IRON DAWN by danvil
The Quantmind has achieved consciousness. Prevent it from exterminating humanity!

The Ludum Dare Release is a bit incomplete. Some features just didn't made it. I continued to work a bit on the game and created release V1.1. New features: * Resources: They were in V1 already, but unbalanced and thus in V1 armies are "free". Now they cost resources. Robots need iron and power. Humans need pops, food and power. * Better game balance * Game over / win screens
PLEASE GIVE RATINGS BASED ON V1.0. If you are curious what just a couple more hours can do check out 1.1 afterwards.
Ratings
| Overall | 288th | 3.325⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 227th | 3.342⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 320th | 3.1⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 455th | 2.75⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 385th | 2.925⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 174th | 3.368⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 150th | 3.053⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 285th | 3.079⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
I am truly shocked at how well you were able to pull it off! The early game was an intriguing process of learning the map, and establishing strongholds away from the enemies center. The midgame was a frantic, micro-heavy defense against the steamrolling android horde - one which I barley survived. The late game, the enemy seemed to have it's overlord shut down? They did not pursue my 2 remaining human strongholds, and just froze in their many cities, killing them off. I was, slowly but surely, able to retake the few power plants and mines that had not been wiped out, as well as killing every last android squad - the remaining droids put up no resistance.
I only wish there was an end screen - still not sure if I won or lost.
I absolutely loved the voice lines - and you did a great job naming the different cities (I fought hard to hold 'Coal For Future'). The multiple camera angles - the fun 'mini-game' of getting an enemy to latch onto a high-health unit, only to sneak behind and flank with a low-health kill squad. Incredibly impressive entry - super well done!
The game also never explains what the Quantmind Activation is, or what the beeps are. So it was very hard to grok what was happening. The only reason I won is because the AI just stopped after around a minute of play.
It's quite ambitious to make that kind of game in a game jam, but you perfectly handled this and it works pretty well! Now on the downside, it usually takes some time for the player to understand what's going on - and I have to say I didn't understand at first. I noticed that I could click on buildings, and some had a button to train units. After 20 seconds or so, the gameplay became clearer.
I'm not sure I understood the "Quantmind Activation" thing. I think something was happening every 10 seconds, I noticed the robots became stronger over time, but I don't know if it was happening at random, or if I could foresee the opponent actions.
I won the first time because (or what I think is the cause) the only city of the opponent got destroyed, and it couldn't train any more units. I understand that balancing is pretty difficult, even more with this kind of game. I started the game again and found it more interesting.
In short, I would say that it needed some kind of tutorial or explanation. But otherwise, that's a very nice entry!
Good job!