LudumData

War in the Sky by ZYXer

[raw]
made by ZYXer for LD 38 (JAM)

war<em>in</em>the_sky.png

Play my game online here.

"Rival countries have repeatedly provoked us! We must make sure our great nation is prepared for war!"

Set up your nation's base with the help of your airships. Optimize resource production and airship task priorities. Build the Ministry of War to win the game.

This is an idle game. Feel free to let it run in the background and go do something else.

smallscreenshots.png

Low FPS Problems

If you are experiencing a low frame rate: Try to play the game in Firefox. For some reason I get the highest frame rate in Firefox.

Controls

  • Left mouse button: interact with buildings and airships
  • Left/Right or A/D or Q/D: rotate world
  • P: pause game
  • Z: zoom in / zoom out

Time-Lapse Videos

Youtube

About the Game

I had two goals for Ludum Dare 38: * Graphics made of simple shapes with a limited color palette. * Implementing a job queue system allowing for agent-specific priorities.

Did I achieve my goals? * Did I make a game with simple graphics and a limited color palette? Yes, I did! * Did I make a game with a job queue system? Yes, I did! * Did I make a fun game? No, not really...

I ran out of time and wasn't able to implement some major gameplay elements. Obviously you should have been able to build your own airships. The other continents on the planet were meant for AI enemy nations against which you could have fought.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the graphics and have fun playing around with the job queue system! :)

Fun Facts

The game has: * 4 nations * 16 airship hull types * 16 airship balloon types * 71 airship icons * 230 airship names (taken from real ships that were used 1850 - 1920) * 4,180,480 possible airship combinations

Post-Jam Changes

  • I added the tutorial pop-ups in the top right corner for players that don't read this description.
  • I adjusted the airship's animations to make them a bit more physically correct.
  • I made the Ministry of War cheaper.

Links

  • Web : http://www.zyxer.net/ld38
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/war-in-the-sky

Ratings

Overall 93th 3.923⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 250th 3.423⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 170th 3.577⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 248th 3.692⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 20th 4.654⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Mood 111th 3.846⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Given 33🗳️ 15🗨️

Feedback

alisoncox
01. May 2017 · 12:25 UTC
I really like the graphics, the muted colour pallet really sets a tone and works very well. This is definitely the kind of game you need to play for a while to get into it. As you say it's a sort of run in the background and come back to it when you think your ships have finished their tasks.
Well done on the whole queuing system too, seems to work very well!
smbe19
01. May 2017 · 13:29 UTC
I love the art style! I think the game is quite fun to play. It would be nice if you didn't have to activate a certain building over and over again but instead could just activate / deactivate it.

At first it kinda reminded me of Reus.

As you don't have any audio you should probably opt out of this category.
SleepyStudios
08. May 2017 · 18:46 UTC
This is incredibly polished and slick. Not a big fan of resource management games in general but it's kept me hooked for way longer than I expected! Big fan of the ships managing everything for you: the animations there are lovely too, nice work!
Wheffle
08. May 2017 · 23:37 UTC
This is an awesome idea. RTS/building/simulation games are complex and take a deceptive amount of time to develop, so this was very ambitious for a game jam. The graphics are really awesome and I see the beginnings of a really fun game. I had a lot of fun just building stuff and watching the airships work. Nice work!
Thendash
09. May 2017 · 17:19 UTC
Art is great, and UI felt really polished. But I'm disappointed there wasn't any audio, I would have loved to listen to the airships putt around. Also, maybe I missed something, but I'm not sure it really counts as an idle game since nothing happens without your input. Maybe increase the costs of things and/or add upkeep costs, but add the ability to set airships to auto produce a resource. All in all, I enjoyed it though so good job!
La mecanique du plastique
10. May 2017 · 12:30 UTC
Wow ! I was deeply addicted to your game ! I played and it run in the background intermittently since yesterday and I just won !
I liked it very much. A first glance it gave me a really good impression, as the UI is very clean and well made and the art in general is beautiful and gives, with the animations, a peaceful atmosphere which is really pleasant. I would love to see more to it, like types of population, new kind of factory etc. I'll follow your good work <3
steve
13. May 2017 · 16:07 UTC
The artwork was great, loved the steampunk-esque setting too, as you mention I'd have liked to have been able to build more airships, and it would have been nice to have some way of setting an automatic build order, as constantly clicking to generate resources was a bit tiresome; good work overall though!
Laguna
17. May 2017 · 09:56 UTC
Awesome Game! I really love the graphics style with the beautiful palette and the airship movements and all the small details like the flags moving in the direction of the wind. The ingame tutorial was very helpful (extra points for having a tutorial at all (even post compo)). The game design is also very nice. The only feature i was really missing was to destroy a building or to stop the building process (misclicked one time).

