Build Or Die by pkenney
Build or Die
Pilot a ship in a weird RTS-style battle against an ugly alien. He will spit monsters at you, and you will extract minerals from the ground, throw them in a hole, use a computer, deploy factories, and spend your resources on building robots with one thing in mind.
If that sounds like too many features, you might be on to something...

This entry doesn't meet my usual standard of completeness or polish. Out of my 16 LD compos this is the closest I've come to failing to submit at all.
I took on too much scope, and didn't get to iterate on the flaws.
I like some parts of this entry, but I am a bit embarrassed by others. I hope you can find something in here to enjoy.
COMPO DISCLOSURE
The original upload had a stupid bug w your tower I overlooked in the last 5 minutes, meaning that it died in a couple of hits rather than having the HP it was supposed to. This is so important for the early game that I uploaded a bugfix right after submission hour. If you don't feel that's fair under the bugfix rule, I have left up the original version as well; consider it ultra-hard mode.
| Youtube | https://savagehill.itch.io/build-or-die |
| Youtube | http://savagehillgames.com/LD45/BuildOrDie-CODE-LD45.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/build-or-die |
Ratings
| Overall | 157th | 3.611⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 136th | 3.529⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 207th | 3.386⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 329th | 3.143⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 138th | 3.635⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 308th | 2.258⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 335th | 2.929⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 33🗳️ | 39🗨️ |
1. You have to time your landings to land on things right as they spawn, which is very fun and very tricky when you have 4 things building at once
2. You needed to basically shoot the gems into the portal efficiently, so it was like a basketball mechanic (and then preferably land on a gem as it was spawning)
3. Do tricky stuff like grab a drill and quickly drop it off, purchase another building, then re-pick that drill up
If anything, I was very sad the boss died too fast, I was just having fun how to build an efficient workflow. The game is kinda like Kingdom: New Lands but with heavy execution requirements. I'm definitely glad you decided to release the game even though it didn't fit your personal standards, I know how that can be. But really I see plenty of good stuff here.
I'm sure you're aware of the flaws but the main ones for me was not particularly knowing the difference between the bots (though I noticed Hulk only cost 150 in the orig version so I spammed more of those hoping I was abusing something). Also without a minimap or something it's unfortunate I can't see the destruction I'm leveling upon my foe.
A more simple improvement I might add is a small platform in the middle of the y-axis that you can build on. I suppose some players might find it annoying that they're bumping into it but I think it could change up the flight routes you take and create some interesting execution.
Overall a really good vertical slice of an idea. I think you have a knack for slightly weird flight mechanics and I loved how you mixed it in with a good dash of strategy and planning to make my brain work a bit.
It always impresses me how much you're able to put out from scratch and this one is no exception. Even though you said it was unfinished I still could feel how tuned the movement was and the challenge of picking up resources and dropping them on the move felt real good to perform. The pixel art you ended up with looks great, I liked the Hulk the most.
The first time I lost trying to figure out what to do at first but it only took me that one try before I understood. Once I pumped out my first unit it seemed to just completely take out the other side? I wasn't sure cause when I flew over there was just the big bad left. I don't think I downloaded the ULTRA HARD mode if I had to guess
There's a kind of hole for this genre of game that I've only ever seen here and in Kingdom like the previous poster mentioned. It would be really neat to see something like this fleshed out into a full experience.
Very good entry.
The controls were a bit difficult and I did wish I could've built at least one more defense tower, since my factories outside of them were being mangled constantly. Like it was mentioned before, a minimap to have a bit of an idea of what's going on immediately outside your view would've been a great on top of this great cake.
I think the idea is sound in any case and I hope you continue improving it.
I wish there was some sort audio feedback or a mini map to show that the bots we're doing their job. The entirety of the game was sending the bots off hoping they were going to do their job, while I stayed back and mined crystals.
Great game overall!
The most challenging aspect was the odd momentum of your character.
This was a very ambitious project and has potential, but needs a lot more content and strategy to really be interesting. I did like the graphics though, great job on those.