The Singularity Wars by dollarone

made by dollarone for LD 39 (JAM)

The world as we know it has ended. Mankind is long gone. Eradicated. The singularity eventually happened and AIs decided humans were a threat easily crushed.

In our place, different AIs battle endless wars against each other. As the sun burns the earth through the evaporated ozone layer, the machines have made themselves solar powered - however, their batteries are slow to recharge: the wars rage but the robots are constantly running out of power.

Take control of one of these AIs and crush anyone that dare confront you.

Use mouse to select units; green tiles mark where you can move (of a cost of 1 battery charge) and red tiles with a crosshair marks targets that your robot can attack (for a variable battery charge cost).

Build new robots in your factory and claim more factories to gain the upper hand.

Each round all robots (and claimed factories) re-charge 1 battery charge each.

Win the war by destroying all enemy robots and claiming all their factories.

The game currently supports local multiplayer, the intention was to also support online multiplayer, which I hope to make available soon in a post-compo version. Additional maps were designed, but these will also need to be added to the post-compo version.

Comments and feedback much appreciated!

All code/art/music by me during LD39.

Update: I have continued working on a post-compo version. This version (link below) enables you to play on the other maps I made during LD, and I also made the UI not target enemies if you don't have enough battery to attack. Also some bugs were fixed (thanks to Danae and Aurel for playing the game on twitch and finding the bugs)!

Update2: The post-compo version now supports online multiplayer! Challenge your friend to an online match!

HTML5 (web)	http://dollarone.games/games/ld39/compo/
Other (web)	http://dollarone.games/games/ld39/postcompo/
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-singularity-wars

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Feedback

GistNoesis

02. Aug 2017 · 20:41 UTC

I played against myself. There are some interesting mechanics. There is the classic chess choice of taking the center (i.e. taking control of neutral factories to gain an edge), vs counter-attack on the side (i.e rush to the adversary). I didn't managed to launch bombs with the annihilator. There is a Civilization feel to it, but with units that must work together. There is probably a way to make it a nice tactical-strategy game. It still needs a lot of work and play-through to adjust balance but there is potential. Probably adding more factories and bigger map can make the game even more fun.

udo

04. Aug 2017 · 14:01 UTC

I played hot seat multiplayer with myself :) There is a lot to like about this game. Maybe the UI could have been a bit more intuitive, but it did the job. Playing against myself ended in a bit of a stalemate even though one faction took control of the neutral factory it was pretty hard and lengthy to actually overcome the enemy. Overall very promising, looking forward to that post-compo version! :)

Edit: after thinking about this for a while, an idea to make the gameplay more dynamic would be to add a secondary objective to the mission (other than just annihilation. For example, if the map had a reactor in the middle, and factions had to hold that ground in order to get an energy boost from it, that might add another interesting layer of depth.

Aurel300

05. Aug 2017 · 10:07 UTC

We streamed your game with Danae plays on Twitch. :) Here's a link:

[Danae streams Ludum Dare 39: Day 2, part 1: The Singularity Wars](https://youtu.be/bhOEvC7XxZo?t=23m27s)

Cute little strategy. You might want to spend more time getting rid of bugs next time though :D (different cost of units for the two teams, inability to attack from certain spots / move into them, UI glitches in the sidebar) … Apart from this the balance is probably off – whoever gets extra factories first has a very large advantage. Maybe add other elements to the game, e.g. you need to use resources other than energy to build units in factories? I was also unsure about the very slow battery recharging on units, though maybe I was just too impatient.

We had fun playing the duel though, so good job! :)

bombjack

08. Aug 2017 · 08:48 UTC

I really like the idea. It's a simple but effective wargame.

Eremiell

08. Aug 2017 · 17:27 UTC

Nice graphics, nice audio, nice execution.

I'm not much into wargames, but there's certainly some gameplay here.

Nice piece kudos to you.