LudumData

A Barren Land by penguindustin

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

A barren land where you must lead them to survive.

Play on Itch.io since the webplayer for Godot is broken in the LD site.

(Note: the game kind of ends on a cliff hanger right before it feels like it's about to start the next stage, you'll know when you get there)

The original Idea of the game was you had a camp of slimes that you had to lead to either absorb or consume other groups until you were the last one remaining. The original gameplay loop would be: fight -> manage camp -> handle events -> repeat. The 2 core mechanics was the management and the fighting, you can guess what got implemented first :D and ended up being the final game. Time was running out and I pivoted to be more story/lore focused rather than mechanics focused.

Art Assets used made by https://twitter.com/KenneyNL

Link https://penguindustin.itch.io/a-barren-land
Link https://penguindustin.itch.io/a-barren-land
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/slime-kingdom

Ratings

Overall 1100th 2.69⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1075th 2.571⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1082th 2.45⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1125th 2.024⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 924th 1.583⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 925th 2.975⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 12🗳️ 23🗨️

Feedback

🎤 penguindustin
30. Sep 2023 · 07:36 UTC
My first Ludum Dare Game Jam game!
🎤 penguindustin
02. Oct 2023 · 05:01 UTC
Some things I'd love to improve/learn how to better do:
- manage UI screens/buttons
- better event/unlock system

Some things I'd do differently for next game jam:
- focus on the interactive mechanic/loop first
- don't have a "dynamic" UI
- SFX and music
Chimney Eggs
02. Oct 2023 · 20:22 UTC
I do really like the gameplay loop, it's simple but definitely effective. The story itself is probably the main point of interest, it's written well and explained pretty clearly. It does however feel like there's something missing at the end, specifically the " The Battle Of 'Good' VS. 'Evil' Begins " where it seems ( at least for me ) the game completely stopped. Is it suppose to be an ending? Or just a glitch? Anyways, really liked the mood of this one!
Flashlight13
02. Oct 2023 · 21:41 UTC
Yeah, I also fased the game stopping right before the battle. Also, it's unplayable on ldjam.com with
```
Error
The following features required to run Godot projects on the Web are missing:
Cross Origin Isolation - Check web server configuration (send correct headers)
SharedArrayBuffer - Check web server configuration (send correct headers)
```
I looks like ldjam doesn't support SharedArrayBuffer needed for the latest Godot Web to work. Have a look at this: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/export/exporting_for_web.html

But I enjoyed the game, specially the narration being merged with the survival element. Cool stuff!
jessicat
03. Oct 2023 · 06:19 UTC
Neat concept. I got to "The battle of good and evil" but then it got stuck. The game feels mostly easy and repetitive since some constraints don't show up for a while. It's unclear what weapons are for (battle of good and evil?).
MetaGen
03. Oct 2023 · 06:21 UTC
Well, the idea is good, but the gameplay is a little bit boring...
Is there any other buttons that will be added in the future?
crylica
03. Oct 2023 · 06:49 UTC
Really good job for your first LD Jam! I wish it was more clear what objects did - I'm still not sure what "materials" does in the game, I got confused and thought it was "craft" but that's a different counter as well? An easy implement is to have the tooltip suggest what it's saying when you hover over the upgrade (e.g. hover over "weapons" and text comes up explaining weapons. Like you mentioned, SFX and music would help the game a lot too! Good job on the art btw, overall a really solid game especially from a solo dev!
🎤 penguindustin
03. Oct 2023 · 07:54 UTC
Thanks for all the feedback everyone! I updated the description so it's more clear that you reached the end.
🎤 penguindustin
03. Oct 2023 · 07:54 UTC
@chimney-eggs yup that's the cliffhanger.
Unbugged
03. Oct 2023 · 19:13 UTC
As a first jam game, good job and great you were able to push it out! This was indeed a bit boring as it is, but there are numerous possibilities to improve it. When the population reached > 50, the clicking got too frustrating. Buttons for eg. +5, +25 and so on would be good as the population increases. Some audio would have also made it a lot better. Keep making games!
bad_fetus
04. Oct 2023 · 22:41 UTC
Interesting concept! Wasn't too much going on in this one, but it's a fine job for your first entry. Looking forward to your future games!
Carlos Murillo
05. Oct 2023 · 03:47 UTC
Great concept. This is a great framework for something that could be expanded upon and polished greatly. As the other commenters said, I wish there was something in game that would explain would you are crafting would do, and it would have been nice to have a way to have buttons for +5 etc. If you ever iterate this, it would be nice to see how far you can go with it. Otherwise, I enjoyed myself and played to the end.
tjm
05. Oct 2023 · 13:22 UTC
This was fun, but a *lot* of clicking. :sweat_smile: Especially when buying things with crafts, I didn't see any reason why I would ever want to spend part of my crafts on buying part of something, so it would have made more sense to me if clicking on "Fields (10)" would either spend 10 of my crafts to buy one field, or put all the crafts I have towards one field (whichever comes first. For assigning population that wouldn't work, but it would have been nice there if I could hold down the button to assign population in bulk.

Still, the background was nice and pleasant, and the communication was clear; overall well done!
Paul-Maxime
05. Oct 2023 · 23:41 UTC
I agree with everyone else, clicking 100 times per day (50 to select "craft", 50 to select what to craft) is way too tedious! A [+5] button or a shift-click would help a lot.

It's pretty sad it ends in a cliffhanger, sometimes it's better to focus on a short but complete experience over a complex but unfinished one.

Some basic sound effects for each event (swords sounds when we get raided, human sounds when people join us...?) would also improve the mood a lot!
Lizz
06. Oct 2023 · 01:07 UTC
The clicking one you already know, I am missing the sounds as well. I enjoyed it, the length was nice. Think a game that could become pretty nice with more polishing beyond what it is. Overall adding story elements I know is a very timedraining job, you still added it tho!
kanity
09. Oct 2023 · 20:06 UTC
I felt a bit confused and just tried clicking evenly on everything and read what was going on on the right, watching them go unhappy and demand a war while I wonder what am I doing wrong xD To be honest I am not even sure what to suggest, didn't really see anything wrong with the game, and it looks nice, UI is pretty, it is convenient to use (though yeah it turns into a lot of clicking gradually...) Just as an idea would be cute to add some little pixel icons for "population", "weapons", "food" etc, and yeah some sounds when you click and yeah maybe an ability to choose bigger numbers (though I played some clicker games and the gameplay is to click, they usually give you more options to click less as you keep on playing!)