The Trade Network by scriptorum
You're from a family of traders that goes back many generations! Trade. Roads. Coinage. Such an ancient art. No really.
Anyhow, your parents don't understand your greatness, so one day after getting caught defiling the neighbor's garden and causing a fire while trying to escape, you were exiled. Your ship arrived in a new and strange land with many villages in need of trade. But first, for these villages to trade, they need a system of roads connecting them...
NOTES:
- Press H inside game for rules and keys.
- The Trade Network has one designed level, but it also contains random levels.
- The designed level has about two solutions. The random levels are not guaranteed to be solvable.
LATE BUG FIXES:
- Slight improvement to audio timing glitch when playing theme. #WebGLProblems
- Theme volume levels were mixed incorrectly, sounds better now.
- Less chance of game getting cropped or looking funny in full screen.
- Made some of the text elements sharper, not sure it's better. :)
POST COMPO (notable improvements)
- Press E for editor, point, hold a number key, and drag to paint. 0-3 is terrain, 4-6 is village.
- Copy level code with C (random level or edited) and paste/play other people's levels with P
- Improved help screen
Anyhow, your parents don't understand your greatness, so one day after getting caught defiling the neighbor's garden and causing a fire while trying to escape, you were exiled. Your ship arrived in a new and strange land with many villages in need of trade. But first, for these villages to trade, they need a system of roads connecting them...
NOTES:
- Press H inside game for rules and keys.
- The Trade Network has one designed level, but it also contains random levels.
- The designed level has about two solutions. The random levels are not guaranteed to be solvable.
LATE BUG FIXES:
- Slight improvement to audio timing glitch when playing theme. #WebGLProblems
- Theme volume levels were mixed incorrectly, sounds better now.
- Less chance of game getting cropped or looking funny in full screen.
- Made some of the text elements sharper, not sure it's better. :)
POST COMPO (notable improvements)
- Press E for editor, point, hold a number key, and drag to paint. 0-3 is terrain, 4-6 is village.
- Copy level code with C (random level or edited) and paste/play other people's levels with P
- Improved help screen
Nice work, and good luck!
Graphics suit the game as well. :)
Sound and graphics pair very well.
Nice work!
Well done nonetheless!
The lettering is a little confusing. You may want to look for other options to explain what's going on.
Now, if you intend to polish it up further, a couple things in the UI could be improved. It wasn't immediately clear to me that the brown tiles were mountains, and I also took a little while to realize I could start from any village. That's probably because I was too eager to read the instructions carefully, but still :)
Oh, and a level generator that would ensure the levels are beatable would also be great! But again, for the competition, having a level generator at all is already awesome.
I wish there was a little more to it mechanically. This seems like a base you could build on.
I put up a post-compo version, and this one has the ability to copy (C) and paste (P) level codes. Here are a few random levels I thought were half-decent.
R1833308256
R1197157162
R-1227625050
R-1463715304
R611065350
R-717291648
Also I unlocked the crappy editor if you want to tailor your own levels (E to toggle edit mode, 0-7 to paint). There is no save mechanics, so copy the level code as above. (Although it'll be a longer code.)
The pre-built level was just complex enough to give an introduction to the mechanics without being frustrating, but still take some thought to actually complete.
I feel like there's really solid potential for a two-player mode to this, but I'm not sure exactly how it would work.
I think it might be an interesting addition to have a way to deal with unused funds in case when it's not possible to connect another village within the next two or more turns. Maybe an action to put them in a bank for a couple of turns, and use the interest to build more roads.
R2147222718
R-344817546
R457364488
C101130232200323313310221213122220323203013433330323003121520102420011351120312131202103320203113120003001312210500133132310422130012313020012202124106103030145211123030331200103200132023330122111333220013
I liked the graphics and the concept. I love puzzle-games and I needed some tries to beat yours.
Really good game!