| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #13 | 4.236 | 4.236 |
| Overall | #15 | 4.295 | 4.295 |
| Audio | #27 | 4.073 | 4.073 |
| Graphics | #40 | 4.218 | 4.218 |
| Authenticity (use of resolution) | #70 | 4.655 | 4.655 |
Ranked from 55 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Did you work in a team?
Technically I've worked alone; But I actually got a log of good advice from the discord and twitter community. Also a few friend for playtesting. It was great !
Was the resolution a challenge?
It's a city builder; the biggest challenge was being able to convey information without having TOO MUCH information on this tiny screen. I had to keep some designs simple just because I could not feedback them clearly. But the constraints gave me nice ideas, as you can read in my devlogs
What did you learn?
I've learned Godot again haha !
But I also learned to talk and share with the community, write devlogs and tutorials to help everyone. This was a first for me.
I was surprised how usable the interface was at this resolution. I got the core mechanic very fast, but it took me a while to understand the bonus system. That clicked by about mid-game and accelerated my progress nicely from there.
My only complaint is that it was a bit difficult to orient myself around my settlement due to the darkness, but that's what you chose as your main narrative theme so it's understandable, and it didn't really hinder gameplay much.
Very chill game, well done :)
Wow! Challenging for me, but I had a lot of fun! Well done!
It's a different game and very well executed in 64x64 resolution. I have really enjoyed playing it. Good job!! :D
All the moving darkness background is a bit dizzying for me, but the music is very relaxing!
Lovely game! It was the one I played the most so far! I loved the visuals and specially the sound design. Gameplay is simple but challenging, it punishes bad positioning but at least gives you the minimal to rearrange the buildings and still try to survive. Maybe it could have a bonus indicator before you place a building, or at least give a bit of resources back when destroying. There was also a minor bug where the Illuminate action did not reset the cost after losing.
But overall I had a blast playing it!
Real nice concept and execution! It fits really well with the resolution constrain, in the beginning is a little confusing on how and what to do, but when you get it the game is real smooth to play.
Really cool to see a city builder game made for this jam. It's done really well as well making not feel like the small camera size is restrictive. I enjoyed building up the resources and using the patterns to make certain buildings more effective and the rush to illuminate the world towards the end was super engaging! It would be cool to see a more chill mode that lets you open out the full map and build a mega city up maybe as a peaceful mode. Really enjoyed the art and the sound design as well. Really added to it over all! Great entry and well done!
As a player not familiar with this game genre at all, I had some trouble understanding what to do. The intro story was a nice touch to set the scene. The game does look very well thought out and deals with the screen constraints well. My lack of experience held me back from getting very far in the game.
The music was enjoyable to accompany the game play also.
Congrats on a polished entry and you can see the effort that went into it.
+1 for Godot :)
Made it to precisely 196 days as well. I’ll be honest, I felt a tinge of sadness when the darkness engulfed my castle after I’d tended to my town for nearly two hundred days! And I mean this in a good way – feeling attachment towards something I’ve built is an emotion that few jam games manage to spark. Thank you for this experience. It’s the polar opposite of the kind of games I like to make myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bravo!
Great game, i got to day 196 so close, i did find a bug were the the cost of light stays the same if you lose.
Loved the concept.
Only complaints would be it started to feel a little slow later in the game, and the "not enough resources" sound seemed kind of out of place.
Really a nice city builder, I was expecting something lighter but this little game has a lot more depth that I expected to encounter. The need to light up the map is a nice touch, very distinctive from your avg fog of war. The range of buildings and terrains is quite impressive. Keeping this for longer plays, but I must just say congratz!
So peaceful with that dreamy music and the relaxed pacing. I enjoyed the gameplay a lot and I would still be playing it if I didn't have something like 300 more games to get to :D Reminded me a little of A Dark Room with the flickering fire theme. I would really like to see this game made on a larger scale. Top marks, keep it up.
You're welcome Darenn.
The best, most complete version of A Dark Room is on the Switch (recommended if you happen to have a switch):
https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/a-dark-room-switch/
Mobile version:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/a-dark-room/id736683061
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yourcompany.adarkroom&gl=US
There's a free browser version but I wouldn't recommend playing it. It's a very different game to the newer ones above.
This game is really good. It wasn't too hard to figure out what did what even with the limited visibility (both because of the resolution and the darkness) and by the last few days I was tensed up praying I would survive by the skin of my teeth.
The only critique I would have is by the end of it, I had almost 1,000 of every resource except light, which I was desperately doing everything in my power to start generating more of. If I played it again with this in mind though, the outcome might be a lot different.
Minor critique aside, really good game. I liked this one a lot. Glad I was allowed to play with the world after day 200 too.
Really cool! I enjoyed both the mechanics and subtle soundtrack. The art look great and is easily readable as well :) Took me a bit to figure out which buildings can be built where and how the adjacency bonuses work. Also it's really hard to get the wood/ stone resource, even with a sawmill and mine I didn't get far (maybe I just built too much buildings ^^). Good job!
I knew you wouldn't disappoint :)
Since you took this project so serious I will give my feedback:
1. I really like the darkness mechanic, it just took me a while to understand it.
2. The Icons and the general UI is doing the job and the game is very easy to control, no critiques here!
3. Maybe and indication on how long until the next day/turn would be great. On the second version of my city builder I used an Hourglass.
4. I left the game open for a while on late game to farm light and when I came back almost all map was covered by darkness again with no way to farm light properly :P so I was stuck without a Game Over or any indication of Defeat.
Critiques aside, I really like and I think this game is really special :) Congratulations!
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.