Please keep on working on this great game. I would love to play a full version of this. It could work very well on mobile too. :+1:
gamepopper
17. May 2017 · 12:23 UTC
Nice world managing game with incredibly smooth graphics! The UI is very clear and concise and the game flows smoothly between events! Great work!
joemid
17. May 2017 · 13:13 UTC
Awesome! Can't wait for sounds! Would love to play this like Word's with Friends (or insert better example here) online and somewhat turn based. What are your plans for the future? Thanks and congrats on a great jam game!
C0nst4ntin
17. May 2017 · 13:34 UTC
Nice game! I liked it a lot although I'm usually not playing this kind of games!
Also, hope these votes help you to get a Rank!
I would also appreciate it if you take a look at my game!
itsandrea
17. May 2017 · 13:45 UTC
Graphics and animation is amazing! Love the minimal design and concept behinf the game mechanics, definetly really polished for being a jam game, but I love it!
Scriptorum
17. May 2017 · 13:45 UTC
Beautiful art work and style. Lovely animation. So sad you didn't get any audio in there, it would have really improved the already wonderful mood. The game mechanics work well. The world could have been a lot smaller, it doesn't take that much to build the ministry, but it looks great. I gather you would eventually add other opponents and a bigger tech tree, etc. Of course, I would have liked the ability to demolish a spot. The ability to "deselect" from the queue would also be nice, but I can see an argument for keeping it the way it is. Nice entry!
AlexHoratio
17. May 2017 · 13:46 UTC
Beautiful graphics! I enjoyed it! :)
Phaix
17. May 2017 · 13:50 UTC
Awesome! It's really a great game so far. Its far and polished and works great. Can't wait to see it improving.
bog13
17. May 2017 · 13:57 UTC
Not so fun and little bit slow (I used firefox). Great great great realisation though, I think the game has a very nice potential. Bien joué :)
puppetmaster
17. May 2017 · 21:16 UTC
The visual presentation is very cool. Great gui design! The animations a beautiful.
Congrats for your entry. Keep up the great work!
MaxguN
17. May 2017 · 21:55 UTC
Loved it! Graphics are great, feel is great (zoom, animations), maybe a bit too much inertia when rotating? Game design could definitely be improved regarding balance between waiting time / orders given. Background music would be a nice addition (in addition to new gameplay features like upgrades, or other stuff).

Congrats for that game!
Zeriver
17. May 2017 · 22:09 UTC
Very pretty game, elegant and stylish. You definitely achieved your goal of making game with "Graphics made of simple shapes with a limited color palette" and task queue seems to work fine too. Gameplay is more of a zen experience and to be honest i don't have anything against it but some background music would improve mood of the game. Actually it was fun to min-max your airships and try to build everything as efficient as you can. With more mechanics and some in-game challanges it could be really engaging game.
Tex Killer
18. May 2017 · 19:15 UTC
This game's technical quality is among the top of all the games I rated here! You're very much congratulated on it!

The only minor problems I had with the game were the same as the others said: no audio and lack of automated resource crafting.

This is seriously very close to release quality. All it lacks to be a full fledged game is content and some play-testing, really.

Good job, and thank you for rating my Little Scout! By the way, if you have the time and disposition, could you answer my question regarding the glitchy lines at Little Scout's page? Thank you very much either way! :)