Heating plant tycoon by Hadik
PLAY ON WEB!
TIP: Use pause mode, for building pipes
Check video for better understanding how to play. Sorry for complex and not simple game. I will do post-jam version with more polish game :)


About game:
Small town, upon the river, has big problem. Electricity is very expensive, so most of citizens and factories, switch to oldschool steam heating and powering. And your job is connect your heating plants with all houses and factories, by complex system of pipes, splitters, combiners and switches.
Game was for compo, but I overshot the scope and not finished in given time. But everything expect the 3 days work, is same as for compo, so no free assets, not free music. Everything is 100% created within jam timespan. Thank you for understanding.
TIPS:
- Use pause mode, for building pipes, it will not overhelm you
- for perfect control and balancing place one splitter per building and divert how much heat building wants
- Use splitter for branch out specify amount of power which building require and continue with rest into another splitter and branch out to another building. And repeat over again.
- toggle on and off visibility of numbers because it will overhelm you
- toggle on/of visiblity of building, you can clearly see where pipes start and ends
- For multiple same building you can use balancer
- Started TIP. Place splitter near the plant, and another near the buildins. Connect them together, and pass from first one 4 on second also 4 and place 1 balancer near the last one, and connect first sokcet into balancer from that splitter, from balancer into two red houses. Second output of splitter connect into another splitter, and then into directly bulding.
Bugfixes - 5.10.2021 13:47 (check github) - Bugfix of menu bar corupted position in compiled version - Fix startup pause after 100ms, for init some slow game systems - Fix visualiazion of heatbar at consumer with arrow, for better understand and see if building heat is growing or decreasing without moving mouse over the building.
- 5.10.2021 14:07 (check github)
Bugfix of hide all building icon, required two clicks which is bug. + compile
5.10.2021 17:53
- Fix disconnecting module, which was buggy and most of the time stuck whole system + build
Gameplay
https://youtu.be/sF9RXcZIaQo
How to play ? / Controls
Only with mouse and clicking

