Rude Bear Realms by Alex Rose

[raw]
made by Alex Rose for LD33 (JAM)
FINALLY, THE TENTH GAME IN THE RUDE BEAR SERIES (and 3rd worst), AND THIS TIME.. YOU PLAY AS THE WIZARD. (You can play the other Rude Bear games here: http://alexrosegames.com/rude-bear, and most of them are on my Ludum Dare author page).

You are Rude Bear's mortal nemesis, an evil dictator. Use a network of spies to find stuff out. Your spies can find things about villages on certain dates and then you use this information to win.

==CONTROLS==

You can play with the mouse, or controller, or keyboard.

ENTER/SPACE/A/left click = Interact
ESC/Right click/B = Back
1/LB/X = Buy menu
2/RB/Y = Wait 1 day

==DESCRIPTION OF TERMS==

UI stuff:
Top left: Money + Fear
- Money is how much money you have
- Fear is how much your minions are scared of you. Minions who aren't scared will hide money from you and do a half arsed job. You can raise their fear by killing them when they report back to you.


Town buttons:
- Fist: How much the town is willing to train its military. Robbing towns and killing their military will cause this to rise. Attacking towns will cause it to lower, but raise destruction.
- Destruction: A destroyed town will not produce any more money.
- Money: How much money a town has.
- Guards: How many guards a town has, which may kill your units.
- Rude Bear's date: When Rude Bear arrives. If Rude Bear is in a town with your units, they'll ALL die. This shows the next date he arrives.
- Merchant date: If a raider is around at the same time as a merchant they'll rob her. This shows the next date she arrives.


Units:
- The Wizard is you. You can warp between dungeons.
- Spies are your eyes and ears. You can use them to find stuff out about the world, but only some info on the dates they arrive. All the information is dated. Watch the calender - your info might not be accurate anymore.
- Raiders can rob for you, they're your source of income. Guards and Rude Bear can kill them, so you should use your spies to scout the area before you send them on a raid. If they raid too much, they'll ruin the economy of an area and potentially destroy a village. Once it's destroyed, a village will never produce money again.
- Lions are your lords. Put one in each dungeon to win.

SPIES:
- Your spies will never come home if you tell them not to! They will wander off and do its own thing and gather information.
- Once you really want it to come back, you can tell your spies to Rally Troops and if they meet up they'll come home.
- Evaluating the area tells you about the wealth, uprising and number of guards in a village.
- Passing through a village always finds its destruction.
- Killing guards will try and wipe out a village before your raiders go in. The more spies you send, the more likely you are to succeed. The more guards there are, the more dangerous it is.
- Finding heroes will find Rude Bear before he visits so you can avoid him completely.
- Finding merchants will find merchants before they visit so you can rob them.
- Spying enroute takes time to spy in each location.
- Being thorough will spend longer at the village to find more information.

RAIDERS:
- Robbing takes money.
- Attacking destroys the village a bit, kills more guards and makes the people less likely to attack you.
- Ransacking enroute raids all the villages along the way. Risky if there's guards!
- If your units are told to return when rich, once they've got a fair amount of money they'll come right home instead of potentially getting killed by Rude Bear.

Top Right:
Calender:
- 30 days in Creptember, Brapril, Chune and Lowvember. Also Glocktober and Swaguary - Barch, Baugust, Jerly and Freduary. Remember Greasember has a 30th day, and finally 30 in old Amaymay.


==CHANGELOG==


UPDATE 25.8.15: Fixed gamebreaking bug where you couldn't x out of menus without playing with a controller.

Ratings

Coolness 92% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.38 378
Audio(Jam) 3.39 259
Fun(Jam) 3.00 563
Graphics(Jam) 3.92 261
Humor(Jam) 3.20 307
Innovation(Jam) 3.25 349
Mood(Jam) 3.39 320
Theme(Jam) 3.35 609

Feedback

VDZ
27. Aug 2015 · 23:46 UTC
It's a very cool game, but it's clearly unfinished. This was clearly too big a project for a 72 hour jam. I know the appeal of overambitious concepts better than anyone, but it clearly didn't work out here. Perhaps next time it's better to cut features as you approach the deadline (the merchant doesn't add a lot to the gameplay, the game would function almost identically without the fear mechanic [though it does admittedly add a lot to the atmosphere], guard interaction could be simplified (like just have the raiders fight guards instead of having it as spy action), and so on) and reserve more time for playtesting.

Things that stood out to me in particular:

- Game balance is horrible. The only challenge in winning the game is finding out how to get the Lions to the dungeons (didn't understand the exact summoning mechanics at first); they're super-cheap and money is way too easy to come by.

- The game needs a lot more explanation/some kind of tutorial. I read the whole description, yet it took me quite some time to figure out most elements. This mainly includes minor elements like having descriptions for all the spy options in the menu where you're able to select them.

