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A jam submission

GMTK2022 - The Island: the vagaries of natureView game page

You have to create a good place to live, but the vagaries of nature will give you a hard time.
Submitted by zetaSoft, Jean-François — 2 hours, 44 minutes before the deadline
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GMTK2022 - The Island: the vagaries of nature's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Presentation#12513.5003.500
Overall#19243.0703.070
Creativity#21113.1053.105
Enjoyment#26752.6052.605

Ranked from 38 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?
Randomness in possible actions and events, the game looks a bit like a board game

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the music during the game jam

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Comments

Viewing comments 25 to 6 of 25 · Next page · Last page
Submitted(+1)

Very cool what you've managed to create within such limitations! It's a little repetitive but I had fun just placing tiles and making it look nice. My total score would sometimes flip to a negative number, so maybe a bug? It was -28000 and then when I got to 30000 it flipped back to positive. Had a lot of fun with it, great job!

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

Thanks you for your feedback :) Integer are coded in 16bits signed in PICO-8 (-32000 to 32000) I saw that too late ^^’

Submitted(+1)

Really like the retro style with PICO-8, and the music was nice too! I found it very confusing at first but it was pretty fun once I got the hang of it. Nice work :)

Developer

Thanks you for your feedback :)

Submitted(+1)

Interesting take, and I love the pico-8 look-and-feel :D

I’m not great at these types of games, but it was hard to see if there were ever good choices to make; disasters just kept on befalling me - but that was fun, in it’s own way…

Developer

Thanks you for your feedback ^^

Submitted(+1)

The concept is nice, it certainly does seem like most of the events are disasters haha. I would say that it felt as though my actions didn't have a significant enough impact on what was happening for it to feel like it mattered where I placed the tiles? But I think with a larger variety of tiles, and perhaps tiles that can also interact with one another in equally varied ways, there could be more strategy you could explore out of it. I like the art though, the tiles do a good job communicating what they represent!

Developer(+1)

You are right, I imagined a lot of interactions between the tiles, but I didn’t have enough time ^^’. I think that after the tutorial and the user interface to better understand the goal, the feeling of not being able to control what happens is the biggest problem of this game. Thanks you for your feedback

Submitted(+1)

I've no idea what is going on  :'D And I'm not sure how it fits the theme. Also the controls work in reverse: Up Arrow is going down, Left Arrow is goind right etc. But I really like the visuals and sfx.

Developer(+1)

Because you think the island is moving but in fact it’s the cursor ^^’ The game needs a tutorial and a better user interface to better understand the goal, I understand. The theme here is about things around dice, I think it’s a good idea to explore the theme not too literally. Thanks for your feedback

Submitted(+1)

Great presentation, nice gameplay. Not sure where dice fit in but a cool game nevertheless

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks you :) For me the theme was not the dice itself, but the idea of randomness and stuff like that related to the dice.

(+1)

Liked it good job.

Developer(+1)

Thanks you :)

Submitted(+1)

Wow! Finally, someone who doesn't interpret the dice in a literal sense :D 

I really, really like the concept. Although I think the pixel artstyle adds an unnecessary level of complexity to the game (plus the text can be quite hard to read), it's made up for by the interesting gameplay. My only other critique would be to add some more randomness, to align with the theme better. 

Overall though, good job! 

Developer

Thanks :) I thought the game was too random ^^ Regarding the text, I can’t do better :/ it’s the only font available in PICO-8 (as far as I know) sorry :/

Submitted(+1)

Before I go into what I thought of the game I just have to say I don't think it fits the theme at all. There are many random events in the game, but that's just rng and really has nothing to do with dice. That being said I completely forgot about the theme of the jam while playing the game as I liked it so much. I meant to just check out the game, play it for a couple of minutes and leave a review but ended up playing it for at least 40 minutes. The visuals and the soundscape are both wonderful and the gameplay was just the right mix of simplicity and complexity with the interactions of the different tiles. It's definitely a bit too easy though, as the negative events hardly ever take away enough population to offset the natural population growth of the better tiles. I couldn't quite figure out how the game worked at the start, but I liked finding out which tiles work well together and which don't. Many people probably wouldn't though, so a bit better of a tutorial would for sure make the game more approachable. Also thought I was doing something very wrong at the start as my score went into the negatives by quite a few thousands, but realized later that pico 8 has a 15-bit integer limit and I was just going over lol. Either way, if you plan on working on the game after the jam, I'll absolutely check it out! Cheers!

