Tiny War by VDOgamez
Tiny war is one of those games where you send ships to fight over planets, except the planets actually behave like planets and orbit. The game's tactics thus depend on waiting for a good launch window, as ships that go farther are weaker. There were a few things planned that didn't get in, like some pretty planet graphics and a mechanic involving affecting planetary orbits, but I'm just happy to have actually finished a game this time.
Instructions:
Welcome to Tiny War. You play as green. The goal of the game is to send ships out and destroy blue. To attack a planet, drag from a planet you have ships on to a planet you want to send them to. This will send some ships from each planet you dragged over to the one you ended on. A fleet of ships loses strength the longer it's in space, so try to time your movement to take advantages of differing orbits. Your ships and your enemy's ships will destroy each other if they are on the same planet. The number of ships on a planet is indicated by the numbers above and below it. When your ships are the only ones on the planet, they will begin to capture it at a rate proportional to their number. Once a planet is captured, it will have a white ring when selected, and will begin producing ships. Bigger planets take longer to capture but produce ships faster. Press space to give up the level, and 'd' to turn on demo mode. Try to beat the AI and win the game!
Instructions:
Welcome to Tiny War. You play as green. The goal of the game is to send ships out and destroy blue. To attack a planet, drag from a planet you have ships on to a planet you want to send them to. This will send some ships from each planet you dragged over to the one you ended on. A fleet of ships loses strength the longer it's in space, so try to time your movement to take advantages of differing orbits. Your ships and your enemy's ships will destroy each other if they are on the same planet. The number of ships on a planet is indicated by the numbers above and below it. When your ships are the only ones on the planet, they will begin to capture it at a rate proportional to their number. Once a planet is captured, it will have a white ring when selected, and will begin producing ships. Bigger planets take longer to capture but produce ships faster. Press space to give up the level, and 'd' to turn on demo mode. Try to beat the AI and win the game!
| Web | http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43052873/LD23/TinyWar.swf |
| Source | http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43052873/LD23/LD23.zip |
| Original URL | https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=1634 |
Ratings
| Coolness | 71% | 3 |
| Overall | 3.09 | 364 |
| Audio | 1.07 | 786 |
| Fun | 3.21 | 214 |
| Graphics | 1.95 | 837 |
| Humor | 1.29 | 793 |
| Innovation | 3.09 | 362 |
| Mood | 2.50 | 543 |
| Theme | 3.00 | 450 |
It's like a cross between Civilizations Wars and Star Control, both great games. Good work!
I love the concept but I think I would have prefered something a bit slower and more tactical personally.
As for the ship strength, I had wanted the nearness of planets to each other to matter to justify the several hours I spent researching how to calculate an orbit accurately. I had narrowed it down to three options, either I would set a hard limit on how far ships could go from the planet they started on, I could make the ships move slowly to make long voyages prohibitive, or, as was decided on when I asked for advice, having ships deteriorate if they go farther. The way it works is just that when you send out a fleet, it has a number of ships in it. That number decreases as it flies, so if you send a fleet with 20 ships all the way from your homeworld to your opponent's, there will be very few left, but if you send them to a nearby planet with a different orbit that will take it closer to the enemy's world so you can send ships at near full strength. I didn't quite make the AI understand this completely, so it's a bit weaker than it was when I initially released it, trying to send support fleets far away if it can afford it, even if it means it will be wasting ten or twenty ships just to make another planet slightly better defended.
It took me a while to get that you could click and drag across multiple planets to send troops from more than one planet at once. At that point it made a lot more sense to me as a game :). I like the concept but wish it was easier to predict what will happen when I mouse up. I've accidentally abandoned planets pretty often. That said, the simplicity of the controls is a big bonus so maybe it's a good tradeoff.
Does the game get harder as levels progress or just generate a new system each time? The challenge seems to be somewhat random, rather than progressing.
And now... ¡Hi!
A very original and straight to the point game ¿How the little planet are so hard to destroy?
Very well thought and designed game.
Congratulations!
PS.-I missed some sound effects, but the experience says that when the time is limited this "todo" is the first to fail.
It was fun though. Although I don't know if it really pushes the "Tiny World" theme. They are regular size worlds, just zoomed out.
Good work though! I ended up getting to level 4 before losing.
You've mentioned that you'd like to add more graphics...in addition, maybe some UI stuff? Like a line from your planet to the mouse, that automatically snaps to a target when the pointer is close enough?
great Job!