I don't get to play games like this often that feel fast, but this is a very quick game, which is appreciated. It would be more fun if the power system were more intuitive - I can build more and more power stations but don't get any additional power, which I'm not sure if that's a bug or some system I don't understand. Still, a good showing.

I feel like I was missing something when I was playing this. I would start the game, place a mine on the coal, build a power plant on the ground, but nothing would happen. I could generate coal without any problems by assigning the roles to the guys in the house, but my power plant never seemed to turn the coal into energy. I clicked on the power plant and it would just say "workers?" and I couldn't seem to do anything. I finished every game with 3 energy produced.

I liked the idea of extra power making more population, which in turn requires more power. Maybe if the guys were actually on the screen and I could have dragged them around to the different stations to make them produce something?

This is a nice start!

It took me a few tries to start to get the idea. Once I got it I was clicking furiously trying to keep up. I feel like your power bar depletes a littttttle bit too fast. For you - the dev - the game is probably easy. For us who've never seen it before, it's hard to keep up.

I wasn't able to last more than maybe 30 seconds on any given playthrough (tried over a dozen though!) since my first ones were 3 second flops.

Unity is on my to-learn list, so congrats on taking the plunge and using it on a gamejam!

I'm curious if the system you played it on was running a bit slow, The power ran out too fast! I lost at least 5 times before I figured out what to do, even with having read the instructions. I eventually got my energy bar to increase and my village grew too big to support their energy use... So Dark! That is the theme after all. Ah yea! clicking on the right side of the screen usually created a power plant immediately. Probably an issue with the button state only looking for mouse down, rather then click.

I felt like the power generation mechanic wasn't all that clear, I saw that some power plant generate when placed near coal mines, after that if I put anything else, It starts draining a lot. Good job though :)

Love the concept for this game. Unfortunately, I had a tough time with it, and I don't think I ever quite got the hang of how to produce power consistently, which led to me feeling unsatisfied and confused. I totally understand the struggle of diving into Unity though, so congrats on taking the plunge, and I hope you'll feel more confident from now on! Thanks for making this!

Bug: It can create even with the game over state. Tried several times to figure out how to played. Other than great game.

It took me several minutes to figure out that power plants don't require workers. There also didn't seem to be an easy way to exit the game.

It took a while from me. That was hard to understand at first :D But good job guys on doing a game jam with a new engine for you.

-m

It was a little bit hard to play as i didnt first understand how this works (i ran too fast out of power).

Neat idea. I think to make it work better you need to make buildings destructible to recover resources. For example, I got into a situation where I couldn't mine copper that you need to cut wood, so I ended up stuck. I lasted a long time in that state, because I had enough miners and powerplants, but I had nothing to do after that point other than watch my population grow until my energy delta switched to negative. I agree with others that it's very punishing at the start - maybe not having the initial people use so much energy would help, or giving people a power plant and a coal mine to begin with? Nicely executed, though, and a different take than the other ones I've played. I liked the different names for the people. Why are they all white and dudes, though?

Thanks everyone for your feedback! I've fixed many of the bugs you've suggested, hope you continue to play and enjoy the game!

Rob.

Interesting game, not very intuitive though. was finally happy when I was able to fill up over half the screen with power plants but i couldn't get more coal even with most of my people being miners. I only had one coal square on the map i don't know if that makes a difference.

Interesting concept although it took me a few tries to finally make some power haha.
Like some other comments, I agree that the power bar drained a little too fast for fresh players, and a bit too quick to grasp the controls of the game. I managed to create infinite power, but unsure if there is a win screen or not.
Very neat idea, and with polish I think you can take this to the next level. Keep it up guys!

Nice first attempt.
A tip: let some time to understand and experience with the options. It was so messy at the beguinning. Just that, because I like the idea and you've done a greta job.

Game way too fast with no explanation whatsoever. When I finally understood how to create power it was just placing another plants in the map.

