LudumData

Super Auto Crusaders by Savolae

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made by Savolae for Ludum Dare 51 (JAM)

Super Auto Crusaders

The fastest auto battler on Ludum Dare! Are you the champion of strategy, who can beat their opponents in mere 10 seconds?

gameplay.png

How to play

The gameplay consists of 3 looping phases, each lasting only 10 seconds: - 👇 Placement: Place your fighters on the board - 🏹 Battle: Let them fight - 🆙 Upgrade: Get more units or buff the existing ones

You can press the fast forward button to fast forward through the active phase.

upgrade.png

Play with your mouse, click on units to pick them up and set them down. During upgrade phase, click on either a new unit or an upgrade to choose it.

You will play against teams made by other players, win by beating 5 teams in ten seconds, lose even a single time and you will have to start again. Running out of time is not an issue, you can try again in the next phase.

Post submission fixes

  • Fixed an issue with saving teams caused by another bugfix during submission time

Known issues

  • For some reason, fonts don't render properly on Mac + Firefox - try using Chrome if you're on Mac. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Link https://savolae.itch.io/super-auto-crusaders
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/super-auto-crusaders

Ratings

Overall 66th 4.141⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Fun 23th 4.266⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 356th 3.586⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Theme 230th 4.04⭐ 65🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 683th 3.477⭐ 66🧑‍⚖️
Audio 529th 3.226⭐ 64🧑‍⚖️
Humor 356th 3.259⭐ 58🧑‍⚖️
Mood 618th 3.41⭐ 63🧑‍⚖️
Given 116🗳️ 118🗨️

Feedback

onedozenbagels
03. Oct 2022 · 23:50 UTC
I didn't play it enough to figure out the optimal strategy, but I really liked the graphics and enjoyed watching the fights. One tip: upgrade selection was a bit confusing the first few times (I have 3? Why can I only select 1? Wait, I'm out of time, did it do anything?), so would have liked that to be more obvious.
Jeffrey Hwang
03. Oct 2022 · 23:57 UTC
Very cute and the auto battle were fun to watch! Loved the fights and arts. I think there were something weird going on with the timing (sometimes timer went down super fast). Great job!
Gryph0n
04. Oct 2022 · 00:03 UTC
Fun lil auto chess! Like that there is a network aspect to it.
Brandsma
04. Oct 2022 · 00:04 UTC
Wanted to keep playing. It's good. Timer works well here.
Defrag
04. Oct 2022 · 00:06 UTC
The 10 second battles were great. I don't know that I always had much of a strategy, but after thinking about some of the upgrades, perhaps there is more to it than just sending my guys into the fray in the default start up. The one were the knight could teleport to the back seemed like an interesting one to stir up the enemy presentation. I really liked the idea that I was being pitted against other players' configurations. However, is it taking into account their upgrades?
Thomas Yanuziello
04. Oct 2022 · 00:07 UTC
Totally destroyed all my enemies with an army of multishot archers.
Matt Barnfield
04. Oct 2022 · 00:16 UTC
I became a little obsessed with this. Really great game.

I did get 5 wins but I sort of cheesed it- focused more on surviving 10s than killing in 10s so I bought all tanks and hid in corners xD. After a while I guess there were no more opponents so I ended up fighting a single knight. Either way, 5 wins is 5 wins, even if it did take 12 fights!

I think it might have been a bit more strategically interesting if you weren't picking between units and upgrades (units are almost always better except when multitargeting archers is offered). Maybe either picking a unit AND an upgrade or alternating between unit and upgrade picks each round. Only minor though, I really enjoyed playing!
🎤 Savolae
04. Oct 2022 · 00:28 UTC
@onedozenbagels @jeffrey-hwang @gryph0n @defrag @thomas-yanuziello @matt-barnfield Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

@onedozenbagels Yeah, we had plans for making the upgrade screen better but unfortunately ran out of time

