ecoBunker by interpixel
"welcome to the future where mankind has killed every last thing however mankind was also prescient enough to make a backup of life as we knew it.
Inside of your secret underground bunker staffed with Earth’s brightest and bravest ecominds, you have access to a vast repository of dormant genetic information which you can use to kick-start a brand new ecosystem.
As you create, cull and introduce new species, your choices will matter to all members of the new biosphere and not just because it will be their biomass you are spending. Start now by helping a basic strain of grass spread with the help of other key species. Soon that grass will become the bedrock of your ecology.
Once you have filled every major ecological niche and achieved a productivity score of 100% you will be able to rest knowing that you kept the spark of life in our cosmos alive for a little while longer. "
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Select a Species from the Overview Panel. This will load it into the species creator.
- In the Species Creator you can optionally select one of the <=3 available sub-species variants [the smaller icons], each has it's own description in the Analysis panel, which will update whenever you click on a sub-species. If you do not select a variant the default base species remains selected by default
- Once you feel you understand where each species fits in the overall ecosystem click Start
- Select a new species, optionally select a sub-species and then Click Repopulate Species to introduce the new creature to the ecosystem .You will see it's population change from extinct to reflect it's population count
- If a species seems that it cannot be repopulated it is because there is nothing for it to eat and it dies immediately of starvation, review it's analysis and use your knowledge of working ecosystems to decide on a path to achieving a successful ecosystem
- Your ecosystem will not succeed if your primary producer (grass) goes extinct, so for your first play through, focus on keeping your grass alive and on the species variants that benefit it and do not negatively affect it early in the game. There are many ways to accomplish success but some are easier than others.
- Every species must be reproducing on the same turn to reach victory.
For those who want to know this is my first game and first game jam, so my work is more basic than many other peoples work, but had to learn how to use unity practically from scratch during the last 3 days relying on my knowledge of web scripting languages to guide me as i taught myself unity and wrote this game. I hope at least one person will like it as I would like to make more ambitious games in the future when I am more proficient.
| Youtube | https://interpixel.itch.io/ecobunker |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/ecobunker |
Ratings
| Overall | 1905th | 3.19⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 2360th | 2.571⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 359th | 3.762⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 647th | 3.929⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1953th | 2⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 2163th | 2.714⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 40🗳️ | 15🗨️ |
(btw: to get more ratings yourself it is required to play and rate others games and give feedback, then your game will appear higher in the list. And gets more ratings back. Was a bit hard to find in the zero-votes section. :wink:)
i agree about the tutorial, i had a friend play through and she was also a bit confused about why certain ecological collapses occurred also (actually this part is based on real life, as the keystone species are often unexpected and removing them can cause rapid and serious ecosystem collapses). The ultimate answer is that every species population, traits and connections to other members effect the energy balance in sometimes unexpected ways. I quickly tried to leave little hints in the analysis section for each sub-species, but probably the game runs too fast to read it before you have to take action :P if i develop the game further in the future i will be sure to take your feedback on board.
Fun: I tried to treat this as a strategy game, reading the descriptions, and all the variants for the bonuses, working out a strategy and then put it into play. The problem I had is that things happen so quickly that I didn't really have the time to observe the situation and react to it. In the end I found a single sure-fire strategy: Repopulate all the species as fast as I can click. (No variants required. I started with trees and moved clockwise.) I think that this game could provide a lot of entertainment value if (i) things are slowed down to give the player some time to observe and react; (ii) the mechanics are balanced to add strategic depth, i.e., prevent cheesy strategies like mine.
Innovation: Yes! I think the gameplay mechanic is original and clever. I especially like the effort to describe the real contributions of different components of the ecosystem and convert those into gameplay mechanics.
Theme: Yes
Audio: N/A?
Humor: I enjoyed the occasional light-hearted diversion in the text descriptions.
Mood: Professionally presented with a good UI and appropriate images, but since it's a menu-based game I don't find it particularly "moody" - maybe some music would add to this?
The idea ist cool. Its just a little too fast to read and think about the best strategy to repopule the earth. I managed on the second attemp by introducing new species as fast as possible so the bees could help spreed gras and tress and add other elements and variations.
This is a cool start for a bigger game i think, keep it going :)
But all that said, I thought the way you implemented the idea was refreshing, and everything was extremely well presented. Though an audio aspect would definitely help to improve the overall feel. Nice work!
"Your ecosystem will not succeed if your primary producer (grass) goes extinct, so for your first play through, focus on keeping your grass alive and on the species variants that benefit it and do not negatively affect it early in the game. There are many ways to accomplish success but some are easier than others. "
Click a species(besides grass) -> click the 'Repopulate Species' button
If you did things correctly(and they didn't instantly die), you'll see a line between species.
The little recycle icon buttons are species traits. You can change the active one to help other struggling species survive.
It took me a while to figure this out, but once I did I was able to win. It's a neat mechanic, but this game really needs some work on the UI/UX. Slowing down the populate/depopulate mechanic would help. I would also suggest an up or down arrow next to each species to indicate its current state. Instead of having the restart button appear as soon as the grass turns red, it may work better as a permanent fixture set aside in a corner of the screen. The grass turning red seems to be a natural progression of the game, so it may cause alarm for people to see that restart button so soon.
To the creator: Don't be discouraged. The actual game mechanics are good for a first LD. They have more depth to them than most games on here. And while confusing, the overall aesthetics are pleasant too. Treat the average player like a senior citizen who has never played a video game before. If there's a way to play your game wrong, they will find it. Big words are confusing and images are better communicators than text. If you can recruit multiple people to test your game before the jam ends, that could help tremendously. Also tell them to be honest even if it seems harsh. Nice job and good luck with future games!
I nonetheless was able to win, but it didn't really feel like I actually understood why.
If this game is trying to communicate accurate facts about ecosystems, then that is super cool--but right now it isn't doing a super good job of actually teaching me anything. I think the game needs to make the consequences of your actions clear and traceable, even if they are somehow unexpected. You could even have little text blurbs describing the kinds of ecosystem collapse that happen, so like, if all your herbivores die out for some weird reason, have a text box explaining the chain of events that cause that. I think that would be super neat, and potentially very eye-opening.
Overall I actually have pretty positive feelings about the game. It's presented in a really nice and organized way, and all the graphics are clean. I think it just needs some adjustments to make the systems that it simulates more approachable to the player.