Populous by Astavie
A game where you manage population growth using cards!

The three things you will have to manage are: - Population - Food - CO2
Each turn, you will get a random set of cards you can play. Each card has an influence cost.
Although at first it may seem easy, remember the theme: the more you have, the worse it is (the harder it gets). This even counts for food :wink:
How many people can you handle?
Software used
Engine: Defold 2
Graphics - Tilemancer - GIMP
Audio - Musescore 2 - Bfxr - Audacity
Ratings
| Overall | 239th | 3.55⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 316th | 3.35⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 108th | 3.7⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 150th | 3.85⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 497th | 2.85⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 410th | 2.675⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 209th | 3.118⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 230th | 3.289⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 0🗨️ |
The cards themselves... to be honest, I play a lot of card games and so it seemed extremely logical to me how they work. But I understand that, if you barely play that genre, you have no idea how the cards work. Basically, `Instant` cards apply their effect right when you play them, and `X turns` cards affect the resources each turn.
- Unfortunately I don't get the rules. I had "Population: +0.01" per turn. I hit "finish" without playing a card for a few turns to grow the population. Suddenly everyone's dead. I think there needs to be a better explanation about the interactions between the resources.
- The "boing boing boing" is reeeeaaaally annoying
That being said, card games are cool and I can see how this could become really fun. Kudos to you for finishing your first LD!
Good luck and hope you get 20 ratings!
It would be nice to see the graphics, sounds, and mechanics, pushed further, just to see the potential behind this idea :)
Come play our game if you have the time : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/technologis
#### What I liked:
- The whole experience was intuitive and fun - not everything is explained up front, but it didn't have to be (and would probably be overwhelming if it was). Maybe you could just mention that mouseovers provide more information.
- interesting mechanic, i like how the various factors (influence/co2/food/pop interact).
- I like how all the effects are visible on mouseover, so you can get a feel for the cumulative effect on each stat
#### What IMO could be improved:
- "boinb boing" sound got a bit annoying :/ it is cool to hear the crowd when it gets big, but maybe the volume could be turned down a notch.
- could maybe have some more early-game cards - got a bit repetitive for a bit before I realised more would become available with tech
- still not quite sure how influence works, sometimes i couldn't click on cards even though I had more influence than their cost(?) at the bottom right, and there was space on the "board" on the left. Think it might have been a bug, as there was no buzzer sound when clicking on the cards.
- Lack of a clear goal is what stopped me playing - would rather win/lose and try again than play endlessly with no goal
#### Overall:
- Great mechanic, can see you've put a lot of thought into it! Played this for quite a while!
- Reminds me a lot of "Reigns" the mobile game, have you played it?
Yes, unfortunately some cards are unclickable if you get far in the game, which is a bug I didn't have the time to fix (I also found it pretty late).
If I were to expand this game, I would have multiple planets to play on where each planet has a unique goal and unique cards (like... for Earth colonize Mars or something, which would also unlock playing on Mars).
And yes, I do play Reigns :p
To gives some feedback, I'd add to previous comments that I was sad it ended very abrubtly, I had thousands of billions and then 0 in one turn (I believe this is due to CO2 but not sure), and I'd have liked to understand since it took me some time to get there :( Well, it demonstrates the main loop works well and even cards out of the screen + cards you can't click to prevent from enjoying the game. Well done!
Anyway, I like the idea, nice game, I've spent great time with it. It's fun, although it would be better if I fully understood the rules. It certainly has potential, keep up the good work! :)