Medieval Messenger by José Bonilla

Welcome to Medieval Messenger!
1.01 patch fixes a bug with the mouse clicking through and now shows the number of deliveries made correctly.
A turn-based game intended for LD53 Compo, but ended up as Jam Game ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Everything (programming, game design, art, music improvisation, music performance) by manta ray, except sounds (freesound.org) and fonts (dafont.com).
Live the experience of being a medieval messenger, delivering important items between VIPs.
Try to survive (hp shown in red) and keep being trusted (trustworthyness shown in green), if either of those run to 0 you'll die!
How to Play
- You are the blue messenger.
- Click player to move and click again to select destination.
You need energy (shown in green) to move, you can also rest! Be wary, moving through different terrain, as well as resting (by clicking the Rest button), take different number of turns. Hover with the mouse to check the turn costs on each terrain tile.
- Click castles, churches, shops and inns to interact.
- Press ESC for options
- Scroll camera with arrow keys or moving the mouse to the edges, and re-center it on the player with space bar or middle mouse.
Tips/Questions
Q Where do I need to go? A Places where there are quests (either new quests or where you need to complete current quests) are marked with an exclamation mark. Scroll with the mouse (or arrow keys) to find them.
Warning, castle/church names vary from run to run (locations do not).
Q How do I know what quests are available and what quests do I currently have active?
A Check the upper left corner of the screen.
Q I don't understand what happened in the turn.
A Not really a question, but ok. Check the turn log at the lower right of the screen. If needed you can use the scroll wheel to scroll the text up and down.
Q How do I attack?
A You can't, you are a messenger! Run away from the baddies and make sure to keep yourself healed.
To survive, run away, cure yourself and be careful which terrain you traverse.
Q How do I get cured?
A Visit a shop and buy a healing potion.
Q I click the destination tile but it doesn't move!
A Make sure you clicked the player first.
Q I click the destination tile but it doesn't move! I clicked the player first.
A Are you sure your turn already ended? Check the messages.
Q I click the destination tile but it doesn't move! I clicked the player first and the turn already ended.
A You probably have no energy. Click the rest button to rest. Warning, this takes 4 turns! If you want to get fully rested without spending turns, visit an inn.
Q How do I gain trust?
A Complete delivery quests.
Q How do I lose trust?
A By rejecting quests. Remember, they are your bosses! Can't say no! There was going to be a turn limit for delivering items, after which you would also get trustworthiness decreased, but that feature didn't make it into the game.
Q How do I win?
A You don't. Or, equivalently, you keep playing until you die. Same as in real life. Try to get as many deliveries as possible.
Technical
Made solo in Gamemaker + Aseprite. Music improvised and played by me on my Roland GP609 digital piano. Fonts from dafont.com, sounds from freesound.org.
Screenshots

Have fun!
Ratings
| Overall | 695th | 3.478⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1002th | 2.935⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 620th | 3.304⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 175th | 4.304⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 516th | 3.804⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 429th | 3.452⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 640th | 3.478⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
Best, manta ray
Makes sense!! You gotta make sure that a game gets finished first! xD
I think what you mean by the "I got stuck" part is that you used the 1.00 build and you got caught in the UI bug which clicks through and, if you happened to click in the castle and the button appeared exactly above it, if you click the part of the button that is above, you'll get the click through and it will trigger the message again. To fix it you can click the part of the button that doesn't overlap the castle. I fixed that bug 8n 1.01 because apparently it happened to other people.
Thanks for playing!
There's not really too much gameplay happening though. Travelling to locations was quite tedious. Maybe reducing map size would help, and making it so you don't need to click on the character before taking a turn. The turn-based aspect wasn't really explored much, but it would be interesting to see the enemies on the map telegraph their moves so the player could play around them. You could give the enemies different abilities too.
In general I'm happy I was able to pull off the programming (hex grid, turn manager, UI etc.) but I think for future turn-based strategy games I'd need to implement the other gameplay aspects to make it more fun and better to play.
I loved the visuals, and the audio was fantastic, the goals were pretty clear, and I liked that there was a "Centre on the player" button, a godsend with such a big map!
I'd echo what others above me have said with regards to travel being a little tedious with only being able to move 1 space, I'd have loved either a move queue, or just a "you can move 3 actions worth of spaces" kind of mechanic, that would let you move 3 spaces over grass, one over mountains, and one with a move left over for forests.
Otherwise I had a ball, great work!
Upgrades would be nice maybe make each delivery give upgrade point to spend on abilities like move 2 hex in one turn, or scare away mobs.