TRIWAR by Donitz

Play the game at https://donitz.itch.io/triwar
TRIWAR is a strategy game about revenge and triangles. The high priestess of Tressia shall vindicate her fallen civilization by transforming the very life of her enemies.
TRIWAR can be played in the browser using keyboard+mouse (highly recommended), mouse-only or with touch devices.
The game was coded in pure Javascript ES6 (so no Internet explorer, sorry). An interesting sidenote: This is the first game I've made which is completely devoid of graphical assets. Everything in the game is rendered through Javascript as 2D shapes. As a result this game will render crisply at any resolution.
Another tidbit: The AI in this game was based on a boids-like model, with each unit type having its own rules: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boids
I hope you enjoy the game!



| HTML5 (web) | https://donitz.itch.io/triwar |
| Source code | https://donitz.itch.io/triwar |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/triwar |
Ratings
| Given | 70๐ณ๏ธ | 27๐จ๏ธ |
:)
The game was fun, and the levels were varied enough to not get bored :) Very nice entry ^^
I made it to the Spawning Pools (I think) level and was not able to beat it. The difficulty ramp felt pretty good leading up to that level, but then I just got stuck there.
Fun game, and I'm really glad you made it!
Great work!
Great job! :)
Units got stuck behind walls in levels with narrow space, but that's about it. Very well executed!
I also think that there is too much of a focus on kiting enemies. Maybe add a shield that will protect you from hits a couple of times so that you can charge into the battle field. The movement should not be tied to the mouse. But then again, it'd make it touch incompatible.
The pathfinding can be a bit iffy sometimes. You could add a retreat order button that would make all units stop attacking and retreat to make things easier.
The graphics are minimalistic but good. Animating with simple graphics like this can be hard. What you can do is Lerp the color of the units as they are about to attack (to red or some easily discernible color). That way the player has more information on when to attack/retreat. I feel that clarity and availability of information is the cornerstone of strategy game design. Look at into the breach for example. There's a gdc talk available.
Overall, I really like it. I hope I wasn't too critical because of it.
I agree that the grenadier/demolisher unit seems to lack purpose. It's still usable but it's not really essential to the game at all. Some kind of shield unit would have been a better idea. Maybe you could have spawned a stationary force field like in Apex Legends.
Color lerping based on reload delay is a great idea. Wish I would have thought of that.
The only trouble I had with the game was how unreliable melee units are: sometimes one melee unit (X) could destroy several attack drones when they trickle in one by one, but if two attack drones come at the same time, I would sometimes loose more than three (X) dudes (and their momentum would make them hit the priestess, right behind the 3-4 men wall they just blew through). I think the demolisher is actually alright, it just needs a bit of setup to be effective. Clearly a poor choice if you are on low funds/units, but if you can get 3-4 shooters and 5+ melee guys, demolisher becomes a really potent unit. But regular shooters (Z) kinda have the same issue, they can't hit the attack drones unless they are moving straight for them, so a few attack drones can destroy a bigger groups of shooters if the angle isn't favouring the shooters. Unless you got melee guys front, which is good because it forces to make different kind of units (kinda the point I guess ahah).
With a varied composition of unit, you seem to hit a "critical mass" pretty quickly. Usually once I have 6+ units I could just hit Z->X->C->repeat until the match is over, winning with sheer number instead of actually dealing with the encounters. On the other hand, some missions had a really tough early game, where you could loose in the first three seconds if you don't immediately rush into battle. I guess that balance is hard to it, but it's a shame that reaching mid game is harder than reaching the end of a level. Actually, scratch that last paragraph. As I wrote this, it occurred to me that this was part of the narrative, and makes perfect sense. Oh well. There's beauty in the struggle.
But the experience was great nonetheless, I found all units useful in some way. It was a short but intense, self-contained and self-sufficient, full experience. Incredibly satisfying.
@rgarbati Thank you!