Force Majeure

by ingemann

My first Ludum Dare entry :)

You are a God in this causally deterministic mini-RTS, striving for immunity.

Lead your species towards a self-made paradise by controlling their know-how. If they become too clever, they'll build a black hole and self-destruct in it, if they become too dumb, they'll self-destruct in pollution. Guide them through and keep the universe and your species in balance.

Be sure the universe doesn't freeze before you reach paradise, it will at -273.15C.

Be a God for 5mins.

Edit: (24th september)

Updated the explosions to show whether it's a black hole or pollution and added sounds and effects to the mouse actions for overview.

I would also like to use this opportunity to explain the idea behind this game. It's loosely based on causal determinism, in the sense, that if causal determinism is true, then nothing can be truly random. It just appears to be due to complexity. In short, then I just decided to mimic the universe in this game, and fill in enough variables to make it seem random each time you play it, while it's not. Good luck.. or should I say.. memory :)

Read more about causal determinism here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

Edit: (25th september)

There's now a bonus track by Faure, remade by me, once you reach the paradise age.

Edit: (26th september)

Implemented a central highscore.

Comments7

euske26 Sep 2016, 12:30

It is pretty hectic for the first few seconds, but once you get the pattern it became pretty smooth. I had five species in paradise. My score was 35699 points. Nice ending tune.

Ingemannauthor26 Sep 2016, 12:38

Thanks for the comment, euske. The ending tune is In Paradisum, as befitting, from Faure's requiem. 35k is not a bad score.

Narkhos27 Sep 2016, 13:54

Good concept.
I often loose some population in the first few seconds and then it become easier as you loose population.
Perhaps you could add some periodic crisis (war, market crash...) that reverse the trend during the game?
And I think the number of populations could increase over time to keep the challenge at a hi level.
Keep the good work ! :)

Ingemannauthor27 Sep 2016, 16:29

Thanks Narkhos, I can see what you mean about reversing trends on a fixed timeline - given that there's no randomness in this mini LD. Could be done. But the real challenge in this game as it stand right now, is to keep all six species alive all the way I guess - it's the way to get that 40k+ immunity score, and sadly it leaves little room for reading status messages or taking care of a crisis and so on, because you also have to keep them in the green. The game is tuned after this goal. But I appreciate your idea anyway, so maybe it will surface in a future game, rising populations or timeline based crisis. But you see, I'm already working on my next game for another comp, your comments were much appreciated tho. Thanks again.

Linus123xbb3 Oct 2016, 19:17

Pretty cool game, had fun playing it. The music was really nice aswell.

Ingemannauthor5 Oct 2016, 19:33

Thanks :)

Jupiter_Hadley7 Jan 2017, 17:10

Very hectic, but well made game! I included it in my compilation video series of all of the MiniLD #70 games, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/WTS6C8jPNVI