LudumData

Planet of Babel by Aurel300

[raw]
made by Aurel300 for LD 38 (JAM)

Cover art

Web (Jam) | Source (Haxe) | Post-mortem

Timelapse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiu5E8eg-IY

About

Planet of Babel is a small planet that players connect to and fight over simultaneously in a turn-based tactical strategy.

Control using the mouse. Click on your units (the ones with brown circles near them) to select them, then click on the surrounding flashing tiles to move them there, or an enemy (if close enough) to attack them. Be careful, units counter-attack! Click on empty tiles that you own to be able to build new units. You can use your units to capture tiles and make them your own.

Hold the mouse close to the edges of the visible map to turn the planet (the cursor changes).

There are two primary resources - Starlight and Energy:

  • Starlight SL falls from the sky at random locations that change every single turn. If Starlight falls on a tile that you own, or a Starlight catcher that you own, you will receive it.
  • Energy NRG is generated by Generators every turn. In game, it is display as e.g. 7 / 15 – 15 in this case is the energy actually produced by the generators. 7 is the energy still available to be used this turn. Some actions (building certain units, capturing land) take a one-time charge of energy. Maintaining land and units requires a constant energy supply, so you will find that you don't have all your energy available at the beginning of your turn.

Build menu

  • Tower block - building this might crash your game, so don't do it :smile:
  • Generator (10 SL, 0+0 NRG) - generates 15 NRG per turn, unless it is moving.
  • SL catcher (15 SL, 1+1 NRG) - any SL caught is worth 2x as much (3x on land you own).
  • Boot (2 SL, 0+1 NRG) - basic melee fighter.
  • Bow and arrow (3 SL, 0+1 NRG) - ranged attacker.
  • Trebuchet (5 SL, 0+2 NRG) - slow ranged attacker.
  • Dynamite (7 SL, 5+5 NRG) - cannot attack or capture; if killed, explodes, dealing its damage to all surrounding units (friendly or not). (Warning: probably doesn't actually work)
  • Cloak & dagger (10 SL, 0+5 NRG) - fast and strong, but killed very easily.

(It was supposed to be a lot more, but oh well. Also didn't get to put in the beautiful music :( Post-jam fix coming!)

If the game is stuck at "Connecting …", the server is probably down. I try to keep it running but it crashes every now and then. Let me know on twitter and I'll do it ASAP.

Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/planet-of-babel

Ratings

Overall 486th 3.19⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 631th 2.636⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 119th 3.727⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 89th 4⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 155th 4.143⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 368th 2.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 623th 1.875⭐ 18🧑‍⚖️
Mood 670th 2.579⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 28🗳️ 10🗨️

Feedback

anarbitrarymustache
29. Apr 2017 · 18:17 UTC
I really like your aesthetics. Took me a minute to grasp what I was doing, but after re-reading your instructions, I caught on. It appears the "turns" are real-time? Or at least aren't waiting for my input. When I have a unit selected sometimes their interaction menu will just close and I notice the star light moves.
🎤 Aurel300
29. Apr 2017 · 19:20 UTC
@anarbitarymustache

Thanks :) Yeah, it is not super clear. There is a timer at the top of the screen, running in sync with the global server timer. Players choose their actions and whenever the timer resets, all chosen turns are taken. Unfortunately, any time the timer resets, tiles and units deselect.
Ibispi
01. May 2017 · 14:10 UTC
@aurel300, some feedback:
~ the aesthetics/the artstyle is great, especially the triangle-tiled planet!
~ the interface is clear, explains the units and the resources
~ one of the things I dislike is that when the turn ends the window for building a unit closes. It would be nice if it didn't close (this is my only gripe with the game)
Otherwise, nice work, it's amazing that you managed to make a multiplayer RTS game like this in such a short amount of time, well done, sir :clap:
torcado
07. May 2017 · 09:10 UTC
really really cool game! took a while to figure out, and the menus closing as the time cycles didn't help at all, but once i figured out the quirks it was pretty fun!

But the visuals are definitely my favorite part, I love them so much.

Great job! :grin:
adamalexander
07. May 2017 · 10:49 UTC
I really love the look of the game, with the low poly retro style and sorta cross hatch shading. It looks like a lot of work and skill went into making it. After starting I was very confused about how I should play the game. It took me a bit of time to realise how the turns were ticking, and I really didn't like how it cleared the selected unit after each turn. I'm not sure if there was any other players online but it was cool to play around a bit. It seemed a bit too complicated for me to figure out what I was supposed to be doing :).
axoona
08. May 2017 · 21:27 UTC
I admit in the beginning I didn't really know what I was doinig ;) it surely needs some sort of a tutorial
Also at some point I wasn't getting any more starlight, and then it completely stopped so I wasn't able to capture any more lands.
The game has big potential though!

