Blobbit - A Disaffected Squirmy by Wampus

[raw]
made by Wampus for LD31 (JAM)
Blobbit - An Disaffected Squirmy

You have discovered a world rich in gemstones and other resources, but the Squirmies of Blobbit are not very welcoming to strangers!

Since the theme was Entire Game on One Screen I wanted to make a game that would have a lot going on. Hope its not too much! Its a condensed RPG, strategy game, semi-tower defence game and slow machine in one.

Buy tiles to unlock resources, speed up production, attack Squirmies, gamble and more. If you're struggling to begin with just click on things, especially flashing things, to explore how to play. After a while you should work it out.

EDIT! Kerri (the artist/musician) wrote an explanation of the game in the comments that I had to add:-

"Here's the mechanics, in a nutshell. Each tile represents a resource. Gems (green tiles) are the basic resource you need to accumulate. As you collect more gems, you can unlock more tiles. As your production increases and you unlock more tiles, you can do more stuff, like build golems to protect the tiles you've won, buy bumps in your attack, defense and production stats, and play slots for bonuses.

The blobs reproduce exponentially at a fixed rate, and if they get to your space ship you're dead. Tap them to attack and kill them, but watch your life bar as you do. Over-reach will slow you down.

Killing the squirmies on the outer edge is harder than the ones who come close to your ship, so you need to boost your attack / defense stats to kill them.

When the "level up" arrows by your stats light up, you get about five points to distribute between them, however you choose. You can increase the number of clicks you can use and the rate at which you replenish resources and life stats. "

SPOILER TIPS:-

Instead of clicking to boost production on tiles constantly, wait until your ACTION bar is full then strategically click the tile you need most over and over.

Watch your LIFE bar. If it goes to 0 you will be injured and all your stats will suffer as a result until you fully recover

The upgrade shops are essential. Don't let Squirmies take them over. Put golems on these tiles and other tiles you need the most.

RECOVERY will speed up how quickly you regain ACTION points.

The Slot Machine shop has some great bonuses, if you care to gamble your hard earned gemstones.

Upgrading your production speed in the Product Shop will speed up ALL resource extraction.

Ratings

Coolness 74% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.74 128
Audio(Jam) 3.40 210
Fun(Jam) 3.72 98
Graphics(Jam) 3.72 282
Humor(Jam) 2.66 456
Innovation(Jam) 3.67 153
Mood(Jam) 3.28 337
Theme(Jam) 3.87 221

Feedback

sharp911
09. Dec 2014 · 03:09 UTC
Looks great, I really didnt know what I was doing.
KaCoomb
09. Dec 2014 · 04:36 UTC
Hi Sharp, thanks for playing!

The idea we had originally is that you should be able to figure the game out by playing it - just tap the screen and look at the stats until it comes together. It ended up being a pretty complex game though, so it's not as obvious as we'd hoped it would be.

Here's the mechanics, in a nutshell. Each tile represents a resource. Gems (green tiles) are the basic resource you need to accumulate. As you collect more gems, you can unlock more tiles. As your production increases and you unlock more tiles, you can do more stuff, like build golems to protect the tiles you've won, buy bumps in your attack, defense and production stats, and play slots for bonuses.

The blobs reproduce exponentially at a fixed rate, and if they get to your space ship you're dead. Tap them to attack and kill them, but watch your life bar as you do. Over-reach will slow you down.

Killing the squirmies on the outer edge is harder than the ones who come close to your ship, so you need to boost your attack / defense stats to kill them.

When the "level up" arrows by your stats light up, you get about five points to distribute between them, however you choose. You can increase the number of clicks you can use and the rate at which you replenish resources and life stats.

The slot machine can produce big bonuses, but isn't really necessary to win the game.

Hope that helps you, and anyone else who tries it! We wanted to do more, but the big sell is, IT WORKS, pretty much as we wanted it to. And speaking only for myself, it's fun once you get the hang of it.
p1x3lruckus
09. Dec 2014 · 04:49 UTC
Really good music is playing, but the screen is black so I can't play. But seriously, this music is amazing.
🎤 Wampus
09. Dec 2014 · 04:57 UTC
p1x3lruckus thanks for letting us know. Which browser and OS are you using? Firefox, Chrome and IE11 are working for me here on Win7 64 bit.
Jonapulse
09. Dec 2014 · 05:05 UTC
Ah, that feeling when the last lifeless Blobby melts to the ground under your lasers and the genocide is complete. Another world cleansed for HUMANITY!

BLARGLE BLARGLE BLARGLE!

