PowerShift: The People's Republic of United Democristan by nintendoeats
DO NOT RUN IN FULL SCREEN OR CHANGE THE RESOLUTION! IT ONLY WORKS PROPERLY IN 1024 BY 768. (And also, you really should skim the manual)
I was inspired by the second half of the theme, because **** shapes. My interpretation is based on shifting loyalty, public opinion and power.
You play as the president of The People's Republic of the Union of Democristan(PRoUD). Your objective is to either crush the rebels or escape with over $2,000,000 in an offshore account. To do this you will need to watch your people and bodyguard carefully, because they will betray you if you do not rule with an iron hand. If you aren't careful, the rebels will punch through your top commanders and put you on trial for your deeds.
The game looks complicated...well, it is a bit but not nearly so much as it looks. To counter that I have put together a little document describing the actions and what they do. I would advise giving it a skim, but once you know what the meters mean it's pretty common sense. The key mechanic is to watch what people are saying. If you believe that a civilian or soldier is not loyal to you, they must be dealt with quickly. Attacking those loyal to you will harm your cause however, so be careful.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90311097/Powershift%20Guide.pdf
P.S. If you are attacked but nothing happens, that is not a bug. I didn't have time to code a check to prevent the animation from happening when the rebels can't attack you. Sorry. I'm also sorry that the music sucks, it isn't up to my standards for this sort of thing but I lost over an hour figuring out that not-bug. That came out of audio time.
I hope you enjoy! Leave a substantial comment and I will review your game in kind.
/////Changelog/////
v1.1:
-Made a change which may reduce crashes during rebel assaults.
-Set variable for attack cooldowns. Game balance is no longer sodomized.
v1.2:
-Fixed a bug which prevented the endgame screen appearing when the player is defeated.
///////////////////
Source: https://www.dropbox.com/s/59gmz4qzdwqcu7o/LD%2035.zip?dl=0
I was inspired by the second half of the theme, because **** shapes. My interpretation is based on shifting loyalty, public opinion and power.
You play as the president of The People's Republic of the Union of Democristan(PRoUD). Your objective is to either crush the rebels or escape with over $2,000,000 in an offshore account. To do this you will need to watch your people and bodyguard carefully, because they will betray you if you do not rule with an iron hand. If you aren't careful, the rebels will punch through your top commanders and put you on trial for your deeds.
The game looks complicated...well, it is a bit but not nearly so much as it looks. To counter that I have put together a little document describing the actions and what they do. I would advise giving it a skim, but once you know what the meters mean it's pretty common sense. The key mechanic is to watch what people are saying. If you believe that a civilian or soldier is not loyal to you, they must be dealt with quickly. Attacking those loyal to you will harm your cause however, so be careful.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/90311097/Powershift%20Guide.pdf
P.S. If you are attacked but nothing happens, that is not a bug. I didn't have time to code a check to prevent the animation from happening when the rebels can't attack you. Sorry. I'm also sorry that the music sucks, it isn't up to my standards for this sort of thing but I lost over an hour figuring out that not-bug. That came out of audio time.
I hope you enjoy! Leave a substantial comment and I will review your game in kind.
/////Changelog/////
v1.1:
-Made a change which may reduce crashes during rebel assaults.
-Set variable for attack cooldowns. Game balance is no longer sodomized.
v1.2:
-Fixed a bug which prevented the endgame screen appearing when the player is defeated.
///////////////////
Source: https://www.dropbox.com/s/59gmz4qzdwqcu7o/LD%2035.zip?dl=0
Ratings
| Coolness | 78% | 2 |
| Overall | 2.91 | 712 |
| Audio | 3.28 | 210 |
| Fun | 2.74 | 724 |
| Humor | 2.68 | 301 |
| Innovation | 3.05 | 507 |
| Mood | 3.00 | 401 |
| Theme | 2.13 | 910 |
Definetly going for that Humor votes!
As for improvements: Making an introduction level would have been a good thing, but that's been said in comments above mine. I think working on the user interface would add a lot to the game.
I had it stop on me a few times when attacking. But other than that it was enjoyable.
It's a bit hard to know what you should be doing. Also, you should have made a different sound effect for the female underlings ;).
The tax sliders worked quite well, as did the balancing between stashing money and trying to keep people in line.
If anything, the game kinda went on a bit long without me feeling like I was about to win or lose. I only played it through once, but still took quite a while.
I played numerous times, each time altering my approach, not in an effort to win but to explore a different narrative arc. There's a LOT in this tidy little system.
I can't help but love this. We have a similar design philosophy, so I'm a little biased. But shamelessly so.
One bit of actionable criticism: I wish an in-fight was triggered on drag/drop, not consecutive clicks. As thematically appropriate as being able to accidentally trigger an in-fight is, it's frustrating. Cx
You're a design genius. You deliberately craft bounded experiences and allow players to explore themselves through the tools you create.
I've got mah eye on you.
It seems like the difficulty can be overbearing without reason randomly. If you recruit people for almost every slot (and drag them up) you can still get destroyed on the first enemy attack. However it doesn't always happen and I haven't figured out how it works. The guide says "all three rows if there are enough rebels" but the game just started so I'm not "a jerk" quite yet.
I wish the war didn't take so long (and would play in the background) so I could play some more. Maybe I'll come back to it and play with the source. Anyhow I beat it at least one way! Horray. Perhaps attacking disloyal civilians makes the big difference. http://puu.sh/ozM1D/cd8bfdb747.png
I like the feedback overall with the sfx, and the vo is quite funny. The meter in the top right doesn't seem to do anything (if you tax and increase speed it stays the same as far as I can tell)
Overall an interesting time.. glad to have played.
I really hope you do make a post compo.
While I managed to win by fleeing fairly easily, winning by elimination was much harder. Not sure if I won by exposing a bug or if it as intended, but hey!
Very original and interesting game. A lot of information to take in and consider, but that makes it interesting in my eyes.
The music fits well and adds to the mood. I like it, good work.