The Eclipse by CandleBird

[raw]
made by CandleBird for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

WASD to move E to interact with building locations to open up the build menu. Click to select what you want to build. Place resource gatherers, processors and bot spawners to make bots to sell to the factions. Flip the levers on the back of the bot spawners to pick which side they’re going to. Earn money and make a lot of bots. ​ You and your brother need to buy tickets to the Chronos, the last shuttle off planet. The only way to get that kind of money is to work for Hephaestus Labs. Each ticket costs 1500 credits and the only way to make money here is to sell bots! There are two corporations that you can sell to and it's your job to sell to both of them so that neither side wins. Keep going until you earn 3000 credits and can buy your way off this planet.

Ratings

Overall 178th 3.958⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 311th 3.729⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 223th 3.771⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 755th 3.604⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 422th 3.979⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Audio 576th 3.375⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 640th 3⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 495th 3.667⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 19🗳️ 25🗨️

Feedback

Lighty_the_Light
05. Apr 2022 · 01:10 UTC
Very well done!

Easy to learn the game idea and play along. It's also quite fun to just watch robots fighting each other.

War, war never changes.

![WAR.png](///raw/7c6/62/z/4be06.png)
Lighty_the_Light
05. Apr 2022 · 01:11 UTC
And also, good music and SFX, nice and simple art style, love it!
mrVentures
05. Apr 2022 · 03:25 UTC
Hey, thanks for sharing!
I'm playing your game now on stream.
See timecode 43:00
https://youtu.be/euv3GH5eSOo
DevParty
05. Apr 2022 · 03:37 UTC
Fun game! I really liked the graphics. Technical question: What system did you use for the terrain?
Jonathan Ray Pollard
05. Apr 2022 · 03:56 UTC
Wow, what a cool game! Had me the most transfixed of anything I've played so far. A bit hard to understand how some of the resource conversions work and what's keeping the faction balance in place. Amazing animations, cool soothing music, neat art style! Great job! Hope y'all will keep working on this so I can play a more refined version in the future!
Tulio
05. Apr 2022 · 04:05 UTC
Nice graphics and animations!
Whysguy52
05. Apr 2022 · 19:24 UTC
this was awesome. great job.
Lichead studio
05. Apr 2022 · 19:32 UTC
3d models are so cool, and sound fitts it well.
LDP
05. Apr 2022 · 19:54 UTC
This is a really original gameplay, it feels as the frontier between tower defense and management game. Nice graphics, amazing animations. Great jobs folks. It's a bit slow at the beginning but things get pretty interesting after a few minutes.
Xeltide
05. Apr 2022 · 20:19 UTC
Awesome core concept! Just some balancing stuff that would make this really shine.
JCMonkey
06. Apr 2022 · 00:46 UTC
so i got the bad ending. i didnt realize i had to make the 3000 while juggling the onslaught of enemies. this was one the of funnest games this event. nice job!
XxsallesxX
06. Apr 2022 · 03:12 UTC
Really enjoyed this game and played it multiple times to get the different endings. Truly a fun game with a really cool game mechanic in selling to both sides that I had not seen before.
Christian Zommerfelds
06. Apr 2022 · 07:52 UTC
Impressive game, and it performed well on my low end laptop! Is this your own engine?

Some thoughts:

* First, it wasn't clear if resources are transferred automatically. You only realize that things are working after 3 machines are placed. Might be nice to somehow animate or show that resources are flowing from one thing to the other. Or show a hover text "machine is producing" or "missing resources" (first you don't know what the colors mean). But I figured it out pretty quickly so not a big problem.
* I first didn't realize there was a war outside. I thought it was just my other factory buildings and it was just about maximizing profit. Maybe add some things outside to make it clear there is a war, maybe some flags on the buildings. Or maybe a screen instead of a window, because it feels weird there is a war just outside :)
* Instead of making a lever I propose a button with an arrow or customer symbol, then it's clear what it does (I first thought it was just to turn on the machine)
* Great work with the floating UI. Very pleasant!
* Music is great! But maybe a bit too calm for having a war outside :)
* Nice robot animations!
* Why did I win? Wasn't too sure if it was just about reaching a certain amount of money
* The idea to pick your customer and influence the war is really nice. I'd maybe build on that and make it a bit more complex (game was pretty easy). Ideas: set a price per customer instead of just sending it. Make the sides have other suppliers or war events, so you have to adapt the prices/sides as the war goes.

Well done!
Fnessa
06. Apr 2022 · 11:13 UTC
Very interesting game. I really enjoyed watching the robots battle. It was a bit unclear at first if the resource transfer was automatic or not. Something like an animation of resources on conveyor belts could have fixed that. Also an ui element showing how many machines produce different parts would have been nice.
Fnessa
06. Apr 2022 · 11:14 UTC
Very interesting game. I really enjoyed watching the robots battle. It was a bit unclear at first if the resource transfer was automatic or not. Something like an animation of resources on conveyor belts could have fixed that. Also an ui element showing how many machines produce different parts would have been nice.
🎤 CandleBird
06. Apr 2022 · 22:09 UTC
@christian-zommerfelds Thanks so much for all of the detailed feedback! I totally agree with a lot of the suggested changes. We were having a lot of trouble balancing the game during the jam because... well, it's a jam and time is precious. That being said, you're totally right about the confusion with the win-conditions. A lot of it was just slapped on right before submission, but we're already getting started on working on fixing a lot of that stuff for a post-jam version! Oh, also we did just use Unreal Engine 4 as a game engine. Thanks again!
MartinK
06. Apr 2022 · 23:26 UTC
This was cool. the graphics were nicely done, especially the animation on the player arms when you build something. it took me a while to realise there was a war going on outside, but neither side took any damage before I noticed.

If anything it was a little easy, I got to a point where I could just watch the 2 sides fight and occasionally flip a switch if one side started to get the upper hand.

I liked the setting you went for, building for both sides is an interesting twist on the strategy/management game formula.
🎤 CandleBird
07. Apr 2022 · 19:45 UTC
@devparty Sorry, just saw your question right now! I just used the built in landscape tools in Unreal Engine 4. Then I made a custom material that uses the normals of the landscape to apply certain colors to the texture, so I didn't have to hand paint it!
Tanner Shelton
08. Apr 2022 · 06:43 UTC
Great idea! It was really fun getting to play both sides and control the war from the backend. The animations were all great and the modeling was great too. Good job!
Link270
08. Apr 2022 · 06:43 UTC
Really cool game! I loved the idea and innovation. I didn't really read the rules, so when I realized I was sending out units to both sides I was pretty amazed haha Really cool! Great job!
Franciszek Pyrć
09. Apr 2022 · 13:12 UTC
This was quite a fun game. I didn't need any tutorial to figure out what to do, but it was too easy. At first I was just sending bots to one company as I didn't know I had to supply the other one too and nothing seemed to happen until I looked out the window and realized: "Oh, these switches do something". It would be cool if there were more things to build and a bit more depth.

Graphics were good enough except the outside. It really looks like you did it in the last 10 minutes of the jam. Even stealing some textures from the internet would have done the job. Robots clipping out of black quads also didn't look to good.

UI was quite creative, except of the default unreal bars. It seems like you just didn't care about it too much.

Settings would also be welcome. Even mouse sensitivity would have improved my experience as I found it too high. Of course I know that most people don't have time for settings in a jam, but just a sensitivity slider could be a nice welcome.

Sound effects were good although after a while they got repetitive.

TLDR: With a bit of work this could be a good game
BiOs3008
14. Apr 2022 · 10:21 UTC
Realy funy game, easy to understad what have to do. Great job
taran95
16. Apr 2022 · 07:31 UTC
Nice game. Easy to understand and play. Good job!