I eventually understood how to play it. Wasn't too confusing.
timtipgames
09. Dec 2014 · 05:11 UTC
I have to say that I really like the "no tutorial, just learning by doing" concept.
I have been playing for a while now and in the beginning I thought I could learn the game by playing it - I was pretty lost soon after.
Maybe that's just the price I have to pay for 72 hours jamming :)

I actually have to play again now after reading your explanation in the comments before I rate :)
Jacksendary
09. Dec 2014 · 05:14 UTC
I had no idea about what i was doing ¯_(ツ)_/¯ but I think I won xD
KaCoomb
09. Dec 2014 · 05:45 UTC
If you killed all the squirmies, you won! Congratulations! Wampus is going to finish this properly and stick it on the Android store for tablets, complete with all the visual and sound FX cues he didn't have time for, so you can really feel the win.
The-Force
09. Dec 2014 · 14:47 UTC
I played two times and the second time I was keeping the squirmies alive to keep playing. Lost like an hour xD
rzuf
09. Dec 2014 · 15:11 UTC
Oooooh I get it! Definitely needs a tutorial. :D
BtheDestroyer
10. Dec 2014 · 02:49 UTC
I've been waiting to play this! :D
Zathalos
10. Dec 2014 · 03:15 UTC
Nice. It took me like 15 mins to beat the game. I was persistent because I didn't want to lose. The clicking got a little repetitive at the end. If you could click and hold it would be a lot better. :) Nice job.
tcarter
10. Dec 2014 · 04:54 UTC
The audio was inoffensive, which is good considering how long I was playing it. Really interesting resource management. Nice job!
Team Myopia
10. Dec 2014 · 05:23 UTC
Great game, and I played it all the way through. It did take me till level 10 or so to figure out you can level up your stats but after that it was just a matter of divide and conquer.
WatercressStudios
10. Dec 2014 · 06:05 UTC
Played it through to the end. At first, I had no idea what I was doing, but I got the hang of things over time. Great game!
iMer
10. Dec 2014 · 06:06 UTC
A little confusing at first, but I got it after a while.
Never used the slot machine and only skilled into recovery pretty much.
Was quite fun and the music was nice as well
ondrejbalas
10. Dec 2014 · 06:15 UTC
I played until I won and it was lots of fun. Great job!
AndresGames
10. Dec 2014 · 07:08 UTC
I have to admit I played this multiple times. It was a lot of fun. Ended up spamming recovery, at the end I had like 120 recovery 20 action and like 40 resources. Seems like it could be a little more balanced then just throw everything here. Consider maybe having one that increases your health or something. Great game, keep working on it. Make more maps with increasing difficulty :D
asobitech
10. Dec 2014 · 10:33 UTC
Pretty deep mechanics, really needs some training missions.
But as it's Ludum Dare, I can understand there was no time.
Lovely graphics and sound.
SirRicecake
11. Dec 2014 · 11:25 UTC
I visited the web-link, but all I saw after loading was the red background.
(Mac OSX 10.9.5, Safari 7.1). Chrome 39, Opera 26 and Firefox 33 are working though.

Nice game! Really got me hooked. I felt rewarded, expanding my step-by-step :D.
psychomonster
11. Dec 2014 · 15:25 UTC
O.o This is really a good game forged in 72h... Good Idea, good artwork... Will play it twice!
hitchh1k3r
11. Dec 2014 · 22:04 UTC
The graphics, concept, and music behind this were awesome. Personally I found it overwhelming at first. After I figured out what I was doing it was fine, but by then I stood no chance against the Squirmies. I finally figured out that I could use action points to hurt them and that helped a lot. Perhaps it would help if the game only showed the menus that were available, as to not frighten the player. Also maybe the enemies could hold off on taking over until the player has done enough things to prove they know what they are doing. Overall amazing job, I really liked this entry.
Mr.Greenhat
13. Dec 2014 · 17:03 UTC
Took me a while to get the hang of it. Love the mix of gameplay elements!
lycrashampoo
15. Dec 2014 · 11:31 UTC
That was really fun! I managed to pick it up by playing. Enjoyed the board game vibe quite a bit.
xaedes
19. Dec 2014 · 19:54 UTC
This kept me playing a long time. So much fun! It is really nice how many thing you can do, and all in one screen. I think you got the theme really got! The music fits really well in my opinion. The graphics are as good as the rest.
Good work! 5 Stars from me
CMWeissMedia
24. Dec 2014 · 21:27 UTC
Awesome game. Took a little bit to figure out what I needed to do, but once I got the hang of it the game was quite fun. Also, I appreciate the warm-up time to poke around and figure things out at the beginning of the game.
ETHproductions
24. Dec 2014 · 21:47 UTC
Very nice! It's a little tricky at first, since most people won't know what they're doing. But once I got up to speed, it was really fun. I played for about 15 minutes, and near the end it got pretty easy, as my health was regenerating almost as fast as I could kill the Squirmys.

I really like how everything fits together so well. The main thing I would change is the use of clay, lava and magic. Gems are used for almost everything, while the other resources have no use besides buying golems. Also, the game screen was a bit bigger than my laptop screen, so maybe making the screen smaller would be a good idea.

Altogether, a very solid entry!