Loch Ness by filiph

[raw]
made by filiph for LD33 (COMPO)
You are the monster. The Loch Ness monster! Make your own decisions when facing the pesky humans, and don't forget to lay eggs.

The point was to make a game that is simple on surface (just text and choices) but deep underneath. The game world is running a simulation. Your human opponents use fuzzy logic to make their decisions. (The same fuzzy logic is also used to weed out choices that you wouldn't want to take.)

You may want to open the map in a separate browser window so that you have it handy.

I didn't get to implement an end game. You can die (that's implemented), but even if you subdue the whole region to your twisted rule, there's no fireworks. Sorry.

IMPORTANT: If things get boring fast, restart. The whole game is procedural and sometimes you get an unlucky streak and nothing much interesting happens for a while. In a complete game, this would be fixed by a Director agent or something.

Ratings

Coolness 59% 3
Overall 3.15 448
Fun 2.91 547
Humor 2.75 449
Innovation 3.39 229
Mood 2.94 509
Theme 4.06 77

Feedback

Paivictor
23. Aug 2015 · 22:27 UTC
That's just nerdy!
FiveIronFanatic
24. Aug 2015 · 06:15 UTC
I like the idea, but I think it needs more fleshing out. It was hard to keep track of where I had hatchlings, and how many were in each group.

Also, does the scoring system work? Or am I just terrible at this? (Maybe I don't want to know the answer.)
whalebot
24. Aug 2015 · 06:23 UTC
A pretty interesting system. I decided to get riskier towards the end to see if I could completely take over, and I died :/ Nice work.
ianh
24. Aug 2015 · 06:24 UTC
Neat! I wish there were a "allow time to pass" option. I ended up just moving my hatchlings back and forth instead.
andyman404
24. Aug 2015 · 06:35 UTC
Fun little exploration into what would happen with this monster. My poor little hatchlings, sad to see so many die. Thank you for the game!
🎤 filiph
24. Aug 2015 · 07:00 UTC
@FiveIronFanatic: Oh crap, the points system! :O Yeah, you probably did well. I just didn't remember the implement the points. (It would be quite easy, too.)

@all: Thanks!
peterthehe
24. Aug 2015 · 07:38 UTC
Amazing game. 5/5 Humour
Vereos
24. Aug 2015 · 10:10 UTC
Neat! I like strategic games, and I totally enjoyed this one. One has to remember the connections between the cities I guess, but that's part of the strategy.

Well done! :)
IndigoWolf
24. Aug 2015 · 10:23 UTC
I like the idea and the setting but it was difficult to keep track of where I was or had been, still great idea though!
Rakholl
24. Aug 2015 · 10:37 UTC
Clicked away with pleasure, finding out how the game worked.

A worthy effort, but managing a dynamic system like this could use something more visual. Moving the map along the generated text and having showing markings about things most relevant to you in it would be helpful.
🎤 filiph
24. Aug 2015 · 10:57 UTC
I agree. Since it pretty much evolved into a war game, a map would be super nice.

I initially thought it would be less about geography and more about "empire" management (managing children-monsters, alliances, resource, etc.) but I kind of brought it to this on autopilot. And anyway, even if I only made this about the geography, from the start, I probably wouldn't have time to implement a good map in the system I use in such a short time.

But I learn. A map (or anything visual that helps with situational awareness) is now on my todo list for egamebook.

And if I choose to build upon this game, I'll either de-emphasize the geography, or add some kind of simple mini-map.

Thanks everyone for playing!
Grhyll
24. Aug 2015 · 11:47 UTC
I agree with other comments on almost everything! The theme is really great, I quickly was caught in the fact that I'm Nessie and wanted to hatch eggs everywhere, but an interactive map to keep an eye on everything would have been so nice... Finally I stopped looking on the map because I couldn't remember the positions of enemies and just played frantikally, until I was killed during a severe assault on one of my cities...
Fun concept!
Reallysketchy
24. Aug 2015 · 16:50 UTC
Really great! I wish there was a map to see where you had control of and where your eggs were. Also, I had no idea how many blows I could take without dying, so I kept being really risky, which didn't work out to well. Overall, this was a lot of fun, though!
miotatsu
26. Aug 2015 · 04:03 UTC
This is super cool. Presentation could be better but the concept is lovely
local minimum
26. Aug 2015 · 21:05 UTC
I really like the idea, especially as a fellow Nessie-game maker, but I couldn't find any reasonable strategy or logic to work with so it turned into pushing some of the buttons to see what happened. Which was that I died, of course.
plusultra
26. Aug 2015 · 23:00 UTC
Neat little text strategy game! Would be cool if I could decide how many of my followers go where and split them up into groups.
backlashblues
27. Aug 2015 · 13:43 UTC
I agree with the other comments about a more informative display of where you are and have been. But even after I quit trying to remember which cities had eggs etc, it was fun to see what would happen next. Nice job!
Qaterknan
28. Aug 2015 · 13:10 UTC
Unlike others I really like the idea of separate map. If this was a longer game I would print it out and use pieces from some tabletop game to track the positions of armies!
Biruts
01. Sep 2015 · 19:50 UTC
Very nice project guys, i really love it, please check our game too and if you liked it give us a vote. Look for Road to hell and enjoy.
AnglerteamGames
10. Sep 2015 · 17:30 UTC
Really cool strategy game! Got some "move null to ***" later on in the game ... as well as many serious blows.