Housing Crisis Island Wars by piscythe

[raw]
made by piscythe for LD 42 (COMPO)

It's a familiar problem. You've got a lot of people, they keep making more people, and the lot of them all want roofs over their heads. Building houses is pretty fast with the fancy crystal energy generators your people have, but there's a bit of a complication. The trouble is that you happen to live on an island in the sky, and there isn't all that much space to go around. There are more islands to expand to, but they're infested with weird blue bug things. Looks like if you want to avoid running out of space to put houses, you'll have to put the 'aggressive' in 'aggressively expansionist.'

  • Controls: Mouse + Hotkeys (1-4)

  • Left click an island to select it.

  • Use the buttons or hotkeys to create buildings and units at the selected island.

  • With an island selected, right click another island to send units from the first island to the second.

  • Your population will grow over time. If you have more population than housing space, excess population will drain your crystals. If you run out of crystals, you lose.

  • Use small units to fight small enemies and big units to fight big enemies

Known issues: - Unit sprites sometimes flicker or hide behind islands. - Victory condition is not implemented. Just try to conquer every island.

LD42--1.png LD42-0.png

Ratings

Overall 359th 3.381⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 343th 3.286⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 407th 3.119⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 248th 3.786⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 454th 3.024⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 423th 2.816⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 19🗨️

Feedback

ixchow
14. Aug 2018 · 07:16 UTC
Housing Crisis Island Wars is one of those node-based RTS's, like https://www.kongregate.com/games/gamezhero/tentacle-wars or Eufloria (is there a better name for these?). I like the twist of being able to build different structure on the nodes, and also the idea that population is what kills you. All the pieces of a neat game are here, but it could use some more balance. Right now, it seems there is just one 'best' strategy (build 2's, then 1's when you have to), though it's not enough for me to conquer all the islands...
BaronB
19. Aug 2018 · 01:03 UTC
Hey, neat game! My suggestion is to include instructions. I didn't really know what to do. (I know you mention in on this page, but I just jumped right in.)
Makbeard
19. Aug 2018 · 01:33 UTC
Definitely interesting! Can see this as being a game with multiple levels of increasing difficult where you want to conquer every area
Zicboy
19. Aug 2018 · 06:20 UTC
Awesome game. I was pleasantly suprised with the overall mood of the game. Hope you develop a post jam version for this!
Danny Sun
19. Aug 2018 · 09:25 UTC
Nice and interesting games! Well done!
Balance686
19. Aug 2018 · 17:55 UTC
Great mechanics! You incorporated the theme well and the graphics are pleasant. The game is genuinely fun to play. Some in game instructions would be a good idea and sound would seal the deal. I'd definitely play a post jam version! Great submission!
🎤 piscythe
19. Aug 2018 · 19:11 UTC
@ixchow There is at least one strategy that consistently beats this game, and it doesn't sound like you have it. Spamming power generators as much as possible is the early game strategy, but the idea is that sometimes it's better to focus on population capacity to buy yourself time. Thanks for your feedback!

@baronb That goes in the 'I didn't have time' bin. Thanks for your feedback!

@makbeard I had that idea too, but I only had time to make the one map. Thanks for your feedback!

@danny-sun Thank you!

@zicboy @balance686 I honestly wasn't expecting enthusiasm for a post-jam version, but just reading my own comments I can see a few things that could be added or improved. That would pull time away from another project, though...
JulianMH
20. Aug 2018 · 13:50 UTC
Hey, MacOS Version is broken. I think the LD42DEF.app/Contents/MacOS folder is not supposed to be empty, usually the executable file should be there.
oddeyed
20. Aug 2018 · 20:25 UTC
Pleased to report the Linux build works well on Fedora :penguin:

I got totally caught out by the overpopulation draining crystals which was funny and surprising (I should read the instructions closer). It reminded me a lot of Eufloria which I really liked, but tying in the space constraint in the way you did matches the theme nicely and also speeds up the game quite a bit. The visuals are overall clear and fun, although I didn't realise the big bugs are so much more lethal until they killed all my lil' fishies.

This was definitely fun and held my attention for a few attempts (but I couldn't beat it). Great job!

My #1 feature to add would be a counter for how many fishies you have on an island because I wasn't able to tell whether I had a chance against the bugs or not.
Liven
26. Aug 2018 · 21:13 UTC
Really good game
Rahim_Pxr
27. Aug 2018 · 00:29 UTC
Nice game, I hope to see more updates and improvments sooner.
If you don't bother take a look at our game when we focused on Graphics and visuals and see the results that we got:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42
Commenti haddi
folex70
27. Aug 2018 · 00:30 UTC
release a web version please! if possible
Vivoubos
27. Aug 2018 · 12:39 UTC
Nice game... I loose like a noob at the end, my army was not able to kill every body on this island ^^ Good job, the game speed a long as you play :)
DarkGuardsman
27. Aug 2018 · 17:44 UTC
Great game, could use a little balance work but that is about it.
GreenAndSubmarine
02. Sep 2018 · 12:08 UTC
Reminded me a little of Candy Box, with the crystal production and indirect landgrabs. Not as easy as it looks at the start! All in all, I've really enjoyed it, good job!