- It needs more/clearer info on the current game state and potential consequences of your actions. Mainly, I had no idea what my units where doing exactly - where they're heading, what they're doing there and when they'll arrive/return. When they report back, they also don't even name the village they returned from. (There's also a bug in the spy menu where ETA and Risk don't update as you check/uncheck boxes until you've closed and re-opened the window.)

The game was a lot of fun during the short time I played it, but its unfinishedness completely kills all replayability.
crucknuk
12. Sep 2015 · 18:13 UTC
Well the content is massive and i can see what you were trying to do Game in this genre is just too damn fun :)
It is a bit sad though i couldn't see all the branch work you have done because it is not finished and this is sad because your game is a genre that i very much like it.
Nostalgy does hit back sometimes reminding me of heroes 3 :)
well Jam done :)
MapleQuest
12. Sep 2015 · 20:16 UTC
Played it for a bit, and I really like the idea and when it worked, it seemed fun.

I came across a game-breaking bug where my troops returned home with no gold, and they were stuck in a loop where either their fear would go down, or I'd kill them. The loop only seemed to break when I killed them all, and there was no one left to report... leaving me no way to make money.

I also found things were a bit dull when I didn't have the chance to do anything on some days.

The appeal is there, the writing and humour and aesthetics are all great, the game's just a bit unbalanced and a bit too buggy to really see the 'fun' in it yet. Would love to play a more polished version.
Anti
12. Sep 2015 · 20:19 UTC
Massive amounts of content for a game created in 72 hours so I was a bit sad to see that the game was unfinished. It was a very fun game to play but the unfinished state really took much of the experience away.
Darkflint
12. Sep 2015 · 22:53 UTC
The first look is very, very nice. But somehow it lack feedback. I send my minions and spy to towns, my wizard to a dungeon. Couldnt enter the dungeons, the spies only reported after the first town, at second town the vanished after some time, minions too?
MrTwister
13. Sep 2015 · 01:54 UTC
This is a VERY interesting game!
I managed to win my second try, although the game never properly ended.
Had no idea what to do with the info the spies gathered. Sending raiders to the villages until I got enough money to afford the lions (and win) worked for me.

It's interesting how polished most of the game is, despite being incomplete. Perhaps you could have traded a bit of polish here and there for "completeness".

There's clearly a lot of potential here, but this was perhaps a bit too ambitious for a ludumdare entry. I'd love to see this game developed to completion.
It's an incredibly good work for 72 hours though. Puts many entries (mine included) to shame, for sure.

I'd say you did an amazing job. Please work on this post-compo so we can all play the finished version!
🎤 Alex Rose
13. Sep 2015 · 02:39 UTC
Yeah, I took on too much stuff for a jam. Shouldn't have tried an RTS :( . To be honest, I shouldn't have done the spy system. It seemed like a really cool idea but it doesn't actually play very well and it took the vast majority of the jam. If I'd scrapped the whole "non realtime knowledge" thing I could've added loads more of the other stuff I wanted. Alas. Maybe next time.

To be honest, I'm really disillusioned with this game now and it makes me not want to work on it again, feels like the first time I've properly failed a jam since Ludum Dare 26 (when I had a finished game but it had a restart glitch).

Cheers for the kind words in spite of that though. It's a fixer upper.
KaiseanGames
13. Sep 2015 · 06:22 UTC
Very nice production, keep up the good work.
Creative Sectors
13. Sep 2015 · 11:01 UTC
Well, you got me, I'm a fan of turn based strategies and this one was kind of fun, but not enough challanging as such.
I love it.

Creative Sectors: Kardfogú
MercuryXGames
14. Sep 2015 · 16:13 UTC
a bit confusing, but overall a good entry! nice!
Xanjos
14. Sep 2015 · 16:35 UTC
Pretty overwhelming on the first go since there's no instructions screen or tutorial to help you but it's an interesting entry nonetheless. The ability to dispose of minions to raise your fear (and also keep them in line like the evil overlord you are) is a brilliant idea though.
Ludipe
14. Sep 2015 · 16:45 UTC
Wow, this looks super ambitious! Looks cool but needs some more work, quite a big concept for a jam, really awesome that you made so much content
tayl1r
14. Sep 2015 · 18:01 UTC
There is a lot going on!
yuigoto
14. Sep 2015 · 23:52 UTC
Whoa, this is some massive game idea here. A bit unrefined, I'd say, mostly because 3 days for such a game wouldn't be enough, but this is one really interesting game. :D

The graphics are nicely done and are what caught me for this game, but that's some nice work on the audio too! It helps set up the mood in a pretty convincing way. :)

The mechanics, though, are a bit complex for a jam game, I think. Sometimes it feels a bit unbalanced, but still an amazing work you've done, sir! The fear system and the spy system are really a great idea, I think. :D

I'm gonna keep playing it more, and then play the others in the Rude Bear series! ;)

Cheers! :D