The message at the end was really touching. I can't imagine what you're going through right now. That being said, I agree, during times like these having fun games to make and play together make a huge difference.

With that being said, on the subject of the game itself, I found it absolutely delightful. The retro cutesy graphics, combined with the hollow and depressing concept made for a good combination. The sound choice combined with the walking based gameplay also worked well together. One problem I had though was issues with text coming off the screen, which to be fair is a very common issue and my game likely does that on some computers as well. Just figured I'd mention that just in case. As for the fun of the game, I found stomping on reporters very entertaining, and the the occasional decision helped me feel invested in the gameplay. Overall I'd say it was a very entertaining experience, which is all a game really is supposed to be. Quality stuff.

@circle thank you so much for such a detailed feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah, I noticed that text behaves weirdly on different screens, I need to find some good tutorials on how to make scalable UI in unity (if you have any links, please share, haha)

@caudatecoder Sorry I don't have a life boat for you! Haha. Good luck though!

Amazing job. I don't want to spoil anything but the progression is so well done. I thought it was just a funny game at first. Everything fits together so well and it hits hard. Amazing message, especially given full context.

Unfortunately I couldn't read much of the text due to it getting cut off. However despite that I still enjoyed the game and found it rather charming.



Here are a couple of pictures of the problem being mentioned. I want to make it further in the game but it is difficult with this issue. Some ideas maybe would be to change the window size settings in itch.io->Edit Game. Adjust width and height to see if something comes up more playable. As for Unity UI scaling it is confusing. The one idea I have for you there is to check your UI Canvas->Canvas Scaler Component. Try changing to Scale with Screen Size. Match Width or Height and adjust slider to Height. I put my reference at 960x540 as half of standard HD monitor. This is also what I used in itch.io settings.

That is what worked best for me in WebGL. Your results may vary. I think it is very dependent upon how other things are set up too. If you try itch first you may not have to update your build beyond the submission window so maybe do that first. Good luck!

@blockerz thank you so much for your input! I updated the setting on itch and it already looks better!

@wren-erickson sorry to hear that. I updated setting on itch so it should be visible now!

I'll also add a windows build, that might solve some problems as I guess

At first I thought this game won't do that much with its theme, but the progression is really well done. I don't want to spoil it, but the marriage of theme and gameplay is really surprising and powerful. I'm from Eastern Europe as well, so this story hits close to home. Really good job.

I'll add a technical note: for me, on a 4k monitor, the text was very tiny. But whatever, I don't expect jam games to be optimized for 4k.

@pdotjpg thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

yeah, I'm looking into the UI issue. It's really unfortunate for a game with a lot of text in it.. thanks for sticking with it :heart:

@blockerz thanks again I just updated the canvas scaler as you recommended and now UI seems to be looking exactly right on all screens! :heart:

Awesome, I'll give it another try when I get a chance :)

@caudatecoder Looks so much better now! Glad to hear that suggestion helped!

The game is very well done. I played it quite a few times working out the right balance in order to get to the end. Looking at it from a resource management lens and balancing the various rules, the gameplay was well done.

The graphics and sounds are nice. The mood is set well and I believe it aligns to the theme. As for humor, I think its there but in a sad way because it hits close to the heart. Art imitates life. It is a powerful way to send a message. I think you did that well.

Great job making an impactful game in 48 hours!


{Spoilers}-------------------------

After I figured our how to get to the war, I wanted to see if it was possible to get further so I tried several more times (like some silly dictator would). I like that it ends there from a story telling standpoint. Great job with that! I appreciate the message it sends and your message at the end. I wish for an end to the current crisis.

{/Spoilers}-------------------------

This took me a few tries to get the right balance of journalists/police on the first section. I like the management aspect and gaining the ability to make choices depending on how you're focusing your effort. Theme is staggeringly relevant.

Poignant message at the end. After playing your game I made a donation to the International Rescue Committee to help Ukrainian refugees. I hope this crisis will end soon. I cannot even imagine.

@googlypoo wow, I deeply appreciate it! thank you!

Interesting game, I wasn't expecting how it would look like jeje, very original and creative :)

Good job and thanks for your entry.

Fits the theme well. Initially, the red sun at the back made me think that the dictator was walking away from a radiation fallout site into a tunneled bunker. But, then, the actual message was much more powerful than a nuclear blast. Good job.

The game is really good, the artstyle is really simple but I enjoyed and the mechanic it's confusing at the start but when you get it it's really fun :D

This was actually brilliant. Really unpolished but it doesn't even matter because the narrative and core mechanics are so engaging.

If you polish the game speed, make the graphics more consistent, the music less repetitive (but keep the style, it's good) and find a more friendly way to present your text, you have a hit here.

4.5/5 from me.

The message you wrote on the end screen was moving. Cool game, this is a pretty unique one that I have played so far.

Congratulations for the game. It brings a powerfull message with a good sense of humor. All aspects of the game converge to your message, and this is very important for the experience.

The music is a good example of something that's simple but not annoying. I kept my headphones on the whole time. I loved the awkward blend of story and gameplay! :D

This is a cool way to send a message and I support that. At first, I didn't want to play because I didn't feel comfortable with contributing to the despotic image, but I saw that there was a message at the end. All in all, it gets the point across. Touching and heartfelt in a way I didn't expect this game to be. I played it a second time just to crush the police and let all the journalists through, and it was satisfied to get kicked out of office. Overall, this game is pretty simple, but it all ties together well. The gameplay was unexpected, but it works for what you're going for! The audio felt appropriate and the loop was good and unobtrusive.

nice game and nice message! Good job!👍

@muriel @d00kl1 @gabriel-dias-oliveira-de-almeida @jesus-gonzalez @apaull0 @rickbadan @shorkiesoftware @incobalt @taran95

I'm kind of overwhelmed by your positive feedback. Thank you all so much! I'm super glad that the experience was good and the message was delivered :heart:

Great game with interesting gameplay which can be improved and evolved into a really long term project.

And personally as Ukrainian I thank you for the message you give with this little piece of art :heart:

@sunjet thanks, I appreciate it :heart:

Haven't really thought about making something bigger out of this game. Taking the ideas and elaborating on them — absolutely. But gameplay wise I can't really see how this could be expanded. Maybe make a series of mini-games in the same setting/universe? I'm really curious to know what you had in mind when said about long term project

@caudatecoder I mean something like games Reigns and Dictator are, balancing between different stats like PF/MC/Pop in your game by choosing different key decisions and events. But this way the main gameplay should be expanded or remade somehow, of course :)

Touching message in the end!

That message also immediately increased the depth of the game for me, instead of what I first thought was a bit of a memey game suddenly turned into an expression of emotions and I really appreciated that!

The gameplay was simply, but interested, it was cool to try and balance out the different points and seeing how each of the categories would respond to certain event choices and murdering cops/journalists.

Innovative! I've never played a game like this before. Really cool mix of fast-paced resource management and slow-paced decision making. It was a little hard to tell if I was properly dodging (or hitting) the units coming through. But, still - awesome job!

It took me 4 playthroughs where I felt confused until I realized that I needed to first eat the media folk, and then let all the police I could through. Even though you kind of explained that in the text. I didn't realize there was a threshold that I needed to pass with eating media people. The way the penalty mechanics were described at the top right in text was what eventually helped me figure it out, but it was a very subtle cue.

These thresholds felt a it arbitrary, and hidden. It's funny how you did explain everything in the instructions, and I did read it, but I still didn't get it. We really need to visualize for the players what's going on during the game, or they can easily get confused. I think I goofed that for my game too, which also has a few different metrics that interplay.

Pretty cool art though, and the concept was interesting. I wonder what's inevitable. Is it that dictators fall, or that dictators rise to power. Thank you for that question, and for the game.

@ubershmekel thanks for your input, that's definitely area I need to improve!

The way I intended inevitable part is that dictators fall and all their crimes are uncovered but thinking about it... I sure hope dictators rising to power is not inevitable, hehe

A stunning and impactful employment of the theme here. An autocracy simulation on rails. Success in maintaining your power results in the game mechanics becoming a broken pastiche of themselves as the dictator engulfs the screen.

The game is played by managing three competing variables, in popularity, media control, and police force. You swing this in your favor by killing whoever is most convenient at the moment. That changes as the numbers fluctuate, naturally. Who you choose to kill is ever changing, to the point where the choosing of who to kill is almost entirely trivialized. The paradigm shift occurs when you assert your rule as absolute by changing law, and the dictator grows to occupy all three, or at least two of the three lanes. With full control, it's at that point that you grow yet again after choosing to begin your petty war. "Way to go down in history!" is the glib rationale that precedes the bloodied dictator stomping innocent civilians.

I played around a bit more, and there is an additional ending card should you decide not to follow through with the war. There are inevitable elements explored on a variety of levels. The despot can only attempt to delay their own undoing. Very well done.

@jonah-srg wow, that's like a review in a gaming magazine or something! thank you so much :heart:

I had to play a few times before I was able to become a super-sized dictator. The mechanics were simple, and it didn't take long before I could try to balance between media control, police support, and popularity. Eventually I was unstoppable except by the inevitable.

A very nice political commentary game.

Well done!!

I feel a bit bad that our dictator game weren't as optimistic and meaningful as yours 🙈

It started out very game/arcade like, like casually and fun. It was interesting to balance the resources back and forth.

The twist/progression was gripping and finally reached the end which wrapped it up in meaningful way.

Great work!! 💖

Thank you for your play-through of our game btw, was really interesting to hear your reactions and reasoning :D

@0x01f0 thank you very much!

you shouldn't feel bad that you made a funny game. sometimes, if not most of the times that's just exactly what we need :heart:

The concept is really good and fun and a great intepretation of the theme. The game suffers somewhat from the lack of polish and from having only the journalist and the cop that you need to manage. It's really funny to see how the dictator morphs after the big decisions, nice job!

Nice job! A complete and unique entry for the Compo. I did notice that the Police Force stops going up at some point and I'm not sure how to max it out (or if it's even possible).

Tell me, is there any relationship? :laughing:

@baubau haha, you're actually the first person apart from my friends who noticed! or at least the first who told. absolutely that was intentional

the police actually keeps going up but when you're growing wider after changing constitution, you take up at least 2 lanes and maybe for the lack of vfx it's not clear that you stomp cops on the center even if you went to the side. so yeah it does become harder to increase it but it's possible and getting to 70 for the war shouldn't be that hard

This game feels so real these days. Congrats for trying something different!

A very moving message indeed, I think the simplicity of the game complements the context and story very well. Well done!!

This has a really uncomfortable atmosphere. Everything, the visuals, the animation, the music, the controls is just uncomfortable. I would love to see a horror game from you guys.

Love the dictators animation, hussling to the music. I did feel like I lost for no reason cause I had 100 media control, 50 popularity and 50 police force so idk what I did wrong. Still a funny time watching the wide man

@taximan981 I'm glad you enjoyed it! You can't really win this game, there's no good ending for a dictator. Sorry if that wasn't clear and added frustration to the experience :sweat:

Very interesting idea for a game! The music was pretty good too. It's a shame that there is no other ending. I think a good ending isn't mandatory to have, but it needs to be more satisfying, because the main character was defeated too easily. It's understandable for a compo game though and I still had fun playing.

@pio thanks, glad you had fun! not sure I completely understand you about one ending though. there are 5 endings to this game (2 are very similar though)... but none of them are good or much satisfying, so I'm gonna guess that's what you meant. Thanks for your input you've got a point!

He-he, I live there(

Wow! I really liked the message and text in the game and how being a ruthless dictator is basically 'delaying the inevitable' and I was wondering if it was just really clever and funny view of dictatorship as a subject, but also a comment of recent events and then when I read the end game text - respect! Great game! The best message out of all games Ive played during this jam, very funny, but also smart and in the end and with heart. The only thing I would fix is the speed of the upcoming reporters and police officers. I really liked and didnt expect decision making while playing - great idea to make simple game that much more interesting, than just balancing resources! Keep up the great work & stand with Ukraine! <3

Wow that's a powerful ending and a powerful message.

Nice game

I liked the message, but I worry that most people won't see it because they don't properly understand the mechanics. The intro has a lot of flavor, but it didn't give me the best idea of what to actually do in the game.

@bluishgreenpro yeah I saw you struggling and I guess many people will have similar or worse experience without me observing and giving tips.

On the other hand this is my most well received entry so far. I'm slowly but surely improving thanks to people like you who give thorough feedback! Again, thanks for having me and doing develolper interview series ❤️

Hey brilliant entry! Love the the bit of social commentary and what a great subtle humor! The mechanics were a little confusing at first. But once I figured it out I didn't feel like restarting yet another time because of how slow the gameplay was.

Very interesting take on the theme.

I do like the music and him stepping to the music and it definitely looks like he is stomping on the cops or journalists when he runs into them.

- I don't think I got the jist of how to play the game. Essentially, it was inevitable that I couldn't get good at breaking the laws for my own benefit. (Which is a proper lesson lol)

- Maybe put less of each person so it seems feasible to avoid stepping on them in general.
- Minor syntax items: 1) "thoug" instead of "though" is a typo on your tutorial section 2) Try switching which shoulder is raised when the leg is out on the Dictator's walk.

Big props to you on completing this compo.

@vixenmink thank you very much for your input!

I'm sorry you couldn't understand the gameplay. It is confusing. I certainly need to improve my tutorials and UI

I very much liked the explanation of the characters at the beginning, however I couldn't really get a grasp of the gameplay, maybe I'm a bit dumb but I tried to make balance between the different gauges and it seem to not work as I lost every time haha :)
I like the graphics and the music is pretty cool.

Thanks for your game and your message at the end!

@kosmosael thanks for giving it a try! It's ok that you got lost. There is a lot of information that you need to process to get the understanding of what's going on and how you should react to it. I saw a couple people streaming my game were very confused, so you're not alone and it's my mistake. There's a lack of tutorial and good UI too.

I'm working on a post-jam version now to fix those issues

That's a simple game but with a strong message! The music and graphics work great, well done!
Thank you for this message of kindness!