LudumData

Electric Energy Tycoon by Jesús González

[raw]
made by Jesús González for LD 39 (COMPO)

gameplay3.png

You're the owner of a new electric power company with an exclusive contract in a city. The city will grow depending on how well you keep it powered.

Don't grow too quickly though, as the city mayor won't tolerate many power outages before terminating your contract.

Instructions and tips: - Build your first power plant away from the starting city block. Citizens dislike living close to power plants, substations and high voltage nodes. - Connect your power plant to a substation with high voltage lines. The substation lowers the voltage to residential values. - Connect the substation to the residential areas using low voltage lines, people don't mind these near their houses. - The city will grow into new blocks and upgrade existing ones much faster into well powered and valued areas. - The city won't tolerate three power outages in a single month. - Don't grow your grid too fast at the start of the game, or else the city power demand will get unmanageable quickly. - If you pollute too much, the city will start imposing penalties by taxing your income. - Base price per kWh varies each month, by external factors you cannot control. - You can see the currently powered zones by using the "POWER" button on the left.

​Missing features (maybe I'll implement them post-jam): - More important than anything else: Balance. I didn't have enough time to better playtest the game and set enjoyable costs, rates, and other values.​ - ​Saving and loading games. Also very important as games can get long. - Info on city buildings (how much each kind consumes, etc.). - Random events and offers. These should affect the kWh price, grow rate, and any other variable. - Not programmer art. - Music. For now get on Youtube and search for an Instrumental Jazz playlist to play while you play the game.

I'm pretty happy with results even with the missing features. Maybe I'll turn this into a complete game after the jam.

Windows https://jesusgonzalez.itch.io/eet
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/electric-energy-tycoon

Ratings

Overall 350th 3.286⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 490th 2.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 227th 3.333⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 34th 4.19⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 443th 2.905⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 406th 2.55⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 29🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

JnKrambrich
31. Jul 2017 · 03:47 UTC
So my humble opinion to your submission.

I like the idea, the graphics are simple but fitting.
The mechanics are simple, but i missed strongly some form of tutorial or explanation.
The balancing seems to be someway ok, but i think i have to play it longer to judge over this.

I would love to see some future developements!
Vehem
31. Jul 2017 · 17:19 UTC
I like the graphic style - simple, but well suited to the game. Main mechanic is fun and just about challenging enough, though some of the things you suggested in the missing features would add a lot to the playtime I think. Enjoyed it - hope to see some more on it later.
kromeboy
31. Jul 2017 · 17:47 UTC
Graphics is ok: it reminded me of the original Sim City, so thumbs up for nostalgia :-)

I didn't quite understand power outages: I think that i was quite under the cap when the first outage stoke me.

I think that the beginning is a little to slow so time control could be useful.

I think that this game has potential, and love to see future developments!
Thorneto
31. Jul 2017 · 17:57 UTC
Looked like Sim City but I didn't really have enough patience to figure out exactly how it worked. Cool idea though
Gurvan
31. Jul 2017 · 18:03 UTC
Graphics is not goood or bad, gameplay is really complex and difficult to learn , but when you got it is good. It reminds me of the first sim city. It have a lot of potential, you should continue development in post-jam!
designernap
31. Jul 2017 · 20:29 UTC
Really tricky to get started, came back to your page to read the tips and then I got going quite well. First power outage confused me but other than that it has a lot of potential. Biggest suggestion I have is to add a Quit button or map it to escape. Had to Alt-Tab to leave the game :)Great work though! nice jam! :D
novotmike
05. Aug 2017 · 09:31 UTC
The whole concept of the game and mechanics are really cool. As others said a bit difficult to understand. I miss some time indication other than months (so I can see that the game actually runs). It is a bit hard to see the state of the game.
Nevertheless this game has some real potential. It would be nice to see some more features (as you mentioned). Tutorial in game would also be nice.
The style and sound effects very nice, I only miss some background music. Overall the game is a great idea and I like it a lot. Great job for 48 hours.
mrboxbox
06. Aug 2017 · 13:09 UTC
Very good game. I would have liked some way to speed up time since the beginnings are pretty slow. The sound design is simplistic but very functional and doesn't get annoying.
TheMonsterFromTheDeep
09. Aug 2017 · 23:09 UTC
Not so bad. It's kind of confusing exactly how each thing works - I think explaining that the power nodes have a range in which buildings around them are powered would be helpful.

The main problem is that the game is very unfriendly to beginners - there's no way to remove or disable power nodes, so if you build a bunch in the earlier stages in order to consume more of your total than you will suddenly have a bunch of power outages but not have enough money to buy new generators. So then you are reduced to having to just wait out the early game until you can get more generators, which takes a long time because you can only earn a few hundred dollars every month.
SoKette
15. Aug 2017 · 11:10 UTC
Nice tycoon game ! Really difficult but really satisfying, great for realaxing time.
Graphics reminded me of simcity and those really early tycoon games :D
sixteen
15. Aug 2017 · 19:06 UTC
This was great! Unfortunately, my town grew pretty slowly initially as I got to grips with it, and I ended up buying pylons everywhere. I'd love to give it another try and win a bit better!
🎤 Jesús González
15. Aug 2017 · 21:39 UTC
@TheMonsterFromTheDeep Yes, a bulldozer feature is badly needed to make gameplay more enjoyable, specially at the beggining.

Thanks everyone for playing and rating!
LuckyFeathers
15. Aug 2017 · 23:33 UTC
Good game. Unlike some others I didn't struggle to understand it. Instructions helped a lot though. Game is really slow, especially at the beginning. Being able to change the time speed would be great. Also a timer of some sort, showing how much time there's left of the month, would be great. Either a bar or counting each day.
Herman Chau
16. Aug 2017 · 02:34 UTC
I managed to get few new buildings and earned $500 for the next month but then stopped because I couldn't see if there was any way to speed up time or not. Like what others have said, I think I would have greatly appreciated some sort of indicator to know how fast time is passing or some idle animations to show that the game is running.
tomdeal
16. Aug 2017 · 11:05 UTC
Cool idea! I like the mechanics, which were a bit complicated at first, maybe add an ingame tutorial. Otherwise I had fun playing the game.