LudumData

Shattered Spirits by Tobius

[raw]
made by Tobius for Ludum Dare 54 (JAM)

cover age.png

The Game

The humans have discovered rifts that have allowed them to enter the Spirit World, where they have begun to explore and encroach on the Spirits' territory! Time for the Spirits to band together and take back what is theirs, right? Wrong! The prideful Spirits have immediately turned on each other, battling to take over and control what little untainted land is left, hoping to prove themselves as the most powerful clan and be the ones worthy to control the mythical power that is rumored to be at the center of the Spirit World. As the leader of your clan, you are in charge of leading them into battle against the other Spirit clans.

Who knows, maybe you’ll even be the one to earn ultimate control of the land, gain the power and drive the invaders from your new kingdom.

How to Play

Place 3 Spirits in any combination to control for this battle.

In a battle, you will activate all of your units first, then the enemy will activate all of their units.

A unit can move and then CAPTURE, DEFEND, or use their SPECIAL. Orange tiles indicate movement range. Blue tiles indicate tiles that will be CAPTURED. The shielded icons indicate owned tiles that will be DEFENDED from CAPTURE for one turn. Every unit's CAPTURE pattern, DEFENSE pattern, and SPECIAL (if applicable) is described in the info box on the right.

After 5 rounds, the team with the most CAPTURED tiles wins!

Play Game

Play in your browser or download for Windows or OSX.

Note: We finished an improved version of our enemy AI about an hour after the Jam ended, but it makes the game more challenging and fun so the game includes a toggle to choose between the "Post Jam" and the "Jam" AI.

Art

units.png bg assets bg.png

Socials

@tobius - overthink.games (Instagram) | https://overthink.games

@vary - Varyanadraws (Twitter) | https://twitter.com/Varyanadraws

Link https://tobiusthegrand.itch.io/daikondragon
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/shattered-spirits

Ratings

Overall 420th 3.72⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Fun 625th 3.366⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 409th 3.538⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Theme 689th 3.463⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 30th 4.598⭐ 43🧑‍⚖️
Humor 617th 2.784⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Mood 156th 4.038⭐ 42🧑‍⚖️
Given 48🗳️ 61🗨️

