The Anti-Harvest Brigade by Rolly

[raw]
made by Rolly for Ludum Dare 52 (COMPO)

The Anti-Harvest Brigade is a roguelike game in which you control a squad of vegetables that are sick of being harvested, and decide to fight back against farmer, their animals and maybe engines.

Oh, don't expect the game to tell you anything about this story, I ran out of time. :)

Tips

I wanted to create a full guide to explain how to play this game, but it turns out that most people understand the game quite well, so I'll just list some tips that are useful but maybe a bit more difficult to grasp: - Each one of your characters have a deck of 8 cards. In the inventory screen, you can see their default cards with a grey background and replace them with cards you win, which have a white background. - In the inventory, and when winning some new cards, you can read at the bottom of most cards that it gives you a bonus when equipped. This effect will be applied to the character as long as this card is in its deck. You can see their stats change when you equip these cards. - The part of the card with the blue background shows the effect of playing this card. It gives you the real value, and then the detail of how this value is calculated. For instance "Attack 5 (1 :fist: +1)" means that you will deal 5 damages during the battle, which correspond to 1x this character's attach value (in this case it must be 4), +1. - On the right, the cards show an icon about the target(s) for this card. Green means the character itself, blue means an ally of the character and red means an enemy. The arrows show which one of these can be targeted. In case there's only one possible target, you will have to "confirm" instead of selecting the target. - Your opponents always play their actions left to right, then loop back to the first one, and so on. A small white arrow shows the upcoming action. The black arrow shows you which character(s) will be targeted by the upcoming action. Note that the target(s) is/are selected at the beginning of your turn, and won't be updated, even if the target is not a valid candidate anymore. In this case, the action will simply be skipped.

Changelog

If you want to play the game in its state at the end of the 48 hours, play the version 1.0 (Windows only). Other versions don't have major changes and I would recommend playing the latest version instead. All changes are detailed hereunder.

Version 1.1

  • Small fix in the project to make it possible to build to WebGL.
  • Slightly increased the difficulty of level 8 and decreased the difficulty of level 9.

Version 1.2

  • Fixed an issue with the target arrow which didn't get a proper length on some screen resolutions.
  • Sap Transfusion and Water can be used on dead allies to bring them back to life.
  • Added one more mana point to Orn to make it a bit more useful.
  • Quickly improved all animation to show a color that makes more sense (red for damage, green for healing, blue for enhancements).
  • Fixed some typos.

Ratings

Overall 186th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 138th 3.475⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 115th 3.525⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 247th 3.275⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 197th 3.4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 73th 3.425⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 180th 3.225⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

Found Bow Tonight
09. Jan 2023 · 04:06 UTC
Cool, but where is harvest?
Fnkee
09. Jan 2023 · 04:49 UTC
This is the most exciting I've played so far this dare! So many neat little details throughout the game, like how you can't heal yourself when burrowed, the chicken life-stealing by eating worms, big joe's butt scratch and the final boss, an actual harvester! You've gone lengths to ensure that everything from the enemies to their abilities match the theme, and made great sprites and animations to match. Also, extra points for great execution and explanation through symbols. I didn't have to read up on anything, and creating synergies with passives was a blast. I'm sure you must have *field* experience, in one way or another. Beautifully executed!
🎤 Rolly
09. Jan 2023 · 09:36 UTC
@found-bow-tonight Thanks for your comment. About the theme, it's in my head, unfortunately :( I didn't have time to do everything I planned, and couldn't develop the plot as much as I would have liked.
🎤 Rolly
09. Jan 2023 · 09:38 UTC
@fnkee thank you so much for your nice comment! I want to create some kind of page to explain how the game works, but I'm glad to read that someone figured it out without any additional information!
Christian Zommerfelds
09. Jan 2023 · 21:19 UTC
I think the concept is really cool. I was a bit intimidated by unclear symbols and not understanding how the game works. Most of my concern is just the UI. Otherwise a solid game! I wish there was some sound.
LDJam user 312238
10. Jan 2023 · 09:24 UTC
How cool this game is!At first I didn’t know how to play the game and I failed quickly.But after understanding the game,I found it interesting to play it.I used every skill carefully and chose the right crops at the right time.Your game brings me back to my childhood because I started playing these games when I was 5 and I really enjoy it.The art is perfect as well as the animations.I can’t believe you made it to complete the game in a such short time.Thank you for your game and Cheers!
LDJam user 312238
10. Jan 2023 · 09:27 UTC
The only problem is that the theme isn’t clear.You have only mentioned the crops in the game.Overrall a nice game!
Jonathan Lorenz
10. Jan 2023 · 16:42 UTC
Ho no, I've been harvested! I've tried sevral times but I never reached the end of the game. I have to say, a roguelite deckbuilder with a team of vegetables is a pretty ambitious project for a 48h jam! I would have liked the same game but with bigger sprites. Good work!
yellow
11. Jan 2023 · 01:46 UTC
Great! Card games are my favorite type. Carrots are also in my game :smiley: .
Corporation
11. Jan 2023 · 19:19 UTC
Well, I can see you did put a ton of time developing systems like skills, inventory, turn-based fighting and other...thinking you will add content and polish in the end..and you didn't) Like I've been here before so many times.
The game's core is good and all the fight systems and skill are at the right place, it just requires more UI, polish and gametesting. My recomendation is just - after the first day of a jam passes - cut all you have left in a half, or even more. Ideally at the end of the first day you have start to win playable game.
Good job, core of the game is pretty good in the end)
cogcomp
11. Jan 2023 · 19:50 UTC
As you mentioned. The game is pretty self explanatory even to a non-deck-game-player like me and feels quite well made, especially for a 48h game. Well done!
arron-fowler
12. Jan 2023 · 08:49 UTC
Pretty impressed you got this done within the time. The lack of sound was an issue for me as it just made it feel very empty. I really liked your sprites and the system for new attacks was nice too. Overall really good work. Kudos
LDJam user 258850
12. Jan 2023 · 15:37 UTC
Nice! ^^ fun and intuitive to play, I knew exactly what things did with little experimentation. Love your system of assigning moves too.

