At It Again by johnbrynte

[raw]
made by johnbrynte for Ludum Dare 47 (JAM)

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A turn based tactics game where time is a circle and you can be your own grandfather. DON'T LET THE LIZARDS GET YOU!

Made in Godot by Sture Development.

Ratings

Overall 489th 3.714⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 353th 3.727⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 334th 3.75⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 374th 3.977⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 750th 3.614⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 547th 3.455⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Humor 588th 2.974⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 637th 3.548⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Given 3🗳️ 4🗨️

Feedback

Kisk
05. Oct 2020 · 19:11 UTC
really cool game,love the art, and it fit the theme well done.
clemonades
06. Oct 2020 · 19:16 UTC
Nice job! I was trying to figure out where the loop mechanic was and all the sudden everything reversed, welp there it is lol. I like the idea!
Darkmax14
06. Oct 2020 · 19:17 UTC
Took me a minute to fully understand but once I got the hang of it I had a fun time. Maybe make it clearer you can kill the enemies and that you only need to get to a tile around the space ship to win and not directly on it
Merpui
06. Oct 2020 · 19:18 UTC
Nice game :)
I didn't get the loop mechanic at first, but the learning curve rises quickly.
Also the music is very nice :D
Thomas Volpato
06. Oct 2020 · 19:19 UTC
Really nice game, wish it could have a tutorial, for example, I died some times before I realize I could kill the lizards
MikeSalyh
06. Oct 2020 · 19:21 UTC
I didn't understand what I was doing at first, but it finally clicked when I realized I could kill the lizards.
I love fire emblem style tacitcs games, so this was very satisfying. Eventually beat all the levels. I'm at it again! :rocket:
Ruling Spear
06. Oct 2020 · 19:22 UTC
I like it. Although it took me a while to realize that I could attack the enemies. Great potential here.
Sertu
06. Oct 2020 · 19:23 UTC
It suits the theme very well good animations and very simplistic.
Oleksandr Shchavinskyi
06. Oct 2020 · 19:29 UTC
Awesome idea and solid execution.
Tutorial levels and UI can be improved.
I learned an ability to slaughter enemies only on the third level :smile:
The loops and turns count also wasn't clear from the start for me 🤷
Stratcat66
06. Oct 2020 · 19:33 UTC
Nice work! I find the concept interesting and the visual style very pleasing. The levels are in my opinion a bit too easy, but there is definitely the potential for more complex scenarios :D
PsiBuck
06. Oct 2020 · 19:46 UTC
Really solid game, I played it all the way to completion. I didn't realise I could kill enemies at first, or the lose game mechanic if I take too long, but once it clicked I enjoyed the thought process and playing all the way through. Really fun and wanted to keep playing!
Recher
06. Oct 2020 · 21:01 UTC
+1 to the fact that the ability to kill lizard is not obvious.
+1 to diagonal access to the ship, which is not obvious either.

Nice idea. It reminds me of Minit, and the game concept of "collaborate by yourself".

The floating visual effect on the wall is weird. I don't think we need that.

At which moment can I become my own grandfather ?
Lachezar Hubanov
06. Oct 2020 · 22:33 UTC
Kudos, you've made a cool puzzle game, which are kind of rare at jams :) As, I see other people have said, my only bit of feedback would be that a grid or some other visual representation of where the lizards could move would allow you to plan moves better. And yeah, the attack mechanic was a bit obtuse, I kind of stumbled upon it
invader
07. Oct 2020 · 05:58 UTC
Coll little game. Pretty hard - I've made like 20 tries to figure out the first level :)

The controls can be improved I guess... Each time new turn starts I have to re-select the character. But while I have a single character to control, he can be preselected automatically, making the movement control smoother.
Abdul Zakkar
07. Oct 2020 · 23:41 UTC
Once I read the comments and learned that I could kill lizards, the game was pretty fun! Cool idea, would have liked to see more challenging puzzles :)
guimoliveira
09. Oct 2020 · 00:47 UTC
Yay!
![Screenshot_20201008-214324.jpg](///raw/05c/b2/z/39c1c.jpg)

It took me a while to find out that I could kill them. :sweat_smile:

I won the first level without killing :v: :smiley:

You should put some instructions.

Very nice game. Good job. :thumbsup:
BumDag
10. Oct 2020 · 01:58 UTC
Great effort and a really polished game. I did find it a little hard for me straight out of the gates.
🎤 johnbrynte
10. Oct 2020 · 09:49 UTC
Lessons learned so far:
- Make it obvious that you can kill lizards
- Explain the loop mechanic or make it more obvious
- Also highlight tiles around enemies and perhaps the ship
- Only because you describe one thing doesn't mean players automatically will understand the other 10 things in your game
- Give the game to wonderful strangers so that you can get great feedback

Thanks for all the kind and honest words! We truly appreciate you all! :rocket:

We are already "at it again" trying to make a full game out of this one! We'll se where it takes us. First we need to spend some time with the other cool games in the jam!

---

@recher
Will definitely check out Minit! And "collaborate by yourself" is such a good description.

If you play the game a few more hundred times I'm sure you will encounter yourself in some way or shape.

@lachezar-hubanov
Thanks, really appreciate that! Grids, yes, we totally overlooked this one.

@invader
Good point! Initially we didn't really plan on having only one player on the field, that came from when we started designing the levels in the last few hours. So in hindsight that would've been a great addition.
Hawkin
11. Oct 2020 · 03:06 UTC
I don't think other commenters said this yet, but I didn't even realize what the controls were for a good few minutes. I tried clicking and keys, and even restarted the game, thinking it was a bad load. Only when I finally "selected" the character did I get it :) This is where even a small tutorial can be helpful, though I know that's a tough thing to get to when trying to finish a game.

The core game was fun, but it felt like the theme was shoehorned in. It didn't seem to be all that critical--just more of a limitation. I know the theme isn't technically a requirement, but in this case I think the game would have been fine (even more cohesive) without the forced rewind. That's just my two-cents, though.
🎤 johnbrynte
19. Oct 2020 · 18:42 UTC
@hawkin
We appreciate your comment! The rewind mechanic is intended to make the player think more ahead than just a regular tactics game. Initially the mechanic that item pickups are saved between rewinds would play a much bigger role but we ran out of time. Still we made sure that the mechanic had to be used in almost all of the levels! However, maybe we need to think about how it is presented and maybe vary the loop count and length for each level to really make it solid. Cheers!
Hawkin
20. Oct 2020 · 01:57 UTC
@johnbrynte I didn't mean to sound too harsh :) I know how you feel about running out of time!
🎤 johnbrynte
07. Nov 2020 · 15:49 UTC
@hawkin No sorry, no harm done! Haha yeah! Thanks :v: