Battle of the Alamo by frosty

History
On March 6th, 1836, Santa Anna sent over 2,000 Mexican troops to attack The Alamo, defended by only 187 Texans and Tejanos.
Reinforcements never arrived. All of the defenders were killed.
Instructions
Play 3 CARDS per turn to attack the advancing forces.
Every 5 ENEMIES will kill ONE defender.
You LOSE if all 10 defenders on any one wall dies.
Click on the MAP ICONS to use their special abilities.
If you can survive 20 TURNS, reinforcements will arrive to drive away the attackers -- and change the course of history!
| Link | https://joelesko.com/games/alamo/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/battle-of-the-alamo |
Ratings
| Overall | 143th | 4⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 147th | 3.929⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 318th | 3.667⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 453th | 3.857⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 634th | 3.714⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1011th | 2.361⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 519th | 3.65⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 21🗨️ |

Also I felt like the allies coming in 20 turns neglectet the "inevitable" part of the theme. It would suit better with "survive as long as possible".
@adrien-tremblay It's possible, but just like the historical event, it's very unlikely. =) Using your special abilities is key.
I'd love to see a full fledged version of a game like this. Great job frosty.
Is there a bug with the victory condition? My first game, I swear the game did me dirty: My weakest wall was the south where I had one guy left, plus my Crockett. I did not activate Crockett because I got the enemy down to four. They didn't shoot. Then they reinforced, the game said DEFEAT and my guy was gone.
Then in my second game, the opposite thing happened. I was like "well this is it" and they killed my last north-wall defender. But the game did not end, the enemy reinforced and I got a whole next turn. Only after that subsequent turn did the game end.
Here is the situation after the enemy killed my last north-wall defender, then reinforced, and the game has reset my cards and is inviting me to play:

From that position I fired the cannon north, it failed to clear them below five, and then I lost after this turn.
Possible bug aside, if I could grant the player one boon in this game, it would be to make Bowie more convenient to move. It's tedious to click him around in a circle and have to dismiss the tutorial popup each time, and it's something you do frequently.
Bowie was an EXCELLENT idea though: it's a fantastic part of the game that makes me feel a lot more agency, and blunts the RNG feeling. He also powered up the rifle cards as compared to the cannons nicely. All of the special icons were nice, but Bowie really shined. In fact I liked Bowie so much that I wished he had his own slightly different rifle sound so that I could say "THAT is the bonus shot right there!" Sounds dumb but I would have found that satisfying.
I only played the two runs, and I'm not quite sure why I didn't play more, because I feel like I could win this game if I tried more. I think it takes too long. Maybe it's the pace, or maybe the length? I don't know. The pace feels very nice in the moment, but something squashed that ONE MORE TIME feeling.
Another choice you made that I REALLY liked was to not make death inevitable. It's clear your idea flowed well from the theme. But you made the call to make it winnable anyway, and I think that wasn't an obvious decision, but it significantly improved the game. It would not be nearly as fun to play if it was "see how many turns you can live" which is how many games in LD50 ended up.
Dang, I think I mentioned more critique elements than praise elements, but that is not how I feel. I really enjoyed this game, it's impressively fully-realized for a solo jam entry, and you should be really proud of it. Great work!


The special abilities are good too. I _do_ think the game should warn you of the limitations up-front though (Bowie being unable to move after his wall has already attacked, or Travis having to be used before playing any cards that turn). Additionally, the activation prompts for the abilities could fit the rest of the game aesthetic better, instead of just being standard "Windows gray" interface boxes :-D
Great entry, really enjoyed!