ASHES TO ASHES by AkirAssasin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-wfUbj1g
ASHES TO ASHES
(itch.io) A minimalistic minesweeper-inspired city builder.
GAMEPLAY
- Click at an unoccupied spot to place the next object.
- Click an existing object to move it elsewhere, but at what cost?
- Fill the board with populated objects (no yellow crosses) to win.
- Press R to restart.
EXPLANATION
Try to avoid reading this before playing for some sense of discovery!
- Towers (pink) reveal objects at a distance.
- Fires (red) spread to adjacent objects.
- Pyramids (magenta) set adjacent objects on Fire.
- Monuments (lead) and Stones (brown) are immune to Fire.
- Castles (yellow) are always populated.
- Any object adjacent to a populated object will also be populated.
- Houses (white), Pyramids, Monuments and Towers have to be populated.
- Trees (khaki), Stones and Fires don't need to be populated.
- Taking objects cause a Fire to be the next object you place.
TOOLS USED
ASSETS USED
- ♥︎ 1-Bit Pack by Kenney
- ♪ Dunes at Night by Ozzed
- 🜂 Burning Paper SFX by 15GKovacovaJulie
| Youtube | https://akirassasin.itch.io/ashes-to-ashes |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/ashes-to-ashes |
Ratings
| Overall | 232th | 3.795⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 273th | 3.638⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 129th | 3.872⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 305th | 3.679⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 758th | 2.265⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 214th | 3.808⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 9🗳️ | 12🗨️ |
Great game. I really enjoy to discover the effect of each tile.
I didn't have the time to add actual instructions and descriptions of the objects into the game, unfortunately!
Once I got in the groove of things, though, I started to experiment and figure out how the game works... and I managed to complete the game after about 20 mins. IT's a reasonably challenging puzzle, BUT there are exploits that make it way too easy...
1) Fire spreading only moves the fire, not make a copy. While this was probably a conscious design decision, it didn't take me long to figure out that I could GUIDE the flames away by sacrificing some houses or whatnot. I figured out which flames would move where, too, with enough testing, and could reliably move them without setting the rest of the town on fire.
2) There is no penalty for burning houses. Again, probably by design, since accidents are bound to happen, and you can always rebuild once everything is razed to the ground, but this meant I could freely burn houses until I got the structure I wanted.
Basically, I set up a stone/monument farm. I set one flame aside to trash buildings I don't want, moving it up and down by placing burnable buildings above or below it, then when I got a monument or stone, I used that to expand my town or reach pyramids. Theoretically, I can play through the whole game this way and have nothing but monuments and stones with a single castle connecting them all!
Bugs aside, the idea is certainly very interesting! I can see what you're trying to go for, and there were many moments where I found myself pondering over what the next best placement would be... Good job!
Agreed, I think a scoring system based on keeping buildings alive might make the game more strategic.