@defrag It remembers the upgrades as well

@matt-barnfield We tried having both unit and upgrade picking while developing, but after testing it was a bit too easy to create cheesy teams like that. Balancing was one of the bigger issues we had with the game, and I wish we could have used more time to fine tune it.
hansj
04. Oct 2022 · 12:05 UTC
I liked this one! I think you hit the theme well and as opposed to a lot of other games where the timing feels forced, this felt like a natural integration in the game. Well done, great contribution!
LDJam user 298496
04. Oct 2022 · 16:23 UTC
Really awesome auto chess game, I wanted to keep playing after five rounds!
ritz1231
04. Oct 2022 · 16:35 UTC
I really like the idea, although I found the upgrade screen to be a bit confusing, which others already pointed out. I'm surprised that you managed to pull off a multiplayer game in 3 days
LoHii
04. Oct 2022 · 18:46 UTC
Oh wow, this was insanely fun. I'll probably come back to this again, wanna win in 5 rounds. The upgrade screen could've been better, I'd especially liked to see the icons in shop to faster familiarize myself with them.
seisus
04. Oct 2022 · 20:51 UTC
Very fun game, I really wanted to win! Good job on the fun part!
MsPlanlos
04. Oct 2022 · 21:59 UTC
Love how the little guys are moving around. :D Really nice game, played it for a good while!
Falk Hoeppner
04. Oct 2022 · 22:08 UTC
Super fun to play, great little strategy game, and I love all the upgrade options.
Raikish
04. Oct 2022 · 22:08 UTC
wooow, didn't expect an auto chess jajaja, very cool
borjan1peovski
04. Oct 2022 · 22:29 UTC
Really cool to see an auto chess game in here. Kind of wish there were more than 5 rounds. Also I beat the game in 5 rounds by just getting knights each round lol.
ditam
04. Oct 2022 · 23:24 UTC
Wow, I'm only a couple ratings in, but I already know this is going to be one of my favourite entries this jam. I had a lot of fun, even though I only won 2/6 battles. (It seems like ties are sometimes a bit generous to one side, but maybe I just didn't understand the game well enough yet.) An all around great!
PicusBGames
05. Oct 2022 · 00:36 UTC
Loved this one! :) I had a lot of fun playing it though I could never quite get 5 done haha :)
CodeChomper
05. Oct 2022 · 00:38 UTC
This was a fun game. I played a lot of times. Once a bad guy spawned behind my team. I tried to do the same and couldn't place my guys across the line. I never mad it past level 3 but I can see a lot of effort went into making this. Great entry!
Eugenik
05. Oct 2022 · 02:09 UTC
Really great idea!.
MikroPiru
05. Oct 2022 · 09:05 UTC
I really liked this! The whole auto chess idea is nice, and the implementation is really solid. An impressive feat to make a game this polished in such a short time!

At first I found myself mostly on the losing end of the battles but then found a setup that worked for me (an army of multishot archers that Thomas also mentioned above) and after that I crushed my enemies, saw them driven before me, and heard the lamentations of.. well, never mind. Based on this I wonder how well the balancing between different unit types and upgrades works, but IMHO I would be surprised if you nailed that also in such a short time.
nyxkn
05. Oct 2022 · 11:12 UTC
Yoo, actually really fun game! The battles are really well implemented and fun to watch. Knights rush FTW. It seemed difficult at first but once you figure out the right strategy it becomes winnable, although it does seem to depend on luck of what the enemy team builds. Battle music was very simple but super effective, and great sounds. Upgrades were fun but some seemed useless, like the teleport which would have them teleport often at the wrong corner :D Overall great entry and great amount of polish. Well done!
🎤 Savolae
05. Oct 2022 · 19:00 UTC
@hansj @matt-ravenhall @ritz1231 @lohii @seisus @msplanlos @falk-hoeppner @raikish @borjan1peovski @ditam @picusbgames @codechomper @eugenik @mikropiru @nyxkn

Thanks for all the feedback! We are very happy that you had fun playing! We'll be sure to check your games as well!
Joror
05. Oct 2022 · 19:48 UTC
Cool auto-battler! The 10 seconds placement limitation was a bit stressful, but got use to it. Archers are OP!

