Element Shifter by Acuity

[raw]
made by Acuity for LD35 (COMPO)
I coded a basic card game! It's kind of like rock paper scissors, but you have 5 choices, and your choice has to cycle through before you can play it again.

5 elements, shift between the elements and defeat your opponent!

Controls are QWE for Player 1 and IOP for Player 2.

Fireform deals 4 damage, with bonus damage against Plant.
Waterform deals 2 damage, with bonus damage against Fire and Rock, and resists Fire.
Rockform heals you for 1, resists, and deals bonus damage against Fire and Spark.
Plantform deals 1 damage, heals you for 1, and deals bonus damage against Rock and Water.
Sparkform deals 5 damage, 2 damage to self, and deals bonus damage against Water.

Notes: I spent like 3 hours trying to balance the numbers for the cards, hopefully the cards you can play are all useful. I almost ran out of time, so I wrote the song and did sfx in the last hour. Took much longer than expected to do art for the cards. With more time, I would add something to indicate that Rock resists Fire and Spark, and Water resists Fire, and also add why all the damage you receive is what it is (like "heal for one, dealt 1 damage + 2 bonus damage" or something.) Would be nice to have some kind of "shapeshift" animation when you play each card.

Ratings

Coolness 36% 1666
Overall 3.15 523
Audio 3.00 318
Fun 2.85 655
Graphics 2.55 705
Innovation 3.15 436
Mood 2.59 667
Theme 2.65 828

Feedback

deepnight
19. Apr 2016 · 10:19 UTC
That's a really interesting game! I played it with a friend and it proved to be very tactical because we could actually see the other player available choices. A very good mind game :)
pythong
20. Apr 2016 · 14:02 UTC
yes you're right, a small animation would have been nice whre you could actually see what you described in your text (small monsters fighting)
additionally, with a "simple" card game logic like this, a simple AI (Math.random()*3) would have been nice, but I guess this would have been a bonus challenge for LD :)
LeftRight92
07. May 2016 · 16:28 UTC
A really solid entry, seeing another local multiplayer game makes me happy. A little more flair could push this game a long way.
hazzahazzam
08. May 2016 · 02:34 UTC
Well balanced! And I love the icons! The whole game needs a consistent font though.
stefvanschie
08. May 2016 · 09:52 UTC
It was fine, but I lost interest after a few minutes. Would been nice if there was more to it.