Flatland by fabsy
Flatland is a minimalist-styled real-time strategy game where you play against an AI opponent for world domination.
NOTE: Unfortunately, although having invested a lot of time into programming the gameplay and AI, as well as creating the assets (sprites, models and animations), not enough time was left for sounds, a menu screen, or even a victory/gameover condition! However, I have at least included a 'Quit' button so you don't have to press ALT+F4. :thumbsup:
Controls
- Left click on a friendly structure to select it
- Scroll the mouse wheel to choose the percentage of citizens that will be moved (25/50/75/100)%
- With a structure selected:
- Right click on another structure to command your citizens to occupy it, or
- Right click on the selected structure to open the upgrade menu
Instructions / Tutorial
As there is no in-game tutorial, one will be provided right here.
If you're not familiar with this style of strategy game, the objective is simply to eliminate the opponent by capturing their structures with your units, while defending your own structures. In this game mode, a player loses when their total population is zero.
Structures are captured when their population count reaches 0 during an attack.
There are 2 types of structures: * Habitation: Generates citizens over time. These are critical to increase your total population. * Defense: Shoots at enemy citizens passing nearby, but doesn't generate any citizens.
Each structure has 3 upgrade levels which, upon activation, will consume a certain amount of citizens. Structures can also be converted to another type (paying the base cost). The upgrade menu looks like this:

For reference, the stats for each upgrade are described in the tables below.
Habitation Structures
| :frame_photo: | Upgrade | Cost | Citizen Generation Rate | Max. Population |
| -------------------------------------- | --------------------- | ----- |------------------------ | --------------- |
|
| Level 1 (Camp) | 10 | 2 seconds / citizen | 30 |
|
| Level 2 (Village) | 15 | 1.5 seconds / citizen | 40 |
|
| Level 3 (City) | 20 | 1 second / citizen | 60 |
Defense Structures
| :frame_photo: | Upgrade | Cost | Rate of Fire |
| -------------------------------------- | --------------------- | ----- |------------------------ |
|
| Level 1 (Outpost) | 10 | 1 second / shot |
|
| Level 2 (Tower) | 20 | 0.8 seconds / shot |
|
| Level 3 (Fort) | 30 | 0.6 seconds / shot |
Additional Notes
The AI should be pretty dumb so if you're generally good at games it should be a piece of cake. Structure stats are also unbalanced and the terrain layout doesn't allow for much strategy with the defense structures anyway. Please let me know if you find any other issues or have any suggestions for any future post-jam updates I might upload!
DOWNLOAD HERE
Twitter: @_fabsy
Thank you for playing!

| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/flatland |
Ratings
| Overall | 173th | 3.739⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 132th | 3.696⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 314th | 3.261⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 516th | 3.174⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 267th | 3.826⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 460th | 2.368⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 473th | 3.056⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 0🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
I'd love to see some more unit variety in the gameloop, and a way to beat the optimal strategy that is: Pool everyone in one city, beat up all the tiny cities.
Maybe add some units like Archers that kill units as they approach. Defenders that are good at defending, and attackers that suck at defense but good at attacking other cities.
Upgrade system opens a lot of tactical possibilities which makes the game really enjoyable and a fun timer waster.
I'd love to see it expanded with more levels, but the mechanics themselves already offer a great gaming experience.
The only "real" omission at the moment is a proper challenge! The current level is way too easy. It might be the AI or just the initial population numbers. A set of increasingly difficult levels, up to nigh on impossible, would have been nice.
Do continue working on this if you at all have the time. This could be great!
Cheers!
I enjoy the simple yet effective 3d art, and the citizens are surprisingly bouncy and fun for a game of this type.
The game doesn't seem to have a formal win condition, and the AI is a little simple, but all the systems work properly and it otherwise comes across as very polished.
Congratulations, and good luck in the voting phase!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDPVuoHG3u8
Lots of RTS games that get made in Ludum Dare - this time around and in the past - have a lot of jankiness or balance problems, or are impossible to figure out. This one is really elegant; it's easy to wrap your head around, flows nicely, and it's apparent that there's actually some strategy to it rather than just "click randomly and pray".
You could do very well to keep working on this, if you were so inclined. Great stuff!
Good job! Keep it up!