Although the game looks promising, it needs to be balanced better.
The beginning of the game is very, very hard, you only have a couple of seconds to 1. build a mine, 2. build a generator and 3. assign miners or you lose.
It will be better if the player has a longer reaction time for this part. Maybe if the game starts with a mine/generator ready it will be enough.

Good first attempt on Unity! Wasn't able to progress at all unfortunately :( Attempted to follow the instructions listed on the page but nothing was generating energy. Would've loved to play this more, had I been able to understand what to do.

Addictive and very challenging game. Wonderfully filled with tension and panic from start to finish.

Because the game is so fast-paced, the slow clicking interface really creates a barrier to success. It would be nice if you could hover over a tile and then hit a key on the keyboard to assign a building to it. Ditto with the citizens; the game would be a lot easier to play if they were just listed along the bottom of the screen at all times and you could hover over them and hit a key to assign a job. This would also let the player easily see when a new citizen has arrived.

Overall I really enjoyed the game. Great work, especially for using a new engine. I hope you go on to develop this concept further, it is legitimately really fun.

It's challenginig, it's fun, i've tried several attemps before I understan how to play, but once you get the trick is addictive

It took a little bit to understand the game but once I got it, it was fun to play. A bit a tweaking to the power drain at the beginning would help a lot with understanding the first time someone plays. Overall good job with it.

Hotkeys to select which buildings to build would be ideal, since you hace so very little time

Nice looking game. The balance of the game is a little bit too hard or I need to git gud :smile:.

If you like, you can play and rate mine.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/icarus-launch

The power drain was a little too fast for me, so it took me a couple tries to learn. I couldn't seem to get any of my lumber jacks to collect wood. Other than that, the game was well-built.

Same as other commenters, the power runs out waaaaaaaay too fast for me to be able to play properly :-(

Nice game. But power runs out very quickly. You can't understand what happened. And help doesn't work.

Nice idea, but the game has to be balanced out better. It is really hard to survive the first minute because you need to build a few things very quickly and they burn down your saved power, but then its difficulty becames non existent and you just need to wait and see the game end by overpopulation.

Seems pretty cool but is very fast and I gave up after a few tries as I couldn't generate enough power to slow down the power bar. Maybe a bit of an in-game tutorial would help? Overall nice work tho.

The graphics look nice, but there is no music and no in-game tutorial. You're just thrown right into the action with the power bar going down and no idea what to do.

Maybe there should be a grace period, so you can make everything you need without the rush of "What do I do now"*100

Overall, good game that needs more guidence, more content (I think you only have 4 buildings so far with one being WIP), and some music so the players don't rage quit too quickly. Right now this game doesn't have a lot of play time, and adding all the above would increse that by almost 10 times, or even more!

It's a good idea, but it needs more work before I can call it completed. Better luck next time.

Cool little base building game. Actually quit hard, it took me like 15 tries to finally get a stable power production. However, once you got a hang of it, it's unlimited resources and power.

Three things that bothered me:
- Why exactly does it take power to build buildings? And how much power does it use? Does it sometimes take more or less power? What happens if I'm low on power and an automatic buidling gets built? The whole thing wasn't quite clear to me.
- The randomly generated maps are cool, but its weird that there are some with more ore less resources (I know you only need one of each, but still).
- Sometimes it's clear that you won't be able to stabalize the power production, but the bar is going down very slowly. So either you wait 20 seconds or you have to close and restart the game. A "restart game" button would have been great.

I didn't quite get what "Normal people" meant in the top left corner. It's not the total number of inhabitents and its also not the idle population. And why are they "normal"? Are the others "weird"? :D
I really like that you can see your people, and that each one has a random name. (But they are all men, how sexist... :P)

I experienced a few bugs:
- Once the "play again" button didn't work. I think it was because the job-assignment window was open.
- The help button doesn't do anything for me
- When you start the game the first round you start with half power (could it be that the power is already draining in the menu screen?)

Too bad you can only build three buildings. I love base-building games and could have played longer. But I see you already made a lab, so I hope to see more in the future! :)

Proper commentary has already been provided by all the people above, but I just thought you might like to see my final city!