At first I didnt see that the tanks were just damage soakers~

Sometimes the controls for repositions could have been neater, but all in all effective.
Lowkey Interactive
05. Oct 2022 · 21:32 UTC
Insane experience, sooooooo addictive! Thought I was on TFT rn ahah
Ryan Dotsikas
05. Oct 2022 · 21:33 UTC
Damn, this was awesome! Making an auto-battler, especially one that has some aspect of multiplayer/saved data in a game jam is wild! Unbelievable job with this! It was really fun to try to maximize the team, although definitely a little tough. Really gotta pump up those archers! Haha this was great, unreal job!
Rage Paint Games
06. Oct 2022 · 02:48 UTC
I originally thought I was battling AI that was generating random setups, but was thoroughly impressed that it was actually saved data from other players. I also was so thankful for the skip button, so I didn't need to wait for the 10 seconds to be up if I made my selections quickly. I do wish I could drop and drop the units, as I kept trying to do that instead of just clicking.
GERD
06. Oct 2022 · 03:07 UTC
Absolutely insane! I think I like this game jam autobattler more than tft! I hope you guys stick with it!
wolderado
06. Oct 2022 · 07:54 UTC
Really nice to see a autobattler in ludum dare. Minimalistic but fun!
Peter Jonsson
06. Oct 2022 · 19:31 UTC
Very nice game. I loved the battles.
The upgrade screen could have been made skippable.
Ausstein
06. Oct 2022 · 19:36 UTC
Really Really fun game. The taunting Tank in the back strategy is very overpowered :D I got destroyed by that on one playthrough and then implemented it myself. Its crazy :D
Budda
06. Oct 2022 · 19:46 UTC
Awesome stuff. You should definitely continue working on this one after the jam. Not sure if the 10 second theme helps or hinders here though - it needs some sort of time limit, but the 10 seconds is not quite perfect imo.
busisen
06. Oct 2022 · 20:20 UTC
This was a lovely game. At the start it didn't feel like my strategic choices did much if anything to affect the outcome of the game but when I started my archer strat I was unstoppable and became champion. Really fun entry, nice job!
Cal
06. Oct 2022 · 21:16 UTC
Really fun game. I had a great time trying to work out the best placements / combos. Would be good on mobile too!
Steing
06. Oct 2022 · 22:20 UTC
I'm actually top 1 at your game !!! I never felt like this before thank you for this from the bottom of my heart.
My name is JointDeCulasse btw
Thiefaine
07. Oct 2022 · 08:32 UTC
I never really played auto chess, and it was really fun, A bit sad to only do tie rounds ^^, the system was good !
Good job !!
Leopold
07. Oct 2022 · 08:41 UTC
Awesome game ! the archer are so powerfull whith multi shots but it is kind of satisfying ^^
Good Job !!
omphh
07. Oct 2022 · 08:46 UTC
Fun autobattler! Made it with just buying archers pretty much haha, once I had the upgrade to fire at multiple enemies it changed everything! Good job!! :)
Kaech
07. Oct 2022 · 10:04 UTC
Great idea! Would love to see it developed further
shimmerscale
07. Oct 2022 · 15:20 UTC
I don't usually like autobattlers, but this one was really fun! It has a nice amount of strategy involved in the set up and upgrade phases to keep me engaged in the game, and the battle sequences are fun to watch.
Nash
08. Oct 2022 · 11:08 UTC
This is a solid jam game! A fun take on the auto battler genre.

The 10 second limit is a bit annoying during the upgrade phase though. There is a lot of new text and concepts on that screen for the player and only 10 seconds to make the decision. Why I appreciate that you tried to keep the game as loyal to the theme as possible, I think it would have been a slightly better experience if the upgrade phase did not have a timer. It gets a lot easier when the player gets more time with the game but initially it is a bit rough.

Huge props for the quality of life features you have implemented! The rewind feature makes the game so much more enjoyable to play. Many games during this jam have left unnecessary 10 second wait session into their games. There is no point keep the player waiting or watching animations if they do not want to. This feature alone increased the ratings I will give you!

Overall, a simple and solid game. Nothing innovative but still thematic and well polished. Great work!
hunttis
16. Oct 2022 · 06:01 UTC
Nice entry! Great gameplay and nice graphics (especially enjoyed the flailing knights when they died). Sound and music were simple, but did the job very well!

Although I mostly found myself on the end of fights that didn't quite have enough time to finish, I had a lot of fun trying to figure out a group of fighters that would win.