LudumData

Compact Domain by avareii

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

The kingdom needs your help!

image (3).png

Windows Download (Post Jam)

There's tiny little continents - well, islands really - ripe for the colonising out there. We've got more resources than anyone could want, and plenty of willing men to make the trek.

Unfortunately, all of our matériel has been inconveniently paired up, like so:

LD54_2.png

Help our kingdom make optimal use of the limited terrain available, despite the terrible arrangement of our resources! Expand into unknown territory!

LD54_3a.png

Build thriving cities!

LD54_5.png

Create your Compact Domain!

screenshot<em>90457</em>.png

Controls:

  • Mouse over a placed structure or a structure on a tile to see a description of the structure.
  • Left Click to take and place tiles (or put them back), and explore uncharted areas.
  • Right Click or Space to rotate held tile.
  • WASD or Arrow Keys to scroll around island.
  • CTRL+N for next level.
  • CTRL+P for previous level.
  • CTRL+R to restart.
  • ESC to pause.
  • CTRL+M to toggle music.
  • CTRL+C to take a screenshot.

Bugfixes in v1.01: - Updated window name; this now saves screenshots in a separate folder to other games called 'LD54'. - Clarified hint in Level 4. - Corrected misplaced objectives in Level 12.

There is a v1.1 post-jam version with difficulty levels and some interface polish. The changes are listed in the post-jam download link below.

Link https://github.com/NeptunianAxolotl/LD54/releases/download/v1.01/Compact.Domain-win32.zip
Link https://github.com/NeptunianAxolotl/LD54/releases/download/v1.01/Compact.Domain.love
GitHub release https://github.com/NeptunianAxolotl/LD54/releases/tag/v1.01
GitHub release (original) https://github.com/NeptunianAxolotl/LD54/releases/tag/v1.0
GitHub release (post-jam) https://github.com/NeptunianAxolotl/LD54/releases/tag/v1.1
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/compact-domain

Ratings

Overall 91th 4.14⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 76th 4.115⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 390th 3.56⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 248th 4.1⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 118th 4.346⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Audio 400th 3.479⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Humor 632th 2.762⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 428th 3.688⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 25🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 315038
03. Oct 2023 · 00:46 UTC
Nice game! Building the cities on limited space nicely fits the theme. But the artstyle is what I loved the most - really great job on that, so unique and pleasant!
InfinityE
03. Oct 2023 · 08:49 UTC
I really enjoyed the art style and simplicity of the game. Would have been nice if the concept of the game was more more original but overall great game.
Valothebest
03. Oct 2023 · 09:00 UTC
I had a great time trying to fit my whole city on these tiny islands. Great job !
Valintone
03. Oct 2023 · 13:59 UTC
I'm a little too smooth brain for the sudden difficulty increase mid-level 4, however I found this surprisingly charming and fun (I say this because I'm not usually into building/city sims). The aesthetics are great and the music has a very lovely loop- I was stuck for quite a while on level 4 before throwing in the towel, but not once did I start to get annoyed by the music.

Good job guys, this is fun!
kenjimarcio
03. Oct 2023 · 17:30 UTC
Great idea! and the game is very challenging
Jollymah
03. Oct 2023 · 18:11 UTC
I love this game, its graphics and sound design. It's cute and fun. I really enjoyed playing it!
🎤 avareii
03. Oct 2023 · 20:05 UTC
@valintone I did it!

(for context, most of the work I did on the game was sfx and writing, and I didn't really get the chance to playtest it until now)

Here's my victory screen:

![level 4 victory.png](///raw/cf6/72/z/5f641.png)

What I did was focus the scouting outposts next to the fog of war, then - once I opened up the first area and half my outposts got cancelled - built blacksmith as close to them as I could for upgrades. Two outposts, one upgrade per outpost = 4 scouts.

For reference, this took me four or five attempts.

