The Cherished Boulder by accordaquo

[raw]
made by accordaquo for Ludum Dare 55 (JAM)

A strategy game made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 55 for the theme 'Summoning.'

Summon Pebbles to cherish your Boulder. You can tell your pebbles what to do by clicking on a new target for them!

The web version works on the itch page linked below!

Thanks for playing!

controls~

Left Mouse Button -- Select Pebble for targeting, Select enemy for Protector to fight, Select resource to be gathered

Right Mouse Button -- Cancel Selection

WASD -- Move Camera

Mouse Scroll Wheel - Zoom Camera

m - Toggle Music and Sound

credits~

accordaquo -- programming/design/art

MonsieurBloo -- art

Kay Karme -- art

funguy -- art

TheBigJut -- music/sound

heyitsJJ -- programming/design

Screenshot 2024-04-15 182431.pngScreenshot 2024-04-15 183001.pngScreenshot 2024-04-15 182219.pngScreenshot 2024-04-15 182040.png

Ratings

Overall 611th 3.54⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 756th 3.28⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 928th 2.98⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 838th 3.34⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 685th 3.58⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 298th 3.68⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 423th 3.318⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 801th 3.354⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Given 18🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

WMute
16. Apr 2024 · 03:20 UTC
Unfortunately unable to load the game
Mcgank
16. Apr 2024 · 03:33 UTC
Really fun music style! I bet the art must've taken quite some time with how detailed the animations look! Fun gameplay loop. Good job!!
Klose
16. Apr 2024 · 03:37 UTC
need a itch io link
naomiajacobs
16. Apr 2024 · 03:40 UTC
Very fun! I love the music and the sprites are adorable. It felt like the start of a fun cookie-clicker type game. I'd love more affordances to know whether what I'm doing is effective - I mostly felt like I was flailing and clicking around, and the pebbles moved too fast for me to feel like i could tell what they were doing.
bravelytyped
16. Apr 2024 · 03:43 UTC
super cute! too bad about the ludum dare html embed, but it works great on itch. the music and art were really well done!
Lélek Hunor Kadosa
16. Apr 2024 · 03:44 UTC
Beautiful animation, and a cute concept
BlackCat508
16. Apr 2024 · 03:47 UTC
nice art!
Adam Gallina
16. Apr 2024 · 03:51 UTC
10/10 very cherishable boulder - I really wanted to complete the game, but the enemies ramp up so much it seems impossible to actually collect any Bravery. I tried to direct my defenders to their building, but that didn't seem to do anything, they just walked to the building and then started attacking enemies. Really nice art though, nice job!
poboy
16. Apr 2024 · 03:56 UTC
Really fun game! I ran into the issue @adam-gallina hit; even with hundreds of protectors I couldn't get any of them to collect bravery, and stalled out. Art is super charming and I very much cherish this boulder.
crylica
16. Apr 2024 · 03:58 UTC
it reminds me of an idle game haha, i didn't realise at the start that units moved automatically so i kept trying to assign them to different resources. fun game, the art assets are a bit inconsistent. Placing drop shadows on all the assets (like a shadow layer at 50% opacity) would help it look a bit better :)
SuicidalMango
16. Apr 2024 · 04:00 UTC
Fun game. Some of the text went of the screen so it was hard to see what I resources I needed. Also wasn't sure why I wasn't getting much Bravery. But I got pretty far and I don't think I was going to fail any time soon.
T C
16. Apr 2024 · 04:01 UTC
Nice one! I like the implementation, and the progression. Spawning waves of minions that collect and protect for you is a really neat idea. Had a couple issues with how big the screen is displayed on the itch page, I couldn't see my materials and buttons to summon at the same time. Also sometimes my minions would fumble over themselves and get stuck in a giant cluster. And at some points, protectors seemed to fail to do their job (understandable, seems like that's the hardest to program) and even though I'd build like 30-40 of them, no enemies would perish. Either way, was a very satisfying game to play, I enjoyed it.
nathmate
16. Apr 2024 · 04:04 UTC
Cute and fun. The music was nice too.

**UI**

The resolution being slightly higher than 1080 was annoying, I couldn't see the entire UI at once. Also the tooltips for what new units cost ran off the edge of the screen for the later ones. You can symbols above the units heads for what they were carrying, I would have put that next to the corresponding top left stockpile readouts, to make it clearer what was what.

**Balance**

I died and wasn't sure what I could have done differently, I was already spamming protectors. The late game constant drip of enemies seems hard to get around, maybe more of a wave system would allow you to still get some resources in and rebuild a little. The Protector AI also seems to lead to them clumping up, leaving the units on the other side of the map vulnerable, leading to a death spiral.

Critiques aside, I did like the gameplay loop and general vibe of the game.
Impalpable
16. Apr 2024 · 07:05 UTC
I like the concept, the artwork and the gameplay loop, I also really like the vibe!
Klose
17. Apr 2024 · 03:16 UTC
gameplay is a bit too hard for me, can't precisely control all the little creatures
Memz
18. Apr 2024 · 02:19 UTC
A bit difficult to get the hang of, but definitely fun. The drip HAS to be unbeatable, lol
Inventivum Games
18. Apr 2024 · 02:26 UTC
I liked the game but felt it would've been better if the units didn't collide with each other, perhaps instead you could apply a little velocity away from each other if they overlap, just to prevent them from bundling up.
Brogan Ward
18. Apr 2024 · 02:38 UTC
Was having a hard time trying to figure out how to play, but once I came back here and saw there was summoning buttons, I realized that the UI was off. Once I full screened, the UI fixed itself and I started having a blast! I love the art and watching my little pebble guys get to work. Although difficult at first figuring out how to play, was an enjoyable time!
Gabriel Bissonnette
18. Apr 2024 · 03:30 UTC
that was super fun to play! Really satisfying when you get enough resources. Loved the interpretation of the theme and the concept! Super addicting though, but awesome game!
![img.png](///raw/3fd/34/z/6443a.png)
ryusui
22. Apr 2024 · 05:36 UTC
I love the concept and the presentation. Not as big a fan of how easy it is to get overwhelmed. I got as far as being able to make Enchanters and then died because my Protectors weren't able to keep up with all the enemies coming in, even though I devoted all my Nai Log income to making more. Targeting enemies doesn't seem to help much, either.

Also - are there summon types past Enchanters? I'm reading other people's comments and apparently there is something *wrong* with the way the game fullscreens where it doesn't actually show the full game screen by default, so some of the buttons get cut off?
Aivaxela
23. Apr 2024 · 23:59 UTC
Really fun idea! I had a pretty great time playing this game. At a certain point I had too many dudes on screen and they kept getting stuck on each other, so I couldn't make it much further - with a little balancing I could see this being even greater.
kaliuresis
27. Apr 2024 · 21:35 UTC
The core of the game is cute and fun, but the protector ai really needs some work. Even when I made enough of them to start lagging the game they would wander off to fight a distant enemy while ignoring the ones surrounding my base and killing my workers. The micromanagement ui was not good enough to compensate for the bad ai. I think turning off collisions between your units could also help with pathfinding. If not for those major technical issues I think the game would be pretty good, and I did enjoy the beginning part before enemies became a problem.