Overall that was heaps of fun! This was my first solo LD (I did it as part of a team once some years ago) and boy was it rewarding! :grinning: Some of the other games on here look amazing too.

You can play the game here: http://www.edeb8.com/LD38/index.php And the LD page for it is here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/conquer-earth-1 (The LD page includes some basic instructions for the game in case it's just totally confusing)

tl;dr making this was great; I'd love feedback :smiley:

General points: * I'm glad I did the jam and not the compo for my first try. It gave me more flexibility to take the big initial idea I had and just roll with it. * I'd probably want to emphasize the card aspect a little more if I was designing this from scratch. I think it could be more obvious how cards work and where they're going. * I have so much to be proud of! Yes I'm self critical (aren't we all?) but I learnt a ton and can hardly believe what I've achieved in this time.

Things that went well: * I largely stuck with my familiar tools and I think this made my work much faster. Being a web game was good too, hopefully lots of people will be able to play it. * Making the sound effects was a highlight. I mean, I wish I had a better one for when you buy something, but other than that, it was heaps of fun. * Doing it on my own as opposed to in a team was interesting. I think I coped well overall, although next time having a team would sure be nice! * Drawing the art on paper first helped me a LOT! I couldn't have done it without that support. * Given that the music was rushed in a couple of hours I think I did a really good job. I'd have liked more time to write some more in-game music, of which there is currently about 7 minutes, but I feel like what's there is great. * Somehow I don't think the final version is very buggy. This surprises me a lot. I've only spotted a couple remaining and they're not especially game-breaking.

Things to work on: * If I ever do this again, I'd want to plan my time a little more. I definitely felt like I could have used more. * To extend the thought, I spent a whole day writing AI code for this and the AI still doesn't play very intelligently. Heck I'm happy the AI can pose any challenge at all. * Designing the map also took a long time. Probably would have been faster if I had some kind of visual layout tool. Heck it took me two hours to fix a bug in the rendering of the dashed lines between the planets. * Originally the game was supposed to focus more on multiplayer anyway. In the end I had to completely drop my plans for multiplayer because the AI took so long. I also dropped one character and a bunch of faction/card ideas. * I was damn proud of the art that I drew because I'm REALLY not a good artist, but in all honesty for a game of this type I could probably have spent less time on that too. * Also I'll be super interested in my feedback for this! I have no idea how people are going to take it.

I'm VERY strongly considering making an expanded version of this game with features like balance improvements, improved AI, artwork for cards, random events, unlockable factions, more types of cards/counters (I really wanted hidden mines, outposts etc), graphical effects (like visually showing Earth explode), a tutorial, other maps...

... and most importantly, MULTIPLAYER! This game was DESIGNED to be a multiplayer game from the start but it didn't work out! I almost want to do this out of frustration alone haha. You'll see what I mean if you play the game. Anyway I'll see how my reviews go, it would kinda defeat the purpose if I was the only one interested in playing this multiplayer haha.

Before I think too much about that though, I'd say I need a break and a few days of just playing some of the other awesome games people have made! :wink: