Pretty interesting and nifty concept for an action strategy type of game! I enjoyed it quite a bit, though the mechanics confused me a bit as new tiles came in and I lost too quickly. Maybe some way of being able to recover from a failure, or at least not receiving a full setback would have been nice.

For a jam this game has a great amount of depth! Probably my favorite entry I have played so far, this is the first game I played that feels complete in what it is. Very nice work.
Some criticism: Tutorial was confusing. I tried to drag tiles from my side unto my robot silhouette. Perhaps the wording "drag on your robot body" is confusing. Additionally, battles seem more random than skill based. In fact, as I write this, I am wondering if the whole battle is deterministic in the sense that no optimal strategies can beat certain configurations. Is this correct? If so, then some logic on how to structure enemies placement to allow victory would help the feeling of random defeat. Thanks!

There are some cool mechanics here. I felt like the main thing that kept me from getting very far was luck. I found the placement of cores had a tendency to be... inconvenient for me, destroying (or forcing me to destroy) weapons or components that might be useful. :-P It's a great idea, but I think it would have been neat if there was some kind of save feature so I didn't have to start over. And an option to grind against weaker enemies for components.

I ended up getting as far as floor 5 (I think). I couldn't seem to get past that for reasons stated above and in other comments. Eventually the game crashed, and I stopped. I don't know if there's a log I can send you?

I really do like what I see though, I'm curious to see where this game takes you!

That is an impressively well thought out set of mechanics for an LD game. The randomness kind of screwed me over though. Once they get more space I would frequently come up against robots that I would never be able to beat. I suppose that you could say this is par for the rougelike course, but it was really frustrating. It's not like I could have made better decisions earlier, my game was doomed form the moment I hit start. This happened a few times. I think I got to level 6 in my best run.

This game really needs audio. At least some music to match the dark atmosphere.

It would be interesting to see if you develop this further, because the game has a lot of potential. It's certainly original, and I'm glad that I played it. I agree with previous posters that the game needs audio, but it's a solid effort nonetheless. The writing really helped to set the tone of the game, so congratulations to the writer also.

A stylish and polished action puzzle game. It's a lot of fun to arrange all your components and there seems to be a lot of room to strategize. Keeping this around to play it more later! Runs well on Linux with Wine.

@pjchardtthesecond,@pixel-game-wizard, @nintendoeats Right, certain enemy layouts might be impossible to beat. This is a significant problem, but I had no time during the jam to do something about it. Right now I'm working on a Post-Jam version which will feature more advanced procedural generation to prevent certain configuration from spawning. Audio is planned as well.

NOOOOO why restarted :D I like to waiting enough power to shoot and collecting other robot items . Its match with theme

I like innovative mechanics design, the story is well written, some extra sfx would be better.

This is so cool! I wish there was more of it. Maybe endless randomized robots to fight, with more modules being revealed slowly? Anyway, the gameplay is BRILLIANT. Simply genius. It's so much fun! The graphics are simple but they work well for a game like this. Too bad there isn't music, I think it would really help to add some tension. All in all, this game is absolutely one of my favorites so far. Keep up the good work!

Really enjoyed this game, there was so much depth involved even though it was just a few mechanics. Perhaps it was just because I couldn't get far enough but upgrades to your grid-size would've been great. I didn't necessarily mind the RNG deaths, I think that's a part of a roguelite, the idea that you want to roll the dice one more time and see if you get better luck this time around. Well thought out gameplay and interesting use of the theme!

Inresting gesign

I think the game goes to fast, and without sounds it is difficult to know whats happening. Also it's difficult to know where did you already shoot on a big tile. Anyway, I enjoyed the mechanic, unique here in this Ludum, at least for now, and played several times, not winning that much.

Really cool design but I wish I started off with another gun. It's really easy to get beat out especially by the sniper. I thought it was really unique though!

One of the best games from the gameplay point I have played so far! Beat it like twice.

On the first run I missed all the narrative writing because was too focused on tutorial, but on the next I got the atmosphere. Catchy ending by the way :)

I really like your approach to do mechanics. Every new element adds depth and every decision feels impactful.

It would be awesome to add visual feedback on the shots/destroys and explain weapon mechanics with some fades/highlights, cause sometimes it's not obvious what just did happend or how exactly weapons works. By the way why you hide enemy energy level?

Oh, and one more thing — for me this pause clicking to catch the right moment feels a little bit odd. Maybe it makes sense to add an auto-pause on key events or something like that.

Great job and good luck with the post jam version!

Great game i love tactics, but i think it was too short. I need more stuff like that. Good job :heart:

Really cool game, I was surprised at the depth of systems you built in such a short time!

Like others have said, some sound would really help with identifying what's going on.

Very interesting gameplay! Some sound would have made the experience much more richier. Great work!

Very cool gameplay mechanic. It allows player to make decisions and build but it is very simple too. I liked the game a lot! Thank you for making this game!

Everything is perfect. Excellent and deep concept, smooth gameplay, clear tutorial, beautiful graphics. Nice backstory. No bug. The difficulty is well balanced.

YOU DESERVE A STANDING OVATION!

Such a shame there's no music, it would have been perfect.

A small problem though: If all of your cores are disabled, you should be able to use your battery before getting a game-over.

Nice, different mechanics!

It's enjoyable to think to use your strategy to beat the enemy so good innovation :)

Very good game! The gameplay mechanic is really interesting and fun. One of the most fun games of this edition. Good job!

Nice game. I didn't get well how things worked on the first try, but got it later. Would be really nice to have some kind of background music.

Kinda hard (not a bad thing, is kind of a rogue-like)... Although, maybe one single retry per run would be good

Interesting mechanics. Would like to have sounds and some dynamic background sound track. Wouldbe interesting to see a multiplayer out of this.

Amazing! The gameplay is innovative and the storyline sets up the mood immediately, as everyone said, the audio would have helped even more but just with the graphics and the story, it felt like the audio was here and I was able to imagine it, but that I'd've muted it. :D

I really enjoy entries that took the theme a little bit further than just a battery gauge running out so I like your stealing system.

Kinda frustrating to randomly die without always knowing where it came from, and it cuts the story for a long time if you don't manage to get back to the next level quickly. I was more interested in the narration than the uprising difficulty so it was a little bit annoying.

But having to restart from the beginning is something that is explained by the story itself (I interpreted it as a "I'm dead so another robot with the same objective is gonna try to reach the sun too and the player will play this robot").

It is still a great game overall and I really enjoyed playing it!

Thank you for your awesome feedback, @kiirohanabi! I'm happy you liked the game.

We are currently making tweaks to the overall balance and expecting a track from a composer, so the post-jam version will hopefully be better in that regard. Stay tuned ^^

This is really cool! Nice job! :)

Very interesting battle system you got here. Node based abilities, position matters (most of the time), power management. It all clicks together nicely. Reminded me of one of my old ideas and now I want to get back to working on that. I love it when that happens, thanks!

The writing is good too. Didn't get to read the ending though, as the RNG barrier grew too high. Tried dozens of times and just cannot beat some of the crazier combos. Will keep trying though.

Great work!

You did a great game congratulations.

Nice game! the graphics were nice, I really liked the story, the tutorial was super helpful and easy to understand, the gameplay looked solid and there is defintly some strategy involved!

Music and sound effects would really improve the quality of the game, even if it's not yours. Since you're on a jam, you can use music others have made. I suggest royalty free music, and incompetch.com has you covered in a lot of varieties! If the game would save after each battle it would be very helpfull.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing! Well done!

These are some great mechanics, and they fit very nicely with the theme. My main problem was the lack of distinct art for different modules, which just made it hard to read a situation. Also, the real-time mechanics felt a little off, especially since you could just pause it at any time. I think I would rather it be turn based or have a little more of a reason to be real-time. Very fun, and I certainly hope to see more of what you can do with it!

VEry good game, I have testing a lot of game today, but this one have hook me, i play it while 40 min! i like it! Simple but not simplistically and the finishing it great !

Genuinely a really good concept for a game. One of the few game's I've seen that have tried to create a good mood as well! The gameplay is also really interesting, I could certainly spend age optimising what arrangement I've got after every turn, but the game does a good job at keeping you power balanced (literally). Good show! :grin: I've book marked the post-jam version to play later, I think I'm gonna like it!

A really excellent game all round, and one of the best I've played all Dare! The thing that really struck me was the possibility to experiment with a pacifist playstyle, though. Destroying all their weapons and leaving them just with a single core mightn't have been kind, but I imagine it would have let them stay alive. The complications from when this is and isn't possible are really interesting though, in a way games rarely cover. Most games providing pacifist options as a simple choice means it's already been explored more than the largely impossibility of a pacifist playstyle here.

I think if you chose to explore more in that direction, you could make a really remarkable game!

A really fresh concept for combat mechanics and good story writing. The difficulty was a bit all over the place. On some runs the RNG was just merciless and stopped me on the 2nd or 3rd level, but on the final run I lost only one component throughout the game.

Nice game. I liked the history, combat system and the art. Great job.