![image_2023-01-12_153629707.png](///raw/223/f3/z/56421.png)
Wouter52
12. Jan 2023 · 16:42 UTC
Ooh, this one was pretty difficult for me!
I like the idea though!

Some feedback, but maybe not good feedback as I don't really play these kinds of games a lot:

- It was not clear to me what the gray arrows meant in the later levels, they seemed to change a lot, there were even gray arrows pointing from enemy to enemy.
- The upgradesystem is very cool. It seemed like every character has their own default set, which you can overwrite. Very nicely done
- The music/sound effects seemed to be missing for me. I'm playing in firefox. Was there supposed to be sound?
🎤 Rolly
12. Jan 2023 · 20:49 UTC
@arron-fowler @wouter52 Okay so it's not just me who's totally annoyed by the fact that there is no music. It was unfortunately the next item on my to-do list, and it will stay there forever :( I definitely need to avoid doing this mistake again in the future; sounds add so much to the experience! Thanks for your feedback :)
🎤 Rolly
12. Jan 2023 · 20:59 UTC
@wouter52 Thanks for this feedback, and don't worry there is no such thing as bad feedback. Feedback coming from someone who is not used to the genre is definitely something to take into consideration!

The arrows show the next target of that character. So for instance, in the second battle, the chicken has one action against your team (it will always target Harrot, since it's your only hero at that point). Then its second action is to feed on one of the worms. In this case the arrow will point at one of the worms, at random.

Note that enemies always do their actions from left to right, then loop back to the first one, and so on. Knowing that, you can know what they'll be doing next, and shield/heal your heroes accordingly.

Regarding the music, it's not a problem of your browser - there's simply no sound in the game :(

I will add the first point as a new tip! Thank you so much :)
Wouter52
12. Jan 2023 · 21:02 UTC
@rolly no problem! Gamejams are there to learn :-) I use https://sfxr.me/ a lot, it is very easy to get some beeps and bloops that gives some audio feedback to your game in a very short amound of time. For me it is often the last hour I implement such features (which I do not recommend if you don't want to feel stressed out haha)
blobo
14. Jan 2023 · 16:12 UTC
I had a lot of fun with this! I was able to breeze through most of the game, but was dealt an impossible starting hand for the final fight. I would really appreciate the option to retry the fight instead of restarting the game. The punishment of restarting the game did not feel justified due to the RNG nature of the hand I was dealt.

Also, I don't think anything did poison damage, so the antidote was just wasting inventory space.

Other than that, I loved the characters! The enemies had some pretty humorous attacks too, which I really enjoyed. I recorded myself playing so I could provide extra feedback:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCzAsBH2atA
kuro
17. Jan 2023 · 15:55 UTC
Dammit Rolly! You're making me want to continue the card game I started making! But if I ever do, can I "borrow" some of your ideas? :sweat_smile:

Anywho, I had a lot of fun, loved playing this, and really enjoyed it. Like, all of it, all the way to 5\* (I always save the 5\* for "that special something" in any category. So, have it my friend!) Your game has more depth than is obvious at the first glance.

Took me a few tries, but I tried some strats, and lo!

![rolly.png](///raw/416/z/5695c.png)

Dammit I'm going to play it again rn. Anyway, well done!
kuro
18. Jan 2023 · 15:24 UTC
I think I finished this damn game like seven times since yesterday.
🎤 Rolly
18. Jan 2023 · 19:58 UTC
@kuro Thank you so much for your comments! They really made my day. I was pretty pleased with the result (except for the music and not having enough time to create a proper tutorial), but I didn't expect such positive feedback.

I'm happy to hear about this card game of yours, make sure to let me know if you need any testers for it! Also, please feel free to use any ideas that might work well for your game. I probably didn't come up with anything new myself with this one anyway :laughing:

Once again, thank you so much for your kind words. You have no idea how big the smile on my face is right now.
🎤 Rolly
18. Jan 2023 · 20:28 UTC
@100th-coin You doing feedback videos is once again really cool, there is so much to learn about stuff that appeared to be clear for me, but is definitely not for the end user.

I feel a bit ashamed when I see how this UI of mine looks completely broken on your screen. I should definitely take a few minutes to test it on different resolutions next time.

Otherwise, I'm really happy you enjoyed it, and that you managed to go pretty far on the first version, which is definitely the most difficult one :)
Itskdog
22. Jan 2023 · 03:04 UTC
Cool tactical game. I like the use of cards and building your small deck. Those chickens are tough. I liked how they attacked the worms!