Ordinary Wizards Doing Ordinary Things by Fupi
Click here to play!
You wanna be a wizard?! In today's economy?!
Ordinary Wizards Doing Ordinary Things is a short and quirky real-time strategy game where you conduct an army of wizards around town to do everyday errands. The summoner becomes the summoned!
Unlock and complete all the gigs to satisfy the king and win the game! But watch out for the despicable DDDDD (Dastardly Demons Doing Devilish Deeds): they will show up uninvited and wreck your day.
Instructions
(The instructions are in-game, so you don't need to read this)
- Hold the middle mouse button or space bar to pan the camera.
- Right click a target to select it.
- Left click a target to send a wizard from the selected target there.
- Targets will periodically have jobs available. Wizards in a target will perform the job automatically every second. The more wizards doing a job, the faster it gets done.
- Completing jobs gives you money. Click the wizard hat to buy more wizards for 3$ each.
- If you let a job go unattended for too long, it will expire and you'll lose a life. Lose all 3 and it's game over.
- Every once in a while, your tower will be attacked by demons. They will kill one of your wizards for every second they are alive. Send wizards to the tower to attack the demons. If you lose all your wizards, and don't have money to buy more, it's game over.
- To win, unlock the final gig - the trophy - and complete it.
Credits
- Code and art by Fupicat
- Music and sounds by pioner.py
- Public domain sounds were also used
What I learned
- This is definitely the most mechanics I've ever needed to code for a jam project, and I'm really happy that the coding process went so smoothly! Helped me prove to myself that I am actually improving with each game I make.
- Making graphics takes up a non-insignificant amount of time, even if I make the art-style as deliberately crappy as possible. My last day was basically all spent on the art. I should work with artists more often!
- Squash and stretch is fun.
- I should plan the content of the game earlier in the process. Last jam, I planned the entire story and then coded mechanics around it, which made the whole game a lot more cohesive. This time, I coded the mechanics and worried about creating the content later, which left me with some confusing design decisions. For example, the trophy being off-screen. The game was originally going to be much more zoomed in (you can still zoom the camera by scrolling) and part of the challenge was gonna be maneuvering the camera around. However, while actually playing the game with all the content, I found out that moving the camera so frequently caused lots of cramping, and was just tedious. It was also hard to know where there were jobs to do, and I couldn't figure out how to make the warning signs follow the edges of the camera to point to where they are. So, last minute, I decided to just zoom the camera out. The trophy, however, didn't fit on the screen, so it had to be left there.
- I shouldn't sacrifice intuitive controls to make something that feels better for me, subjectively. Left click to select and right click to move would have been fine, better even, since it's what people expect.
Thank you Tai for this image!!
Ratings
| Overall | 13th | 4.41⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 18th | 4.321⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 148th | 3.91⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 245th | 4.09⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 71th | 4.5⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 13th | 4.41⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 9th | 4.487⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 93th | 4.158⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 58🗨️ |
the music is really fitting too, I was waiting to hear that bass I hear every jam from your games lol but the music here is also pretty cool! nice to see your art style improving, it's beautiful to look back at your old game and observe a noticeable improvement. great work, both of you!
Part of the challenge of the game is figuring out a strategy to win! Moving the wizards from job to job is indeed a thing, and you do need to do that sometimes to survive! You can leave the jobs and come back to them later and they won't reset, the warning sign will start pulsating when you start to *really* run out of time. Remember to buy wizards often and send them all to the tower when the demons come!
Since I got a team mate to make music this time, I couldn't include my signature bass lol, though I think this teeny high-pitched sound fits the little wizard guys really well ^^
Your game is already on my queue, congrats on finishing dude!!
Looks very fun and funny! : )))) Cheers and enjoy the rest of Ludum Dare!! :bow: , ma friend!
The toilet often gets clogged I see...
Died a few times until I realized I ... May need to use the buttons on the left xD
Will write more! Good job as a first impression : ))) Very cute.
Overall the game feels nice to play - responsive, fast, smooth. I was a bit confused at the very start because I am bad at reading instructions before playing. But I liked the format in which introduction/tutorial was made, fitting the visual atmosphere of the game.
Visually, I like how everything is cute and cartoonish, that's really one of my favourite drawing styles ^^' And how the models are tiny, too. It looks good and fun and cozy.
Music and sounds are good as well, very energetic!
In terms of difficulty, as I remember you made it too difficult at first - I found it pretty easy as of now (I don't mind it tho, it's still dynamic and fun). On my third try (first I died because was still figuring it out and couldn't send my wizards anywhere and second I didn't realize what do demons do xD), when I finally caught up with the rules (scrolling down sometimes to read a snippet from description) I was victorious.
They summoned me to claim the trophy, I sent lots of guys there and then got told I am amazing <3
I think it's a fun idea and fits the theme really well, too. Definitely high in humour for me! I love attention to detail with tiny items, animations of different jobs ^^
*Also this are the stats I won with:
Thank you for playing!! One of the things I regret from this game is just how much explaining I had to do in the beginning. Four pages of instructions is *ridiculous* for a game of mine. There's a lot of mechanics, but I'm sure it all could have been done in a more intuitive way. ^^'
Also I'm glad you liked the animations!! Had a lot of fun making those lol
And yeah on the topic of your game: I think maybe tips popping up during gameplay could be a good solution? Tbh everyone's brain works differently, for me personally it's easier to figure stuff out when I am already doing it, but some people might appreciate longer instructions upfront.
