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A jam submission

Turncoat TacticsView game page

Submitted by greyRocket
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Turncoat Tactics's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#29872.7222.722
Presentation#40042.2222.222
Overall#42302.1112.111
Fun#47401.7781.778

Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
Units randomly switch sides

Did your team create the art for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

No

We used pre-existing art

Did your team create the audio for this game during the 48 hour time slot?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Consider having 2 ways that alligence can change. I won quite a few times when the enemy units near the enemy king switched to my team and I could kill him instantly. Maybe be based around what units people are near. So if units are near the king they have a very low chance of switching sides either way. When a knight is near by other units have a greater chance to switch to the knights colour and so on so forth, more units which balance their attack and range with their ability to change sides could make this an interesting tactics game which promotes keeping units together to stop them from switching. Think it could work as a pirate theme.

Developer

Thanks for the advice, I also love pirates, and I agree that it would be awesome. As for more complex betrayal, that is something we plan on trying in a build that we'll uppload monday/tuesday (after that we won't continue working on this game, but we'll maybe redo it after we get some more games under our belt (definetely with a pirate them, if I can help it)).

(1 edit)

The idea is interesting and in line with the jam's theme, but units switching allegiance based purely on randomness makes performance mostly up to RNG despite of being a tactics/strategy style game. Perhaps had there been more time, better criteria could be set for units switching sides. RNG can be a factor, certainly, but it's a bit much if it is the only factor. Also, tactical/strategic implications are mostly moot when the units are all set in a confined cluster, as player choice just boils down to doing what's available from RNG each turn.

Key-based controls feel a bit unintuitive compared to mouse or controller here, and it took a while to figure out exactly the sequence of confirmation inputs for some of the actions. For the UX/UI, a tile-range highlighting display a la Fire Emblem games to show movement and attack range would have been nice as well, especially with archers not being able to shoot over allies to land ranged hits against distant enemies.

The core gist of the idea is interesting and could lead to some inspired mechanics and emergent gameplay, but the execution on it here falls short of that. That said, to capitalize on more promising possibilities with the idea would probably require more time and resources than the jam constraints are friendly to.

The art and sound effects are nice, and the BGM suits this type of game and setting. Unfortunately, I can't really give a higher presentation score, seeing as these are pre-existing assets.

In all, a valiant attempt at something new and different, but this iteration kind of misses the mark. Good job completing a game project in 48hrs, and good luck iterating if you decide to explore the core idea further.

P.S. The restart menu that comes up at the end of a game doesn't seem to respond to either mouse or keyboard inputs for me. Not sure if it's a bug, or perhaps I'm missing something.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the detailed feedback. I think you have already figured out that we ran out of time, the restart menu was added ~1 min before deadline, so we didn't have the time to test it. Right now me and another programmer have decided to put some more time into the idea to see how it ends up (we'll post it on monday/ tuesday). The mouse click was planned, but ended being cut. And we are thinking of experimenting with a more complex turning mechanic.

As for the score don't worry about it, your feedback is way more valuable than the number, thanks.

Submitted

Really cool concept!  It might be a bit too easy to win (I never had the red enemies attack my units, but it seeing them switch sides was fun.  Note to others, make sure not to give a unit orders until the previous unit's animation has finished, as it led to a few errors and me getting soft-locked.  Great job!

Developer

Thank you for the kind words, the AI unfortunateley doesn't work as we ran out of time and two different scripts are clashing with each other, so this is more of an idea display. But I am thinking of rewriting it, so it will actually work ^^.