I find that the graphics are very innovative and look like they weren't easy to implement, although for me the dithering was making it less clear/visible, I think maybe plain colors might have been better.
nardandas
10. May 2017 · 19:58 UTC
The graphics were really awesome, I really loved the style. I'm pretty interested in how they were accomplished. The gameplay seems like it may be fun, but it needs to give the player more feedback. I found it very hard to keep track of what units had and had not been moved each turn, and where they were going.
🎤 Aurel300
11. May 2017 · 10:33 UTC
@ibispi @torcado Yeah, the multiplayer is sort of hacky because it was added quite late. It was either always close everything, or actually check if the unit you had selected was moved / killed / hurt / etc. The former was simpler :)

@adamalexander Unfortunately, the server doesn't get a lot of traffic, so it was probably barren :D It can be quite fun (imho) when you connect at the same time with a couple of your friends.

@axoona The starlight is purely random, so there can be times when you don't get any … The game was originally supposed to be much slower-paced, a couple of minutes per turn, better balance … And players could keep their units even after disconnecting and reconnecting. But that didn't quite happen :) And I'm a sucker for dithering, but you're not the only one who thinks it is a bit too busy visually :)

@nardandas I wrote a blog article about this game, and its graphics. Feel free to check it out! http://www.thenet.sk/game/0015/post/0000

Thanks everyone for your feedback!
UnidayStudio
11. May 2017 · 10:45 UTC
I've liked the graphics and the sound a lot, Awesome art, fits very well with your game. But I wass very lost playing... You should make a tutorial, and give to the player a feedback when they do something. I've no idea if I was doing the right thing or just randomly playing :/. I've spent some time reading your texts here, to find out how to play.

But your game have a lot of potential! You're on the right way! Good job! :D
Hamdan
14. May 2017 · 19:29 UTC
Just wanted to say, stellar graphics, loved the overall look of the game, especially the little details like the sound it makes when you collapse the drawer at the top. Nice job!
earthcollapse
15. May 2017 · 00:42 UTC
It took me a while to understand how to play it, but I did it.
I like the graphics and colors :) Great job!
spacewarp
15. May 2017 · 11:26 UTC
A very impressive entry with very unique and interesting graphics. Not the easiest to play but fun.
mrerdalural
15. May 2017 · 12:56 UTC
Understanding the game took way too longer than it should be. I felt tempted to just skip this. A tutorial is a must for this game in my opinion. I really liked the graphics (which kept me playing) and once I got the controls I liked the overall game too. Thank you for making this game!
neontropics
15. May 2017 · 14:17 UTC
I love the graphics and sound design in this one. Gameplay is very, very confusing at first - a tutorial level would be very good to ease the player into it. It's a bit hard to tell your units and enemy units apart. Lots and lots of potential in this one if the mechanics are cleared up a bit to the player! Some music would be awesome as well.

EDIT: The post-mortem blog post was very interesting!
Baraa Marwan
16. May 2017 · 17:01 UTC
I had fun playing this one and i think that the graphics and sounds are amazing!!!
Please rate my game to get 20 in any categeory.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/monster-island
Local Minimum
16. May 2017 · 17:11 UTC
tried to play but it only said `connecting...`
🎤 Aurel300
16. May 2017 · 18:21 UTC
@unidaystudio @earthcollapse @spacewarp @mrerdalural @neontropics Yes, a tutorial or a guide in a game like this is very necessary. I tried to make the description here (and on the webpage) detailed enough, but I agree that's not as good :)

@hamdan Hah, I'm glad at least one person noticed that silly detail :)

@baraa-marwan Thank you for playing :)

@local-minimum Sorry about that, it is fixed now. The server dies every now and then, probably whenever a certain number of people have connected??? I'm not sure :)
M-1
19. May 2017 · 22:22 UTC
Congratulations on actually making a multiplayer game! However, at the time I played it, there were no other players to fight with :cry:. Having a simple AI to play with would be nice (but it is probably out of scope of LD).

I like the "polygon sphere" shape of the planet and the unique dithered graphics. After some experimenting I got used to the controls (understanding which unit was selected was not clear for me at first) and captured a few tiles...

Once again, great work!

P.S. It didn't start in Safari. Firefox was OK.
🎤 Aurel300
20. May 2017 · 11:30 UTC
@m-1 Yeah, I was considering putting a bot there for some time, but didn't want to do it after LD and didn't even try to think of the details during the LD, had enough to think about … The game would probably have been better off with some bots, if they weren't too expansive. And Safari was never an intended target, it works on Chrome and Firefox. Thanks for playing! :)