The Cause by enderr42
Brothers and Sisters! Too long have we lived under the heel of these tyrants and opressors! The time has come! The CAUSE is just! The GVRNMNT is not omnipotent! To arms!
A short card game, where You, as a noble and just leader of the opposition, must topple the evil GVRNMNT and bring peace, prosperity and justice to all.
Authors comments: As always i failed miserably at scoping out my design, which led to a silent(despite my elaborate audio recording set-up), quite ugly (IMO) game with some of the systems and mechanics severed at their roots, balance issues and typo's everywhere.
That said, I'm quite proud of it.
Hope you enjoy, and i'm really looking forward to your comments and impressions.
NB: There are 4 ending's total, and remember, Hope by itself doesn't do much!
[changelog] 05:15AM ; fixed a UI scaling bug; added screenshot; added webGL build;
[KNOWN BUG] Violet cards when put back in the hand (supposed to be not possible) - breaks resource calculation; just trash them if you want to get rid of them;


| Youtube | https://github.com/DanielKozak/ludumdare-46 |
| Youtube | https://enderr42.itch.io/the-cause |
| Youtube | https://enderr42.itch.io/the-cause |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/the-cause |
Ratings
| Overall | 347th | 3.609⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 463th | 3.364⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 285th | 3.587⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 583th | 3.609⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 672th | 3.182⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 193th | 3.476⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 208th | 3.636⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 10🗨️ |
Seems very balanced too, quite difficult but feels like you can almost win if you get a few good cards. Time well spent on your playtesting.
Graphics let it down a little, though I can see the time went into the other parts of the game and I stopped noticing the graphics after a few minutes.
I didn't manage to win, but I played two complete games and was drawn into the systems. I was a bit unsure what victory was made of, so I wasn't sure how to steer my strategy through my choices. Game 1 I just acquired a following to see what happened at showdown, but they did nothing against the GVRNMNT. In game two I played to get to 100% hope, thinking that might trigger the win. That situation is here in this screenshot: https://imgur.com/vr5il5J
I lost just the same, but I was left unsure whether that meant I was wrong about going for hope, or just that a tie goes to The Man. I suppose if I could add one thing to the game, it would be that when I mouse-over the various stats at the top, there was a short tooltip explaining.
Anyway, a really cool vibe/tone to the game, and it plays smoothly in terms of interface. It's not easy to put together a card strategy game for the compo! Nice work.
I absolutely loved the premise and theme of this game, I hope you continue this project and I can play it whenever I want my poor rebel heart to have some recreation.
-- Zen
@bumdag i just had to after the voting anxiety i got:)
@fpixel It was thrown together like 15 minutes before submission, and i used blur to mask my crappy handwriting and drawing
@peto184 I had to cut some of the systems, like a report on your progress and random events (GVRNMNT responses and your followers doing stuff by themselves)
@dante2001 Thx, I actually see myself working on it more after some time. Maybe smth will come of it.
@pkenney The thing is - the "buff" violet cards are adding effects on turn change, so you need to have both active to balance the cost out. some of the mechanics with the zero cost are broken a little and it makes them more OP.
And the hope=100 condition is only the first half of the game,the next one evolves around getting to a certain number of one type of followers, which in turn triggers one of the two respective "win" conditions (cards) spawning. I really failed to communicate that clearly, it's the bottom text in the tutorial note on the beginning =(
@zenandanna lol they say that our creative output is fueled by our supressed desires :) **(i'm just joking for any policemen reading)** i'll be sure to poke you if i will be updating it at some point)
Little bug report: if you drag a card to the revolution planner and then try to drag it to the trash, it gets stuck on the planner and you're no longer able to put other card in its place (at least in WebGL version).
The setting and narrative were intriguing and immersive. I really got into the role of leading the revolution against the GVRNMNT.
To me, after a single playthrough; the game felt pretty decently balanced and well-paced. That's pretty impressive! I am sure you can continue to tweak that from now on as well... and it will only improve!
I did notice a few typos which I think you are aware of - and I would add some juicy sound effects and some satisfying animations to the whole thing: Little "shfft" sounds when drawing cards... riot sounds when you play a violent card... camera shakes... particle effects... just adding general "flash" to it all.
Well done - this was genuinely fun to play!