The Duke's Cartographer. by Wolfier
The World has changed a lot in five years, so much so that all of previous maps have been obsoleted and new ones need to be made. Explore the world and reconnect the cites so that commerce can flourish again. Though it's not as simple as drawing a few maps...
Controls
WASD your way to victory!
Click on one of the flashing red boxes to leave the city. (No art, sorry)
You can fill your map by using the icons below the board.
If you've found at least 1 additional city to your starting one, before the start of a new week you can draw a path between them by dragging the red dots to score.
If the mouse isn't doing it for you, try the enter key.
You can get to the menu using escape.
Things to know
Scoring is based on distance from relevant cites, 5 points per tile.
Plains subtract 1 point from the path, forests subtract 5 and mountains subtract 25;
At the start of each week (after you finish scoring), a large percentage of the map gets changed around.
during the middle of each week a small percentage of the map gets changed around.
Cities and landmarks will never move.
I did not get time to allow you to undo paths
Bugs
There's a chance that a city can get surrounded by mountains. If the city you start in has no exits, I recommend you restart the game.
Because of the constantly changing map, and an oversight on my part, there's a chance that the barrier mountains at the edges will get swapped out. If you accidentally leave the boundary you can just come back in. Be advised though that there isn't space on the map for outer edges as you weren't supposed to get through them.
Music credits
Harumachi - Pilgrimage https://pixabay.com/music/folk-pilgrimage-ancient-mediaeval-harp-174049/
Harumachi - The Foggy City https://pixabay.com/music/ambient-the-foggy-city-182401/
Aleksey Chistilin/Lexin_Music - Ancient World https://pixabay.com/music/adventure-ancient-world-118017/
Aleksey Chistilin/Lexin_Music - Lost in the Enchanted Woods https://pixabay.com/music/build-up-scenes-lost-in-the-enchanted-woods-191319/
JuliusH - The Lost Hero https://pixabay.com/music/main-title-the-lost-hero-epic-orchestra-trombone-and-chorus-3461/
JuliusH - The Lord https://pixabay.com/music/folk-the-lord-medieval-music-4239/
| Link | https://landings101.itch.io/the-duke |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/the-dukes-cartographer |
Ratings
| Overall | 930th | 3.25⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 895th | 3.125⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 366th | 3.6⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 941th | 3.075⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 525th | 3.611⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
Loved the visuals and the chill music!
i like the game play and general mechanic
i love the art, the player sprite is so cute
i appreciate the player speed
not sure what the icons are for
not sure how to do this: "If you’ve found at least 1 additional city to your starting one, before the start of a new week you can draw a path between them by dragging the red dots to score." -- what red dots?
* I think this is best a 2 player game.. One player to run around and one player to map. I kept getting misaligned and confused.
* I wonder if it there could be an easy mode that had a dot where you are and then you can focus on mapping for points.
- I also wish I could use keyboard keys to switch between plains/forest/mountain/unique to allow me to keep the mouse closer to where I am, moving it back and forth caused me confusion.
* I wish I could move diagonal to save time.
Is there any end game?
Thanks for the fun game.
Because of the square grid shape it took me a bit to realize I was mapping the edges and not the tiles, but then was able to stamp stuff down.
But overal, nice chill game :)
I do need to strike a better balance between confusion and clarity though because just telling you what's changed would ruin the idea.
Although, I seemed to always get lost the further I played, like my map suddenly became wrong, and then I read the description and realized that the tiles were changed around every week, and... unfortunately I just don't think that's a fun idea... I was having a lot of fun mapping the places I visited. My personal goal was to fill out the entire map and send a screenshot. But as soon as I realized my map had become incorrect due to a game mechanic, I didn't want to bother anymore :< I really appreaciate this game's idea, but I think you tried to add a sense of challenge to a game that didn't need it. Knowing your way around and marking everything correctly so you know where you are and need to go is already challenging and fun enough! Having the tiles swap around takes the fun out of it in my opinion...
I think you have something truly special here, for real! While I was just vibing and mapping I honestly liked this more than any other game in this whole jam! If you made a version of this game that was just the chill mapping, I would play it to the end and want more.
And, what is not always sure with games from jams, here there is this 'that idea is surprisingly fun' part - I would consider it really successful prototype :)
You could easily make cool post jam game from it!
Just as @fupi said, drop the end-week-randomizing, as its frustrating as hell, and focus on core feature of pure mapping and exploration, and just add minor gameplay elements on top of it. e.g. I would also ditch the 'be at city after one week' in favor of some mild rpg/survival elements. Maybe adding some more landmarks or ability to place own signs. With that, even adding some kind of getting lost mechanic would be cool, as long as one can find some recognizable spot (maybe even make map draft in meantime, than joining it with the main one).
There is lot of possibilities to develop it further - I would actually loved to play such game :D