Fools Fortune by Gear Steak
It is the Dark Ages, and a shuffle of the deck can determine your fate. You are a Medieval noble, and decisions must be made, influenced by the drawing of the Tarot. Will you be a cruel dictator, or a ruler of the people? Will you show honour and bravery, or be scarred by your decisions? Fortune will guide the way.

Notes:
- There are only four scenarios coded so you WILL repeat cards drawn, I've currently finished a tool to easily add more post jam and will be enforcing that end users will not see duplicates in a run
- I am adding in an indicator as to which skill is being checked against
- The game operates under DND 2nd and 1st edition rules, you want to draw under your skill
- There is no audio, that's why the game has been opted out of that category

Additional feedback needed;
- As of right now there will be 154 scenarios that are more or less completely serious, I’m debating adding a 6th suit of cards that would consist of 5-7 cards (10-14 scenarios) that would all be humorous. Now the concern with this is would this break the immersion and feel of the game? any feedback on that idea is greatly appreciated!
- Since the jam item cards have been implemented, these cards are given to the player when they choose an option that boosts a stat with specific items being tied to specific stats. Now none of the art has been done for these cards, the thing is that there are essentially only 8 functions these cards will serve with 5 of them being the heirloom cards that will be hard to obtain. If you were playing this and got the same item every time your strength stat was increased would you be annoyed? Would you want more than one item visual even if it did the exact same thing?
| Windows | https://gearsteak.itch.io/fools-fortune |
| Other (web) | https://twitter.com/Gear_Steak |
| Other (web) | twitch.tv/gearsteak |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/fools-fortune |
Ratings
| Given | 120🗳️ | 33🗨️ |
One thing that I would improve is card-drawing system. In about 8 draws I drew the same card for 4 times.
Anyway, really cool entry!
I'd like to see a polished version of that.
Also, I think the theme is a bit forced into the game.
If I could change one thing it would be the pace. The text rolls out a bit slowly, and the card flips are a little slow as well. I drew the peasant revolt three times in a row, and by the third time waiting for the paragraph to unfold, I was kind of spam-clicking.
I did enjoy the descriptive text, so I didn't generally want to speed through it, just upon repetition.
I think with a little sound and a larger variety of events this could have a really nice atmopshere you could get lost in for a while.
Nice work!
As others have said, it would be nice to see how the card you draw and your player stats impact the result of your choices.
Also, it might be interesting to draw multiple arcana for one story/scenario, kind of like how actual tellers do with the various tarot reading shapes. I don't know, it might be something fun to experiment with. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think you'll be interested in some of the changes I'm making though
keep up the good work :D
Good job tho. It would be a good project to see a post-ld version of. :)
"You see I would but this card I drew says 4 on it!"
Atmosphere here is the focus, and it's pretty good. We're in dire need of music, but that's for another day. I really like the idea of you designing the engine to easily support adding more cards, looking forward to a post-jam update!
Edit: Also, I think an in-game explanation of roll-under-skill would be helpful, looking through the comments it seems like some people went in not understand haha.
My only complaint is that I didn't understand which abilities went with which choice. Graphics were amazing though.
The presence of the theme was a bit loose but the game is solid so it's not that important.
If the game was complete it would be in top 50 for certain. But you have a great foundation to build upon. Good luck on your quest!
The graphics are simply beautiful and I like how much attention to detail you've put into this game.
I also liked that I could choose what to do, love those text actions (I also love them in FTL and the Sims, haha)
The voodoo dool was cute too :D
the constant candle animation and animation of light circle added a lit to the atmosphere! Well done :D
From what I understood you did this game alone, so that deserves extra credit! I'd love to see you keep going :)
If you do so, please add music, I think with the right one you can really emphasize that atmosphere you've set up!
I'd be happy if you maybe had time to check out our game too, but you'd need a second player for it :D (but you can also play and try it alone, just you're going to win always, haha)
That said, the game play was really fun and I look forward to a post jam version to try out.
The post jam version has an in game description explaining the draw under mechanic and indicators to show which stat is being checked implemented so hopefully this piqued your interest enough to wait for the full version which I'm hoping to release in 2-3 weeks.
If there's one thing for me to learn from all of the comments its that I should have put an indicator in the jam version haha :sweat_smile:
Secondly, I love the decision making *and* the trump card mechanic, reminds me of that tabletop rpg, Talisman.
I really had fun, I wouldn't mind at all a set of less serious cards.
My only piece of advice would be to make the randomness a little better. As in, place cards in a discard pile, or keep a stack of cards that were recently played and don't play the same card twice in a row?
Amazing job, and extra kudos for finishing in time!

If you can tell me how to solve the problem so that I can try the game in better condition