| Link | https://github.com/hadikcz/LudumDare49 |
| Link | https://hadikcz.github.io/LudumDare49/build/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/heater-plant-tycoon |
Ratings
| Overall | 644th | 3.602⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 972th | 3.216⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 593th | 3.457⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1145th | 3.078⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 596th | 3.771⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 604th | 3.351⭐ | 49🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 841th | 3.337⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 56🗳️ | 72🗨️ |
Other than that, the graphics and the music is very cool! great job!
@cslupius More polish, it was in my dreams tonight :) Need more polish, but also more time. maybe I will release it on steam or mobiles. And yeah components are pretty hard, but there is in game help with descipritons what it is and what for it is. Thank you for review :)
Music gives a nice throwback to transport tycoon.
Screen gets cluttered with wires/indicators/numbers way too quickly.
Overall, I think this is a pretty good game, but it is tricky.
Overall a really cool captivating planning game with some remaining bugs (sometimes pipes appear that should not be there etc. but using the "very buggy" features resolves it most of the times somehow), great graphics and audio and beautiful mechanics. Going to play this some more hours later, maybe there is some sort of win condition?
Would be even cooler as a puzzle game with multiple levels. City is given and money is just enough to solve the task
@vlandemart You can use, hide building action, forth from top, which will hide all buildins expect yours and pipes.
@cslupius I see, my falt, anyway, thank you for reply.
But you use that right, splitter is the way, for large cluster of same building you can use balancers and behind that circuit one splitter for specify right heat output :)
And I will remind when will be game released on mobile devices or steam (polished) :)
It's awesome to be able to make such a complicated system in such a short time.
But I think the interaction needs to be improved. In fact, the mechanism itself is not too complicated, but this construction method is not convenient . For example, when connecting to a splitter, I hope to be able to select which port is connected. Often the output port I connected does not meet expectations, so I can only disconnect all and reconnect
Waiting for Steam version :)
Use splitter for branch out specify amount of power which building require and continue with rest into another splitter and branch out to another building. And repeat over again.
For multiple same building you can use balancer :)
Сначала я совершенно ничего не понял. Что-то куда-то тыкаю, ничего не получается. Хотел уже забросить. Но потом решил еще раз попробовать. И оказалось очень круто! Игра захватывает. Конечно, многого не хватает. Больше всяких элементов. Но это в будущем. А пока хватает и этого. Спасибо!
The game is extremely fun, and the replayability is almost infinite!
It is very well thought out and the city grows organically.
The only downside is the music, it is a bit short and repetitive. Otherwise it is a total success!
I must say the idea is really ambitious for Jam, not to mention Compo, but you nail it pretty well :) The art style is clean, quite pretty and easy to understand. The game mechanic take a moment to figure out, but after you got it is a fun game. My only complaint will be music. I found it a bit distracting.
VOD Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1168815112
## TIPS
- Use pause mode, for building pipes, it will not overhelm you
- for perfect control and balancing place one splitter per building and divert how much heat building wants
- Use splitter for branch out specify amount of power which building require and continue with rest into another splitter and branch out to another building. And repeat over again.
- toggle on and off visibility of numbers because it will overhelm you
- toggle on/of visiblity of building, you can clearly see where pipes start and ends
- For multiple same building you can use balancer
- Started TIP. Place splitter near the plant, and another near the buildins. Connect them together, and pass from first one 4 on second also 4 and place 1 balancer near the last one, and connect first sokcet into balancer from that splitter, from balancer into two red houses. Second output of splitter connect into another splitter, and then into directly bulding.
@swiney Thx I will write it down :)
First, I love the music, it definitely reminds me of transport tycoon, nice touch! The game looks great, too! I admire the scope of the game you've managed to create in this 72 hrs! Very impressive! I must say, playing this was quite a learning curve. UI/UX need a good polishing for sure, but for such a complex game it would take another day. So I took my time to learn how to play, and after some time and page refreshes I started to really enjoy your game, that was quite rewarding. Thanks for nice touches like show/hide numbers and buildings, this helped for sure. I like how along with load balancing, careful "pipe management" is also an element of a gameplay. If you're not careful, your map quickly turns into a mess. Overall, great game, I would like to play the post-compo version some time!
I found it pretty hard to balance structures, once a building was cold it was kinda a pain to warm it back up again, perhaps if a building has the right value it could slowly move back towards the correct temperature? You could still have that transition be really slow, so a skilled player could warm or cool the building faster, but if you're concentrating on other things you can trust a building will go back to the right temp on it's own.
I also found the input system a little confusing at first, I like that you can lay pipes in any shape you like, but I was often stuck in a ui mode without realising, because the only way to turn off a construction mode was to click the cancel button. I think right click or escape to cancel current action would help make it a lot more intuitive, as that's a pretty common pattern in games like this.
I really like the little village aesthetic and the music is spot on, loving the old sim game vibes.
I really would love some multi-splitters in there, since it felt like a game of just binary splitters everywhere after a while. :)
The graphics are very neat and appropriate, the music is sim-good. Nice lil game!
I like the graphics and the audio is good for a chill sim building game, I actually played a lot once I figured it out so here are some things I noticed out of order:
- The factories don't need to be turned off during the night, Idk if I misread or if it's a bug
- Being able to click and put anchor points while building lines to be more organised is a great touch
- Pressing the help button and then exiting it, unpauses the game, which can be a bit annoying
- The city that constructs itself is cool and I like that you don't have control of it
- A game over or big penalty for overheating/freezing would be a cool touch for a risk/reward mechanic
Honestly this is an addictive game, with a better tutorial and maybe even playable on mobile I'd totally play it more, but for a 3 day jam I think you did a great job!
the UI is very nice, I like the art style and even the song does add to the overall feel of the game.
I will just say though, the controls were a bit unintuitive, as well as a bit of the design…
The controls, I’m mainly talking about the disconnect feature, it’s rather inconvenient.
Three facts, 1). that you have to move your mouse to click the disconnect button, 2). that you can’t click on the pipe rather you have to click on the building to remove ALL the pipes attached [which is inconvenient when you have a splitter and you only want to remove one pipe], and 3). the fact that when you’re finished you have to click another button.
Usually I want to remove only one pipe, so the fact that it doesn’t cancel itself automatically was a slight hassle.
I think a much simpler, and easier system, would be for you to be able to double click, or left click on the pipe and that would delete the pipe.
Or maybe you could hold shift, and then everytime you press a pipe / building with the shift button down, it disconnects.
And the design, mainly the art on the balancer and splitter.
The art is honestly great as a whole, but I feel it’s a miss with these two item..
First of all the balancer I think is simple and intuitive, and a visual change I’d suggest is to alter the start position of the pipes [accidentally called them wires but see below].
But what I don’t get is the splitter, since the balancer and the splitter have the same core principle, one input, two outputs, why is the splitter flipped?
I do think both should be facing as the balancer is facing, since the starting factory is on the left [the input], and the houses are on the right [the output].

And getting to the elephant in the room… the complexity…
This game took a while to get, I was a bit confused by the function of the different devices, as I said above the control scheme was a bit confusing, the wall of text tutorial, and overall this game did take me a while to get…
…
however, however…
I can say that after I did manage to get it, after I understood the mechanics…
that it actually was solid then.
I’m usually not that big a fan of these types of games, however once I understood and got into it, it was legit engaging and fun.
Bit stressful at times, but it fits with the theme greatly!
And look, I apologize for being a bit harsh with the review, this was an ambitious project, and I have to say props for getting so much done, from the speed up feature to the town building by itself to all the other mechanics and getting it all to work with almost 0 bugs, that is commendable.
And the game itself, once I understood, was legit engaging, it was fun setting up different factories for different types of buildings, and I had a good time!
It’s just that there are a few nooks and crannies that need to be leveled out, mainly in the complexity department, that once they are, I think this will be a solid mini game all around!
TL;DR: Main complaints are A). the controls [disconnecting pipes], B). the design of the splitter & balancer, and C). the complexity. However once I got it, the UI, the background music, the gameplay, and the ambition, all combined to make a pretty solid & fun experience!
Once again I apologize for the harsh tone, props for making an ambitious project and I hope to see your entry next jam!
Here's where I was at, btw!