Developer

Thanks you for this big feedback I apreciate a lot :) Yes, I should definitely add a (true) tutorial to the game and about int overflow, yes I think I’ll divide everything by 10 or something ;)

Submitted(+1)

Cute relaxing game :)

Developer

Thanks :)

(+1)

I liked the look of this game a lot, a very cute design. I wasn't sure what I was doing as I played it but still enjoyed it!

Developer

Thanks you :)

Submitted(+1)

The idea of slowly building an island is very cool and I really like games like this a lot. Though, to be honest, I didn't really get a grasp on what exactly I was doing, so most of the time my actions were as random as the tile generator ;)

Don't get me wrong though I still liked it and the minimalistic PICO-8 aesthetics as well.

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your feedback. I did the most important features first and I understand that this game is kind of finished but not polished ^^’. The game need more visual feedback to understand better what’s going on and a more consistent tutorial, but also a little more adjustment of the event system to be able to act on it.

Submitted(+1)

Very creative idea to combine a building game with a certain random factor. Unfortunately, I had a hard time figuring out what's happening in this game. Maybe some sort of visual indicator would be nice. But I love the PICO-8 style though. Reminds me of the legendary Gameboy era. Overall i think you did a good job on this submission. I enjoyed it a lot!

Developer(+1)

Thanks, I appreciate :) yes I have to improve the tutorial and the HUD in order to add more informations

Submitted(+1)

nice little game! was a bit hard to understand what was going on at first, but with time it was more fun since i understood what was going on now. 

Developer(+1)

Thanks :)

Submitted(+1)

I'm always a big fan of Pico-8 games, the chunky visuals build such a nostalgic vibe *-*
I liked the way you implemented luck in this game, it's a very fun mix between strategy and randomness. I just think that maybe there are too many turns? I've stopped in turn 40 with 21700 population.
Cool game tho, and nice job!

Developer

Thanks :) yes this is a good idea.

Submitted(+1)

Cool game, though I wish there is a way to see the total population.

Developer (4 edits)

Thank you, indeed.

Actually, if the cursor is not on a tile, you can see the total population and growth factor, but it is not clear enough, you are right.

Submitted(+1)

A really solid concept, and a great entry. I liked that you picked between two randomised tiles to alleviate some of the bad luck while still maintaining a sense of randomness. 

Like mentioned below, the total population could probably be indicated at all times. Another thing to note is that 100 turns feels like it's too many (at least for the current gameplay loop). I stopped after 38, because it felt like nothing new had been happening for quite a while.

Anyway, overall a really nice game. Well done!

Developer

Thank you. Yes, you are right, 100 was completely random and I didn’t test it enough

Submitted(+1)

The music and game itself is relaxing and I really like the idea! Really respect the PICO-8, great job!

Developer

Thanks :)

Submitted
Deleted 189 days ago
Developer

Thanks :)

Submitted(+2)

After 60 turns I had a population -30000. Call me hades.

Very well realized game, I like that You can skip everything. Game probably has all the features it should have, and non intrusive moody music. The only thing it could be explained better in-game, perhaps it would be good to show population in the corner of the screen if it has to be goal of the game.

Developer

Yes, I saw that (too late), actually it’s a memory overflow… PICO-8 integers are coded with 16bits (signed) so -32768 to 32768. I will divide everything by 10 I think.

The tutorial is not finished indeed ^^’ You are right, the population has to be visible all the time!

Thank you for the feedback

Submitted(+1)

Oh okay, I thought that I was doing so bad it went below 0:P

Developer

It is impossible to have a negative population by design (should be ^^”)

Viewing comments 25 to 6 of 25 · Next page · Last page