The visuals and the sound effects go well together.
The only gameplay comment is that it felt that the strategy was just to divide the wizards between all the places and keep them there. For the demons attacking, I just used my saved money to buy more wizards.
You can also delay on playing mine.. it seems I got a few more bugs than expected :DDDD (will try to fix some..)
Edit: I was so ashamed of these bugs that I took 30 minutes and fixed them xD (you could play now).
My friend, this is a very polished game! : ))) The graphics and sounds are fitting like bread and butter. Very cute cartoonish style. Great job!
Now... I did beat it on the 4th or 5th time. Then I did beat it again, just to be sure (I don't know xD). Except for the somewhat varied controls I have no other feedback.
---
Here is why it took me... a bit longer / and it made me feel like an imbecile not getting something simple :D ;())) - **the mouse clicking** (initially) can be a bit overwhelming / at least it did confuse the hell out of my brain! I lost several times, almost not understanding what happened, because my brain wasn't getting used to switching between left and right clicks constantly (I tend to get used to stuff quickly). I also couldn't easily click on the job targets speedily enough, for some reason (then later I got used to).
The mouse clicking - that in my opinion is the only potential place for improvement of the game itself, because combined with the jobs requiring attention rapidly, you can lose very.. rapidly :D An idea -> left (or whatever) click to select target... double-click of *same* button to move guys to target from the selected one! OR (even better)... the same single click to move guys - but a click onto a special icon somewhere on the job target, not it itself.
The camera pan with spacebar is very good! The zoom, I didn't use. The middle mouse btn for panning, I didn't use (for some reason using more than 1 btn confused me - initially - maybe the pace?). But that could be just.. me? FYI: I had similar decisions to make for my own game / it has similarities!! xD I added quite a few controls, so they are far from the best :D
One final piece of thought: if a game is too fast in the beginning, it could be off putting, if the player doesn't immediately get it - it's a hunch (again - not valid for everyone, I am just a slower person xD)
Overall, amazing, very cute, warm game with a speck of modern working-life humor.. we all probably know the pain of :D Thank you and keep up the great work!
The controls are definitely the most complicated aspect of this game. I struggled a lot to come up with something that felt good to use but was also intuitive (and from all the reactions, obviously I failed xD). People told me that real RTS games usually have left click as select and right click as move, which is easier to explain, I just thought it didn't feel right on my hand, which is why I went with this weird compromise. x')
The pace is also a big problem. Without realizing, I made it almost impossible to survive the first few rounds if you don't already know exactly what you're doing. If I had more time, I probably would have made a playable tutorial to get you acustommed to the controls first, and *then* thrown you into action. But alas, I didn't.
I'm glad you liked the graphics and humor though! Definitely the part of the game I had the most fun with. ^^
I had lots of fun playing yours, thanks!
I love how you have a 'what I have learned' section to this LD entry
Since this project ended up ballooning into such a big mess, I definitely had a lot to learn from! ;w;
You should be proud of how well the music and graphics fit. Best mood so far! Super idea to have an end to the game, endless games are a bit frustrating. And handscribed tutorial is not long and very clear.
Having made a somewhat similar game two jam ago, I must say I'm a bit jealous of how polished your game is :blush:
Love the artstyle and sound design!
I like the artstyle it's simple but charming! the music is also pretty good!
I think it's a funny idea that this is a world where powerful wizards have to do mundane tasks for the people lol
At first I found it a little difficult to handle the wizards as I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to do, but I eventually got the hang of it. it was never too overwhelming, it only took a bit more focus on my part.
The only thing I could say is that I wish it were a bit more obvious how many wizards are required and time what the time to finish each task is, because sometimes I'd fail even if I had a wizard or 2 already working.
Good entry!
Thank you for the very kind comment on our game as well. Very much appreciated!
The balance is a little weird because only the early game is hard, and then you quickly can afford to buy enough wizards to keep a bunch in the middle to deal with the tower and still assign a bunch to each task. From the last image in your game listing, I can see you know about this :)
Graphics are great, music and sound is great, and the game is super fun. Good job!
@monika Other players have pointed out that real RTS games, with a control scheme similar to this, seem to use LMB to select, and RMB to move, which, while I don't like as much ergonomically, makes more sense intuitively and is what people are used to. If I were to change the controls I would probably do it that way, since it's more standard! And yes, the difficulty curve is very weird lol, unfortunately balancing was the last thing I did so I didn't have time to come up with something better. At least buying more and more wizards is pretty satisfying x3 Thanks for playing!!
@aivaxela Thanks for playing!! I can't even imagine an endless mode of this game, like, endless jobs unlocking? :dizzy_face: Might work as an idle game but I'd have to rethink the balance! x)
@krummsakura Thanks for playing and you're welcome!! ;3
this game has so much fun!
and the art is really cute!
(I notice that wizards clean tank for eevee)
(sorry, noticed that it's an original character. I just kick eevee out of tank)
I didn't do well on my first play through but managed to win on my second. The controls are a bit confusing at first but it works fine when you get used to it.
Also, I don't know if that's the intended gameplay, but I felt like I couldn't leave one place without wizards so I just summoned more of them when needed instead of moving the ones that were done with their jobs, but that was fun to play still.
Good job guys!!
Oh and I've just noticed that one of the devs is from :flag_br: as well so that's epic :sunglasses:
Man, it's really inspiring to see so many devs from Brazil :D