I don't know how to code by ubershmekel

Congratulations, you landed your first software engineering role! The only problem is you don't know how to code.
When the performance review comes, you will be fired. Doing nothing will hurt your mental health. Activate cards by dragging them to your desk.
How many weeks can you survive?
Developer notes
- This is a card game
- I wanted to make it feel like it's inevitable that you'll get fired, so the cards are balanced against you.
- I thought I would have time to draw card art. lol.
| Link | https://github.com/ubershmekel/ld50 |
| Link | https://ubershmekel.github.io/ld50/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/i-dont-know-how-to-code |
Ratings
| Overall | 300th | 3.457⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 267th | 3.438⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 98th | 3.813⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 71th | 4.125⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 551th | 2.688⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 54th | 3.913⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 28th | 4.125⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 230th | 3.396⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 24🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
Good job making a nice game :)!

Just interesting: I know that card balanced against the player for the theme reasons, but if not the JAM would you still do it that what?
One thing you could add is that you display the current value of each resource also as number somewhere. I wasn't able to play some cards because I was often unsure whether I have enouth money or not.
Maybe the game needs some more additional balancing (friend sentiment seems to be a pretty weak resource) but it is still a fun game, great work!
Card game could have some more depth than adding and subtracting resources maybe but not saying I could design a better one. :) I think it worked for the timeframe. Each card had a fun concept that aligned to the resources. Overall I think is was well done.
Great job making a game in 48 hours!
I made it to week 17! Guess my life taught me a bit about pretending to be a software engineer, haha. _spoiler:_ The amount of babies you can have in the game is just inhuman :sweat_smile:
Really great job!
I was streaming and recording my playthrough of your game, here's a link in case you'd like to see it https://youtu.be/xAmitsB_F9k
@xcarl @auxiliarymoose - thank you. I didn't want to show the number on the bar because the game was already pretty explicit about the effect of each card, so I wanted to give it some mystery and suspense at least around the "do I have enough money" dilemma. Not sure if that's a net positive experience though. I think humans get more excited for poker than chess.
@maxr00 @billnotic @jyumonji @m11 thank you! I'm really happy y'all liked the sound effects. It was the absolute last minute thing I implemented and luckily I had some great talent in the house (kids were having a playdate).
@tygrak thank you, the new leader made it to week 17 :)
@dindotjs I hope that someday I make a game that shows enough promise to take it further than the game jam. That hasn't happened yet so 🤞
@crishnate - I was thinking of things that are inevitable or that feel inevitable, and came across this idea of impostor syndrome at work. Then I thought a card game with metrics could be a good way to build the experience. So the balancing of the cards was because of the JAM theme for sure. Now that we're after the jam, and after I played so many games in this jam that were balanced against the player, I think I would rather have a way for the player to win. Delaying the inevitable is just not fun enough without a glimmer of hope to break through.
@zah thank you.
@rowlna I would say the gameplay style is inspired by Slay the Spire. When you say "clicks or swipes" I'm guessing you mean the "end turn" button should click, and a card should woosh as it moves or gets picked up. I should've added those SFX, thanks for the pointer. This is the first card game I'd ever made.
@oadt - yes! I wish friends had a bigger role in this game. I also wish I could reward players for maxing out some metrics.
@daniel-username @sdelay thank you. It was a familiar story for me, so I'm glad you liked it.
@bentglasstube Congrats on the new kid! I hope it didn't cost too much mental health or money and that my choice of card balance didn't offend you. I'm not sharing this game at my workplace because of the potential implications.
@blockerz thank you! I wish I had time to make and balance wacky card effects. If the game does well in the jam, I might work more on it in the future.
@ikelucas - this is a compo entry so it was in 48 hours, with kids and other tasks I had to care for. So I'm extra happy to hear you're impressed this got made in time. Thank you. It definitely is influenced by Reigns, though I was trying really hard to channel Slay the Spire, it came out as really Reignsy. The kids are happy to hear you liked their voice acting too, thank you.
@caudatecoder - I subscribed. That's awesome. Thank you for the review and for posting the video. When I was working on the game it was very hard to know which jokes would land and how. Seeing how you were interacting with the game, and noticing the silly bits, was delightful. Thank you.