A Merchant's Adventure by sharbelfs
It's been a lot of time I don't join in a Ludum Dare, and I decided to give it a try on this one. It totally worth it. I'm really glad with my Card Game.
It's a game about trading goods. Your goal is to buy goods and progress traveling though many cities, and each city you travel you will encounter new good to trade and you will be able to make more money.


Instructions:
- Buy cards from the Supply deck (they cost money)
- Add the supplies you want to your inventory and sell the ones you don't want.
- Drag the supplies to the market place to trade them for money.
- Travel to different locations. (they cost money)
- Each Village is a variation of the city
- Each city has new and more valuable resources (trades are required to unlock new cities)
Be careful with your money, if you spend everything, you lose the game.
| Youtube | https://sharbelfs.itch.io/ld-45-merchant-adventure |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/a-merchants-adventure |
Ratings
| Overall | 669th | 3.354⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 588th | 3.22⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 520th | 3.22⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 854th | 2.89⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 505th | 3.61⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 669th | 2.366⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 669th | 2.472⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 842th | 2.961⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 36🗳️ | 40🗨️ |
So, at first, I didn't quite understand how to play, but I very quickly understood the basic mechanics--I think that the game is simple and intuitive enough to require only minimal instructions. I do think that it is a little frustrating that the resources you buy are seemingly random and that the cost of buying resources grows VERY quickly, but I suppose that it keeps the player moving from city to city, but sometimes, it feels like since the resources are random, the game begins to feel like a game of chance and luck. I really enjoy it, though, and all in all, it was a great entry!
I enjoyed the asthetics, but i found the audio quite annoying
regarding the cards, my idea was to give them at random, but with some calculations for the the chances of each card,
in the initial cities you have just a few resources that doesn't worth that much, but as you progress there are some resources that are more rare but worth a lot more.
And about the price of the cards, it's to encourage to travel to more villages, it's like a balance between buying one more card and deciding to move to the next one.
I would definitely play this game when you finish it, becouse i really like strategies like it.
@legolaz thanks for playing, and yeah, I already got some nice feedback here, so, after the LD finishes I'll continue updating the game on itch.io
thank you for playing guys.
I'll definitely improve that in a future version
@pedro-rosa yeah, in parts I agree that sound is not that good, but for me it's much better than without sound (perhaps because it's my game), but since I had to create everything during the jam (at least in my head), I used the site generator to add those sounds
@dk5000p that is kind of one core idea of the game, the more you buy the more difficult it gets for you to buy more. But still, I have to think about it, because also, do the other way around sounds an interesting idea (start with a high price and the more you buy the cheaper it gets).
thank you for playing guys =)
all these feedbacks are going to help me improve this game
I feel like you choose the perfect scenario and setting for the theme but balanced it in a way that the merchant fantasy doesn't get fulfilled as you actually start with some money but it becomes less and less. I never ended up making any more money than I had in the beginning. It didn't feel like I was building something from nothing as a result but more like I was forced to drive myself into ruin. Hope that makes sense to you :)
I still had fun, playing your game by the way, I just feel like with some different balancing and with some more choices regarding what to buy (maybe with a limited selection with each card draw) it could be more fun and fulfill the merchant fantasy a lot more. Maybe it's also a comment on the difficulties of entrepreneurship though in which case, well done haha :D
The game lacked a real merchant feeling though. I think it should be balanced in a way where all resources and trades get more expensive / valuable with playing and you usually earn more money by selling than you spend to buy. That you're actually making progress and can become a wealthy merchant instead of trying to barely earn enough to continue playing.
@yazara at the moment it's only in about city 5 that you start to see more money, in the initial cities you still don't see expensive resources. I didn't have the time to add all the features I wanted, but one thing you can see at the beginning is that trades that require more resources give you some extra bonus for the combination of items.
thank you for playing guys
Fun: It seems good, but very hard! I enjoyed formulating a strategy, playing to see how it fares, and then refining it. But even on my best attempt, I didn't get very far - city 4 with 22 trades, after choosing the option with the most starting money. Every time I tried, everything would be going OK until the situation suddenly collapsed. Are we supposed to be able to get to the end? I'd love to see a strategy guide, or a video of you beating it!!
Innovation: I think it's very creative and original.
Theme: Yes.
Graphics: OK, but there's a mix of styles (pixel and non-pixel graphics) that makes it look inconsistent.
Audio: OK to begin with, but this is a long-play game and the high-pitched sounds started to get tiring after a while.
Humor: I laughed at my options in the opening screen. (Saw no jokes after that though.)
Mood: Music, and a more consistent graphical style, would help.
I feel like it got quickly to a point where I was just relying on random chance for what the next card drawn was.
and about the Humor, usually when you lose you get a nice phrase saying to greedy you were with the reason you lost.
@balance686 good idea about the tutorial, thanks. And about the balance, it will be for after the jam. I'm working on that already but from what I know about the rules I can't update, since it's not really a fix, it's an improvement.
Edit: Played more and reached 7th...The game does keep you hooked hoping for better luck.