Flip a Talk by gamescodedogs
Talk your way to glory!
😊Flip a Talk😡is a roguelike deck building game about communication. You're a hero on an epic quest, but you don't have any weapons or spells. Now you have to talk your way through a series of uneasy encounters with monsters. Would you choose to become their friend or bully them until they forfeit?
Flip the cards to turn the table
This game serves as a metaphor of difficult conversations. It is both what we say and how we say it, that influence our interlocutor's mood and reactions to our words, which, in return, influence ourselves.
In Flip a Talk, you can flip the cards, serving as your conversational arguments, to come off as aggressive, or friendly, or a bit of both. But remember: being a jerk will result in losing control over your emotions and might make you say what you did not mean to say
Team
This game was developed by Dmitriy, Georgii and Oleg from Luden.io, with some consulting help from our game therapist friend, Elizaveta
Why
Our dream is to explain the hidden curriculum of communication to children, including those with ASD and related communication difficulties
Theme
The heroes of this game are stuck in a loop of endless conversations with monsters, because gods grew tired from seeing them spilling blood and intestines all the time. Now they're stripped off their weapons and will not be able to break free until they settle down their quarrels without physical violence
How to play?
In Flip a Talk you play cards which are metaphor to your phrases in a dialogue (e.g. jokes, compliments, insults etc.)
Basic rules: 5 cards are picked from your deck each turn. Action points are spent for playing cards. After a turn, cards go to discard pile
Energy: a.k.a. HP. When it drains to 0, the conversation is over
Pressure: a.k.a. damage. Both sides are putting pressure on each other in a conversation
Self-regulation: (player only) your level of stress. When it is low, cards flip randomly. Enemies drain both your energy and self-regulation
Aggression: (opponent only) your enemy's level of annoyance. When it's high, your opponent applies more pressure
Shield: absorbs damage to energy, but not to self-regulation
Cards: have 2 sides, friendly and aggressive. You can flip any card by spendin 1 action point
Ratings
| Overall | 737th | 3.552⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 795th | 3.35⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 830th | 3.306⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1619th | 2.351⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 281th | 4.14⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1087th | 1.906⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 351th | 3.406⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 817th | 3.375⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 103🗳️ | 82🗨️ |
I like the idea that you've created here by talking through a dungeon instead of fighting. While playing though, I forgot about this. I guess the game would benifit from sound, music and especially from actual talking. This is a bit much to ask for in a game jam obviously so its ok how it is.
The graphics are really nice and well done. Some humour is sprinkeled in as well. I like this game very much and I would like to see some updates in the future.
**Gameplay**
**Compliment** and **Compliment Both** card stats are ... inconsistent (in my opinion!). Complimenting the other person should pressure that person more, than when I compliment us two.
I dont get why **Breathe** doesnt restores some or at least 1 self-regulation.
**Compliment Self** has the same stats as **Compliment**. For my interpretation its a more selfish card, so more shield or dealing more pressure. And it already cost more AP.
Those points are a bit meta I guess :D
Some Bugs
- On the second card at some point, the Flip-button starts rotating endlessly
- Ocasionally you can press through one card and hit the card behind it
The idea is very cool, maybe you could intergate the concept of no weapons even further by replacing the health bar by something else + no dying of the loser, beacuse right now the only difference from the fighting equivalences games are the name of the cards.
Overall this is super-impressive for the amount of time of the jam, good luck!
The art is super impressive for a jam. Environments are a pleasure to look at and make me want to keep advancing just to see what's next. The characters are cute too and the subtle animations really bring them to life. I felt like I was interacting with something alive instead of just a cutout.
For the game's design, I'm a big fan of the overall goal and the idea of a deck builder. Card choices felt a bit limited, which is understandable for a jam.
My biggest gripe is that I still felt like I was "fighting" and "attacking" other characters. This is from the sword visuals on the damage cards, the attack language and also the health being decreased. While I'm perfectly fine with aggresive language (there's a place for it)... I really wished I had the option to charm / compliment / reason my way out of the battles. I had this hope that if I somehow befriended an opponent they could actually tag along with me and help in future encounters. I imagine there could be costs to having a larger group size (like having to play morale / inter-communication cards to keep the group together).
I'm sorry if this comes across as overly critial of what is an excellent entry, it's just that the mission you stated really resonated with me and I'd love to see something like this exist. I think it could be an amazing way for kids to learn about the differnt styles, approaches and consequences of communication.
I started with the second character (just the first fight) and I think it would be cool if each character had specific cards (I only started the first fight but I didn't see any new card), though I understand it was difficult in a jam's time.
It was a very good entry overall in my opinion
With that out of the way, you have a wonderful entry here, congrats! Some of the most polished and consistent visuals I've seen this event. It's really cool that you went for a serious theme with educational benefits, even if it might have cost your closeness to the theme. Plenty of content too (ie. cards, enemies, levels), some sounds could really round it all out. Well done to all of you!
At first I didn't understand how to play my cards, only how to flip them. So this could benefit from an interactive tutorial (of course I won't hold that against you for a jam game, it's just feedback if you want to keep working on this).
Some music and sound would have helped this entry a lot but I understand you can only do so much in 72 hours. The graphics are perfect, and really impressive! It was pretty funny too. Overall, good job!
I'm a casual fan of games like these, and I really liked the (quite literal) spin on the fighting card game loop. While the game was a bit on the slow side at first, I was impressed at how dense it felt the more I played.
I believe I played the most recent version rather than the jam one. I actually downloaded the Jam one too just to corroborate if there was audio or not in the game, and I see that there were plenty of welcome additions. Still though, I still have to mention that there's a rating for audio in this audioless game. Check on that.
Regardless, fantastic entry! The mechanics made it feel fresh and inventive! :whale:
I'm not totally sure what the learning goal is supposed to be. The focus on conversations is good, but there doesn't seem to be any way to resolve things amicably, and not much benefit from positive actions like complimenting your opponent or explaining yourself. Perhaps I just didn't play far enough through though. It would be interesting to see those elements brought in and rewarded some how (perhaps also keeping the current options like insulting people, but showing the consequences of these).
I appreciate the gameplay as a metaphor for difficult conversations, but I also feel kind of lost or conflicted, because it seems like the only way to progress in the game is to say negative or aggressive things to damage your opponents. If it's a game about the experience of talking with people, I would have expected there to be some kind of positive way to make it through. Verbal violence doesn't seem much better than physical violence.
Anyway, very good entry!
Congratulations! :smiley_cat: