Furlong Fracas by fazz

[raw]
made by fazz for LD 41 (COMPO)

A blackjack inspired real-time horse racing game. Your horse's speed and direction are determined by the cards you play.

Each phase you are dealt four cards. Select two cards to play, from either your hand or your retained cards. Then choose which cards to discard, which can be all of them, but you can keep one dealt card and add it to your retained cards, to play in a later phase.

The higher your cards score the faster your horse runs. You gain a speed bonus for hitting 10 points exactly! (ten is even faster than eleven). Some of the cards have little arrows, which move your horse sideways. Try not to get crowded out.

Time spent drawing a slightly dumpy horse: 5 hours

There are a few things that I had finished then removed from the game, for playability sake, like different colour jockey kits, a few other cards, some menu items. I might add them back in after LD.

I hope you enjoy the game!

UPDATE [APR 23] - I realised I hadn't setup the view for mobile, so fixed this and re-deployed. Then noticed some bugs with mobile, no sound in Chrome + very occasional issue with a button jamming. I might try fix those things when I've rated some games.

UPDATE [APR 26] - I fixed the sound issues and game crashing in Chrome. If any Phaser devs out there interested, the issue/fix is here.

Ratings

Overall 106th 3.82⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 179th 3.58⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 160th 3.7⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 144th 3.98⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 70th 4.06⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 99th 3.587⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 331th 2.682⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 139th 3.479⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 24🗳️ 21🗨️

Feedback

incobalt
23. Apr 2018 · 23:26 UTC
Woah, those hoofbeats really made the game present, good job on that! I think the card balance is a bit off. There are games where you play your best hand every time and just get beat out by someone who keeps getting 10s. But it was fun :D
Articulated9
25. Apr 2018 · 16:22 UTC
This was a well-implemented idea! Good animation, solid gameplay mechanic, and it successfully iterates on the theme and does so in a way that's easy to pick up and fun.

Like it! :smile:
mattpattie2
25. Apr 2018 · 16:27 UTC
Fun to play. and feels finished
Thankyou for the game :)
RilleP
25. Apr 2018 · 16:27 UTC
Simple but still a nice experience!
Odward Frenry
25. Apr 2018 · 16:48 UTC
I'm very glad I went back and noticed the note about Chrome issues--in my experience, the button jamming wasn't just occasional but happened every time I tried to move to discard on turn 2 (during all five attempts to play). Switched browsers and, as expected, had no issues.

This is an *extremely* charming game. The art and animation is wonderful, the sound adds so much, and the card system is very elegant and simple. The first few turns do feel a little like you're at the luck of the draw as to whether you get blocked in or not, but maybe I'm missing something--and the games are quick enough that even if this happens, it's not terrible.

The one suggestion I would make is that after you select your play and before you select your discards, in addition to being shown everyone else's speed, you get shown their planned sideways movement too. It wouldn't be relevant most of the time, but there would be rare instances where it could strategically influence what you choose to retain.

Out of curiosity, what all is in the deck? Are 4 cards generated from a pool of options every turn or is there an actual card list that gets randomized and drawn from throughout the game?

Great game!
🎤 fazz
25. Apr 2018 · 17:00 UTC
@Odward-frenry thanks! It is a set deck with fixed cards that get randomly shuffled at the start of the game, so you're likely to see the same cards every playthrough just at different stages in the race. The idea being if you can save certain cards knowing the likelihood of others turning up later in each race. I also thought the game might work as a deck-builder, but that would've been waaaaaay out of scope.

Re your suggestion; that would be handy! My original plan was to show the scores and directions of the horses in front of you BEFORE you choose you cards, and the one behind only after you'd chosen. Giving them a slight tactical advantage. But then I'd also planned to add a slipstreaming mechanic. As always with Ludum Dare, a lot got stripped out. Thanks for playing!
mrPenguin
25. Apr 2018 · 18:23 UTC
Wow, i love it, is super nice, loved specially the graphics, those horses are so awesome, the game is simple, but works very good. Thank you : D
Swarrly
25. Apr 2018 · 19:54 UTC
This game was really great. Simple mechanics. Well executed. I never won though. I felt like the other horses got 10s way more than I did. The graphics and sound effects were on point.
mAnimal
25. Apr 2018 · 19:57 UTC
Congratulation to made it as Compo.
Awasome mood did by sexy graphics dude. In race there is some aspect missing for me, but good base for finish it later as a regular casual game.
SundanceKid
25. Apr 2018 · 19:58 UTC
This was actually really cool. Felt pretty satisfying to slowly pull ahead of the pack. Good job :)
those-30-ninjas
25. Apr 2018 · 20:00 UTC
I really enjoyed the art. I feel like there wasn't a ton of strategy. I like the concept of horse racing with cards though. Nice game. :)
DinoGraveyard
25. Apr 2018 · 20:02 UTC
I got in 3rd place! Interesting idea and I like the graphics. I don't know if I'm just unlucky but the highest card I ever pulled was a 6. Lots of 1-4. That was the case both times I played. Maybe I was just expecting the "get close to 21, but not over 21" type of card rules when I read blackjack inspired.
rplnt
25. Apr 2018 · 20:06 UTC
I won my first game, got hooked, and then couldn't replicate my success! Nice little game, good work.
Noxbuds
25. Apr 2018 · 20:31 UTC
I like this. The were well put together, despite being "placeholder". I liked the mechanics, but it took me a while to understand them... sorta. I don't think I really get it, but it was cool making my horse go 2nd place:)
el-pepi
25. Apr 2018 · 20:57 UTC
Very good game. Took me a sec to understand, but once I got it, I managed to win quite easily! Pretty fun.
Hilvon
25. Apr 2018 · 21:50 UTC
An interesting simplistic game.

A racing bit here is mostlu for the estetics, since the main bit of the game is basically getting most points possible.

Managed to win the race on the third attempt. Jough this was mostly thank to RNG. And sometimes RNG is just... bad. When one of opponents scre 10s 3 truns in a row it just doesn't feel fair.
Belga54
27. Apr 2018 · 14:57 UTC
It was a good idea. The most things I liked were the gameplay and the graphics! GG!
SraBatata
01. May 2018 · 06:08 UTC
Great idea you had. The graphics are cute and the gameplay is very neat. Congrats!
SecondDimension
05. May 2018 · 20:42 UTC
Loved this one, played a few times until I won a race. Graphics are nice and I liked the horse running sounds. I think it could do with a little something extra to add to the tactics (like a risk/reward, push your luck type thing), but on the whole this was a really great jam game.