interesting games.
At first I didn't know what to do and the visuals weren't very helpful, I didn't know what it was (but still look good). This game really needs an in-game tutorial.
overall, nice game.
Play game
TacCom's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #91 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Visuals | #114 | 3.700 | 3.700 |
| Overall | #121 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution restriction) | #146 | 4.300 | 4.300 |
| Gameplay | #176 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
I worked on my own
Was the resolution a challenge?
The resolution was actually a boon, for the most part.
What did you learn?
I learned that I still have a problem with wanting to put in everything including the kitchen sink!
Comments
I wanted to get more into this, but I had to read several paragraphs of text explaining the controls, and I gave up a few paragraphs in. That's unfortunate because it seems like there could be a fair amount of strategic depth to this game. I just never got to it due to the steep learning curve.
Maybe you could move more of that learning into the game itself through an interactive tutorial so we can learn by playing instead of reading a bunch of text.
I unfortunately had one minor technical and one major gameplay issue while installing/playing:
For the Mac build, I initially couldn't run it, getting an error saying it was damaged and can't be opened. This isn't the usual "you can't open because it's unverified blah blah" message that I circumvent by right-click-opening, but I found a terminal command online to fix: "sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /path/to/Program.app". I wonder if this is even possible to fix on your end or if it's the default behavior for Godot builds on my current OS version.
And, unfortunately, the gameplay would freeze (with asteroids still bobbing up and down) whenever the enemy got around half health. I played three times with the same result :(
That being said, I deeply wanted to play this game to completion, as I was hooked right away by the presentation and mechanics. The instructions on the game page were definitely required reading, so if you were to double down on this game outside the jam's 64x64 restriction, UI would be a focal point (as you already know).
Also love those stars in the background that flare up horizontally and vertically! Very nice detail.
Submitted
Pixel PurgatoryThank you very much for giving my game a try!! I’m sorry you had issues.
Off the top, I apologize for your issues on the Mac. Unfortunately I do not actually have a Mac in order to test the game. I only export to Mac and kinda cross my fingers (every time I omit Mac as a target, someone always laments it’s absence).
I’m also sorry to hear gameplay freezes. First off… I think the issue is that you actually won the game, lol. The ships don’t have HP like you would think it does. I kinda over-engineered the game. Basically, there are three sections to the ship (fore, mid, and aft) and each of those sections have some of the components of the ship (like the bridge, engineering (power), ship engines, weapons, etc). Each section and component have their own HP and can be damaged independently of one another. Your bridge determines the number of commands you can give a ship. The power can also determine what components you can activate with a command. If either the bridge or engineering gets destroyed, the ship is uncontrollable.
Lol… while I tried to put up a “You win” and “You Loose” screen, I didn’t get it in until the last 30 minutes of development and was never able to test them. My guess is, they weren’t hooked up right and the game looks like it’s frozen because you or the computer have no ships that can be controlled. I’m very sorry I wasn’t able to iron that out, or make the mechanics of that situation more clear :(
Thank you very much for giving the game a try! I absolutely agree that the game needs a tutorial… unfortunately I was literally getting features to work all the way to zero hour (in fact, the enemy AI wasn’t written until maybe 2 hours before I uploaded). I am happy you seem to have figured the game out, though!
Also, just for full disclosure… I obtained the music from sources on OpenGameArt. The attributions should have been included in a text file with the game.
Again, thank you! :D
Wow, you made a hex-based tactics space battle game in a 64x64 resolution? That's super impressive! The gameplay is deep but very easy to get into, I could definitely see this being expanded into something great. The only issue I ran into is that sometimes after using the Ion Lance the game froze. Not sure what triggered it. Overall great entry, super well done, congratulations!
Submitted
Shoot Him Up!Thank you very much for playing! I’m really glad you found it impressive! As for the freezing… technically there’s supposed to be an “explosion” animation that plays after being hit, and the game blocks all input until that animation is done, but I was noticing the game wasn’t playing that animation at the last moment. I assumed the animation wasn’t playing, but, if it is and it’s just not visible, that might be the reason the game seems to freeze. Sorry about that!
I agree with others about the complexity of the game but I did enjoy it. I also appreciated there being a Linux build (even if I prefer web builds). I feel like it would have appealed to me more if I was a fan of XCOM. The game is pretty well polished by jam standards so good job!
Submitted
Cafe CrushLol we had issues at 0 hour with the web builds too. Had to beg us to be allowed to upload one after deadline (which was granted). Really annoying when a build just explodes at the end. Either way thanks for putting this together and I’ve sent it to a few fans of the genre and they seemed to like it.
This looks like a cool game! The graphic style is great, and the music fits well.
The controls are a bit on the complex side. I think that works for the style of gameplay, but a little more (visual and audio) feedback would've been nice - marking or previewing actions you've queued, or playing a sound when you've successfully entered a command, for example.
Submitted
<Mini> Beast
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.