I think the problem here is that it wasn't clear to me what 'upgrade' meant; I didn't know whether blacksmiths upgraded a scouting outpost's population or range, and spent a game or two under the impression that it was range and that I could make outposts stretch further by building more blacksmiths. Then - surprised pikachu face - I cluttered up my whole island without the deck spawning any scout outposts because there wasn't anywhere valid to put them.
Branquelo
04. Oct 2023 · 03:00 UTC
I liked a lot! It's a mix of puzzle with resource management, that fits pretty well. The one thing that i would change is that sometimes i wanted to destroy some things, because of misplacement, BUT, i understand that the way the game works, it's to you think before placing any object, this is just me being picky haha. Well done!
Daniel Grinshpon
04. Oct 2023 · 03:17 UTC
This is amazing. I'm impressed you managed to make a pretty polished city builder with nice art and music in such a short time
Compasslg
05. Oct 2023 · 03:04 UTC
Wow, this game is quite ambitious for a jam, and the art style is crazy good
SvenErik
05. Oct 2023 · 08:26 UTC
Really enjoyed the game-play here, the mix of styles and the challenge.There's also many routes to go for expanding it post-ludum which is always good to see. The overall aesthetics are pleasing to the eye and fit well. Harmonious even. Quite the ambitious one too as mentioned, but it's good to have ambition and you guys succeeded with it. Good work!
Lofar42
05. Oct 2023 · 08:31 UTC
Really enjoyed this! Very fun little puzzle game that really wrinkled my brain. Curious as to how the placeable tiles get chosen - felt like once or twice I didn't receive enough outposts to complete the level but I'm probably overzealous on food production. Good job!
LDJam user 375382
05. Oct 2023 · 08:56 UTC
Woow, lovely game! Overall one of the best that I have played so far. Really nice graphics and good mix of puzzle and management.
GoogleFrog
05. Oct 2023 · 12:30 UTC
@lofar42 individual tiles are drawn from a cycling deck and combined into dominoes. Some second choices of tile are skipped over (eg Sawmill-Sawmill isn't allowed), and a domino that can't be placed anywhere is discarded and a new one is drawn. The "Out of space" loss condition is just this processes giving up after a few dozen iterations, rather than entering an infinite loop.

Funnily enough, we were planning to implement a tech tree, but the domino drawing system ended up doing it automatically. You can't place a sawmill without first placing a woodcutter because sawmill needs a nearby woodcutter, so any candidate domino with a sawmill on it is discarded. So we just chucked a static set of tiles in (depending on level) and let the tile generator figure it out. Unfortunately, if you have nowhere left to place an Outpost, it won't give you any. Which can be a bit confusing.
chispaLBC
06. Oct 2023 · 00:25 UTC
wow everything in this game is really well done! i find it amazing that everything works so well, it has so many levels and so many mechanics... I know you are 6 people but how do you even organize? very nice work. One of my favs this jam for sure.
HelloImBenjamin
06. Oct 2023 · 04:25 UTC
Good Job! I like the art style.
LDJam user 273626
06. Oct 2023 · 14:45 UTC
Love the game! I just can't seem to get my people to actually GO in the scout buildings. And sometimes people just wanna hang out in their houses. Maybe I just lock them on the wrong side of the wall? XD
Great entry, I'm totally addicted to the game!
Dan Burns
06. Oct 2023 · 17:44 UTC
Gorgeous!
JKazuk
06. Oct 2023 · 19:53 UTC
Such a lovely little city builder that's got a nice kick of challenge. Love it!
GoogleFrog
07. Oct 2023 · 13:15 UTC
Thanks @flyingkaida. Most buildings need a resource and a worker living nearby. Workers can travel four tiles from the home, but if there are few workers in an area and a lot of jobs to do, then they will only find time to do the ones closest to home. Outposts need to be sent a plank every minute or so to keep them usable.
Langotriel
13. Oct 2023 · 04:57 UTC
![bc0068cf8a971cee26ee47d01a696484.jpg](///raw/cf5/61/z/603a5.jpg)

I got all the way to what I assume is the last level? But it is almost 7 AM and I have been playing for HOURS...

That just goes to show how great this is. Love the massive scope and the impressive amount of artwork that went into this. Props to the programmers, too! This is not easy to create in 72 hours.

I gotta sleep now, but not before I dish out some high fives :five:
GoogleFrog
13. Oct 2023 · 13:00 UTC
Wow @langotriel, that's great to hear, although I hope you didn't need those hours for sleep too badly. That is the last level, but if you still want more I have added the link for a link to the post-jam version. While it doesn't have extra levels, it does have a difficulty selector that can be opened with Ctrl+H. Apart from that, it has some visual and UI improvements that didn't make it into the jam version. The mechanics of the base difficulty are essentially unchanged.

There is also a level editor (also in the jam version) that can be opened with Ctrl+E, if you really want to mess around. Note that scout thresholds have to be modified manually by opening the level files in a text editor.
Lukuluk
14. Oct 2023 · 16:56 UTC
Impressive that you managed to make such a city builder during a jam :o And it works well!
Joror
15. Oct 2023 · 15:16 UTC
Very cool 'eco' builder! The basics are straightforward, and with some interesting limitations (two buildings per building slot is an funky limitation)
Getting a sense of the performance of the economy is a bit harder without a direct insight into the 'flow', but it was good to select the 'food' to be prominent. Building activation also became more obvious as you play.
I did get "blocked" a couple of times on not getting a specific building in sufficient quantity, running out of space before it appeared.

Nonetheless really great work! Nicely done!
EgorMnc
20. Oct 2023 · 13:33 UTC
the game is quite interesting, it was fun to play, everything was done well, both the controls and the game design itself