Settlers & Prophecies by Chocolat-Endive
A calm city builder... with prophecies to fulfill.

The game was created with Godot engine 3.4.4 stable. It’s our entry for LDJam 50. This has been a really fun event, and this time, we have a game with some... gameplay!
This has been quite an hard project for us, working from the beginning to the end with little breaks. But we're quite happy with what we've manage to create. The theme (delay the inevitable) is not predominant in our game but it's there.
We hope you'll enjoy this peaceful city builder!
Known issues: On some browsers, you may experience some slight sound latency and stuttering.

Tools: - Godot Engine - Gimp - Mypaint - A bunch of synths and effects
Fonts: - FT88 by Ange Degheest - Alegreya Sans by Huerta Tipográfica
We hope you all had fun during this ludum dare, and now, it’s time for us to try your games.
Disclaimer: we've made a minor change in the game, to squash a nasty little bug that would sometimes trigger an ending where there should be none. You can still download the original LDjam version below (with the bug included!).
| Link | https://chocolat-endive.itch.io/settlers-and-prophecies |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/settlers-prophecies |
Ratings
| Overall | 106th | 4.061⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 158th | 3.917⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 768th | 3.235⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1192th | 3.091⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 262th | 4.172⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 286th | 3.754⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 846th | 2.679⭐ | 58🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 365th | 3.795⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 51🗳️ | 115🗨️ |
Indeed, roads are the most important thing in this game... but in the endgame, it really cost a lot of money, so you have to plan carefully! Thanks for trying our games!
Overall a great entry! Congratulations on finishing your game!
@sigill Yeah, the economy could use some more explanation ingame.
The basic points are that there should be little to no unemployement, vacant jobs, boars and rats, because that create unhappiness.
Inhabitants, markets and harbours give money every month. Roads, guard towers and pretty much everything cost a little money every month (but make people happy). If people are happy, you have some bonus, if they are unhappy, you have some malus. So the thing is to keep adding more houses when the city grows, so you can have more money and people can tend to the different jobs (fiels, towers, rodent control guilds, etc.). And roads cost A LOT in the end-game.
(I agree that the music does not really fit the mood overall mood.)
Thanks for testing our game, and have a nice day!
@azara Yeah, at the beginning we planned to add some alert pop-up, but we changed our mind. Maybe we should'nt have? With more event in the games, that could be cool. I'm happy you loved the music, it does not really fit the setting of the game, but I enjoyed recording it. (always nice to take some times away from the computer, during a jam)
@tim-sims You have to be careful, a lot of buildings (and roads!) coast money every month! Glad you enjoyed it.
@martenscedric & @colineobordello Thanks a lot, we put a lot of effort in assets and audio. I'm not 100% convinced by everything (the icon for the well is quite ugly for example), but I'm glad you enjoyed it!
In short, you have to balance things that gives you money (people, markets, harbours) and things that cost money (roads, towers, parks, etc.). And you can't build anything if there's no road nearby. When people are happy, that give you bonuses, and when they are unhappy, it gives you maluses. Unenmployement and vacant jobs make people unhappy, as well as boars and rats. That's the most important things to know!
Liked the style and a bit of a weird but atmospheric music.
Some extra hints on what the rodents and boars do would help out a bit ;)

this is a really impressive game for a jam! well done! <3
(hurray for godot! :slight_smile:)
@stefan-laimer Congratulations! Hope you enjoyed it!
@angelicad Roads are definitively the money sink of this game, but they are needed!
@nidel Things can go bad pretty quickly indeed! We thought about adding some animations on the map, but the truth is that we didn't had any time left for it.
@subvertissement Thanks! (and hurray for godot indeed, this engine is really awesome)
@kaleria woooah 2 hours! You've played it more than I did. It makes me happy. :D
@nick-hayashi Everything has been drawn on mypaint, and there's a little frame around each tile that's added at runtime for helping with readability.
@simex I was so exhausted at the end of the jam that I almost not believe it myself. :D This was an intense project, and we are super happy to have finished it before the deadline.
You did a really good job of simplifying the formula to fit it into a jam, too.
Turns out rushing the Monument of the Sun and bankrupting your settlement isn't the strategy that I'd hope it'd be. :stuck_out_tongue:
Great job! It'd be cool to see a post-jam version that keeps the simplicity but adds *just* a little more functionality. :slight_smile:
@mtbvibe yeah, placing the harbor is'nt as easy as it should be (actually, it's an issue on several city builder, but I'm pretty sure we could have made it easier).
@tvorojok Ooooh, I'm glad you enjoyed the music, I really had fun recording it.
@skruffye It's been quite hard to simplify the formula, but not too much. And to keep things balanced. The game could definitively be enhanced, but I'm not sure we'll work on it. We'll see in the future! Glad to see that you enjoyed the game!
@p-r I'm glad you enjoyed the music, I was not sure that is was fitting with the graphic style, but a lot of people think that it is ok, so I guess it is!
@ghatazorg It's not really clear in the game, i'm sorry about it. It the two bottom lines of the harbout should be in the water. Just like on this picture:

(ok after writing this I realised I completely forgot about the goal! I got everything else except the 500 inhabitants. Oh, well...)
Some suggestions for minor improvements:
-make placing buildings a left click event only, my mouse wheel accidentally messed up my city plan once
-I respect your choice of making the building placement permanent, but you should at least make an undo button then to revert your last building if it was an accident (in the heat I missplaced some buildings by one tile several times)
-a pause button would be nice for this kind of game
We also did our entry with godot and noticed the sound issue in some browsers. If you find the cause/ a way to fix it, please let me know :)

@automatonvx Yeah, we thought about adding some kind of popups/warning to tell the player things like *"there's a lot of rats in the town, it makes its inhabitants unhappy, you sohould do this or that"*. The truth is we did'nt have time. As you said, a couple of years could have help! I'm glad you enjoyed the game!
@raxah Ooooh, we definitively should have make the building on the left click only. We did'nt even thing about that. That's a pretty annoying thing indeed. An undo button would indeed be a nice addition. We thought about a pause button and a fast forward button, but we did'nt have enough time to implement it. But we agree it could be nice. For the sound, I've tried different project settings, but I did not find a solution. I hope godot 4 will solve this annoying issue.
@hekateras I'm super impressed by your city, it's super organized and well planned. i'm glad you enjoyed the game!
@oddsocks Glad you've enjoyed it. Thanks!
And this is my "mess" that won the game ;)

However, i don't really see how it relates to the theme tho
@zimny11 Your mess seems pretty organised! Congratulations for beating the game!
@bramreth We've tried to have an original and calm mood, I'm happy that you have liked it.
@nate954 Oooh, it's nice to know that there is some kind of replayability in our game. Thank you! I was not sure about the music, because I though it did not really fit with the graphics, but it seems like a lot of people enjoy it, so I guess it's ok! And yeah, there is a little strategy involved for the player.
@arend-hintze Ooooh thank you!
@theblitz Informations for the player is THE issue in this game, I agree. The theme is indeed not predominant, but it's there (a little), it can be seen in the objectives and in the ending. But it's really not the main strenght of our game. Glad you enjoyed the game!
A really cool entry! Thank you!
Graphics were great. Music was cool, but I did experience the stuttering you mention. Overall it's a solid experience and I hope you continue to develop on it. In terms of a building sim it's pretty incredible that you put all this together in such a short time! Congrats and thanks for playing/commenting on Apocawiz!