Quantum Swarm by Damien Black
ITCH HTML5: https://damienblack.itch.io/quantum-swarm
Welcome to a bleak world. You're in an overprotective facility and haven't seen another human in years. Fortunately, right before the madness steps in, Bob gives you a chance to do something useful. Design nanobots to help save humanity from the evil robot ai running amuck.
This is my first game jam, and I wish I had more time to make more levels! There is a lot of functionality that didn't get to become part of the story.
Use the circuit board editor to program how your nano bot will behave. In sandbox mode there are dozens of command blocks you can put together. Fire lasers, craft missile, mine matter, seek enemies and communicate with pheromones.
After designing your nanoboard, you can run a simulation. Every component takes a different amount of time, energy and matter to run.
Work your way through 6 "levels" where "Bob" will guide you through the basics.
There are a lot of nodes that didn't make it into the story, they are only in the sandbox. I've documented what they all do below.
You do not need to read any of this to complete the game. Just jump right in!
Oh, and one more thing:
If I was to take this game farther, the final goal would have bots that can build other bots, "armies" with many different types of bots and asynchronous PvP. The best fighting force would require coordination, efficiency and might!
| itch.io link | https://damienblack.itch.io/quantum-swarm |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/quantum-swarm |
Ratings
| Overall | 105th | 4.066⭐ | 70🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 124th | 3.963⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 8th | 4.448⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 528th | 3.694⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 223th | 3.619⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 358th | 3.738⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 69🗳️ | 122🗨️ |
The line drawing felt very smooth!
I liked how sassy Bob was, and was impressed by the amount of worldbuilding you established in a couple of speech bubbles. Entering my username, then having it dismissed as unimportant was very funny.
Gameplay-wise, designing the logic for the bots was very satisfying, particularly dragging the wires around. Setting up dominoes and watching them fall is always a good core for gameplay, especially when you can accidentally make your dominoes walk into walls over and over.
Very fun concept. Cool entry!
I've pickup some great ideas from you guys! Of course I wanted it to save your board when you go back! I'm literally only 8 lines of code away from having it working. I just ran out of time.
Having a legend is a ... well ... legendary idea. Being able to pick the nodes back up and move them is just smart.
Playing all these other great games has made me realize that I missed out big time by not putting in some sounds and music. It was planned, but I just ran out of time. In hindsight, some good music and sound effect are worth way more than... pheromones...
If I had 24 more hours I feel like I really could have knocked it out of the park. I haven't done a jam myself before, and now I'm even more amazed at what you guys can accomplish in the time. Cheers to everyone who has taken time to play my game and cheers to all of the great games I've gotten to rate!
In all seriousness though its insane that you made this all work in 72 hours! Having all the systems work is amazing! Of course there are quality of live features you could add but having everything work is something you should be proud of! Great job :>
Also, I found your game after seeing a very constructive comment from you on someone's first game, guiding them in ways that will help them improve a lot I'm sure. Thank you for taking part in the community.