Feedback

Xindil
02. Oct 2023 · 22:29 UTC
The art style is super cool! The gameplay is also really unique and interesting. Personally, I struggled a little bit to understand the mechanics of the game, so maybe adding some visual cues for how to defeat/capture the enemy will help.
Killnaprimer
02. Oct 2023 · 22:50 UTC
Great game! I dont think i have seen something like this, kind of like battler game mixed with go. Very neat idea and the art and music are top notch
LDJam user 316658
03. Oct 2023 · 02:50 UTC
it was a bit hard for me to remember which units did what, but i really like how each unit has their own different abilities. the art is so lovely too!
Rorried
03. Oct 2023 · 02:59 UTC
Absolutely love this! The art is rich and the gameplay is interesting although it took me a bit of time to understand the gameplay mechanic, perhaps a tutorial level would help? Would love to see this expanded upon!
Haotian Chen
03. Oct 2023 · 03:06 UTC
great character design gameplay was fun but i think it's a little easy when Lacti was really op, and kinda lack of change each level.
unlocking new characters each level rather then just give all of then at the beginning might be good?
anyway, a really good game overall
nckpark
03. Oct 2023 · 03:09 UTC
Agree with a lot of the comments already here. Beautiful art. Neat mechanics. On theme. Vibes for days. But wish the UI gave a bit more feedback about what was happening. Would also be interesting to have some insight into the enemy strategy. Could be full on Into the Breach style telegraphing of enemy movement, or maybe an ability or something like that?
T C
03. Oct 2023 · 03:11 UTC
Very interesting game! Great art, fun concept once you get it, and the characters had a good variety. I would have liked if, when its your next character's turn, that it would "auto hover" them, so you know what the active character's moves are. Also some way to have what the specials do be more clear/prevalent on characters would be nice. But I liked the idea quite a bit, good work!
Quandtuniverse
03. Oct 2023 · 03:20 UTC
It took me a sec to wrap my head around how this worked, but once I got into the flow I realized it reminded me of a puzzle game concept I prototyped many years ago. While that didn't really go anywhere, seeing something similar--albeit with its own identity and twists--realized in some form was really special. The art is absolutely fabulous, and the theming is fun; I would love to see this expanded further!
Strato
03. Oct 2023 · 03:42 UTC
Lovely art. Gameplay was a bit confusing but I think I got the hang of it in the end. There's a lot of text and different characters so it's a bit overwhelming at the start but I can see there's a good bit of depth here.
LelulaGames
03. Oct 2023 · 20:18 UTC
Beautiful game. It would be nice to have the defend/capture tags viable on every move for every spirit, but otherwise it's well done and easy enough to pick up. I just lost track of which spirit did what when it was my turn.
Favoured Fool
03. Oct 2023 · 20:29 UTC
I *love* the artstyle and lore behind each spirit! As others have pointed out, the gameplay is very confusing and I was able to win the last level without much strategy or thought - but I don't think a concept like this can be balanced well as part of a GameJam. Well done!
Wuppos
03. Oct 2023 · 20:33 UTC
This was a really stunningly beautiful game, with a very soothing matching sound track. I agree with others that it was a bit tricky to wrap my head around the rules, but after reading your description closely a couple of times I finally understood how it worked and it was quite fun. The most confusing thing for me at the beginning was that it was very unclear which units were mine, and which were the opponents. I now see that they are rotated differently, but I think it would have helped if they were different in a more obvious way. There were also a lot of spirits to choose from, which was really cool but a bit overwhelming when playing for the first time. It was really neat hat each had a little backstory though. It really immersed you in the world you created here.

The AI was quite easy to beat, but I did have fun doing it :D I think this game would be even more fun against another real human opponent. Very nice job!
Vary
03. Oct 2023 · 20:43 UTC
@rorried We strongly considered putting in a tutorial but opted to having the write-up on the LD page instead so we could polish some others things last minute! Did you find the explanation confusing or was it just something that is easily missed?

@haotian-chen oh unlocking characters every level is a great idea! We haven't discussed that but that's definitely a great way to introduce the player to the game and to have some sort of progression.

@t-c @lelulagames Yes we discussed having the info panel visible whenever it was a unit's turn for clarity, but it was brought up when there was barely any time left and so we couldn't. It is possible to click on a unit in the field to bring it up though, as long as you don't have an action selected (since you can "move" onto the square your unit is on). Glad to hear that it would have helped, though, and we agree!

Thank you for the wonderful feedback :)
adele.illustration
03. Oct 2023 · 20:59 UTC
Okay I am amazed at this art. This is just breathtakingly beautiful. I really liked the concept as well, and the variety of characters made me want to try them all! It's super soothing and so beautiful, and also a rather unusual gameplay compared to what we often see. That being said it was a bit complex fo me (maybe I'm just too tired, but I didn't really understand when i would score points or when my opponent would). A tutorial scene with more explanations could be helpful! But amazing job this is so beautiful and really impressive for a jam.
iron_head
04. Oct 2023 · 08:09 UTC
A great system you got there. I do feel like it's a little unbalanced. Also only two spirits had specials, which I mean it's a jam game, but still a bit odd. The art is great, and the music is atmospheric. Nice job.
smiley405
04. Oct 2023 · 21:34 UTC
would love to have a visual tutorial inside the game because the hint text on the far right-hand side in the game was a bit blurry and hard to read for me. but loved the game design and the art. enjoyed playing it.
candyyy0728
05. Oct 2023 · 12:18 UTC
Like the art style! Feel so peace and love, the color match is really amazing!
Hyper Ion
05. Oct 2023 · 13:56 UTC
What a gorgeous game! Fantastic art, great work, great entry!
LDJam user 372515
06. Oct 2023 · 08:14 UTC
That was fun! Animating the characters between tiles would have really elevated it for me, especially to go with those super satisfying swaying trees. Or even having the disappearing tiles drop away. Like many have pointed out, VERY pretty art! I enjoyed playing :)
Ruslana
06. Oct 2023 · 13:24 UTC
Art is very nice!
Tankou
06. Oct 2023 · 20:03 UTC
Nice game! The artstyle is incredibly beautiful.
LDJam user 261538
07. Oct 2023 · 03:06 UTC
Absolutely gorgeous game. Also, holy cow those character designs! Really nice. You can tell lots of love went into it and it feels really good to play. Incredible work. Feels like there's a lot of strategy in picking a team and responding to enemy teams.
Snorps
07. Oct 2023 · 20:05 UTC
Definitely the most beautiful art from any of this dare's game we've played. Very impressive to have made this in 3 days. The post-jam AI is a lot better, it's a little easy without that.

