really OP (like Bard). After I wrote down the first few abilities I couldn't stop making new ones. Communicating what they do clearly is where things fell apart a bit. In an RPG it's easier I think because the player has to actively consider and try different combos. But for an autobattler things... just happen
@udo Oh, no I completely missed the LVL button at the top of the cards. That makes sense that it felt like the lvl didn't change for the clonks. Thanks for replying. I'll need to update my ratings, but that UI was a bit too invisible... clearly *melts in shame*.
I'd say 20 is fine and with the clonks healing so much it could be even bigger to avoid all games becoming ties. Maybe the healing needs to be nerfed.
@pooki it's all good, thank you for letting me know. I can't make any substantive changes to the UI anymore because of the rules, but I will add a text that reminds the player they can do that (I hope that's okay since it's kind of a "bug").
Fun team building game. I don't if it's my screen but the game need me to scroll to find some button that can make it hard to navigate. Still love all the little sounds during the fights.
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Also, fight are slow, I noticed I could speedrun them by going into profile of settings. Are they decided immediatly at the start?
We’d really appreciate it if you could test out our game too when you have a minute! Keep up the great work!
imo. currently there is a bit too much chance in the game and I'd like to have a bit more influence on the game. maybe some way to boost exp. on one clonk or some other way to build the team.
The fights are completely deterministic, there is no randomness. What you perceive as too much chance is really only my failure to make the game communicate what's going on. When you say you saw no way to build the team that's a bitter pill for me to swallow. The game is designed for the player to upgrade and combine clonks, reorder them, buy new team slots. I should have made a better UI 😢
I'd say 20 is fine and with the clonks healing so much it could be even bigger to avoid all games becoming ties. Maybe the healing needs to be nerfed.