But first, a quick word from our sponsors...

A full and expanded version of my LD54 entry is coming to Steam as QuantumPulse 2A. If you didn't get a chance to play it during the jam (or did, and want more content!), add it to your wishlist now!

Post-jam DWARFS Update

My entry for this Compo, DWARFS, was ranked in the top 10 for audio and graphics, my new personal best in both categories, thanks for that! The Fun rating, however, was close to my personal worst (around the 50th percentile) :laughing:. However, I realized that was the case basically immediately upon sitting down to play through the whole "campaign" immediately after the Compo ended. I liked all the pieces of my game, but they just weren't meshing together. Thanks to some detailed feedback and players trying out various iterations I made on my post-jam version, I think I ended up with something way more fun, almost entirely by changing the glue that holds things together so that it feels like there's a reason for you to play the minigame, and that you feel rewarded for doing better in the minigame.

The general changes are: * Progress is saved between sessions * You now get bonus cash for completing the minigame well (4x for being nearly perfect, 2x for being good), which encourages playing aggressively / makes it more rewarding and therefore interesting * Greatly increased the match weighting for which exotic is found and their value (higher weight for DW/ARFS for which/value, and now the square of the match is used for the weight instead of just the raw match), so your configuration tweaks should have a more direct impact * The pattern of danger now loops (about 2 times if you're doing well) when doing the minigame, so if you're paying attention you can use that to your advantage * The pattern of danger is now pre-determined for each Exotic, so you can probably notice which exotic is "on the line" as well and use that to your advantage when hunting a specific one * Cash is now the stated primary goal (instead of just "18 probes launched" to finish a planet), so doing better at the minigame should feel even more rewarding * The Survey Bonus is now given per-Exotic when it gets to 100% knowledge instead of a single big payout, and increases with each bonus you claim * Moved affinities to the seeded random, so everyone should have the same difficulty (only the positive/negatives are flipped in a way that doesn't change the distribution), and ensured a better spread (should generally be at least 1 of each pos/neutral/negative for each affinity somewhere, and the closest two Exotics will never be very close) * If you start mining by clicking, time doesn't start passing until you actually hold down space/mouse again * Improved gamepad controls and informational tooltips

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/dwarfs