It wasn't always clear which character I was moving, maybe it could help to have a ghost image of the character being moved follow the mouse pointer?

Limited space could maybe have more of a presence, didn't feel like the tile destruction came up much.

Absolutely one of the best games we've played of the jam! Good stuff.
Zee Yuen
07. Oct 2023 · 20:07 UTC
First of all, props to making all of theses visual designs in such a short amount of time. Especially the spirits, all felt pretty visually distinct and the flavor text about each of them really brought them to life!! I felt the gameplay was pretty unique, but as others have pointed out, can be kind of confusing. The area that could be controlled by each spirit was hard to remember once the round actually started, and while there was tile colors to indicate what was going on, it still felt kind of obtuse because of the overlapping colors.
LDJam user 246128
07. Oct 2023 · 20:14 UTC
Incredible graphics and complex gameplay. Took a bit of time to understand the flow of the gameplay. Overall lovely entry!
Jollymah
07. Oct 2023 · 20:23 UTC
The graphics are amazing! I enjoyed playing this game. Like the others, I needed a bit of time to understand the mechanics. After that, it was a lot of fun. It's a great job!
M-1
07. Oct 2023 · 20:38 UTC
Well-polished, great visuals and a calm gameplay. I liked the idea of a turn-based strategy game without fighting, just tile capturing.

Adding a short in-game tutorial would be nice so players don't need to read the rules (breaks immersion). Also more diverse music would be nice in a future release, if you plan to continue working on this.
LDJam user 374168
07. Oct 2023 · 21:35 UTC
Very pretty/beautiful game, I love the art and the visual style, though I will admit I found the gameplay to be kind of confusing. I didn't totally understand the defend/capture mechanic, though I eventually realized I was trying to capture more squares than the opponent, and there wasn't actually any combat or fighting. The concept is cool, but maybe a longer/more drawn out tutorial would help convey the mechanics and make it clear what the goal is, and how each mechanic works. Overall though, great submission!
gamebuilder
17. Oct 2023 · 00:11 UTC
Amazing graphics and sound. The multiplicity of units and their descriptions confused me, however. Even so, a beautiful game overall. Perhaps it could be simplified with fewer units — just a suggestion. For me, it would be more intuitive to simply eliminate enemy units. Anyway, certainly a game with potential and one with a lot of imagination.
Thvald
17. Oct 2023 · 01:58 UTC
As has been noted, the goal of the game is not immediately clear but was satisfying once I understood it. I also found it somewhat difficult to distinguish between my units and the AI. The special abilities that were implemented had the potential to be back-breaking for the opponent. Careful positioning could rather effectively allow you to eliminate the other team. The bones of the game are solid. It is definitely a game that would benefit from being able to play against other players and having a proper tutorial.
ArtofLuba
19. Oct 2023 · 22:15 UTC
The art is amazing, I love little monsters! Unfortunately for me, this game seemed too complex for my brain so i didn't quite understand what was happening haha.